Catch Up

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Sorry everyone for not updating this yesterday! I was pretty busy and we had the whole day off. Anyways, on the 23rd I woke up at about 5:45 am and was getting ready for the morning when all the sudden everything started moving. It was an extremely weird sensation and confused I thought it was turbulence. Then, I remembered that I was in a building and not a plane anymore. My roommate Erik woke up and calmly asked, "Is this an earthquake?" I replied just as calmly, "I think so..." It didn't last very long and afterwards everything was just kind of creaking. I got some breakfast with Erik and we got ready to depart.
We left the Marroad hotel and got on the Tokyo highway and headed towards the city. The drive actually took a fair amount of time but there were lots of interesting sights. I probably was supposed to be listening to the orientation thing more but, c'mon, this is JAPAN! Besides, I got the most of it and listened to the most important parts.
Once we arrived at Sophia University we all piled out of the bus and into smaller groups (which are used to keep track of us) and walked around where we'll be studying and ate a small lunch there. Being a foreigner here is rather intimidating. You get lots of looks and can tell that people are talking about you, looking at you with disgust, or simply laughing about you for one reason or another. Oh well.
After we finished the tour in the excruciating heat we went to one of the classrooms to have some MORE orientation and got our SUICA. Suica is a card here that has your commuting pass on it. However, you can also add money to it at the JR (JapaneseRail) station to travel to additional destinations (our travel is covered from Kichijoji (hotel) to Yotsuya (campus) and all the stops in between). You can also use the money on certain vending machines. Anyways, once we had gotten our Suica we headed off and road the trains for the first time.
Train stations here are what I would have to call organized chaos. At any given moment there is no less than about 2,000 people in a train station and everyone is walking quickly in all different directions. There really isn't time (or space) to stop and look for directions, see which train is going where, etc. Luckily our first ride on the train was rather empty and took us quickly to Kichijoji.
From here it was a short walk to the hotel and we got to see our rooms for the first time. Fairly small, about dorm sized, but not too bad. The hotel staff is very friendly and always willing to try and help even if they don't understand much English.
We were now free to do what we wished. A small group of us (Erik, Lindsay, Tyler, Mark) went out and walked around Kichijoji and visited local shops and restaurants. There are a lot of people trying to hand you stuff in crowded areas and pretty much always someone yelling/singing in Japanese trying to get you to come into their shop (generally high school aged girls). We all got dinner at a small restaurant in basically what I would call a covered pedestrian street lined with shops. It was pretty delicious and I'd have to say they were the best potstickers I have ever had. We didn't do much else that night other than wander around. I did buy a Nintendo DSi and basically taught myself katakana (the Japanese alphabet for foreign words) that night because I was quickly realizing how vital it was to understanding things that were going on. I went to bed at about 10:30 and slept pretty well.

The next morning (7/24) went down, got some breakfast with Alyssa, Lindsay, Erik, Tyler, Mark, and Anna we planned out our busy day and after breakfast met up in the lobby to head out. First we went so Asagaya because Tyler and Mark wanted to check out Namco Land which was closed so we got back onto the train and headed to Harajuku to go to an English speaking SoftBank (cell phone provider). Lindsay and I both got prepaid phones so we could communicate via text and see what time it was. The process was rather simple and wasn't too expensive. If anyone is curious my number is 080-4003-0387 (you can choose your own number, so, it's not like a freaky coincidence that the last four are the same as my American phone number). We got back on the train and headed all the way to Akihabara, our primary destination.
Once we arrived we knew that this town was going to be neat. We spotted the Gundam Cafe (which was crowded) and went up to the Tokyo Anime Center (which is surprisingly small). We walked down to street level and found a Lenovo convention and were granted free entrance and noticed that they were giving out Ramune (it's a type of soda here before you ask). We carefully watched how others were getting these and found out we needed to fill out a form and get a raffle ticket. Since none of us spoke a good amount of Japanese, we basically filled out the form randomly (oh, sorry Panda, I used your email lol) and got our raffle tickets and Ramune. We went over to the main street and that's where all the fun began.
If you are a geek, then you NEED to go to Akihabara at some point in your life. Anime, games, electronics, girls in maid outfits handing out stuff, arcades, random charms, and everything else an otaku craves. Some shops are barely big enough for people to walk in because there is so much stuff crammed into them. Talk about overloading your sense. Sounds, smells, and lights from every direction and none of it understandable to a foreigner. One thing to watch out for though if you're easily offended would be the fact that hentai and other adult entertainment products are pretty commonplace here and there really isn't much shame in it. You won't think you walked into THAT kind of store until all the sudden it's surrounding you or your walked up the next flight of stairs to be greated by Tenga Cups, "Panty balls", and other...interesting products. If you have a sense of humor about it though it can be rather funny.
Tyler and Mark decided to play some games in the arcade while the rest of us started heading back to the train. However, I just hadn't had enough, so I got Erik to stay behind with me as we walked around more. I got LovePlus+ for my DS and tried to get and Japanese to English translation tool for it too but no one could understand what we were asking for.
We walked around until about 4 or so and made our way back to Kichijoji, took a quick break, then headed out to explore more of the town we were staying in. Erik and I explored a beautiful park, almost got ran over by like 400 bicycles, and followed the exercising squirrel (long story). We somehow managed to run into Tyler, Mark, and Darcy and they recommended a place for us to eat dinner at. We instead went across the street to this DELICIOUS curry place and had a quick bite there. From here we walked back to the hotel, met up with those three again and headed towards Shinjuku on the JR. They wanted to go clubbing in Shibuya but we decided that wasn't quite our scene so we got off at Shinjuku which is basically a huge junction and explored that town.
Holy crap, talk about a huge part of Tokyo. I have never seen more people in a smaller amount of space, all moving, talking, each with their own set destination or plans and no one really interfering with anyone else. Truly organized chaos. I was able to find the translation tool for my DS and used it to help Erik get some sunscreen. We tried to find me an ATM but had some problems. 7-11 didn't work, ones on the street didn't work...finally one in the JR station allowed me to take out 10,000 YEN so, I'm good, just going to have to remember that. We came back and settled in for the night.

Note: I've been having some problems with Picasa uploading my pictures.

You can find pictures from 7/23 here
and 7/24 here

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