The Trip(s) of 3/22!

Higashiyama Zoo

Epic Lion vs. Zebra Scene

     The morning of March 22nd it was determined that a trip to the nearest zoo must occur. So, a small party of us gathered to the idea. Attending the trip were the following individuals: Rebecca, Amanda, Baptiste, and myself. We were a small party, but that only meant less people to tend to! So, all is well. We took a bus and a subway train to get to Higashiyama Koen, where we only had to pay 500 円 (each) to get into the zoo. I don't recall exactly what the prices are to get into the Zoo in San Antonio, but I certainly don't remember them being that cheap. Granted, I was not of the age to actually pay attention to money the last time I went to the San Antonio Zoo.

SNOW LEOPARD!!

     Moving on... We all spent a great amount of time taking pictures of the animals we came across. The first thing we did was go in some exhibit where they had examples of animal skeletons and a surprisingly life like set up of lions attacking a zebra. The lighting in combination with the skill put into building the stuffed animals truly made it stand out. The animals that we saw following this exhibit included rhinos, lions, tigers, bears (yes, it was in that order too), giraffes, ostriches, koalas!, and polar bears. We even stuck around to watch the feeding of the sea lions, which I admit was not anything new to me, but was still pretty fun to watch. They had several penguins (nothing like the stock they have at SeaWorld), many small cats I don't remember the names of, and my most favorite animal of all... which before this day I had never seen in person. The Snow Leopard. ^-^ !!

Tapir going wild and running in circles.

     While most of the animals we got to see were the sort I'm used to seeing at zoos, there were plenty I don't believe I have ever seen in my life before. Plus, most of them were pacing around (or in the Tapir's case, running around). I'm more accustomed to staring into cages full of animals sitting perfectly still. Seeing active animals for a change was exciting.

Polar Bear rubbing his head against the bars

     I took so many pictures that my 1 Gig memory card filled up and I had to borrow Amanda's! They had several koalas, which were all napping when we got there. Oh, and the gift shops were filled with so many cute souvenirs. My favorite, which I regret not purchasing, is a cute bunny dressed in a koala costume. It may sound strange, but believe me it was adorable!

Iwasaki Castle

Even more beautiful with the naked eye.

     Later that very evening, the four of us (and eleven other I-House residents) decided to go on a night excursion to Iwasaki Castle. It is roughly a 20 minute walk away from home and it is quite a hike uphill! Even with fifteen 'gaijin' wandering around making all the noise in the world, it was so serene. The cold could not even dampen the beauty of the castle at night. Several of us took several photos of the castle itself, then we spent what felt like forever trying to take pictures of our group.

Playing an interesting instrument with water...

     Afterwards, instead of going straight home we decided to walk up to the nearest temple. Getting there was even more of a walk uphill. It is the perfect place to get decent exercise and see something beautiful, for sure. Alas, making this trek in the dark, even with a vast amount of people walking around you, is pretty creepy. To get there, you have to walk past many graveyards. Although, as creepy as it might be walking past so many graves in the dark, it was also somehow beautiful. It was calm and peaceful. It was my company mentioning scary movies that made it creepy!

Post Arrival and Daily Activities

My room as viewed from the entrance.

3/13 I was greeted into I-House with a group full of smiling faces. It was actually rather intimidating at first. First person who spoke to me spoke in Japanese, which I did not actually understand. This only made me more nervous. Despite my worries, everyone was super friendly and introduced themselves to me before helping me take my things upstairs to my room. They plugged my fridge in for me, showed me how to use the remote to the AC, and then went back downstairs to leave me alone to unpack. It's difficult for me to admit, but the first thing I did when that door shut was cry. It's hard to think that I'm going to be away from everything I knew and was comfortable with back home for five months. I already miss my family so much that it's eating away at my conscience. It still bothers me a little, but I've accepted it. I will always miss them.

I unpacked half way before I got tired of being in my room all by myself. I desperately needed company to take my mind away from the fact that I felt so alone. Again, I was greeted with happy people. I ended up standing in the Genkan talking to random people by using name-learning as a conversation starter. Not long after I arrived, there were apparently plans to go to a restaurant called Hamazushi which I was not invited to. I was told, “You’re going!” I was starving at the time and did not know what to do about food, so I was more than happy to oblige to this demand. Hamazushi is a sushi restaurant, as you could have guessed, that has decent sushi for roughly 60 cents apiece. It is one of the famous conveyer belt sushi restaurants that I find hard to resist. Since arriving, I have gone every other day. 

Moving on, after Hamazushi some of the older residents (in a matter of speaking) took us newbies to the grocery store to get supplies for our kitchens and to show us how things work. The grocery stores have these adorable basket carts, nothing like the large ones at home, which are super easy to navigate through the narrow aisles. I have only been here a week and I have gone grocery shopping about five times. Every time I go back with friends I end up finding something I want or had previously forgotten. For instance, today the girls wanted to go and I intended not to buy anything. Then, I remembered I wanted to get canola oil... One thing lead me to the next which resulted in $20 of food I wasn't previously aware I 'needed.'

My Stocked Cabinet

3/14 The next day after I arrived, more new students showed up and we all gathered for a trip to the Hyaku En (or, 100 yen store) where we could buy our dishes and what nots that we may need in our dorm rooms. I bought so much my shoulders were sore when I finally got back to my room, and I even had help! Masashi and Shota walked with me and helped me back to I-House before also going to the super market and house center to help me find a few things. I bought a pillow and towels. I had previously not been aware that towels would be one of those things one needs to bring in dorm life. As for the pillow, well the one is provided is so ungodly uncomfortable that my neck was screaming bloody murder after the first night.

Back at the dorm, I made fast friends with a couple of girls that are almost from the same time zone as I am: Rebecca and Amanda. Over time our group has grown, but we've mostly stuck to a general MO. We're the group of American girls that live in the corner together (the exception being Dick Jones).

3/15 Besides being my brother's birthday, the 15th was the day of our first orientation. It was not quite as boring as I expected it to be, but it was still pretty dull. We just went from paper to paper signing our names as tiny as possible in little boxes meant for stamps. There wasn't a single paper that I could actually read the Japanese in. We could have been signing away our souls and would not even know it. The greatest thing about this orientation, though, was that we finally got our log in information for the internet. YAY internet! Granted, I still spent a few days not having anything but skype, because not a single website would ever load.

Ebiten = My # 1

We went on a tour of the campus, ate in the school cafeteria, then finally returned to our dorms to wonder what we should do next. Some of the proxy people had apparently wanted to do Hamazushi at 7, but I-House had a meeting at 8, so those of us that had said we'd go did not go with them. Instead, James, Stephan and I played Uno for about an hour or two to kill time until our meeting. Following the meeting some of us went to Hamazushi anyway. I am addicted to the Ebiten roll (the fried shrimp).

3/16 Oh, the joys of alien registration. We went to city hall to complete our alien registration, where we had to sit through a long reading of a bunch of pamphlets we were being given. I was drowsy and hungry all throughout the experience. Afterwards, I spend a great amount of time in my room. Jessica had said something about proxy being my problem with the internet, so I rushed to skype to talk to my step father and mother to get help on fixing it. They're computer genius would save me, I just knew it. And, it did! Finally, I had internet! I played hermit for a good portion of that day simply out of pure excitement to have connection!

Sakae Shopping

3/17 Finally Saturday. Finally the day of the Nagoya City Tour! The sky decided to spite us and our fancy cameras with rain. Granted, the rainy haze did contribute to a great number of pretty photos, but it might have been even better with sunlight. Our first stop on the tour was to Bic, the electronics store. I resisted purchasing electronics, but I did throw money down for a small case for my camera. Having to carry it was just so exhausting. Then, we went to the shops in Sakae station and wandered until finally eating at a small cafe called Café de Crié. I had the カニトマトクリムソース (crab tomato cream sauce served over pasta). Best.Meal.I've.Had.Since.Arriving. It was so good, I spooned out the remaining sauce after finishing my pasta. Who cares if I was full half a bowl ago?

Me, Aki, Hannah, Baptiste, Jessica, Jeshua, and Haruna

     Finally, we went to Nagoya castle. A highly photogenic place with beautiful trees and bushes. I took many pictures and could not resist the souvenir shops. I even caved for this green tea flavored soft serve ice cream. By the end of the trip, my legs were killing me! I had done so much walking that day and the days before it that moving was becoming difficult. To end the night, some of us detoured to Hamazushi before going back to the dorms. I finally tried the salmon that Rebecca raves about, but naturally couldn't resist the ebiten I'm in love with. 

3/18 For the third time, I went to the hyaku en with friends to get the things that we had forgotten before. Afterwards, we went to try out the McDonalds that was right across the street. We tried the 'Beverly Hills Burger', also called a 'Big American Burger'. It was interesting, to say the least. The first half was delicious, but then half way through it began to taste disgusting. It was one of those 'good in small portions' types of foods. Really small portions. After getting back to the dorms and hanging out for a while, we made plans to go out on a mission to get cell phones, not realizing at the time we still needed a major document that we did not have. Alas, the trip was not to be wasted. We all went to the famed Book Off, where I could not resist buying six manga and a couple of clothes (yes, they have clothes). Afterwards, we headed out in search of the Pokemon center. Before getting there, in fact we had only gotten a block away, we realized we were missing someone out of our party. Our group split in two, one staying behind while the other went and frantically looked for our missing group-mate. We searched in vain. He was gone! After a while, there really wasn't anything more we could do beside hope he found his way home without snags on his own. Much to our relief, when we got to the bus station there was that memorable blue jacket. Stephan (the M.I.A.) had found his way to the bus stop before we did. After all this excitement, most of that same group sat in the kitchen and watched silly videos on youtube. It was a blasty blast.

You are now caught up. :]

Long Awaited...

     Alright. I realize it has been a long time since I last posted and much has happened. Too much to talk about, really. I have several reasons why I did not post sooner, which I will soon explain. Although, to make a long story short, in case you don't have the time or don't want to read the following paragraphs: I'm in Japan. Everything's great.

Hard Rock Cafe Roppongi Tokyo

     Now, I believe the last time I posted was before I knew whether or not I was actually accepted. Well, surprise! I was accepted into Nagoya University of Foreign Studies. I spent months worried about paperwork and that something would go wrong to interrupt my plans to go to Japan, but they did not! Clearly. The only thing that went wrong was my mail sent December never made it to it's destination. That mail included my application for the scholarship offered by my new school. In the end, everything worked out. NUFS was willing to accept my application late and everything ended just peachy.

     The day before my flight to Tokyo was nerve-wracking. I was drowning in worry about what to bring, what not to bring, what fit, what wouldn't fit... In the end, I had to leave some things behind for my mother to mail to me later. Things I could survive without for a few weeks. The only thing out of that package I'm regretting leaving behind is a cushy pair of walking shoes. I have been walking around in flat shoes so much my arches scream with every step. BUT, I do not regret a single step I've taken so far.

     So, my adventures start on the plane ride to Tokyo. It was a 14 hour flight that in hind sight seemed to go by fast, but at the time felt like a lifetime. I imagine it would have gone by faster if the headphone jack to my seat had not been broken. Watching movies would have passed the time nicely. I watched a few, but I had to hold the plug to my earphones in at odd angles and hope the plane did not get too shaky. I played games off and on, but mostly just sat there. It was quite boring. Quite.

     Once we landed in Tokyo, I was still rather in denial of the whole situation. I filled out paperwork, went through security, exchanged money, got on a train... It wasn't until we arrived at the Nagoya station that it really started to set in. I was lost. I relied completely and entirely upon Elena, the other student I flew with, to guide me through the madness. She was a fabulous guide too. Elena and I had a room at a hotel in the Shinbashi area, quite close to the station. It was shortly after we arrived that I turned on my computer to discover the screen had broken. This was reason 1 that I did not start blogging right away. Reason 2 would be...there is just so much to do! Granted, one could not do everything there is to do in Tokyo in five days. I also spent a vast amount of that time rather ill, so while we did visit several places and I spent a large amount of money, I did not do all that much. It seemed like every meal I ate made me want to hurl. That is, until we went at ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. I had a greasy 'BBQ' Burger with fries that made my heart all a flutter (perhaps because I was clogging my arteries beyond repair), and I did not walk away with a stomach ache. So, as you can see, adjusting to the food and environment here is a task for me, but I am slowly getting over it.

View from Tokyo Tower

It was the day after our Hard Rock trip that we had to make the trek to Nagoya. We took the Shinkansen (or bullet train) straight from Tokyo to Nagoya. It was cool to see how quickly we were moving and even more cool to see the different architecture we were zooming by. We passed within viewing distance of Mount Fuji and actually drove through several hills which I would call mountains (since I'm not used to anything that tall being a 'hill'). Upon arriving in Nagoya, we had to transfer to the subway which was in itself a task. We were faced with even more stairs (we had to face many before this instance, but at this point we had done just about enough). Alas, when we finally arrived as far as trains could take us, we took a taxi the rest of the way to our new homes.

I will continue in the next blog about I-House arrival and what followed. For now, I will say またね！