Today we had orientation on our goals for Japan, and they tried to tell us to be realistic, and our expectations out of Japan and how to adapt to the cultural differences, and we discussed what we had noticed thus far. We paired up in our groups and got to share stories and discuss on this.
After this, everyone went downstairs to buy their cellphones, the most basic phone Softbank (the smallest major cellphone company in Japan with Docomo and AU KDDI being the popular ones) had to offer.
Everyone is glad to have their new keitai (cellphones)
I had told my family I wanted to get an iPhone while I was over here because they are super cheap (they are also from Softbank so I can talk to my friends cheap). I have to wait though to get my Alien Registration Card and my Student ID before purchasing it though, so my family gave me an old J-Phone/Vodaphone (what Soft used to be), that belonged to Roberto when he first came, for me to use in the mean time.
(I'll post a pic of that cellphone soon)
My group members Kathryn and Zack in the middle and our adopted group members on the sides Jim and Gina.
After that we went out around Yotsuya in search of lunch. We finally settled on a noddle shop and they had awesome tempura, sooo good.
Go where the Japanese go! Just look at them, they know it's good!
After eating we caught a train out to Harajuku and browsed around.We saw some really weird stores and some bad Engrish like "Hide with Spread Beavers" (Which is a band formed by Hide after X Japan split apart). I also found a Ronald McDonald shirt having him say in Japanese, "Japanese people eat rice." Found even weirder stores like Go To and Condomania. We went into a masqerade costume shop and it was crazy.
(Pic of the main street of Harajuku to come next time I go)
The building here can get weird
We also found the best dessert snack ever, crepes filled with everything from ice cream to cheesecake, even chocolate chocolate creme cake. Everyone in the group loves them and we can't understand why we don't have these in the US.
We found a restaurant bar at one point and they had something called Hoppi Set, which is beer and sake together (later I found out the beer, Hoppi, had like no alcohol in it, it almost wasn't beer). We tried them and we liked it.
We eventually started heading back around Harajuku.
Views from the Bridge near Harajuku Eki
We eventually got back to the train station and that's where another adventure happened for me. As lucky as I was in the morning, it did not follow me today. I made it to Shinjuku fine, and same with Shinyurigaoka but that's where I ran into a problem. See, from Shinyurigaoka, the trains split into 3 lines. I now no my stop Satsukidai is the first stop on the Tama Line on the Local train, but I got on the Local train headed for Odawa, and didn't realize till I was a half-hour away from Shinyurigaoka. I finally studied the train map and found my mistake, so I got off, hopped on an express train back to Shinyurigaoka, and got on my correct train.
The trains can get complicated!
If you think it ended there, think again. Satsukidai has two exits, mine is the South, but I exited the North not knowing their was a second one (only thinking this later), and had no clue where I was. After wandering around I decided to go back to the eki (train station), and I found the second exit, and it was more familiar, so I finally got home. My host family knew I got lost but that was ok. I know my trains spot on now. We ate dinner, and I went to bed after a shower and some TV.
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