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Published: February 4th 2008
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on the train
leilani, anton, me, and roslyn on the train! konnichiwa!
i'm done with my first day of classes! it was an easy first day. i only had my spoken japanese and reading &writing japanese classes. my professors seem really nice and i think i got placed into the right level for me, so hopefully they won't be too difficult! then tomorrow i get to go to my lecture classes. i'm taking intro to japanese history and this other class called peace, development, and democratization: the asia challenge. i'm really excited about this one cause we get to go on field trips to hiroshima and visit the osaka peace museum. i heard it's a really good class and that the professor is really good. i also heard that about my other professor. but it must be true cause all the professors here seem really good. i already feel like i know some of them just through the orientation stuff we did, even if i haven't had any classes with them. they are very approachable and friendly...maybe even more so than at MC!!!
but anyway, i want to tell you all about my shopping trip to osaka that i took on friday! i went with a few of my
train
riding the train to kyobashi...this one wasn't too crowded friends, so first let me tell you about them!
Leilani is probably my closest friend here. she's from canada. we were on the same plane to japan but didn't realize it until we got to the airport! she lives in a different seminar house, but we manage to make it to work! oh and she loves shopping, just like me, so we get along really well! lol.
Then there's Bas and Anton, our european friends lol. Bas (you say it just like "boss," how cool is that?) is from holland and really stands out here cause he's really tall and has blonder hair lol. Anton is from sweden and is kinda quiet, but he speaks japanese the best out of all of us, so he usually ends up being our translator when we get lost!
Roslyn also came with us, but you already know her from the plane ride over here!
but getting back to the shopping trip...
we took the train from hirakata station to kyobashi. it was all our first time riding the train so we were confused about getting the tickets and didn't know where to go. but after anton had to
coms garden
after getting off the train in kyobashi we went through this neat little area to get to the subway ask at least 5 people, we made it on the right train...except we got on the one that stops at EVERY SINGLE STATION. so it took us forever to get to kyobashi...lesson learned: next time take the express train. then at kyobashi we take the subway to shinsaibashi (of course we got lost again, but that's pretty much a given for any trip i go on). it was my first time being on a subway and it was sooo cool!
so we finally get off at shisaibashi, come out of the subway, and guess what the first building i see is???...LOUIS VUITTON!!! but we didn't go in cause there's really no point. but it was still cool! instead we go to one of the little shopping strips with tons of open stores. there were so many things i wanted to buy! and they weren't that expensive either. it's the end of winter so they had huge sales that were like 50-70% off! needless to say, i was in HEAVEN!
well after a few shops we decide to eat dinner. all the restaurants here have little displays outside showing artificial models of the food they serve. so i see
a pizza and of course i want it! so we go in and realize it's an italian restaurant. we were kinda disappointed cause we wanted to eat out at a real japanese place, but we decided to stay anyway. the food was really good though so it was worth it!
after dinner me and leilani are ready for more shopping! but the guys aren't too thrilled so they tell us to meet them at the entrance at 8. so we shop and shop and shop...i got a cute jacket for only 1400 yen (about $14) and a cute white peacoat for only 3900 yen! but there were a million other things i wanted to get if only i had more money! well we were having so much fun that we lost track of time, so it wasn't until 8:15 that we got to the entrance. we waited until 8:30 but couldn't find bas or anton anywhere, so we decide to go to the other half and keep shopping! we finally decide to leave at around 9:15. we go back to the subway and make it back to hirakata station at around 10:15. we then have to wait outside in
subway
here comes the subway! it was my first time riding on one the freezing cold for about 10 mins until the bus got there. we get back to seminar house 4 where we left our bikes and ride really fast back to our seminar house cause the gates close at 11! we make it back barely in time and then i went sleep cause i was so tired from all the walking we did that day! plus we rode our bikes around hirakata city before that, at least 5 miles cause we got lost...ok maybe not that much.
so that was my shopping trip to osaka! me and leilani are planning to go again this friday. there's a whole other area in the city for shopping that we haven't been to yet...i can't wait!
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