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Greetings once again to everyone!

Well, honestly the past couple of days haven’t been very eventful. Then again, what may seem uneventful in Japan may sound really cool in the states, so why not tell you about the jist of my week?

Tuesday afternoon was spent doing nothing, except in the evening when Lauren and I decided to explore the department store in town next to city hall. Three floors of really cool stuff. The bottom floor had an entire grocery section, as well as cosmetics and shoes. The middle floor was mostly clothes, though it also had a kimono section. Very pricey, but very beautiful! Oh, and there was also a bookstore. I decided to buy the first three volumes of Hana Yori Dango (Boys Over Flowers). I figured maybe it would be a good chance to practice working on my reading skills. The third floor had a bunch of video games, kids’ clothes, and an arcade. Which I think is really clever. I’m surprised the states haven’t jumped on that bandwagon. Kids’ stuff next to an arcade? A good way to get a youngster (or his parents) to part even quicker with his money.

Anyways, after the department store, we both went home with our purchases (Lauren got some manga as well, but she’s hardcore enough that she can polish off a couple of volumes each night). I got to work on trying to translate the first volume, but I only made it through the first page and a half. In my defense, there’s quite a bit of kanji that’s not written out in furigana on the side. -Ask if this is confusing, I apologize. I’m actually writing out the translations on paper, so the going is even slower than it should be. I’m doing this more for my learning benefit, since I seem to absorb information better when I write it out myself. Even though the going’s slow, I hope to get fast enough where I don’t feel the need to write it out.

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Wednesday, we all went back to the university bright and early for a mandatory health check. I thought this was a little strange, since we had to have a health check before we came into Japan anyways… Silly people. Anyway, thankfully the only thing we had to do was fill out a form with our health info, have our blood pressure taken, and get an x-ray. And the longest part of all that was the form and waiting in line. The rest was a breeze. After that, Chris, Aimee, Lauren, and I were all pretty hungry, so we thought about leaving school and grabbing some lunch in Kokubunji before returning home. Then we realized that the results of our placement tests were posted, so we stayed to check them out.

The levels of the language classes run 1-4, 1 being the highest. I bet Lauren 100 yen that she’d be in level 2, at least. And I won ^_^. Free vending machine chocolate milk for me! Most of the American kids ended up in level 4 classes. Surprisingly, I tested into all level 3 classes. This threw me the most because both Chris and Aimee are 400-level students back at BSU, yet I tested into higher classes than both of them. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that I just took better GUESSES than they did. Which may hurt me in the long run; who knows? But Jodi said there’s a lot of switching around those first couple of weeks of classes, so both Chris and Aimee may inevitably end up in level 3 with me. We’ll see what happens.

After seeing our results and taking note of our language class schedules, we headed down to the cafeteria and just had lunch there. I just can’t stress how awesome and cheap the food is there. Makes me so very happy ^_^. That night, Haru and a bunch of the Japanese students rallied up most everyone and invited them to some all-you-can eat Korean barbeque. Little did I know that this would be the best all-you-can-eat experience of my life.

We went to a place called Gyu Kaku, which translated means Cow Angle. It’s right across from the gritty ramen shop that Lauren and I have been to. The Japanese kids ordered for us, and soon afterwards, huge metal bowls filled with charcoal and topped with grills were placed on our table. Then came big mugs of water and pitchers for refills. Then bowls of cabbage with smokey sauce all over them. Bowls of rice. THEN… Came a succession of plates of raw meat the likes of which I had never seen before. Marinated chunks of chicken, strips of bright red beef, squares of steak smothered in green onions… And we tossed them onto our grills and turned them over repeatedly with our chopsticks until they were cooked to perfection.

I’m surprised I didn’t end up hurting my insides. I hadn’t eaten much meat in the past two weeks, and all in one night I was making up for it by eating a month’s worth. And when we thought we were all done, they brought more. And when we were done with that… They brought out tiny bowls of ice cream. Also, the bathroom in the restaurant was awesome. Like something straight out of an earthy art studio. All in all, it was a 1,700 yen ordeal. Not bad for all-you-can-eat high quality meat, I’d say. It was a kickass way to celebrate our results on the placement test. After that, we were all so tired that we immediately hit the hay.

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The next day, all of our ISEP classes started (it’s the program most of the American kids are enrolled in here), and we were asked to just sit in on some classes to see which ones we liked… An unorthodox way of doing it, especially if you’re indecisive… Oh, the Japanese… *sigh* So. We headed down to the university, once more, to check out classes. We were told on our schedules that our Japanese language classes wouldn’t be starting until the 30th, so we were just supposed to check out our ISEP classes. I sat in on Education in Japan. It was boring, so I decided against it. After that, I had lunch and decided that, since the only other class I was able to take that didn’t conflict with my schedule was the theatre class (which I KNEW I was going to take regardless), I was just gonna go home. So Lauren and I had crepes in Kokubunji and went our separate ways. It was the first time I rode the trains back home by myself. To great success, I might add.

I was really tired from the night before, so I decided to have a nap. I slept a little too long, but that was okay. Nothing else was really going on. Lauren called me and had some frustrated news. One, there was a typo on our schedules, so our language classes actually started THAT day. So we had both missed classes. Two, the theatre class had been cancelled that day and no one was told in advance, so Lauren basically had walked around the school for 3 hours for nothing. I felt kinda bad for her, and justified about my decision to leave and nap. So when she got back, she went straight to her room for some R&R. I needed some food for the week, so I went grocery shopping. And that was basically the end of that day.

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Yesterday was really light. Lauren had class most of the day, so I hung out in my room for a lot of the afternoon. Aimee and Chris and I had plans to go to city hall to pick up our alien registration cards, but Aimee came up in the middle of the afternoon and said she forgot about coming to get me. Which was all right. She and Lauren and I went down together anyway. After that, Aimee said she wanted to check out the department store and see if they had any tabi (two-toed socks they wear with sandals). We decided to check out the kimono section for those. Once Lauren started asking the girl who was helping us some questions (she was about our age) in Japanese, a bunch of other Japanese ladies from the same section of the store came over and started talking to us. They asked where we came from and told us that the kimonos here were for marriage ceremonies (which was probably why some of them were about 1,600,000 yen) and coming-of-age ceremonies. They said that we had good Japanese (though Lauren was doing most of the talking so of course we did), and they asked how old we were. Lauren and I are both 20, which happens to be the year Japanese people come of age, so they were really excited to hear that. Then they said we were all really cute, to which we all covered our faces and blushed, which only made them say we were cuter. In the end, Aimee found her tabi, and we said thank you very much to all those nice ladies in the kimono section, then we were on our way. It was a really cool experience. And that was basically the end of the night.

Oh, except for the fact that I spent hours trying to solve THIS:

http://shingakunet.com/special/10054301/0285/index.html

Thank you, StumbleUpon... Jerk.

. . .

Today, my plans are to head out to Kawagoe with Chris, his wife Jen, Lauren, and Aimee for their annual matsuri (festival)! It’ll be my very first Japanese festival, so I’m quite excited. No worries; I will have tons of pictures.

The few pictures I have on here today were taken by Aimee, and I wanted to give everyone some idea about what Gyu Kaku looked like. My apologies that I did not bring my own camera. I have to get better about that.

-Oh oh! Also!-

I realized that I haven't formally posted my address yet. I'm thinkin' people may want it, maybe. So, here it is:

1-22-2 Hikawadai
Higashikurume-shi
Tokyo 203-0004 Japan
Room A-205

Anyways, until next time!

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