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.

Adventure Time

Today/tonight was quite the adventure.

Today I got up and got ready to go to the last day of orientation. We toured the library and the campus. The library was all in japanese and I didn't get much of what the lady was saying since it was really hot and she was talking too fast, but i'm sure most of it is self-explanatory. And then after that we had the welcoming party to Hosei. We met with Hosei students and teachers. I think i'm going to try to get into the international club to meet some more people. I also met a lot of people who gave me their cell phone numbers and email. And told me I have to call them. So all is well.

After the party, Rachel and I ventured off to get cell phones. Most all the exchange students haev either gotten them or were getting them today. The plan is actually not very expensive and I will be able to stay in touch with people in Tokyo, unlike before where I had no idea what was going on. So I signed up for the plan and got a free phone . It was pretty harmless. The paperwork you had to fill out was no where near the american cell phone company equivalent. And don't worry dad, there are no strings attached. I checked. So I am now the owner of an ultra hip phone with video, pictures, fm radio and a lot more I can't figure out. And all incoming calls are free. +81 (08065576059) is my number for anyone to try and call. Unlike land lines, cell phones don't charge you for incoming calls, so feel free to call.


After the cell phone expirience Rachel and I looked liked typical exchange students with out cell phones trying to figure them out. We finally figured out how to make them into english so we could actually figure out what was going on.

We then went to Shibuya-ku. The trendy ward of Tokyo where most of the young people hang out. I hadn't been there at night before. It is certanily a sight to behold. It seriously feels like daylight there because of all the lights. And people were dressed up quite interesting. One of the big passing fads is ガングロ(ganguro), which are japanese girls who dye their hair blonde and tan like crazy. It makes them look like they came straight from the KFC fryer, but whatever floats their boat.

So the exchange students plus a few Japanese students all went to this little resturaunt on the 8th floor of some building called the "Asian Resturaunt", which was Thai food. Since we had a large group they offered us a discount and let us eat and drink as much as we wanted for the night. The food and drinks were all good except they would only offer us the cheap japanese beer that tasted like water.

After that some of the people went home and the rest of us went to a karaoke bar for about 5 hours. In Japan you rent out little rooms and you have karaoke in there. So it was like a private party. They had lots of western music since on one really knew slash wanted to sing japanese songs. It was really funny because you can hear all the rooms next to you and they can hear you. And I cannot sing, but that didn't stop me from belting out "Like a Prayer" and "Faith".

The rental of the room ran out at 5 am. So we left and when we got out of the karaoke shop even though it was 5 am you couldn't tell. There were still tons of japanese people everywhere. And most shops were still open. Right as we lef the sun was rising so it was a funny and neat expirience to get to expirience the rising sun in the land of the rising sun. I was so surprised how many people were up at 5-6am. It was almost like it was a normal time in Tokyo. So we boarded the train and got back here at about 6:30am.

Overall a good night slash morning that you definately don't get to expirience anywhere else in the world.

Paperwork for the masses

We didn't have anything scheduled until 2 pm today so I went out exploring Chofu a bit this morning. First I walked left up the loud street. (I don't know the name, actually I'm not sure if it even has a name...as most japanese streets don't) After about 15-20 minutes I got to the Sengawa district. There is a station there so there are lot of shops and stuff there. There was this little street kind of like a mall that I went down. I stopped by the grocery store/department store just to see what was there. On the way back to the dorm I noticed that there was a temple closeby, but I think they were doing construction on it. There was also a vineyard selling grapes and eggplants on the side of the street.

When I got back to the dorms I decided to go the other way on the loud street. I basically walked like 20 minutes down that way and came back. I found a little second hand book/music store. It had tons of books and a pretty good selection of music for really cheap. I saw C+C music factory for 105 yen, but I restrained myself. I bought a "Gairaigo Dictionary" and a Russian-Japanese dictionary.

Side Note: Gairaigo=外来語, means foreign words. Basically it's a dictionary for the 1000's of Japanese words that are from english, german, etc. Japanese has a lot of these. Like "アパート”(Apaato, Apartment from English)　"アルバイト” (arubaito, part time job from german)　”コーヒー” (cohi, coffee from dutch). So much of Japanese uses foreign words (mostly from english) that it can be hard to learn some of them. especially when, although from english the english meaning isn't the same. Like ”マンション”、"manshon", actually means a house of sorts.

I got the russian dictionary because I am thinking about taking a russian class at Hosei in the regular course. That means the class would be for japanese students wanting to learn russian. So I would really have to learn russian and japanese too. Hopefully that works out because I think that would be a good learning expirience.

Then at 2 pm we had the dorm orientation. Basically we were told the same things we had been told earlier but in english and we could ask questions and get an answer. And I finally got a list of the actual rules, because I wasn't too sure about some things. When we leave we are supposed to slide this little bar next to our name to the red space meaning that we are out and we we come back we slide it back to the white. Then You have to sort your trash into like 5 different boxes. Burnable trash, non-burnable trash, cans, pet bottles and something else. That's right, pet bottles. I'm not sure where the word comes from, but water bottles and pop bottles and such are called pet bottles (ペットボットル-petto bottoru).

Something I have noticed in Japan is that although everyone smokes pretty much anywhere you go, you can never really smell it like I'm used to. I don't know what it is. In our dorm, people smoke all the time but you don't have that musty smoke smell like I was used to at Shawnee Mission North bathrooms. There are buckets of water outside the bathroom for ciggarettes.

Anyway, Later we went to the Chofu city office to apply for Alien registration card. Which took forever... Japanese companies don't really make you do the paperwork like American companies do like when you sign up for a cell phone or bank account, but government paperwork is 10x what I'm used to. There is a form for everything. We had to fill out a paper to apply for something that we were going to apply for later...blah blah blah. We ended up sitting around 40 minutes waiting for the lady bring back our passports that she was using to put our information into the computer.

After that fun filled paperwork we went to buy a commuter pass for the train. As students we can get a big discount on having to travel 30 minutes everyday. It saves a lot of money because to get to the school and back costs 720 yen...ouch. With the commuter pass you pay for one, three or six month's usage of the train from one stop to the other at a flat fee. Then you can go as many times as you want from the station to station. You can also get off at each station in between unlike a regular ticket. I didn't have enough money at the time but next month I think I'll buy the 3 month cuz you save a lot. There was surprisingly little paperwork involved in it. But we did have to write the address in Japanese which took a long time since I didn't know all the kanji of this place.

Well I'm off to bed. Hopefully I'll get rid of this jetlag soon so I can stay awake longer. I'm afraid the guys here think I am anti-social since I've been going to bed pretty early and am too tired to engage in conversation. But I guess that's better than being a stereotypical american by being loud, obnoxious and insult others' countries.

Sleeping on the rocks and wandering white people

Today was the first day of Hosei orientation. But before I tell you about that, let's recap the night before.

That very loud street doesn't quiet down until about 3 am. The reason I know that is because after going to bed at 9 pm the night before, I woke up pretty much every hour because of some japanese crotch rocket. Also, I should note that my pillow feels like it has rocks in it. A traditional japanese "makura". (pillow) So I ended up waking at about 5 am and go about the day. Quite an early start. But the sun rises here about 5 am so it feels like around 7 to me.

So we leave the dorms around 7:30 and head for Tsutsujigaoka station. It was a pretty cramped ride all the way to Ichigaya station. And by cramped I mean the train was already packed tight and then we had to let on even more people by the subway staff pushing the excess passengers into the doors.

We get to Hosei and get our ID cards and then we take the Japanese placement test. The test was...hard to say the least. I'll probably get put into retard japanese 101 thanks to that redunk hard test.

Then we had the lunch break. Hosei has a nice little cafeteria with incredibly un-japanese prices. So that was good. Then Rachel and I headed out to change her money and find a phone to let her mom know that she was here. We had a mini-self tour of the area around Hosei.

After the lunch break we had the regular orientation stuff. We were told how to open a bank account, register as an alien, prepare for an earthquake, register for classes etc. Even though they told us a bunch of stuff, I still feel pretty clueless.

After the orientation I went with Rachel to her room in the Shinjuku YWCA. She's just 10 minutes away from Hosei and right in the middle of Tokyo. So we went in search of a place that did passport photos since we needed some. We finally found a store and took some awful pictures. Then we went to a pretty upscale 100 yen store and got some goods and then Rachel got some groceries. Japanese grocery stores make me wish I could go to ghetto HEB. One apple was 120 yen and one bunch of grapes were 580 yen. We were in a more expensive grocery store I think...but still.

Then I attempted to have my first alone train expierience. And that it was. First I could barely figure out where I was going. I finally found out how to get to Tsutsujigaoka station and bought a ticket. Luck was on my side when the first train I saw said "Tsutsujigaoka". I got on and then realized it was the local train. (local trains stop at every stop whereas express trains only stop at select stations making your commute much quicker) But I thought, oh well. I'd eventually get there and that is all that matters. So I made it to the station...very slowly. After I got off the stop I couldn't exactly remember where to go. But I thought I knew where I was going. I definately didn't. Cut to random white person wandering Chofu streets for 40 minutes until her gets incredibly lucky and finds that busy street where cars go too fast. Also, japanese roads, especially in Tokyo, are not at all like american roads set on a grid. The roads here are just kind of based on where the houses were before they built the roads. So there is no pattern and actually...most of the roads don't even have names. Coming from Johnson County, home of the easiest roads in the world, this is quite different.

That was the exciting day. Lesson of the day: pay attention when you are going somewhere.

holy boof

I'm officially in japan! and without a clue.

The flight: long and boring. But much more spacious than jal. But we only had one screen with pretty boring movies. And some lady kept on massaging my elbow with her feet.

Then we landed and I couldn't belive I made it to 日本！And I met a lady who told me how to get to some station and then I met a Hosei Student at that station and we made our way to the dorms. it was quite a trip. those subways are pretty compact. You get to make friends with lots of people as you are practically sitting on them while you ride to your destination.

Anywho, I made it to the dorms here in Chofu. My room is right by an apparent major street that cars love to scream past. There are some shops and stuff close by and of course vending machines everywhere. There is a 99 yen store down the street for anything that I forgot, so hooray for cheap japanese things.

So far I've gotten almost all of my instructions about dorm stuff in Japanese. Which is good since I want to learn all that Japanese back, but I'm still not sure if I actually understand what they were telling me. But I think we are having an actual dorm orientation later on.