So, I'm going to try to be more disciplined about blogging. I think what makes it so hard is not having a set schedule, but soon I will have one! I'm doing laundry right now so I have some time, and I'm also just taking today to do some stuff for Sophia (like figuring out this school computer account stuff), and phone stuff (will talk about this later), and cleaning up my room (I've still got my small suitcase hanging out on my floor and my shelves/desk aren't too organized...). I also want to take it easy because I do have a bit of a cold (don't worry parents, it's not bad, and you didn't notice when I talked to you on the phone, unlike 哥哥, tsk tsk). I thought it was allergies because I've been sneezing an inordinate amount according to everyone I'm with often, and have the hanamizu (鼻水 runny nose), but I'm feeling a lot better already because Jeannette gave me some Tylenol cold medicine and I actually got quite a bit of sleep last night (will talk about the lack of sleep too).
Tomorrow we all have to go back to Sophia to get the results of our placement tests! I'm aiming to place into the Intermediate level 3. For reference, when Daniel got here last semester (he had taken up to 202 at UVA like me), he took Intermediate level 2, and now he will be in level 3, so I feel like that should be where I am as well. However, I feel it's pretty up in the air, even though Daniel begs to differ, because I thought the placement test was pretty difficult. And in our orientation, they even made the disclaimer that we may be placed in a lower level than anticipated because after a long break like we had, your skill definitely fades...and I noticed that. So for the test, the exchange students split up into different testing rooms, based on what 'track' you wanted to take, intensive or regular. Most of us UVA folk decided on intensive, which will is 15 hours a week/8 credits. Then we took the test based on what level we think we're on/what we're aiming for, as in the test was in 3 sections, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Again, since most of us are aiming for intermediate, we had to finish the both the beginner and intermediate sections. We all felt pretty much the same way about it...we flew through the beginner part, but then the intermediate part got exponentially harder. It tested a lot of Kanji knowledge, including matching kanji to their pronunciation, or filling in blanks to finish kanji compounds. I guessed on a lot of it. At least it was all multiple choice though. There was also a reading comprehension section in the intermediate, and conjugating verbs to fit the grammar structure of a bunch of sentences, and fill-in-the-blank sort of stuff. And finally, there was an essay we had to write. I'm not sure if I finished it, but I think it was okay. I've always been much better at writing tasks than things like speaking. It lasted two hours, and we all took all the time we had to complete it. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at one of the cafeterias and Daniel led us to the terrace to eat since it was such a nice day, and a nice view up top. We had to pick up some forms about the media center and our computer accounts and then we went to get our commuter passes.
Commuter passes gets its own paragraph. We went to the station by the school (Yotsuya, which is pretty much right across the street) to tackle this. As students, we can get a student discount on a commuter pass. This commuter pass is a Suica card (similar to a D.C. Smartrip card, where you can just add a bunch of money at once and swipe through the gates quickly and it deducts the cost of your trip from the balance on the card). So basically with this, we prepaid a certain amount and it will cover our commute from dorm to school for 3 months. We paid the cost of about 66 one-way trips, and for 3 months, we can travel this distance as many times as we want. So you can see how this card will pay off for itself in the end. The more we travel to school, the lower the unit cost of the trip becomes. We also add money to the card on top of this to travel elsewhere besides school. But what's special about the pass is that now anytime we travel to another stop besides our dorm and school stations, we only have to pay the fare it would cost to get there from the closest station along our route, so travel to anywhere is discounted. Our route is from Nishi-kawaguchi （西川口）to Akabane （赤羽）on the Keihin-Tohoku line （京浜東北線）, then we transfer to the Saikyo line （埼京線）and stop at Shinjuku （新宿）, and from there we take the Chuo rapid transit line （中央快速線）(the Chuo-Sobu local line works as well, but we'd have to make more stops) to Yotsuya (四ツ谷）. Travel to anywhere along our route is "free," so you don't necessarily have to complete your entire commute route for this thing to work. And for example, if we want to go to Shibuya which is past Shinjuku from our place, it'll only deduct the cost of the trip from Shinjuku to Shibuya, so most of the trip is "free." Well anyway, when we got to the station, we got in a line to this office, but luckily for us this proactive and nice station worker who could tell what we needed pulled some of us over to this machine and he basically set everything up for it so we just had to confirm some details and pay for the card.
Feeling relieved and happy we finally had our transportation passes, we needed to kill some time before our welcome party. I went back to the campus to meet Daniel and we sat around for a bit until he had to go to work (he recently got a part-time job doing 英会話 where he meets up with Japanese people looking to learn/study/practice English). After I walked with him there, when I got back to school, the others who had gone to do some sight-seeing nearby were already back. We then went to the welcome party...after getting a bit confused in our search for the building. We started with a toast of tea or soda and had some snacks (cream puffs!). It was basically one of those awkward 'parties' where you're "supposed" to meet people and have some small talk with them. We met up with our monitor students, who would introduce us to other friends of theirs and it kept going from there. I met a bunch of Japanese girls, some who are really good at English from studying abroad/living in the U.S., but others aren't so good. I don't know how I got through all that small talk, but I did.
After the party, the others headed home, and I went part of the way with them to break in the newly-acquired train pass! I would've gone farther with them, but when I saw the 2nd train we needed to take at Shinjuku, there was no way I was getting on with all those people on my own free will. So I left and headed back towards the school. I had quite some time to kill before meeting Daniel for dinner so I just started walking. I stopped at restaurants to check out their menus and prices for possible future meals, and went into a few stores like a bookstore and office supply store (it is so hard to pull myself away from either of those types of stores!) I was really excited in the bookstore because I managed to find books by one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, and a lot of the ones available were ones I've read in English, so I think I may pick up one of those sometime to make my way through. I also checked out the middle school and elementary school sections, because I figure those may be more on par with my level haha. I'd also like to get an issue of the Detective Conan comic series, because I've seen a lot of that anime and really like it, and would also understand the story lines more because of that.
With my feet starting to hurt, I crossed the street and headed back the way I came and checked out the places on that side of the street. I wanted to find somewhere to just sit and play with my DS or something, but there really aren't places to just sit in Japan. I made it back to one of the exits for the station and amazingly enough, there were benches outside so I took a seat and looked up some kanji I had been wondering about and started playing a game. Finally I headed back to the spot where we had decided to meet and waited for Daniel.
He wanted to take me to this restaurant he likes near the school, but it was closed, so we headed to Yoyogi (代々木) for Yakiniku-tabehoudai (焼肉食べ放題) Japan is full of these houdai places, which is basically all-you-can-eat (or drink) in a certain time for a flat rate. This one is for grilling meat, and it reminded me of those Mongolian BBQ restaurants I've been to back home. We went for the basic option (other options had different menus that you could order from) for 90 minutes. Each table has a little grill in the middle, and a big remote-like thing to place your own order at your own pace, which I liked, and then a waitress would bring it. We had a plate of the roast beef, several plates of various flavored chicken, kimchee, rice of course, french fries, vegetables, and ended with squid. It was fun and delicious and it really warmed and filled me up.
Afterwards, we decided we needed to work off some of that food so we started walking. We went to the southern part of Shinjuku like the Southern Terrace that was abound with Christmas lights, and I guess that was that for April 3rd.
...I nearly forgot to post some pictures!
The group of us on the terrace eating different noodles or curry from the cafeteria. From bottom left going clockwise: Natalie, Teresa, Hunter, Greg, Alex, Jeannette, and Miranda and Julie (new friends we made at DK House...Julie got a bit cut out though :( because I couldn't get far enough back).
Grilling our meats and squid legs.
On a bridge. Looking towards Shinjuku's Takashimaya Times Square. There's a Krispy Kreme in this picture too.
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