Another Day(s)

Monday morning when I got up it was raining. Of course. This is Tokyo. It's to be expected. But what is not to be expected is a leak of some sort in my shoe. So the entirety of the day was spent with a wet foot. And it was just one foot. Kind of irritating to say the least. Then today I thought I would just avoid the whole shoe thing all together and wear flip flops. And of course it didn't rain. And I got asked about 20 times why I was wearing flip flops in cold weather. Flip flops aren't the year round fashion necessity that they are in Baylor. Then again, it never drops below 60 there.

Yesterday was some sort of national holiday in Japan. I think "Sport's Day" or something. So all the banks were closed, etc. and the dorm didn't make us meals. But we still had school. Much like how Baylor ignores half of the holidays during the year.

So yesterday morning I had my russian class. Once again I came out of the class feeling like my head was about to explode. During the middle of the class a student came in (in university students are never on time) and he was actually really good at russian. He then asked me some questions in russian and I sort of froze. The japanese to russian to english translating was getting all mixed up. Good times. Usually japanese students have a really hard time pronouncing russian but he was actually pretty good. Still kind of hard for me to understand at first but I'll get there.

After that class I just had two other japanese language classes and then went back to the dorm.

This morning I had a class at 9:30 so that meant I had to get up at 7. Not very fun. But I suppose that is the normal time normal people wake up so I should not complain. After the class I ate some lunch and sat around until the next class. While I was sitting, my good friend mr. diamond encrusted razorblade (Hi-C party a couple weeks ago) called out "Scott, Dance Party?". I had no idea what he was talking about and then he told me that he wanted us to go to a club with them. (He said "Dance Party" then "Disco" then "Club", not knowing which one I would understand I guess. even though it was all in english..) So I was thinking this weekend or next weekend so I ask when and he said "December 13th". These people like to plan out in advance.

Also during lunch Rachel and I signed up with Mika (Mika was an exchange student at Baylor last year, she is in a couple of the english language classes at Hosei) to go to a baseball game. We signed up with her club so we could go for free. Then afterwards the lady in the club office gave us maps and informational sheets. Rachel and I thought this was a bit much for a simple college game. But Mika told us that she forgot to tell us we were signing up for a tour of the field and meeting the team. So that should be pretty cool. As much as I don't like sports, the Japanese way of sports is so different that it is interesting. That is on October 22nd. Some future planning but not like December 13th.

Some Pictures:


This is the sign I look for everymorning to go to school. 10:24 is the time the train is leaving. The next two charachters in green "Kyuukou" means express. Which means the train won't stop at all the stops making it a much faster trip. The next 3 charachters in yellow "Motoyawata" is the final stop of the line, which tells you which direction the train is going. And the last little ditty says that at Sasazuka (a station) the train will turn into the Toei Shinjuku Line. Now that I look at it, I wonder how I got so lost when I first got here. I'm becoming a pro.


This is a picture of the area around Tsutsujiaoka Station.(The pretty much closest station to the dorm) There are a bunch of little shops all around that area. I always mean to look more around, but usually I just go for 5 minutes and get on the train. Someday.



This is a shot from the 12th floor of Hosei. If you can make out the bridge. On the left side of the bridge is Ichigaya Station. It is the closest station to Hosei, so I use it quite a lot. Also, the left side of the river is Chiyoda Ward and the right side of the river is Shinjuku ward. They are two of the biggest wards in Tokyo, I think.


This is also from the 12th floor of Hosei. Only this is taken from the washroom window. Luckily no one was in there so I didn't have to look like a weirdo. If you can see the bottom half how there are a lot of trees and a couple more traditional buildings in there, that is Yasukuni Shrine. I went there a couple weeks ago. I just thought this picture was really interesting how much of a contrast the shrine really is to Tokyo metropolis.