Baraki Nakayama

So tonight is my first night in my dorm and where I'll be living for the next 4 months or so. I have to go to bed soon so it's going to be a quick summary of my day, my apologies.

First thing this morning we had breakfast, comparable to yesterday, then we had to attend another ever so joyful orientation, this time on academic classes. I got into Pop Culture, Marketing Strategies, and the History of Tokyo, all the courses I wanted. Of course Japanese too. They all look fun and most have field study, which will be amazing to travel around. I feel like such a tourist, haha. Oh well.

After that I waited for a couple people to get out of a Field Placement Mandatory Meeting [if you have a field placement that is] and wandered around the gorgeous park that is outside the OVTA building. It was really peaceful and pleasant and made me really happy to stand in. It really feels like a different world, but the culture shock hasn't really affected me as much as people say it does. *shrugs* Anyway, I took pictures of some flowers, birds, and saw a bunch of very small children playing. It was rather cute. I wanted to take more pictures of them but I didn't want to be rude and / or creepy, so I just took one from a distance.

Oh, forgot to mention, I used a toilet that washes your rectum for the first time today. It was quite the experience, it's interesting because the seat is heated as well as the water, and it's just a different experience. It's a strange thing because I never really thought that it was a problem in the States, not having water spray your butt that is, so I'm not sure how I really feel about it, haha. It's definitely unique to say the least.

Now would be a good time to describe some of the friends I've made maybe. Perhaps the people I get along with the best are two girls who were alpabetically around me on the people chart, I was placed in their group during one of the orientiering meetings and it was with them that I ate both lunches with. They live in Baraki Nakayama too, just in the female dorm. This is surprisingly not as close as you'd think, it's a 10 minute walk the other way from the station, that just goes to show you how large even the small divisions of towns are. Anyway, they seem to be fun people to walk around with and I feel pretty comfortable around them. Also to be noted, the group of male Baraki Nakayama students I live with are very nice too, 5 other males of varying Japanese skill, I rank in the middle, 2 of them know nothing, and the other 3 have a good year or two on me. Anyway, they're all fun, and while some / most of them like going to bars they aren't the kind of typical "get drunk and do crazy shit" frat boys. I enjoy the people that want to go to Japan to witness the culture, and all 6 of us share a genuine liking to the culture. Other than the 2 girls and my building-mates, I've met a handful of other people, including a male that speaks fluent English and Romanian, people who haven't studied any Japanese, anime fans, and a slew of other people, all very nice.

Anyway, back to after the park. After the park I went to lunch with the 2 girls and we went to a... I actually don't know what the name or kind of restaurant it was. It was in the same mall food court. I got an egg-noodle-ketchup-mustard-cheese-and a little bit of beef thing, look at the Facebook album. It was really good actually. One of the girls, who is indian, got a vegetarian version of it and had vegetables instead of the noodles, although I honestly liked the noodle portion of it. The other person I was with got takoyaki, and it's so creepy when the fish flakes on top of it "move" because the steam is moving them, but you can't see the steam in the least. It looks alive and is honestly rather unnerving. The actual meat inside of the dumpling thing is octopus by the way. But they are delicious hot.

After that we hiked around with EPALs, volunteerish type people, around the city and went to the IES building and got a tour. Well, it's really just one building, the IES portion is on the 3rd floor. That was neat and I'm still going to get lost going there. I haven't been to my actual campus yet.

After that we split up into our groups of location where we live and group train-ed to the closest station to our dorm. That was a fun experience, and getting a Suica [train pass], is really neat. You pay a discounted price and get unlimited trips to and from [and anywhere in between] the stations of your choice. For 3 months the cost of traveling 40 minutes, half by walk, half by train, was about $250. Tickets would have costed $600+. Anyway, walking to the station for the first time was pretty intense, it's a rather long walk, but it was fun. We had all our carry on luggage though, which was okay for me, but other people were struggling with their pull along bags and whatnot. I had a backpack and a small shoulder carry on.

When we arrived at the final station, Baraki Nakayama, we split into our gender groups and it was at that point where I got to know the people I am living with. As I described above, they are nice people. One of them goes to my school at Rochester, I didn't know him up to this point though. We got a tour of the place by the manager, which speaks pretty much no English, but we had the IES Program Director to translate, although most of the stuff was self explanatory. It was funny, he stressed a lot not to burn yourself on the soup cooker, haha. We get a dinner cooked for us every day except Sundays, and the same for Breakfast. It's nice because it's free and also is a homecooked meal. Well, at least not prepared like a restaurant. There are about 85 students in the whole dorm place, I think maybe the 6 of us and 1 Brazilian kid lives there. And the rules are quite strict for the most part, as is everything over here more or less, and I don't know how extreme this seems to you, but they take visitors and outsiders very seriously. You can't have any member of the opposite gender in the building at all, and guests are not allowed to stay. Not that either of these are an issue with me, but it just goes to show some cultural differences.

Annnyyyway, after we got settled in we had a delicious meal of some spicy tofu with rice, spring roll type things, fruit, soup, and salad. It was really good and I can't complain with food like this being prepared for us. There is a sign up sheet for meals, you just specify whether you want the American or Japanese Breakfast, and then if you don't plan on being there, etc.

After that we went shopping for some things like toothpaste, shampoo, detergent, etc. I tried using my Visa but it didn't work, most likely because it's a Debit / Special Checking card, so I have to get money at the ATM, and not the one that only accepts Japanese cards like the one by me, haha. They have them though in main cities. Anywho, I went with my building and we all just went to the Y's Mart [kinda like a TOPS], the 100 Yen Store, and the 99 Yen Store. It was actually really fun.

So to wrap things up, I really enjoy it here. Like, a lot. I don't think I could handle living here for a couple reasons, first and foremost my girlfriend is worth more than anything to me in the entire world, and making her move to Japan isn't something I could do. Second, it really is pretty crazy here, and I'm not all that good at Japanese to figure out some of the craziness, and I'm not the best at learning. There are plenty of absolutely great things here though, including but not limited to: the air smells so fresh and nice in this part of the country, people are very very polite, you can leave your coat / purse on a table at a mall food court and no one with take it even if you leave it unattended, similarly when people lose their wallet on the street it almost always comes back to a police station, it's super colorful here, everything here is incredibly cute such as the children and all the advertisting, and lastly I just feel a deep connection and appreciation of the country.

There really aren't words for how great this experience is so far, it's only been 3 days and it's by far the most unique experience I've ever had.

Ja Mata!

PS, remember to check the last link in a few post ago to see the updated Photos. I'm constantly updating them.