Part 2 - The first full day

Saturday morning I found I couldn’t sleep. I don’t have a clock so I can’t fully tell what time it is or set alarms or anything. Supposedly we’re meeting in the lobby at 1pm to go back to the beach. But because of the gross futon stuff I just laid across the top of it and I kept getting cold and waking up. Or hot. So I kept adjusting my AC but now I decided to just get out of bed. I’m leaning more toward the idea of buying sheets and returning this futon. I haven’t had to pay the rental fee for it yet, so I hope/assume it wouldn’t be a problem to return it. I have a really bad headache and sleep deprivation.

Anyway, my computer says it’s almost 8:30pm, so that would mean it’s about… 9:30am here. The sun’s been up for a while and it feels way later. My head’s pounding though, and I can hear a large group in the distance outside shouting things in union. I looked out but didn’t see them.



Oh, I’ll talk a little about the room while I wait. So I walked in initially and it was an oven. That’s partially why I went back out with Eri and Naoko so quickly. It’s cooled off now. I have a remote control for the AC to turn it up and down. It’s in Celsius so it’s a guesswork game. Anyway, you walk in and there’s a little area with a tile floor. You take your shoes off and switch to a carpet. On the left is the toilet. On the right is the fridge. Then take another step and right is the large closet, left is a little indention into the wall with a sink. Then past that, you leave the little hallway and enter the larger main room, where the bed and desk are. There’s also a little balcony outside my window that I haven’t gone out on yet ‘cause it’s so hot. My room’s temperature is quite nice at the moment. But, when I first came in we turned the air on really high and I opened all the closet doors and everything because it was even hotter in them than the room itself. The hallway outside the room is really hot as well.



Let’s see… I have this form of dates to remember. It’s currently August 21st here. 8:50am on the 23rd is orientation. Then august 26th at 11:50 is an opening convocation. I have to lightly dress up and “light meals will be served”. I need to buy a clock or watch that I can set an alarm with. Or recruit a neighbor to wake me when she wakes. Linda’s right next door. I can’t get a cell phone for three weeks, because I have an Alien Registration card to get, which is required when you get a phone. Well, it actually says it's needed for when you make a contract and I just want to do prepaid, but I guess I’ll wait. I have to go to a ward office to get my registration card. I apparently have to bring 2 pictures of myself for it. I brought my extra photos from the visa stuff, but apparently these images are bigger and waist up, so they’re useless..? We'll see.

Most of our advisers seem to be twenty or twenty one also. I just looked over the papers I was given more fully and there’s a list of them all with their pictures and names and a little about them. Speaking of pictures… I will now take some of the room.



Oh, and it says the cafeteria opens at 9am and that it’s near the gym… but I don’t know where those are. I vaguely know how to get to the main campus. It’s down the street and down a turn. Apparently, lost room keys cost $250 to replace, so I’m never letting mine out of my sight.

I’m giving details like this in case someone who’s reading decides they want to come here. They’ll already know little things, and could have pictures ready like the ones I don’t and stuff like that. Trying out my plug converters now. They don’t have a power converter. They just change 3 pronged plugs to 2 because they only have 2 prongs here. Cross your fingers that my laptop doesn’t blow up… OKAY. It didn’t blow so I think we’re good. Oh, and I came kind of expecting wireless everywhere. It says there’s one available but I can’t connect, and we have to use wired net in the dorm, so I have to go buy a cable.

I keep hearing people walk by and I’m wondering if I should open my door up as an invitation to bug me. I was so excited last night when we all went out for ramen together. I was so worried about how to meet people or being the only one here or something. So when the tons more came piling in after that, it was even better.

I think I’m starting to starve again so I’m going to eat and drink more water because I felt super dried out after the flights and it hasn’t passed. I need waaay more sleep than I just got too, but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll do better with some real sheets. I’ll see what I can find. Andrey needs sheets too, so maybe I can go with him.

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Saturday night entry:

Today I bought a lot of stuff, but I hope it was necessary stuff. First, I got bedsheets. A set with a lower sheet, top sheet, and pillow case. Then, I had to buy a pillow to put in that case. I got conditioner because I forgot to bring some and my hair is crazy in this ridiculous humidity, and I also got an alarm clock. I had planned on waiting until I got my cell phone and using that as an alarm. My US cell phone won’t even display the time because it says it’s searching for service. My laptop is set to US time, and I just set my iPod touch to Tokyo time. It's got a pretty quiet alarm though. We aren’t getting cell phones until at least September 1st because they require an alien registration card that we aren’t getting until then, and I have to make myself wake up for orientation on August 23rd. So… I bought an alarm clock. One of the cheapest there. I admit my iPod probably would work just fine, but part of me just wanted a weird little clock with Japanese and military time. It also shows the temperature. Just have to figure out how to work it. Saki helped me pick it out and said she’d help me set it up too.



While out shopping, we stopped at a KFC. It was really good, but kind of expensive and you got a small amount of food. Though, I did get a free glass of water because what I ordered didn’t come with a drink. They didn’t ask, and just set it on my tray. I had super crispy chicken tenders and fries and it was all tasty, but we all were craving Japanese food, since we were in Japan. We also stopped at a very large mall where people bought other small things before going to the main store, Don Quixote. I am pretty certain it’s written in kanji or whatever on the storefront, but it’s the name of a store that has everything. I got each item mentioned above from it. It’s overwhelming, it’s so bright and plastered in flashing lights, talking ad screens, and brightly colored signs.

On a side note, I plugged in my laptop. Its plugged in now, actually, and the power box thing in the cord is making little sparking/rattling noises and it’s freaking me out. It did it yesterday so I quickly unplugged it. One girl told me hers did that and shorted out. But then Chris said our voltage isn’t far enough off for it to be a problem, and I'd been told that too. So he came up to my room briefly to check the something numbers of my power cord and they are between what numbers the Japanese power/voltage/whatever can handle. So I plugged it in a short while ago and it’s making that weird noise every now and then, but it is working. So I think I may keep it unplugged while I’m gone or at night, but plugged in when I’m using my laptop.

The beach trip:

After that, we all went back to the dorm, changed, met up in the lobby, and went to the beach. All meaning, myself, Tess, Abdul, Josh, Chris, Christian, Brian, Hinako, Yuki, Mitchell, Jeff, and… I think that may be it. First, we swam in the no swimming part because we’re dumb and no one told us. It took forever for a security guard to come up and tell us to move, though he was really kind about it and not curt at all. We had been wondering all along why no one else was swimming, or why those jet skis were so close… We were in their area of water.

So we circled around instead and found a very populated beach, with tents and food and lots of people. I think one of the tents had people performing live music and the people running the beach were in full kimono and stuff. So, we swam, and picked up the game of “pass the volley ball around and see how many hits we can get in before it hits the water”, and also picked up the male French student, whose name I learned is Brice. Pronounced Breece. He joined in on our game, as well as a couple Japanese girls from the school who entered the water in full clothing.

We stayed out there for a good couple hours or so. My face is red (though it already was just from walking around), and my chest got burnt a bit too. Nobody had sunscreen.

Well, after that we still weren’t done so we got changed and showered and then headed off to Tenjin:

We had to hop on the subway. It’s pretty straight forward, actually. Everything’s translated into English in small text beside the characters, and there’s a light display that flashes destinations in Japanese and then in English, and then a voice speaks out in the same way. In order to get your ticket, you figure out the cost for the place you need to go, put the money in a machine, and it pops out a ticket. You take that, scan it at the little gate things, and it pops back out. Keep it with you. Sorry if this is obvious stuff, but I’d never been on a subway.

Basically, the whole time was spent walking. Forever. I’m dead. About the same people from the beach went, give or take a few. We had me, Tess, Abdul, Justin, Brian, Christian, Chris, Mitchell, Jeff.

We stopped at a little Japanese shop where I had udon noodles/soup for 150 yen, which is roughly $1.50 so I was pretty pleased. It was the perfect amount too. Right when I started feeling too full, I ran out of noodles to eat. It was cool too because you go in the front door (they all have long vertical buttons on them to push to make them open, by the way) and in front of you is this machine listing all of the food options and their price. It’s in Japanese, but some of them had pictures. The Udon did. Otherwise, some of the more advanced speakers read it off to us, or at least what they could decipher. Anyway, you placed money into the machine, pressed the icon of what you wanted, and it spit out change and a ticket. You give that ticket to the waitress, and they make your food. There were also large pitchers of tea out, and little cups, which you had to serve to yourself. It was complimentary and on every table.

We also stopped at a video arcade. I think it might’ve been called Taito Games. It was huge, with 5 stories of games, each story having a different theme. They had rock band, DDR, shooting games, racing games, dart throwing, a casino, claw machines, and even a whole floor dedicated to photobooths. The boys were afraid to enter it, because suddenly all of the stairway pictures had turned super girly. So they sent me up to investigate, since me and Tess were the only girls there and she was somewhere else. So I ventured up, and found it was just all sorts of different themed photobooths. There were boys up there, mostly because they were couples getting pictures, so some of the guys came up to see, and I also found Mountain Dew in the vending machine. I had to buy it, since it was the first one I’d seen. It tasted great too. Apparently Japanese drinks don’t use corn syrup and that’s the major difference from America’s soda. But, Mitchell saw me drinking it and raced off to get one too. We’re going back, partially for the Dew and partially because Christian really wanted to play DDR and didn’t get a chance too. I need my camera at all times.

THOSE JAPANESE ARE INSANE AT THEIR VIDEO GAMES. This guy’s fingers were a blur of motion in one of those games like rock band where you hit the key at the right moment. Only, he had buttons and there were 9 of them moving ridiculously fast. Another guy was playing some sort of ultimate drummer game like rock band, but it had a drum set with five or so parts and two peddles. There was also a game played the same way as Elite Beat Agents, but instead of tapping the screen like on the DS, they shot the screen with a gun.

Anyway, we left and just started walking. Brian wanted to go to some bar his friends had told him about back home, so we went to find it and discovered there was a 15,000 entrant fee. None of us wanted to pay, I don’t drink, and those who did weren’t in the mood to do so. So we put that off for another day and continued walking. We were definitely in the shady part of town for a while. Escort clubs, bars, a poster of a topless girl outside a doorway… But we were in this large pack of ten, so people avoided us. I wouldn’t recommend going out exploring alone.

We actually ran into another group of Americans earlier who were there on vacation. We stopped and talked a little because it was the first time we’d seen foreigners who weren’t attending our school.

Then we parted ways. We found an Apple store and went in, and it took me a second to realize what everyone was doing huddled around the iPod touches. They had wireless and they were emailing home. So I quickly logged on to do the same, and I sent my parents an email that I hope they’ve read. It should’ve gotten there around… 9am? I don’t remember what time it was we sent it. But, I did it just in case something happened and Eri hadn’t sent them a message telling them I made it. I mentioned also that I’d been to the beach, we were in Tenjin, and that internet should be around august 26th or so.

I really can’t think of or remember what else we spent our time doing. It was a ton of roaming, stopping, debating over if we really wanted to find a cheaper bar or just go home, and eventually going home won out and we headed off. We got back to the subway and piled on, making people nervous with the presence of our large, foreign group. I think the subway stops running at twelve, so that’s pretty important. We got there right at 11pm.

A word of advice: When traveling with a large group, always make sure everyone’s accounted for. At least twice we left someone behind, realized it, and raced back to find them again. When you’re separating from the group, tell at least two people before you go. That way if one of them wanders off too, you have another who can tell people where you’ve gone and to wait for you to get back. For instance, I slipped off to the bathroom briefly, in the very busy and very large arcade building, and told Christian specifically not to let anyone leave without me. We did end up losing one person there. We also left two people in the little place where we stopped and I had udon. One person was left in both places.

Anyway, got back to the dorm and a couple more people had arrived. I met Aki, who knew Brent and Teresa, two people who go to UNCG with me and studied at Seinan Gakuin last year. We spoke in our awkward broken English to Japanese that I’m so often found doing. Especially with Yuki, I have to rephrase to make sure she understands, but she’s fun and it’s fun. I was also formally introduced to Josh, who is from Texas, and Jeremy, who is from England and therefore has my most favorite accent ever. I had seen them before, but we finally exchanged names and shook hands and talked a little.

It is now 30 past midnight and I’m very tired. I couldn’t sleep last night because of the dirty futon freaking me out. I laid on top of the clean side and had my sweatshirt over my legs. It didn’t really work out. But now I have sheets and the futon under it as padding on the mattress. Since I already rented it for the first month and can’t turn it in yet, I figured I’d use it a little while longer instead of paying for nothing.

I’ll figure out how to set my alarm clock tomorrow. Oyasuminasai~