A Week In...

I'll hopefully be back at another time (soon) to write more details about some things I've been up to, but here's a good start.

Friends and I are off to our orientation (finally!) at the school around 11am. Orientation doesn't actually start until 2:30pm, but we're going to pick up some lunch over there and walk around the school. None of them have been there before, so they'd like to explore a bit. That goes until 4:30pm and then I'm heading back to the dorm because my host mother from 4-5 years ago is in this prefecture (Saitama) helping my host brother move into university, and she's coming to see me, if just for a little while. She was probably about the second real phone call to a Japanese person, so my nerves were a little wracked before I dialed, but things went fine after she picked up, except for I lost my connection a few times so I finally used Greg's Skype. Luckily for me, she's very much used to interacting with foreigners because she hosts them all the time, so she's very good at speaking at a slow pace, using easy words, making sure I understand. Tonight will hopefully be some good Japanese-speaking/comprehension practice.

The past few days, I've explored Shinjuku (big lively city with tons of shopping places, restaurants, arcades, bars...and bunches of love hotels and host clubs) with Greg and Natalie and we even were able to meet up with Teresa, Harajuku (known for all the people who dress up in crazy outfits), and Shibuya (similar to Shinjuku I suppose) with Daniel. I've also headed to Jouchi (Sophia) a few times to use the weight room with Daniel, and I'm getting a bit more familiar with the campus (it's small). I've also been on a long journey to get a prepaid phone, but it seems most places still claim not to have them, and I definitely need my alien registration card. I've bought things I needed as well, fortunately most of it I was able to buy at the 100yen shop (a Japanese dollar store, but the stuff is much better quality than in the U.S.) I'm also glad to report that I can make it around my area a bit better...I can go to/from the station to the dorm with hardly any thinking now! But I still do use certain landmarks to help me out.

Pictures!

The views to the left and right from my balcony. That entire road is lined with sakura trees! There were stands of food and some games set up for the people who came for hanami (花見), which just means flower-viewing. That's why there's also tarps on the ground...people set up camp and reserve good spots so they can come back another day with food and stuff and just hang out.

Downstairs, right outside the dorm, to check out the festival.

The pretty candy stand! Natalie picked up a nice little bag of goodies here.

Tako! AKA octopus. This goes inside these little balls...

...which we buy and eat like this...

...voila, it's Tako-yaki!

The area in between the sakura trees, where people set up their little areas. We didn't have an area, obviously, but it was okay...we sat on a curb. People brought platters of their own food, even tables and barbecue grills.

These guys were so ready to party! So I maybe not-so-subtly took a picture of their set-up. I believe there's a guy right to my left as I took this, probably wondering what exactly I was pointing at.

The san-nin with our...

Banana-chocos! ...That would be bananas dipped in chocolate (or strawberry or this light green thing...green-tea flavored perhaps?) and covered in sprinkles too. Delicious!

A car! Parked in the yard!

That's it for now...