Down day
Today was pretty much just a lazy day. Rachel and I had originally planned to get a day pass on the Tokyo rails to explore the city, but I was way too tired to be doing that. I slept for a while and then I met Rachel...eventually. Funny story. I took the wrong train to the Ichigaya station and ended up in Shinjuku station. I had never been to Shinjuku station by myself before and I had no idea how to get to Ichigaya from there. So instead of getting myself lost even more I asked Rachel if she could just meet me at Shinjuku since she was a bit more familiar with the area. She got there and it took me forever for me to find her. I ended up walking all the way around this huge centre of Shinjuku.
We met up and we decided to take a look around that area. Since it's saturday there were lots of people out. There was a lot of live music too. I saw a japanese hardcore rapper. He was rapping in english but it made no sense to actual english speakers. There was also this trio playing in the middle of one of the streets. The woman in the band looked like a japanese Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago. We ended up going to a massive picture club store. Picture club, or ピクラ(pikura), are those little pictures that are popular in Japan that everyone gets with their friends and shares them. The store we went to was a serious fan sight. You could rent costumes, they had a place for girls to do their make up and they had little tables where you could cut and split up the pictures. It was so funny.
Afterwards I decided to go back to my dorm and I made it without a problem. I took the right train and took the right way from the station to my dorm. So that is one down 13 million other things to understand.
I've been messing around with my cell phone and I think I've got it figured out. In Japan all the phones have email and that is what people mainly use to keep in touch. It's like text messaging but a lot better. You can email regular email addresses as well. It's actually really cheap too compared to the US. You can recieve anything on your phone for free and you pay 2 yen for anything you send. My email address for my phone is Oua2y8377263k7g@ezweb.ne.jp I know, quite redunk. Most email addresses here are like that though, rando numbers together.
I got some really funny postcards today that hopefully I will send out soon. They are just engrish cards from the 100 yen store. I thought that would be better than cheesy touristy ones. So if I don't have your address already let me know please.
Something I didn't think about before I came over here was culture shock. They told us about it a little bit at the study abroad orientation meeting but I didn't think anything of it. I definately have a big case of that. It's a weird thing. It's pretty much sensory overload. Pretty much nothing here is familiar, even with the vast westernization Japan is eons apart from the US. I often feel overwhelmed at everything being written and spoken in Japanese, not having the safety net have friends all around me, the food being all so different. It's all good though. I'd rather be tired from everything being new than so tired of the same o same o. I've just gotten too used to my comfort zone and this will be a great oppurtunity to venture outside, actually completley smash my realm of comfort
I figured out my address the other day so feel free to write me. It's:
2 side notes: You can leave comments by clicking on the comments button. I'd like to know who all is reading this or if you think I'm writing too much or too little. Also, since I've mentioned Rachel without explanation, I thought I'd tell anyone who was wondering that she's my friend from Baylor that is also here in Tokyo doing the whole study abroad thing.
We met up and we decided to take a look around that area. Since it's saturday there were lots of people out. There was a lot of live music too. I saw a japanese hardcore rapper. He was rapping in english but it made no sense to actual english speakers. There was also this trio playing in the middle of one of the streets. The woman in the band looked like a japanese Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago. We ended up going to a massive picture club store. Picture club, or ピクラ(pikura), are those little pictures that are popular in Japan that everyone gets with their friends and shares them. The store we went to was a serious fan sight. You could rent costumes, they had a place for girls to do their make up and they had little tables where you could cut and split up the pictures. It was so funny.
Afterwards I decided to go back to my dorm and I made it without a problem. I took the right train and took the right way from the station to my dorm. So that is one down 13 million other things to understand.
I've been messing around with my cell phone and I think I've got it figured out. In Japan all the phones have email and that is what people mainly use to keep in touch. It's like text messaging but a lot better. You can email regular email addresses as well. It's actually really cheap too compared to the US. You can recieve anything on your phone for free and you pay 2 yen for anything you send. My email address for my phone is Oua2y8377263k7g@ezweb.ne.jp I know, quite redunk. Most email addresses here are like that though, rando numbers together.
I got some really funny postcards today that hopefully I will send out soon. They are just engrish cards from the 100 yen store. I thought that would be better than cheesy touristy ones. So if I don't have your address already let me know please.
Something I didn't think about before I came over here was culture shock. They told us about it a little bit at the study abroad orientation meeting but I didn't think anything of it. I definately have a big case of that. It's a weird thing. It's pretty much sensory overload. Pretty much nothing here is familiar, even with the vast westernization Japan is eons apart from the US. I often feel overwhelmed at everything being written and spoken in Japanese, not having the safety net have friends all around me, the food being all so different. It's all good though. I'd rather be tired from everything being new than so tired of the same o same o. I've just gotten too used to my comfort zone and this will be a great oppurtunity to venture outside, actually completley smash my realm of comfort
I figured out my address the other day so feel free to write me. It's:
2 side notes: You can leave comments by clicking on the comments button. I'd like to know who all is reading this or if you think I'm writing too much or too little. Also, since I've mentioned Rachel without explanation, I thought I'd tell anyone who was wondering that she's my friend from Baylor that is also here in Tokyo doing the whole study abroad thing.
posted by Scot @ 22:12
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