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Published: September 3rd 2008
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Cafeteria
This is the Kansai Gaidai cafeteria. It was really confusing at first, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. At least, as long as I always get curry rice or the meal of the day, I'm good, LOL. 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 in that regard. It's not as nice because obviously it means classes will start. Though, I am getting more and more excited about the classes I am going to take! That is, if I get into the classes I want... but I'll get to that later.
We started off the day with the Main Orientation Meeting for everyone in the program. We got to meet a lot of the Kansai Gaidai staff, and then one of the English professors went through some basic information that everyone needed to know and answered a few questions. From there, we had to go pay all of our fees (which left me 21,000 yen poorer, unfortunately... T_T) as well as get our registration lottery number! This is so that we know what
Cafeteria Other Side
The eating section of the cafeteria. I think there's actually another cafeteria upstairs that will open when the rest of the Kansai Gaidai students come to class, because otherwise, there would not be nearly enough room! time/place in line we are for registering for classes. It both sucks and is nice. It sucks because it's completely random what number you'll get. It's also nice because it's completely random what number you'll get. Hmmm... that didn't make much sense. But anyway, I went to draw a number, and I got 219. Which wasn't too bad, since it's out of 438, but it also wasn't great either. I'm worried that I might not get into some of the classes I want, especially the Sumi-E (brushpainting) class, since it has an even more limited number than the lecture classes. It's rather neccessary for me, however, since I want to transfer the studio credit back to UNI. The other two classes I want are the Survey of Japanese Art class and the Religions of Japan class. I don't know if I'm really worried about either of them, but obviously, I hope to get in! I'm actually more excited about the art class after going to the faculty introduction earlier today, because the professor is this really nice older man that reminds me of Grandpa Barnes (the substitute) from back home. Plus, we get to go on some field trips to
Delicious Donuts!
Casey got a do-natsu at the cafeteria yesterday, and it was pretty much the most intense donut ever!!! go see art around the area. The Religions of Japan class also looks like a lot of fun, especially since we'll get to go on field trips around to different shrines and temples!! So exciting!! I guess that if I don't get into that, I'll take the Shinto class, because I also really want to take that. In fact, if there's any of the classes that I don't end up getting into, I'll probably take that class to fill in the gap.
Anyways, after the lottery, we ate lunch (I'm beginning to get quite addicted to curry rice - it's so delicious!) and then we were off to some more meetings. I got my laptop back from the computer lab after they'd registered it. I haven't tried it again with my 105 yen ethernet cable that I got, but I haven't really had a chance yet. The two meeting we had then were the homestay meeting and the female/safety meetings. The homestay meeting was pretty cool because we got the bilingual checklist that we'll go through with our families during our first meeting. There are a number of things that I hope my family will allow, like the whole
Some Intense Coffee
Another rather intense snack - this is the chocolate chip mocha drink thing from Seattle's Best Coffee. It's so pretty!! Ahaha. 'shower in the morning thing' and stuff like that. It will just make things lots easier, but if not, then I'm sure I'll get used to it. Plus, it would be fun to use a traditional Japanese bath. But anyway, we got to ask questions from two students that were homestay last year, so I learned quite a bit from it. After that was the Female Orientation, where we basically learned to make sure and be alert and conscious of things that go on around you, as well as to try and always walk with someone else if you are walking at night. Also, we got some tips and such with dealing with periods and such, which I expected they would talk about.
When all the meetings were done, we went down to check out mailboxes, and it turned out tha we got an information sheet about the families that we'd been assigned to! We were all so excited!! My family seems really nice. My dad is a company worker (like most men in Japan, ahaha), and my mom is a housewife/English teacher. I believe that she just gives private English lessons at home, because it made it sound
Kappa-maki
At the sushi-go-round. It was rather mesmerizing just watching all the plates of sushi and other things go around. It was lots of fun! Plus, everything I got was quite delicious! like she only has one student, lol. But then, I also have two older sisters. Quite older, too. One is 24 and one is 29! It will be rather nice though, to have other girls in the house, so I won't feel quite so weird. They also own a dog, so I hope it is cute!
Oh, oh, oh, and... one of the best things about my family so far is that my commute to school will be just a 10-minute walk! Color me excited!!! I was really worried about having someone that lives quite a ways away and having to take a long train ride/bus ride to get to school every morning. But this is pretty much EXCELLENT! Some of my friends had families that listed a 50-minute commute by both train and bus, so I felt bad for them... but I'm still excited about my own. It will be quite nice to not have to wake up friggin' early just to get to campus! Thoug, I still don't know when my first class will be in the morning, since we don't know what sections of Spoken Japanese we'll be put in, or when exactly any of them are.
Many Plates
The plates just kept piling up as we took more stuff. So yeah, that was all pretty darn exciting. Though I'm still rather nervous about the whole thing, I'm excited as well!
Anyway, though, after that, we met up with Casey who was talking with her speaking partner, Natsuko. We all decided to go find a place to eat since we were hungry, so after walking around aimlessly for a bit and not finding anywhere to eat, Natsuko phoned a friend to ask about any good restuarants, and we ended up deciding to go to a sushi-go-round! YAY!! It was quite a haul away... I think it took us about 20 minutes or so to walk there, but it was totally worth it. The sushi was extremely delicious. There were quite a lot of very odd things going by on the conveyor belts though. Some that I was definitely *not* brave enough to try, including squid, octopus, natto beans and crushed fish eggs. Blech! But all the things that I did choose were quite delicious. I had some edamame (soy beans), and then I pretty much went with anything wrapped up in seaweed and rice, ahaha. Some cucumber sushi, some tuna sushi, some salmon sushi... oh!! And some corn
The whole restaurant
Ok, so not the *whole* restaurant, obviously, but this gives a better idea of what the restaurant looked like outside of our table. sushi!!! It was crazy!! It was basically corn and mayonaise on top, and then rice on the bottom and wrapped in seaweed. It was the weirdest thing ever, because it tasted sweet, kinda like cream corn, but then salty as well, since I dipped it in soy sauce. But it was quite good!
Plus, the restaurant itself was just adorable, because it had these little cartoon kappas all over the place, and even plushed ones that you could buy!! I wanted one so bad, but I decided that I probably shouldn't. Maybe if we come back later once I'm not trying to survive on the little money I have left, I will buy it. Because it is very adorable. And I love kappas. 😊
Well, that was pretty much the whole day. Tomorrow is the actual registration, so I hope that I get all my classes!!!
And as usual, I will post the pictures tomorrow, since I'm going to assume it will take a long time to upload them tonight (plus, my cable's all the way up in my room and I'm far too lazy to go and get it). It hink that will probably be how I'll do it at least for the next couple of days, until I figure out the whole internet situation with my family. It would be really nice to just have a connector in my room that I can hook my computer to, but who knows what it will be like.
Alright, well, I'm going to head off to bed soon, because I am quite tired!!
Oyasumi~!
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Luigi Mario
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"So, how many Marios are there between the two of you?" "There's four - Mario Mario, and Luigi Mario." BAHAA. As soon as I saw the header I was like SDSKFL! XD We never watched it though...*sad panda* ANYWAY - the lottery thing sounds pretty sweet. It's nice not to have favorism towards other older students, so you have the same chance as anyone! Lucky you! GRANDPA BARNES! I love that guy! Man, I wish he was still subbing! He was pretty much made of awesome. I bet Japanese Grandpa Barnes is just as awesome. Your family sounds pretty sweet! But I'm thinking your Japanese sisters will not be NEARLY as cool as me and Katy. Well...they might be cooler than Katy but certainly not me. ;D Just kidding! SUSHI-GO-ROUND?! Does that not remind you of Pokemon Stadium? Remember that sweet game with the Lichitungs? (Or whatever they're called...) That's definitely what I thought of when I read that. XD Haha. KAPPAS!!! That's it.