The past 3 weeks rolled into one post

Okay well, here is everything that I've been typing in Word up until now. Sorry it's so much at once.

5/15/08-5/17/08

I'M IN JAPAN!!!!!!!! I still can't believe it.

Well, travel was long but still fun. I watched a bunch of movies and played some strange game on my little tv thing in the seat in front of me. As YR and I arrived in the Tokyo-Narita airport we met a bunch of people who are doing the same program as us, so we were all able to help each other figure out where we needed to be. Customs took so long that YR and I were late for meeting our host families. Turns out we each only have one adult in our houses full time. My host mom is great. She's really sweet and even though she doesn't speak any english we've both been trying really hard to communicate. The first night we went to a restaurant and I had sukiyaki. It was delicious! After than I just went to sleep in my futon, which consists of no more than a pad a few inches thick, a pillow, and the fluffiest comforter I’ve ever seen.

Today was a lot more exciting. We had our first group orientation thing. Because I'm doing homestay I had to get to the meeting place (Machiko Square in Shibuya) all on my own. It was very nerve wracking but I made it somehow. I actually had to talk to some security guards in Japanese to find the square itself. Machiko Square is a popular meeting spot for young people. As far as I could tell it just seemed to consist of a dog statue, though this was right at the edge of Shibuya so that could be why. I met YR and Patrick (the one other person who showed up who was doing non-dorm housing) and our Temple student guide. All the other temple students were there too, but for our Shibuya tour they split us up by where we lived so YR, Patrick, and I had a group all to ourselves.

Our guide showed us a bunch of stores where we could get whatever we needed (I would hope so in a 9 story department store). Then we ate lunch at an Indian restaurant and I had butter chicken. You’re given a giant piece of bread (nan) that you dip into this chicken soup-delicious. After that we went to a park. When we arrived, Reggae music was playing and a bunch of booths were setup. We had stumbled on a Jamaican festival. It was really fun to see all the Japanese people dancing to Bob Marley and decked out in the Jamaican flag colors.

We left the festival to go to Meiji Shrine in the park. Some other festival was being celebrated that involved a giant homemade statue of a man, a horse that was all decorated, taiko drumming, and a bunch of women dancing. I’ve already embarrassed myself as a gaijin. One of the women came up to Patrick and forced him to go dance (and of course he wouldn’t go unless the rest of us did). She gave him her festival over shirt and we all went and tried to do this traditional dance with a bunch of Japanese women. We quickly left after the dance to the entrance of the shrine where we washed our hands and mouth and then I bought a charm for scholarship (hopefully it will help…) and wrote a prayer on a card.

After enjoying my first vending machine drink and arriving back, as I was walking from my stop to my house, a man from a hair salon came out of his store and gave me his card and asked if he could do my hair and let him take pictures. He didn’t speak English (though he kept saying the word model), so I don’t know how well I deflected him. It seems like fun but I wasn’t about to agree to something like that without having someone (preferably who spoke real Japanese) there to make sure nothing sketchy happens. He seemed harmless enough, so hopefully I won’t have any problems walking to my station everyday.

When I finally got rid of the hairdresser I got home, turned on the TV, and passed out watching sumo wrestling until my host mom came home covered me up with a blanket. Then I got the chance to meet my host sister Mio (her mom calls her Mimi), who is home from college for the weekend. She’s my age and plays soccer. She seems nice, though she doesn’t like DBSK …at least she made a face when they were mentioned. We had delivery sushi for supper and the Mio and I both passed out around 9:30.

So my first little bit in Japan has already been really exciting and full of surprises (Jamaican festival, propositions to model, delivery sushi, etc) and I hope it continues this way. I’ll try to keep everyone posted, though I really do suck at keeping up with journals-I’ve never had one that actually lasted. But maybe the motivation of bragging about sharing my Japan experiences will keep this going over the summer. Also, I’m typing this in a word document, so hopefully when I get a chance to post this in my LJ I can figure out how to include pictures and whatnot.

5/18/08

Today was a free day between the orientations of Saturday and Monday. In theory I should have slept in but my schedule is still messed up so I woke up around 6:30 (I didn’t let myself leave my futon until about 9 though). However, considering I have to wake up at 6:15 tomorrow to make sure I catch my train on time to get to school for the orientation, this might not be a bad thing.

After getting up and bathing (there is a way to do this correctly and I’m pretty sure I’m not doing it) I went with my host mom and sister to the Waseda University campus to watch Mio’s soccer team play. For some reason (which was skirted about in a very Japanese fashion) Mio herself wasn’t playing. Her team was really good (they won), which makes sense because she goes to a sports education college. In fact, they are ranked number one, though I’m not sure if this is in Japan or in their area only. A whole bunch of Mio’s friends were there. I’ve determined that, so far, talking to people my own age is scarier than talking to adults. The soccer game basically took up my entire day.

Before the game we had a lot of time to blow so we went to McDonald’s. I tried the teriyaki burger that I heard so much about. It was pretty good-just seemed like they slathered some teriyaki sauce onto a hamburger…

For supper we had tofu burgers, shark fin soup, rice, and veggies. After this my host mom used her phone to send a video of me to her husband (who lives away because of work-I get to meet him next weekend) and her friend who I can go to Church with next Sunday.

5/19/08

Today was another orientation. This one was much less exciting. We had to sit through long talks about rules and rule breaking. Overall, I’d say it was better than Wake’s orientation because the people in charge all had funny stories about past students who got in trouble. After all the boring talk we were again split into groups according to where we lived and shown around Roppongi (I’m not sure if I spelled that right or not) Hills, which is like a self-contained town in Roppongi, which is a part of Tokyo. So today was boring and classes start tomorrow. Though the website is down so I can’t figure out when my first class will be…hopefully it will get straightened out.

Also, my host dad sent a drunken video reply to my video text that was sent yesterday. It was really funny because he was cradling a bottle of sake and his face was very red. I couldn’t really understand what he was slurring saying but it was something along the lines of “I’m looking forward to meeting you”. Okada-san had asked what type of guy (celebrity) I liked and I said Johnny Depp. She agreed and took out her phone to show me her “Johnny Depp”, and thus I got to see my drunken message ^.^ I’m looking forward to meeting him in person this weekend.

5/20/08

Well I figured out when class was. Today I had Ideology and Social Change in Japan. It’s an upper level sociology/Asian studies class which is a little intimidating but hopefully I can handle it. It actually seems really interesting, though there will be quite a bit of work. For every reading we have to turn in a one page paper…and there is a lot of reading. Also, there is a big group presentation. Bleh. Though I did go and introduce myself to a group of people and we started talking about topics. The professor let class out early since it was the first day so I went with one of my new friends (I’ve already forgotten all of their names) got my student ID made. We ran into Kevin there, he was too tall for the blue screen they had set up to take out pictures and so had to crouch down XP I decided to be super productive and went and did other errands (I should now have a rental phone on the way!).

The rest of my day consisted of me exploring my town. I found a convenience store really close to the apartments and I bought a chance to win a One Piece toy which I didn’t realize until I tried to buy the stuffed Zoro doll and the lady showed me that instead I had to buy a card and draw for what I could win. So instead of the doll I ended up with a card case with Zoro on it. After that I just picked one of the main roads and walked down it for a while. The only other place I actually went into was a used manga/CD/DVD/game store. One of the most interesting things about doing the homestay is that I haven’t seen any other non-Japanese (or at least non-Asians) around at all. It’s a really interesting feeling. I think one lady grabbed her kid and walked on the other side of the road when I walked by. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with me since I’m pretty sure I don't look that threatening…she could probably tell I have baby-snatching tendencies (and thanks to Nina I have the perfect bag for it).

5/21/08

Well today is the second day of classes and my first day of Japanese and Music. I was really worried about Japanese but I could actually understand almost everything the teacher said. Unfortunately, I probably will be moved to Oral Intensive II. I say unfortunately because the textbook for the class was the same as the one we used last year at Wake and we were going to start at the beginning. However, in the first part of class the teacher had us fill out an information sheet, including how much Japanese we had studied and what textbooks we had used. So since taking this course would basically be a repeat of things I had already done and I told her my speaking skills were what I needed to work on the most (and my placement test clearly showed that my grammar-all stuff I learned over a year ago and hadn’t encountered since the test-sucked), she said I should go to tomorrow’s Oral Intensive II-the same class with Yuan-Rui and Kevin. The familiar faces will be nice, but I always seem to freeze around YR when trying to speak Japanese. Oh well, I’ll get over that I’m sure.

As for Music Class, I actually think I'm going to enjoy it. The teacher really has a passion for the subject.

This morning before leaving for classes, Okada-san and I went to the station to get my commuter pass, since I now had my student ID and could get a discount. The paper gave the prices for the students in the university housing-a three month pass should be about $200. Lucky me spent that much on a one month pass because I didn’t think to carry $500 (the yen equivalent) around with me…

5/30/08

Wow it really is necessary to do this everyday. I’ve definitely already forgotten a ton of stuff that I’ve done. Most people will probably be relieved to avoid the blow by blow.

YR and met at Shinjuku and explored the area (in the rain) and went into a giant shopping center. We had curry for supper at this little joint (the cheapest we could find) and went to this little bar in Shibuya that was only 300yen (about 3 dollars) for any drink you wanted and the cover charge was also only 300yen. It was nothing more than a hole in the wall but I had my first alcohol in Japan-sadly a screwdriver because I couldn’t read anything else on the menu. We talked to some interesting people and before we left we agreed we had to talk to a Japanese person. Unfortunately, we didn’t know any Japanese pickup lines ^.^; There were actually a lot of foreigners there (no cute Japanese guys that weren’t already talking to somebody) so I finally told this one girl that I though her skirt was “kawaii” (cute) and we talked to her for bit and YR took a picture with her. The most memorable part of the run down bar was that there was a random Japanese business man sitting at the bar reading a book with drinking. I have no idea how he could concentrate (or see) but he was so out of place with his suit and briefcase that it really stuck with me.

I went back with my host dad to talk to the guy at Espoir. It looks like I’m going to be doing it…I’m going to be in a modeling competition. I get my hair and makeup and clothes all done for it. I’m really excited/nervous.

Speaking of my host dad, I finally met him this past weekend. He was nice. The first thing he did when we met was pull up Google Earth and lookup High Point and Wake Forest. He also took me and Mimi to one of those sushi places where the sushi rotates and you pay by the plate. The price varied depending on what color plate you ate. We at a lot, so I’m sure it was expensive.

Sunday I went with my host mom and two of her catholic friends to a Japanese mass. It was really interesting. The church had little English pamphlets so I at least understood the readings. The couple, who are old enough to be my grandparents, will be taking me with them every weekend. I’m really happy I was able to find a church to go to. Afterward I ate Italian food with my hostmom.

Yesterday I went with my friend Laura to Yasukuni shrine. It’s pretty controversial place…though I haven’t finished my homework reading yet so I can’t tell you why. It was really cool. Laura and I ate delicious noodle-the kitsune soba was best soba I’ve had so far. We took lots of pictures and went into the museum.

Today was also surprisingly fun. I didn’t really have anything planned so I just went to the train station to go home. I accidentally got onto the wrong line. So after I turned around a got onto the right line there just happened to be a guy from my Japanese class riding in the same car that I got on. He, this other guy, and two Japanese girls were going to Asakusa to eat okonomiyaki. The girls invited me along…I felt a little bad for crashing what the guys probably wanted to be a date, but I think we all had fun in the end.