First week in Japan!

What a pretty amazing week it has been, but towards the end it got a little crazy. So lets begin this long post!

Monday
After leaving the hotel on Monday, I had to walk to the train station to meet up with the people from Nichi Dai so they can bring me to the dorms. From the train station we took a taxi straight to the dorms. When we arrived to my dorm room, they just gave me a brief tour of the room even though the room is pretty small. haha After dropping my stuff in the room, we left to Nichi Dai. When we arrived at Nichi Dai, it was orientation day for the freshmen. There were quite alot of people and there were club tables set up outside to recruit new members. I walked with the two people that picked me up to the office and there they introduced me to the staff members of the office. After a brief introduction, we went into the L.L. room (language lab) where they gave me a bag full of stuff about Nichi Dai and Mishima. After explaining all that they told me I had until 11:00 a.m., about an hour, until the other foreign exchange students will come, where then we will talk about the course schedule. During that short wait, I got food from Moss Burger, a popular fast-food chain restaurant like McDonalds. It was actually my first time eating at Moss Burger and I got to say, the burger was delicious! It is pretty much like a tofu-veggie burger instead of beef patty. When 11:00 came around I met up with four of the other foreign exchange students in the office. From there we went back into the L.L. room to talk about the course schedule. There are not many options of classes to take at Nichi Dai. In total, there are only 13 English-speaking classes that you are able to choose from and most of them deal with studies in Japan or international studies.
The way we register for classes are different in Japan compared to America. What happens is that when class starts (April 6) you have until April 23 to officially decide on the classes we want. Until then we can hop around different classes to see if we want to take it or not. Since there aren't really many classes that over-lap with each other, there is no stress into deciding which class to take. After we finished with the little session, the other foreign exchange students and I went to go eat lunch. After eating and talking a bit, we walked back home from school. The walk takes about 20 minutes and is not really that far. On the way back, we was talking about what to do that day since it was still daylight. We got back to the dorms for about five minutes and left again. This time we decided to go to Mishima Shrine and see the cherry blossom and what a gorgeous view it was. However, the cherry blossoms were still blooming and were not in full bloom yet. I was able to get some magnificent pictures despite the cherry blossoms not being in full bloom. After about 30 minute or so of taking pictures, we walked back to the dorms and sort of rested for later that night. I unpacked and settled down and try to get everything in order. At about 18:00, one of the foreign exchange students and I went back to Mishima Shrine to look at the cherry blossoms at night. I was hoping to see some awesome lit-up cherry blossoms but there were not much light since the cherry blossoms were not in full blossom yet. After a few pictures, we walked to the super market and bought some stuff for my dorm. Afterwards, we just returned back home and called it a night.

Tuesday
So on this day, I woke up to a very beautiful view of Mt. Fuji! This totally made my day already because it was such a magnificent view. After waking up and washing up, my friends and I decided to go to Sunto Moon (yes it is spelled that way too), which is a mall in Mishima. In order to get there, we had to take bikes or it would have been an hour walk or so according to my friends. We were able to borrow bikes for free from the Mishima Shrine, but they just had to be returned by 16:00. The bike trip there took about 10-15 minutes. During the trip, I was able to get a magnificent view of the whole Mt. Fuji. However, I did not take pictures because I did not really want to stop so much and keep taking pictures. When we got to Sunto Moon, we walked around. We went upstairs to the Sega Arcade and played Mario Cart. It was fun! I won first place the first game and got second the second game. After we finished playing game, we walked around some more and I saw this cute panda pillow and couldn't help but buy it! We walked around some more then decided to go back home. On our way home, we stopped by the 100 yen shop and I bought some household stuff. After returning the bikes back to Mishima Shrine, we went back home and called it a day.

Wednesday
First day of class! My first class was at 10:40 and it was International Relations I. I met up with my friends in front of the dorm and left to school at 10:15. I don't really want to go much into explaining the class because it is pretty much taught the same way as in America. After the first class, I met up with my friends and went to go eat lunch. There was a 20 minute wait for rice because there were so many people wanting to eat lunch. I decided that I wasn't going to eat then. After eating, my friends and I had to go and take the Japanese language placement test. The test was multiple-choice with 100 questions. It was easy until question 50, then it just got really hard because of the kanji. After finishing the written part of the test, we had to go talk with the lady for a bit for the spoken portion of the test. Overall, the placement was not too bad. After finishing the placement test at about 14:00, I had to wait until 16:20 for my next class. Two of my friends were done for the day so they went home. One of my friend was hungry so him and I went to go grab some food to eat at the cafeteria. After we finished eating, he, too, went back home and I was left alone at school. >_< it was a little lonely but I got time to myself and explored the school a little bit. I went to the 6th floor of the main building and on that floor there was a cafe restaurant. There was also a fantastic view of Mt. Fuji. I stayed there until it was almost time for class. The class I had at 16:20 was International Relations III - International Law. This class seems like it will be really interesting since we will be studying present day problems and laws that apply to the problems. After that class, I walked back home. After dropping off some stuff, I walked to the supermarket to buy some food and drinks. I returned back home and called it a night.

Thursday
On Thursday, I woke up at 10:00 and had planned a day with no classes because there were no classes that I were suppose to take that day. However, at about 12: 40 my friends called me and asked if I was ready for class and I was like "huh? what you mean?" She said that we had a Japanese class at 13:00 and that we had to attend it. The night before we supposedly got an email saying that one of our Japanese classes were changed to Thursday 13:00 and 16:20. I didn't received that email. I was still pretty in bed when my friend called me. I told her that I probably won't attend since its a little late because I would have to take a shower and get ready. So, my friends left off to class. After she gave me a call I decided to take a shower and get ready for class at 16:20. My friend texted me and said that even if I was late I should just come to class late, so I left at 13:00 and got to school at 13:20. It was such a hot walk there because I was sweating. The way the Japanese class is set up is different than what I am used to. We each had a T.A. (teacher assistant), who helped us with our Japanese. The class doesn't really count as Japanese I or Japanese II because each of us are at different levels of Japanese. After the first class, we went to the common area in the main building and chilled for a little bit until next class. I met two of their friends and chatted for a bit. After the second class ended at 17:50, we went to Ita Yokado, a big department store with a grocery store inside. We went to buy some food and went back home after. We each bought pizza and decided to eat it together and watch tv in one of our rooms. After that we pretty much called it a night. One thing did happen though. I experienced my first earthquake! Apparently it was a big shake than usual. I was sitting in my room watching dramas on my computer. I saw something move from the corner of my eye. My curtains were shaking a little. I was like "whoa why are they moving." Then I sat still a little bit and start feeling the room move a little. I couldn't really decided weather or not I should have gone out the room or not because it did not feel dangerous since it was a small shake. The shake did not last long either. Probably for about 50 seconds or so. My area, Mishima, did not feel the full blunt of the real earthquake, which was 7.1. On the scale, we measured a 2. I did decided to step outside of my room to see if anyone else was leaving but seemed like no one else left their room and the shaking had stopped too. It was a little frightening, but overall, a good experience since I know what it is like to experience an earthquake.

Friday
Yesterday, we decided to go eat lunch at a yaki-niku restaurant that had a 500 yen lunch set. Yaki-niku pretty much means meat and that was what the restaurant specializes in. We went their by bike and it was such a rough journey because it was really windy yesterday and it kept blowing at us. After we arrived and sat down, we ordered our food and it came out in less than 10 minute. We were really hungry too. This was also my first time eating yaki-niku. What you do when eating yaki-niku is you get a plate of raw meat, either beef or pork, and you put it over this platform with a burner under it to cook it. There are also different kind of sauces you can either dip the meat in before or after. The lunch set came with a bowl of rice, sad, miso soup, either 100g or 150g of raw meat, and yogurt. It was such a great lunch for a cheap price! After we finished eating, I had to go back home because I had to get ready to meet up with a new friends to go to Shibuya, Tokyo. The train ride to Shibuya took two hours and a half hours! It was such a long train ride. After we got to Shibuya, we met up with my friend's other friends at the famous dog statue that I always forget the name of. I didn't bring my camera at night because I did not feel like carrying it around. After meeting up with everyone, we had a brief introduction and walked around Shibuya. I was thinking about buying stuff, but the guys wanted to go nomikai, or nomihodai (all you can drink), then go clubbing afterwards. I did not feel like carrying stuff around the whole night since we won't be returning until the morning. Pretty much the whole night, we went drinking and hopped around from one club to another since we either couldn't decide where to go or some of us couldn't get in. There was also a little trouble with the cops with the other guys. I don't know exactly what happened because during the time that incident happened I was inside the club and the others walked outside to take care of one of the girls because she was wasted. Also, the right back side of my jeans ripped because I sat on something sharp and when I got up it ripped. One of the new guys that I met also kept pulling on it and making it even bigger. It was really annoying that he kept doing that. Good thing I had a jacket to cover part of it up even though you was still able to see some of my leg. In the end, everything was settled and we all went back home safe and sound, even though the train ride back home for me was two and half hours. >_< I pretty much fell asleep on the train. Good thing I was worried that I would miss my train stop so I kept waking up. When I got to my train station, I took a cab back to my dorm because it was a 20 minute walk to my dorm and the fact that I had ripped jeans. By the time I got home it was 9:00 and I knocked out once I got into my bed.

As for today, I pretty much slept through half of the day. Not much progress today with anything except updating my blog. Tomorrow I plan on going Hanami at some park with some friends. Hanami is a picnic during the cherry blossom season at a cherry blossom area. I might update again tomorrow with more pics from the Hanami, but lets see how things go. Until next time, じゃね、and enjoy the pictures.