Harajuku

The first Sunday, Daniel took me to Harajuku to check out the sights there. We walked to Yoyogi Park for the cherry blossoms and it was really nice and pretty except it was a bit cold that day, so I can't wait to go back when the weather is nice. Harajuku is pretty known for its...diverse people I guess you could say. People dress up in a range of styles, like cosplay (I don't know, look it up) or Lolita or gothic, or they make up their own crazy thing with straps across their faces or whatever. I've read about girls spending soooo much money on their outfits just to go to Harajuku and wait for people to stare and take pictures. So I stared and took pictures.

But first, some pretty pictures!Except this...

Holy moly, check out that trash!

Even the line for the men's bathroom was really long!

Isn't that gorgeous.

Here we go...
Moving on...

A band called Loovee or something performing on the street. I liked the vibe of the area because so many people come just to perform their music for passersby. I think that makes it evident how much they actually enjoy it. And you can hear everything from jazz to rock to other foreign stuff, just by walking a few feet, which is neat.

And then there were these Elvis biker dudes in leather...They all dress up in leather and dance all over the place in leather and look at that guy's huge hair in the 2nd picture in leather. There was another group of them, and then one with girls and guys. And they're apparently there every Sunday too. I got some video of them all.

Then we went to Wendy's to sit for awhile because we were cold and tired.

After much evasion, I finally got a picture...

Rain rain go away...

I see now why I've got to try to blog more often...it's quite hard to write about things that have already occurred (obviously I keep getting my facts mixed up, and I can't remember all the details...plus, it's quite some overload for reading).

First, I'd like to say, I feel really bad for the girl who lives in the room right below mine because I feel like I'm really loud. I drop things all the time...that's mainly it, but it's probably not too appreciated.

Second, results of my placement test were in earlier this week...and I got the class I wanted (Intensive Japanese Intermediate level 3), which I was very happy about. Because it means that I am at the level I think I am at, and as a bonus, I didn't have to go talk to any adviser and deal with having to change classes. I just hate inconvenience.

Third, class starts tomorrow! The Japanese class starts super early at 9:15, and though that's not as early as some 8am classes I've had at UVA, keep in mind I have an hour-long commute to even get to campus, I don't like to be late, rather I like being early and having some time to myself to get settled and ready for class to begin. So the three DK House-ers taking Intensive Japanese (Greg, Natalie, and I) are planning to eat breakfast around 7:20 and aiming for 7:45-7:50 out the door. That may be a bit excessive, but I feel more at ease leaving earlier "just in case", plus we want to scope out the morning rush hour scene and all that. Jeannette and Hunter decided to test for the Regular Japanese classes, which meet half as much as we do or something. Intensive class will be 3 hours every day, which is basically 15credit-hours UVA style, which is near what I would take at UVA. I'm looking to take one other class (the school doesn't advise taking more than that really if you do Intensive) and I haven't decided on it yet. Which feels weird, since I signed up for classes at UVA next semester earlier this week already.

I give up. It's time for pictures.

My school supplies! Daniel took me to this place called Loft in Shibuya which is amazing. It's totally my kind of store, similar to Tokyu Hands too but much prettier. It has school/office/stationary/drawing supplies on the main floor, and some floors have things like interior furnishings, or toys. So I got these 3 animal notebooks for classes and the small blue notebook to put in my purse (I wanted it to write down kanji that I look up throughout the day so I can better remember them, and I may also use it to jot down notes about my day, as my brother just suggested, so I don't have all these problems with remembering what it is I do every day to blog about. Phew.) Then that red thing is a file/folder, but what's cool about it is it's not a pocketed folder (which always rip or don't hold enough paper) nor is it a 2-or 3- hole punch binder (which get annoying when the papers you get in class are not hole-punched. It has this contraption that just clamps down on a stack of paper. (I just took some pictures of it in action, but having trouble uploading to my computer right now.) But basically it's pretty cool, and only a bit over $3, and there were a bunch of different kinds, so I think I want to bring some back to the U.S. Then the pack of stickers...they're actually page labels...you stick one side to the page you want to mark and fold the sticker over. I got piggies.

My bowl of ramen and some gyouza (dumplings), and Daniel gobbling his down yummyyyy, at this restaurant at the top of the Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara. Daniel and I stumbled upon it and apparently the chef who opened it is pretty renowned and the place itself (Chabuton?) is well-rated. It was pretty good, though the gyouza were way tinier than we expected from the picture, and the lady came to offer me an English menu while we were standing outside. Sigh. I was merely checking out the selection and deciding what I wanted and it was just taking some time as I'm...indecisive.

That reminds me. If you haven't read about it from someone else's blog by now, or know about it from your own experience, a lot of restaurants here use ticket-vending machines to order your food, especially if it's a hot-shop style noodle place or something (the school cafeterias use this system as well). There's basically a vending machine with a button for everything on their menu, including ones for making it a bigger size, or side dishes like an egg. You put your money in, press a button, and a ticket with your order comes out and you hand it to someone or put it on the counter. It's quick and effective. And space-saving, because most often the machines are outside, so while you're trying to decide what you want, you're not taking up their limited space inside.

Was waiting for a bus (to Costco...more on that in a bit) and turned around to see a Big Boy! Hardly even see that much in the States anymore...or at least not around me.

Okay, so I should have taken this picture when we first got there when it was still light outside, but I just had to include this. Daniel and his apartment-mate, So-Ky, and I went to Costco! It was a bit aways, in this place called Kaihim-Makuhari after some train transferring and riding a bus, but from what So-Ky told me, there are some others too, but this is the one we went to. It's two floors of stuff, with a large parking garage, which is why it's so huge. You go in, grab a cart, and head up the slanty escalators (designed for carts, so no steps, just a ramp) to the 2nd floor, where they scan your membership card (no just flailing it in the air like the one at home) and give you coupons and things. Then we went back downstairs to do our shopping (the 1st floor is food and the top is the other 'stuff' that Costco sells). It was pretty awesome; layout was very much like back at home, with the bakery/breads in that open space, the wines and freezers and all that. I was tempted to buy so much more than I ended up getting because I wanted it to all fit in one box, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get it all home, unless I shipped it. But I picked up breakfast things, muffins, bagels, and the Quaker granola cereal I love, and NUTELLA. Even more awesome is that they had a food court, and basically the exact same menu as at home. I was very excited to see some chicken bake(!) and better yet, they had BULGOGI bake (Korean style beef?), so I had to try that, and it was delicious. It was overall very exciting to me. It wasn't that crowded when we were there, but it was also a weekday evening, not like a Sunday afternoon. And the checker at the exit definitely checks for EVERYTHING. I had my stuff all packed up in a box and had the flaps down to seal it and he wanted to make sure that everything was accounted for and checked it all, very unlike the ones I've been to back home.

This was at the famed Tsukiji Fish Market that we went to the morning after(of?) Teresa's birthday celebrating. I'd expand more on that but I feel it'd just exhaust me right now and other people blogged much more detailedly about it with much better pictures. However I will say that I definitely want to go to the market again, but in a different scenario. Instead of staying up for it, I want to wake up super early (catch the sunrise??) and head there groggy, but more refreshed and energized (and dressed more appropriately for the fish water all over the ground) than I was when we went. And then I'd also be able to enjoy the food stands on the way out. It really was some amazing sights and sounds though.

Look Right-Left-Right

I was working on another post...I just keep getting more and more behind...but time out for a quick 'Things I Miss' post!

• Carpeting
• Central heating/AC and good insulation
  
• Paper towels/non-waxy and thin tiny napkins/2-ply perforated toilet paper/a lot of paper-related things I suppose
• Handsoap in the bathroom
• Jaywalking
• Eating in class (class hasn't started yet, but I already dread not being able to do so)
• Big cups/big glasses of water at restaurants that are constantly refilled/water fountains
• Trash cans on the street
• Benches
• Street names and signs/logical way of figuring out an address number/people who use maps
• Girls who wear pants/sneakers/plain old T-shirts/no makeup
• Guys who don't weigh less than girls/don't look like they spend more time and products on their hair than girls do
  
• People who talk loudly, or at least so you can hear them

That is just off the top of my head. I will probably be adding more to that, though it's not to say there are not things I like about Japan more than the U.S. I'm sure that list will come.

Shinjuku

I mentioned previously that I'd explored Shinjuku within the first week. The san-nin headed over there after the festival thing outside our dorm and were planning to meet Teresa there in the evening. We walked around a bunch, I showed them the Don Quixote, although the one we went to wasn't that nice (not that Don Quixote is extra nice...but this one didn't have very wide aisles at all, nor was is very organized), but basically it's floors and floors of everything, from clothes and costumes, to groceries and household products, to electronics and crazy toys...it's just hard to find it all! Then we headed over to a 100yen store to try and find slippers and other things, as I mentioned before. Didn't get the slippers, but got a bunch of other things. Then we stopped at an arcade where Greg got into the Taiko drum game and another crazy drum game. Natalie and I were amazed when we found a Typing of the Dead machine in the corner and just had to play. Each floor housed a different genre of games, and the very top floor was for purikura (sticker pictures).

Time flew by there and when our game ended (it ended only because we got to this boss that killed us...we would be asked a question and a few choices would show up on the screen, and we'd have to type the correct answer and it would strike a blow to the boss, but every wrong answer would kill us...unfortunately all the questions were in Japanese so we couldn't really figure them out so quickly...otherwise we were doing really well), we headed to find Teresa at one of the exits at the station, luckily we found each other right away. We first took her to the arcade (Greg hadn't quite gotten his fill of the Taiko game, nor had he been able to get on the other drum game) and we took purikura. Then we just explored the whole area, doing a ton of walking and went into random stores, and stopped at a Yoshinoya for dinner because we really couldn't decide on anything else, and Teresa hadn't been to one yet. Finally called it a night around...10 or so, and headed back.

Mascot we ran into doing promo outside some store. This frog has pretty human-like hands though, and it's bipedal...pretty crazy...

Typing of the Dead machine! (This is for you, Jeremy!)

Natalie and I are awesome. Game description: the world's being taken over by zombies so to save people and kill zombies you have to type the word/letter/number that shows up on the screen, so it tests your reflex and typing. And then at the end of every stage you have to fight and beat a boss to move on and there are variations on what/how you type. This version was Japanese words, but you had to type them in romaji (Roman characters) so that's why we decided we could handle it. ...until the Japanese showed up.

Signs outside purikura floors. Males aren't allowed into purikura areas unless they're going with a female, because of...well you can see how that could be a bad situation if some random guy goes into this area where girls flock. But the way this sign put it...is great.

Shinjuku. See the buildings. See the lights. See the people.

This is actually just at an intersection. Once that green walk sign comes on, the streets become flooded. 人山人海, for my Chinese readers, hahaha.

I thought this ad was really cute and clever (those are stairs and it's pigs at a dining table and it's pink.) It's announcing some new restaurant I think.

Blast from the Past

My blog's all out of order, because I keep remembering everything out of order...

Orientation was on the 2nd, and it was...an orientation. Teachers came to talk to us about a bunch of things, we got a bunch of papers and our ID cards. It all took a while. But after that stuff, we met our monitor students. These are Japanese students at Sophia who are supposed to answer any questions we have and things like that. A lot (all?) are in the English "faculty" (department) and they took on the 'job' to practice English and meet foreigners. It was 2 exchange students per monitor student, so Mia and I ended up paired up with a girl named Asuka. It ended up being that a lot of us UVA kids were paired up with someone we knew. And it also turned out that my monitor student is friends with Greg/Jeannette's, and Hunter(/Mike, another guy from the DK House whom we met) so we all kind of hung out together. And they all have 'A' names...Asuka, Akiko, Ayano. They took us to the cafeteria and we all just talked and got to know each other. I was a bit antsy because I needed to try to make it back to DK by 630 to meet my host mom for dinner, but it was kinda hard to just leave by myself, and the others wanted to go back, and I had invited some to come to dinner with me, so I wanted to wait for everyone. We finally made it on a train by 6 (eek) because the line to get the commuter pass was really long (full of exchange students...) and I got to DK at 7pm, to find my host mom and brother (I guess he was able to come!) waiting for me already and when I asked, she said they got there a bit after 6pm (eek again!) So that was embarrassing and bad on my part.

But it was so good to see each other after...4 years that it didn't seem to matter. My host mom told me to invite some friends and I also wanted someone there with me, because I knew I wouldn't be able to hold a conversation by myself. So thankfully, Greg was up for the challenge of going out to eat with us (thank you Greg!) They talked about how I got so much taller, that seems to always be the thing to talk about when you haven't seen someone in a long time. My host brother was starting university the next day, well, having orientation and stuff. He's studying to be a teacher because he likes kids, and wants to teach elementary school in particular, which is very cool! He still doesn't like English, that much has not changed. We walked to the kaitenzushi place by the station, since they remembered how much I love sushi (for my goodbye dinner when I was last with them, we went to a kaitenzushi place and had a great time...and 16 plates of sushi...) Instead of sitting around the conveyor belt, we got a table and started to chow down. Soon enough, my host mom's cousin showed up because he actually lives in this area and she and him took seats at the next table, so we were the 'kids' table. Greg did a great job of initiating conversation with Takuro, as Takuro's very shy. I think my host mom and Takuro enjoyed Greg's company a lot too...she even invited him to Minabe, to their home, if I went to visit. She's very welcoming, which is evident from how much she likes hosting, but she told me she's not currently hosting anyone. Anyway, we had a lot of fun chatting and eating delicious food. I found out a lot about Takuro...his favorite music now is hip-hop and R&B, his favorite artists being Kanye West and Ne-Yo! He said he doesn't understand what Kanye and them say, but Greg said neither does he, hahaha. We told him he should come out to karaoke some time with us, and his university is only about 40 minutes away from here! So it's a definite possibility to be able to see him again!

Well, I didn't eat nearly as much as last time, but it was very enjoyable, and I was quite satisfied. My host mom and Takuro needed to leave though, because it was getting late, so we took some pictures, and my host mom treated us. By bus, it's a 10-hr ride to Minabe, so needless to say, my host mom had quite a ways to travel.

Her cousin started walking with us away from the restaurant/station, and we thought he was going to walk us home but...he kept saying "kotchi, kotchi" which means "this way" so we'd follow him (it was just a slight detour from our normal route). Earlier he had kept asking if we knew of "akachouchin" and making a gesture, but we had no idea what he was talking about...we found out later anyway). He took us to this hole-in-the-wall bar called Toncha (I think) and pointed out the akachouchin (red paper lantern) that was hanging outside, and those usually signify to passersby an "izakaya" or pub/bar that serves food. We headed inside and it really was this tiny smoke-filled bar. My...host uncle now...knew everyone there, they seemed like a family. He ordered us this cheese omelette and we all sort of started chatting. It seemed really easy to talk to him because he's pretty uninhibited and would just ask us things or tell us things. And he would get us talking to the other patrons too. He ordered us a grilled fish, and Greg and I were both surprised when the bartender/owner just pulls out this fish and starts grilling it in its entirety on this thing right in front of the bar. I told the uncle that in Chinese food, we eat fish whole like that too, but it was still interesting. I don't know what time it was but since we had that test the next day it was getting time to leave, but he walked us home, and told us to come back any time, because he's always there haha. And he told us we'd get better at Japanese if we did, and I believe it. By the end, Greg and I were feeling pretty comfortable just spitting things out, and I think my comprehension went up. Nothing compares to just really getting out there and talking to people in Japanese. No amount of studying can really prepare you for what it's really like. And the people were all really friendly to us, even though I'm pretty sure they were laughing at us a lot haha... Greg and I have yet to return or bring others there, but we still hope to. Uncle also said to let him know my contact info and stuff, so I have to do that. It's nice to have this kind of figure so nearby, so I'm really happy that my host mom introduced us.

Our buddy on the grill in front of us...

Our buddy on the plate in front of us...before we devoured him.

My host brother Takuro, my host mom, and me!

And before that...

Before orientation, we got to campus early to check it out, and here's the view right from the station.

That's the name of our university.


For lunch that day, after passing over many restaurants because they aren't within our budgets, we found this little place whose food display looked delicious for reasonable prices. Most of us got the katsudon, which is pork cutlets, and it also had egg, over rice. The food was good, we took up a good portion of the restaurant, the people were nice, prices were good, there were water coolers...we hope to go back there in the future.

Shaka Shaka!

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.

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...