Honeymoon Period

     Hey everyone! It's been two weeks since my last post because I've been so busy! I have a lot to catch you up on so let's just jump right in shall we?

     The day after my last post we had orientation at campus and then headed to a Life Safety Learning Center in Ikebukuro, Japan. As a group we took classes on dealing with earthquakes and fires in Japan. I led a team in one demonstration where I led a group through a fake burning building. Our time was the fastest and we were the only group that had zero casualties so that's always good news. We learned how to dial the police and fire departments on phones which is a different number than the U.S. and we learned how to operate fire extinguishers. The center also showed us the devastating effects of the last big Japanese earthquake and tsunami. It was crazy all of the damage we saw on video footage and it definitely made us all aware of the potential dangers of being in Japan. We all left the center feeling pretty scared about impending earthquakes but we rallied to get a group together to explore the surrounding area and check out some nightlife and eat at a restaurant.

     The next day, we had some more orientation (which was getting reeeeeaallly old) and got our School IDs and discussed the rules of the campus and stuff. It was pretty straightforward and boring but the information was definitely necessary. Everyone went home immediately and started studying because the Japanese Placement Test was the next day. The test determines what Japanese class you will take at Sophia University. After a night of brushing up on Japanese grammar and Kanji (the picture characters that mean words in Japanese), I felt mildly confident going into the exam. All the dorm kids went to the test together and we all left feeling pretty miserable. The test was seriously the hardest test I'd ever taken. It is designed to start easy and then get progressively more difficult and you just do as much as you can. I did well in the grammar and essay sections, but the kanji section was downright impossible. Even the near-native speakers couldn't get much farther than the "beginner" section. The test was really hard and we all felt mad about it, but we immediately had to go to a welcome party for international students.

     The party was extremely crowded and had a bunch of international students and Japanese students. Some of the faculty and clubs were there to tell us about Sophia and we met a bunch of people and chatted. A lot of us were pretty burned out by the test so we cut out early and headed to an Irish Pub down the street of the school. We mostly hung out there that night to kind of let off some steam from the test.

     The following day we had another orientation on campus and then I got a group of friends together to go do Ohanami (お花見). Ohanami is where people in Japan go out to parks and other places and look at the Sakura blooming and eat and drink and sometimes sing. It's a national celebration in Japan when the Sakura bloom for two weeks a year and this is how people celebrate. We went to a park that was having a special festival to look at the flowers and walk around. Here are some of the best pictures of Sakura from that park:

At the festival, we walked around and sampled some of the local cuisine! I had some Takoyaki, which is fried balls of octopus and dough:

I also ate some grilled corn on a stick: (The guy who made it was just casually smoking the whole time)

 For the final course, I ate a grilled fish on a stick! You have to eat the bones, tail, and even the head!

     After the Ohanami, we checked out some of the nightlife around our dorm city Matsudo-shi.

     The next day after another orientation on campus, we went to another park for more Ohanami because you can never see too many flowers am I right? We tried to rent some boats to row on this river while we viewed the flowers but the line was way too long so we headed to a regular park. After the park closed, we decided to explore Shinjuku which is supposed to be a very cool place for nightlife. We barhopped to a few different places during happy hour and then we ended up at a Japanese pizza restaurant for food and drinks. The pizzas were really different so we shared a bunch of different types. There was a classic one with pepperoni, bacon, peppers, and onions that was really good. Another type had ham and eggs on it. One of them had seaweed and fish on it also. The best one was actually a pizza with gorgonzola and maple syrup! I know it sounds really weird, but it tasted amazing! After dinner we headed deeper into the city to check out a few more bars. We talked with some local Japanese people at the bars and everyone was extremely friendly. The drinking age in Japan is 20, so a lot of the people around were about our age. 

     The next day a group of my friends decided to do a little exploring around our city of Matsudo. We walked around for a few hours and learned the specs of our new home. We somehow ended up at a random Japanese university that was really beautiful and we just kind of enjoyed the nature that day. My personal highlight was meeting a super cute Japanese puppy:

    The next day was Sunday and we all decided to kind of relax because we had been so busy. We got some friends together and watched a movie and I made a trip to the grocery store. The grocery store is a very interesting experience because it is so different. First of all, I didn't recognize 75% of the stuff in the store! I also couldn't read many of the words describing what the foods were. I kept it pretty easy and bought some chicken, eggs, soy sauce, rice, bananas, wasabi peas, and soda. AKA: the essentials. That night I went out for a sweet curry dinner with one of my best buds from USC who's also here with me, Corey. We got Tonkatsu Curry Rice, which is deep fried pork cutlets mixed with rice and curry and some other meat that I didn't know! It was とても美味しかったよ！(Very Delicious)

       On Monday, I had to go register with the city of Matsudo so I wouldn't get deported! You have two weeks after you enter the country to go register and our time was running out. Registration was a pain but afterwards I got a nice Japanese ID Card that says I'm legally allowed to be here which is cool. 

At this point, I was feeling pretty sick. I was coughing and had some serious congestion. I guess I caught a bad cold. I decided to spend most of my Monday resting and sleeping and I took a trip to a Japanese medicine store called a Kusuriya. I had to ask for help in Japanese and was able to explain my symptoms and get the proper medicine. That night I watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones with a few friends and crashed early. 

     Tuesday was a really fun day. We started with another round of orientation of course. Orientation got fairly useless after the first few days but it's mandatory so you have to go. Most of the days we play games that are metaphors for dealing with problems abroad but it's all pretty annoying and obvious. The leaders of the program are great though so I don't complain (out loud). I think that day we played a card game where everyone got different rules which caused conflict. This was to demonstrate that you may meet people with different cultural expectations and rules than you are familiar with. A valuable lesson I'm sure, but two hours of card games got pretty monotonous. After we were allowed to leave, I went to an aquarium with a few friends. That was so much fun! We had to decipher a lot of Japanese to know what we were looking at, but we saw some really cool aquatic life which is always a good time. 

Some neon Jellyfish

You've heard of Grumpy Cat? How about Grumpy Fish?

My new best Penguin bud and me! I named him Mr. Tuxedo

The next day was a surprise trip. Our program told us to meet at Kamakura at 10:30 am for a surprise. The train ride took about two hours but we were not disappointed when we got there. We got into groups and headed to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shinto Shrine. It also includes a Buddhist temple! To enter, you have to walk through a famous gateway called a Tori. Then you must purify yourself with a special cleaning ritual of washing hands and face. We walked around the shrine and temple and learned about its rich history. Here are some pictures: 

Tori Gates with accompanying guard statue

Nice view on the grounds of the Shrine

Our awesome tour guide!

Purifying Process

Large barrels of Sake (Japanese Rice Wine)

The main part of the Shrine

Shrine 

View of Kamakura from the top of the Shrine

I paid to get my fortune!

I had to shake a box for the fortune to come out

Here's my fortune! Of course it's a good one! 

When we left that Shrine, we got lunch at a great restaurant in Kamakura before heading to see a world-famous Buddhist Statue! It's called the Kamakura Daibutsu and it is one of a few large Buddha statues around Japan. It was made in the year 1252 and it is about 44 feet tall. We also got to check out the inside of it! 

View from the inside

My group for lots of activities and some of my best friends here!

From the left: Sharon, Chen, Izzy, Jon, Me, and Zach

(That big guy in the back is totally photo-bombing our picture)

       We left the Daibutsu and headed to another Buddhist temple called the Hasedera. It was beautiful and was a great way to finish up our day of culture! Here are pictures of that as well: 

Twins?

      We finished everything around midday so we decided to get a group of friends and check out more of the nightlife in Shinjuku. We ended up going to a bunch of different places but the coolest one was called a Nomihodai. It's a favorite nightlife activity for many Japanese people. You pay a flat rate and hang out in one place for two hours and you can drink as much as you want of anything. It was a lot of fun and we made some new Japanese friends there! 

     The next day I put my class schedule together. I got placed in to Japanese M2 which is about where I should be I think. That corresponds with where I was studying at USC. I am also taking: Management in Japan, Controversies in Globalization, and Advertising. Should be a fun semester of classes! 

    Friday was our last day of orientation (Thank Goodness!) and after we checked out a club fair on campus. I was most interested in a basketball club that looked really fun that I had learned about a few days before. They were having a practice/tryout in the afternoon so I went to it with a couple friends. It was a lot of fun but pretty confusing. All of the directions were in Japanese so it was difficult to follow for sure! Luckily basketball is the same in any language and I'm not too bad at speaking that particular language. There were about 40 guys and 20 girls but they said that usually it thins out to about half that by next week. We ran a bunch of drills and then separated in to teams to play a couple of games that lasted about 8 minutes each. I played for about 12 minutes total and scored 9 points with a few lay ups and a three pointer in the corner that got a nice roar from the crowd. I had a lot of fun and made a few Japanese friends and I think I will definitely keep going to that club over this semester! I am also looking at a billiards club right now and will let you know how that goes! 

     The weekend was a lot of fun! I hung out with a lot of my friends in the dorm and we got some hot sake to try for the first time which was a cool experience. One night, a few friends and I went to a dance club/bar type place and it was crazy. We were treated like celebrities because we were foreigners! It was really funny and quite an experience! People were all trying to talk to us and give us drinks and stuff but we declined because they were strangers. We had a really fun time and led the singing of all of the American songs. 

    I am so far loving Japan and all it has to offer! I am told often that studying abroad has a honeymoon period followed by a period of some frustrations and annoyances but I haven't hit that yet. Other than having some trouble ordering food at restaurants, I am having little trouble living in Tokyo, Japan. Hopefully the honeymoon period lasts awhile but who knows?! I start classes tomorrow which will likely add some stress to life but I am excited to start back anyways. I will post again soon detailing my dorm and basic Japanese home life! I will also keep you guys up to date with what I'm up to and how clubs and classes are going! I miss you all and I am glad we can stay in touch with today's technology!

Sayoonara for now! 

-A.J.