3 Day Observation

For my three day observation, I chose to go to a Hostel for foreign travelers which is in the area I live (Asakusa). I brought my journal over the three days and wrote some general things about what I saw.

From Friday, I went at around 9:30pm. This Hostel has a huge common room where most of the people seem to be when they are not out doing something or sleeping. As I sat there and the night went on, it seemed to get more and more crowded in the room. There were lots of different kinds of people there, most in small groups talking or playing card games or something. About half of the people in the room seemed to be on the computer. There is also a big TV in the back of the room that people were playing Tekken (a fighting game) on. Also, many people were drinking.

From what I could pick up on, lots of the conversations people were having seemed to be about Japan, languages, or other cultures. It seemed like many people were exchanging their stories and listening to others, I think most of them were strangers before coming to the hostel.

On Saturday I went at around 9:45. I observed mostly the same things as on Friday, only there seemed to be more people and it was slightly louder when it got a little later. I took a video of the common room to show the general atmosphere that it usually has.

On both Friday and Saturday people would sometimes talk to me briefly asking what I was doing, but I never really got a chance to really talk to anyone. So on Sunday I went around the same time. When I got there I looked for some familiar faces from the previous two days and started chatting with them. I told them about the class and why I was there, and why I liked hanging around there. They told me a bit about where they were from and what they were doing in Japan, most of them just visiting. They invited me to go out drinking with them, so I joined them at a nearby bar and ended up having a really great time! They were all really friendly, and none of them (except for two) knew each other before coming there.

Everyone here is from English speaking countries. There was one more person but he was taking the picture. There's a Canadian, 2 guys from London, and the other two were from Virginia. Everyone was really friendly!