http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Basil-in-Japan/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Basil in Japan en-us Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:53:53 +0000 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:53:53 +0000 First of all sorry about the major lack of updates. I really am bad about keeping up with these things.Secondly... I FOUND MY BRAVE FENCER MUSASHI MANGA. After many months of searching... and an enormous amount of BookOffs... I found them. And I'm so happy now. Very very happy.Anyways today will mainly just consist of a bunch of random pictures from the many things I've done the last coupl http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-344873.html So I went to Tokyo this last weekend. Talk about an adventure Some of you probably already know that... my plan was to go to the Tokyo Game Show Color me excited It was certainly the experience. Extremely busy as in... SO MANY PEOPLE that you get in a crowd and you absolutely cannot MOVE and you're just getting pushed along with the mob. Crazy. But overall it was a ton of fun even thou http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/Akihabara/blog-335233.html Sorry about the lack of updates. The combination of my only being able to get online at school and all the stuff I've been doing making me extremely busy has made it a bit hard but I've finally gotten a good chunk of time where I can sit down and type an entry.Hmm... how far back do I need to go... Oh oh two weekends ago. Asuka trip. That's the last thing I haven't written about. So we ha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-331753.html So I've done quite a number of different things since my last entry from routine things to pretty amazing awesome things. I've experienced okonomiyaki which... I must say... is absolutely DELICIOUS. Everybody should have some okonomiyaki at some point in their life. Yum. Plus they cook it right in front of your table. Like well ON your table as it were.Let's see what else have I done. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-327262.html A collection of facts that I've learned in Japan so far1 English music is everywhere. Commercials. Playing from random stereos outside stores. And it can be in many forms too sometimes without words.2 English celebrities are everywhere. Cameron Diaz Scarlett Johanssen Tommy Lee Jones Orlando Bloom Kiera Knightley... tons...3 Just about everything you can buy you can find at a store http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Hyogo/Kobe/blog-325175.html So I had quite the exciting and full weekend for the most part. It was fun We didn't have school on Monday either which made it even better. It was Respect for the Age day or something like that. Not really sure. But anyway I will probably split it up into two entries because both days that I went and did something were quite longSo anyway Friday night... not a whole lot of new things http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Osaka/blog-324483.html Well it's been another few days. Not a whole lot of real new stuff going on. I'm actually starting to settle down into a good routine which feels pretty nice for a change ahaha. My walk to campus is quite pleasant my classes are all going well... I think they're going to be pretty fun and interesting. Plus it's Friday And it's a threeday weekend this weekend It's like... Respect for http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-322616.html So things are starting to get a lot easier overall here. I'm getting more accustomed to my schedule I'm getting used to my host family and their home I'm getting used to my classes... yes I can say that I'm really starting to get settled. Which is nice. Definitely. It's not very fun feeling like everything's coming at you at once and nothing is familiar let me tell you thatFood continues http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-321799.html Whew It's certainly been a lot weekend and now... Monday again. Back to class. All that jazz.It's also been quite the exciting weekend On Saturday we went to check our placement for Spoken Japanese and I got into Level 2 I'm so excited That made me quite happy. The rest of Saturday we didn't have much to do so explored around Hirakata Station for a bit and found the biggest book http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-321100.html Ahhh the last day of orientation. It's both extremely nice as well as nervewracking at the same time because that means it's almost time to move in with my host family Which I found out won't be until Sunday at 430. Ahaha wow... now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do until then But ah well it will give me some time to relax and make sure I have my bags all packed and read http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-320089.html Wow I can't believe that orientation week is almost over already It doesn't feel like it's been almost a whole week We had a number of more activities today... the biggest one being REGISTRATION I was a bit nervous going into it because I was afraid I wasn't going to get all the classes I wanted And considering that I really need the two art classes so I can transfer them back as major c http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-319685.html Today was officially the first day of orientation That meant that we actually had some more meetings and briefings and the like. It also made it feel more like school finally ahaha. Which is both good and bad I guess. It was nice because with more things to do it leaves you less time to just sit around and get bored plus it's something that feels very familiar so it's rather reassuring http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-319306.html Well today was certainly an actionfilled day Still waking up at 600 in the morning... though this morning I at least tried to go back to sleep for a while. Unfortuanately it didn't work too well. Ah well.Let's see... oh yeah Placement test That was this morning. It was a bit daunting. I felt a little better off about it than a lot of my friends since I've never actually taken a c http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-318954.html Whew well today certainly seemed like a long day Maybe that's just because I'm so tired right now. I'm getting quite the case of jetlag. I get tired and I mean tired starting after 800. And since it's 930 right now... I am beyond tired. So much that my arms start hurting ahaha. But the plus side of this is that I wake up in the morning at 645 wide awake I woke up once at 500 this http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-318561.html So today was the first full day of living in Japan. I must admit I was feeling a lot better today. Getting sleep makes a lot of difference in how you feel ahaha.Though I will say that it was a little weird. I woke up this morning like... wide awake. At first I thought both my other roommates were up but it was just Kennisha on her computer. But I got up got my glasses kinda stood the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-318218.html So the entire travel thing went surprisingly well. Not a single hitch really. None of my flights had delays I made it to them easily and on time... even checkin in Japan went great No complications or anything it was just a long line ahaha.So overall it's been a good day I would say. Though I am so flipping tired.Flying in over Japan was really cool coming down through the clouds and http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-317901.html