Interview + House Party! (9/13-9/15)

So it's about 4:03 AM right now over here on Monday Sept. 16th -- I really should be asleep but this is the first school day where I don't have to wake up early for Japanese since I dropped it.

ILL GET BACK TO THIS LATER

Friday - Classes until 7PM, Drinking party for Mimi + Holly

Saturday - Interview with ESM Group for an Internship, Tomato Ramen at Shinjuku

Sunday - Chill day, rented a bike for the first time.

Monday - HURRICANE CLASS CANCELLED.

You're Handsome Like Will Smith (9/10)

Hey everybody. Miss me? Yeah it's only been a day and not many of you probably even read this, but who cares! HAH.

Anyways, It's 1:37AM 9/11/2013 but I'll write about the day I had on the 10th. (Should be asleep -- Japanese and Business class tmw)

Anyways, today, like the past few days, have been quite beautiful and fair tempered. Me and a few other people while at our friend Derek's apartment in Global House decided that we were going out today. SO me, Derek, Tiffany, Cathy, and 3 more addons (Juju, Julia, and Mike) planned on going to Ueno Park for the Zoo.

Before that, however, I met up with ICU Hub to chat and hang out with them for about 20 minutes before having to meet up with my other friends going to Ueno. We agreed to meet at 1:30pm so by 1:30pm I was waiting in the Cafeteria. After finding Juju and Derek, I got some Veggie Curry from the Cafeteria and had my lunch while we figured out the logistics / chatted / wasted time.

By 2:00pm we were finally on our way to Ueno. We took the #93 bus to Musashi-sakai Station where we met this nice exchange student named Niki who gave us advice on Fuji.

 At Musashi-sakai, we saw a Taiyaki Truck. We all pooled our money (100 yen each) and got a 16-set of Taiyaki... 2 of each flavor.

While ordering, he looked and me and went something like "Ahhh, handsome!" followed by a "Will Smith". All I could really do is nod, chuckle, and thank him. I don't really see the resemblance between me and Will Smith, but I guess he was talking about the height... A minute later, he noticed Mike and once again said "Ahh, handsome! Macho Man!" LOL. The whole situation wasn't awkward at all, and he was really nice. He was a good person to have a conversation with and was really nice to all of us. He was speaking English to us, and asked us if we were from America, which we responded with an obvious "yes".

On the ride from Musashi-sakai Station to Kanda, where we would make our transfer for Ueno on the Yamanote Line

After getting to the Ueno Station, we walked around and realized the time. It was already like 3:30pm and everything seemed to be closing between 1-1.5hrs. We concluded that we didn't have enough time for the zoo, so we used Niki's advice and tried to get into the National Science Museum for free instead. IT WORKED!.

We first went into this 360 Theater thing that gave us about a 10 minute video of how the earth was made, and how humans came to be. It was a real quick explanation of science and evolution, but I couldn't understand any of it (besides a few words here and there). The narrator's voice was quite epic and the experience overall was awesome as well.

Next, we just hopped from exhibit from exhibit. We checked out old telescopes and clocks, Stuffed Animals (Like...Taxidermized) that were (I'm assuming) native to Japan as well as old ancient species

 a VERY VERY detailed model human evolution type thing for the Japanese

2nd Ancient Japanese Display

3rd Ancient Japanese Display

4th Ancient Japanese Display

5th Ancient Japanese Display

Geological rock formations found in Japan, and probably a few more other things.

A fossilied ancient tree

Mammoth skull / Jaw (see the teeth)

OHH. Apparently there were a few stuffed dogs, which I guess displayed the dog breeds indigenous to Japan. Only after looking at a postcard of Hachi (the famous dog who demonstrated crazy loyalty to his owner by waiting at the train station everyday for him to come home, even after he passed away despite the fact he'd never come back) did I realize that ONE OF THOSE STUFFED DOGS WERE HACHI! :O :O :O :O :O :O :O  :O. That was a crazy realization.... but anyways. We browsed the gift store and head out...

.... THE POSTCARD OF HACHI IN THE EXHIBIT!!!

 After leaving we all got a cool little key chain of cute animal things for 200 YEN each in a vending machine and left for food.

We got food and hung around this place street full of stores/shops called Ameyayokocho, that was just a ways down the Ueno Station. On our way there we took pictures with a giant whale statue, and saw the Tokyo Skytree that was in Sumida-ku and realized that we were actually quite close to the place.

For food we went to some sushi boat place that advertised 105 YEN sushi on the front, but in reality, had different plates charging anywhere between 95 - 499 yen. The service was horrible and the sushi even wasn't that great.

We all sort of complained about it to ourselves, then left. The group sort of split off at that point. Cathy and Tiffany went home, and Julia and Mike went on their own to explore Ameyayokocho. Me Derek and Juju followed derek into a Camera store, and after that sort of just walked down the street. We met up with Julia and Mike again, and at that point Juju joined them so me and Derek went to the Camera store again to figure out how to work a remote thing that Derek had bought on the first trip in. After that we went to the 2nd / 3rd floor to the PC / Electronics section to see if I could find a cheap 1TB Portable Hard Drive. While they did have it, it wasn't cheap. They priced the damn thing at like 9860 YEN or something (~100 dollah) so I definitely did not end up buying it.

After that we walked back to the station, headed home, and relaxxxxxed.

The end!

It's 2:00am now, so I really should go to sleep.... Tomorrow I have JAP @ 2nd+3rd Period, then BUS @ 5th+6th+7th Period V_V, so I have to wake up by like 8:00am and be ready for class that starts at 10:10am...
ANYWAYS, OYASUMI.

First Day of School @ ICU (9/9)

I guess I should start this by first telling you how the day before my first day of school was. Overall, it was really chill... I slept in until about 12:30pm, and left at 1:00pm to check out this club called "ICU Hub" where Japanese and Foreign students can hang out make friends and explore Tokyo. The meeting that I went to at 1:00pm was a welcome party at this place called Shin-D (?) which was basically inside this building that had a convenience store. It felt kind of odd at first because everyone was done eating for the most part, and everyone was already in their own conversation but I tried chiming into people's conversations in order to be part of the group. I met some cool Japanese people.

I saw this kid named Hirotaka who I met at one of the orientations. He was advertising this Dean's Welcome Dinner "party" about a week back. I also met (I think) the leader of the club named Misa (?) a guy named Go and a girl named Chisa, and another girl named Juri (sort of sounded like Judy, but I wasn't sure which was her name...could've been Judy with a japanese pronunciation) during dinner with UCEAP people + some ICU Hub Japanese students at none other than Gutara Ramen.

ICU Hub is only one of a few other clubs I want to check out. Some other clubs include Running Club, Calligraphy Club, Yearbook (might check it out with my friend Derek), Papoose (Casual Social club that is supposedly for beginner Tennis Plaers), Hatake (gardening), etc.... I actually don't remember all the meeting dates, so I should probably get that figured out.

School is pretty awesome I must say. My schedule is pretty packed but I might change it up a bit. I will probably keep my Japanese Language course, but if I drop any course I think it'll be my business class, Management of Multinational Enterprises. I started class today at 8:50am (1st Period) and ended at 3:00pm. All of the classes I have are in Honkan, which is the main hall for classes. All classes are either in Honkan or ILC (I forget what it stands for). It's super convenient because all my classes are like less than a minute walk from each other and my dorm is like a 2 minute walk from Honkan.. ^_^

The Regular Schedule @ ICU

My weekly schedule. Notice how the campus goes by periods... just like in high school!

 As my friend in the dorms named Michael said, it feels like high school. I don't personally think that's a bad thing though. ICU Campus is a private university that only has about 3000 students. Our class sizes as far as I've seen in my first two classes have been between 16 and 25ish.

In my first class, Japanese, we did some review work and I was pretty intimidated at first because she was doing most her lesson in Japanese while my Japanese teacher back home primarily taught in English. After about 30 minutes (and after the daunting Japanese introductions), I got used to it. Since it was all review, it was pretty easy but I still won't underestimate it. While I am placed in a level of Japanese that I should be fine with, I heard that the JLP is quite difficult and people tend to get very low grades on it so we'll see.

After 3 periods (~3 hours) of Japanese, we had our lunch break... because My 4th period class was a "Super 4" period, our lunch break was only about 30 minutes so I didn't even bother going back to Dialogue House to eat at the Cafeteria... instead, I sat at the windowsill to enjoy the extremely warm, beautiful, and less humid day while talking to some Dorm-mates.

After that, I headed to my next class -- International Trade. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't chalked full of international students like me. Other than me, Nicole, Mike J, and Lillian, I don't think there were any other foreign students (or so it seemed). Since ICU is a school with predominantly Japanese people who have English as a second language, the course is quite forgiving. For example, our quizzes are online for a week and it's open book / we can work in a group. The "term paper" is only 5 pages and we can also collaborate with a group too.

I think I will honestly only be worried about Japanese, but it's too early to tell. I still have two more classes that I have yet to take.... That'll be later in the week.

After school I went over to Derek's apartment in Global House with Tiffany, Cathy, Monica, and Mike J. We chilled there and talked about what type of adventure we wanted to have next while munching on some snacks and watching TV that we couldn't understand... after a few hours there we finally called it a day. It was like 5:00pm by this time I think, so I went to the Cafeteria to finally have my first real meal of the day. I had Chicken Katsu ^_^ It was alright... it was nothing special. Just Katsu with Katsu sauce, and sticky rice. No real seasonings were used other than the sauce if you count that....

Now I'm here relaxing... I should be going to sleep b/c I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night, but....yeah! 

NO CLASS TOMORROW! (as you can see by the schedule)

I hope I'm able to go out and explore somewhere I haven't been yet.... I also still need to get an External Hard Drive because my uploaded photos from phone / camera are filling up way too much room on my laptop. My 500GB laptop only has like 20GB left.... Anyways,

KONBANWA FROM JAPAN! Hope tomorrow is as nice as it was today

OH YEAH. I also saw a hornet... I think.... In the inside of the main building for classes, Honkan. SCARY STUFF

(9/10) Update: Later at around midnight, Kyle, Mike J. and I went to Mc. D's to get some food. I wanted to get something that the American Menu didn't so I ordered a #8 (Ebi Filet O') with Qoo (Spelt Kuu in Hiragana. It was pretty much just White Grape Juice, but it was good). Overall, the flavor wasn't overwhelming... I mean it was pretty good and interesting having shrimp in a burger but it wasn't life changing.

Ebi Filet-O -- my food

The Insides

Qoo -- my drink.

After that we went back and I eventually went to bed (at around like 4am lol)

Day 11 (9/6-9/7): What...a...night! WELCOME TO JAPAN!

Tonight was a great night consisting of Nomihodai and Karaoke!

The day was quite uneventful though. It started off with me stressing out about classes, and that I couldn't add a class because I already signed in for some classes. Luckily we were able to find the room after going to three different locations where we were able to change/add courses to our roster. The classes I'm currently signed up for are: International Trade, Japanese Language Program J2, Management of Multinational Enterprises, and Contemporary History of Japan. Overall I have quite the full schedule, but I am still able to drop a class if I need to. Even though the management class seems awesome, that will be the one that I will have to drop if I end up dropping a class.

After that was all done and taken care of, I stayed in my room and relaxed for a few hours. I eventually got onto minecraft with Jeff for some catching up and some minecrafting where we played a survival/hunger game for 2.5 hours which was pretty fun...

After two hours though, I had to get off to get ready... Due to some nasty cloggage, the shower was kind of flooding so I had to lift up the grate-type thing and scrape out the soap and hair that was stuck in the filter....

By about 7:30 I went to the first floor for our awesome Izakaya experience. Initially everyone was tense because we were late and we missed the bus and we didn't know what to do...then we got there and we didn't know what plan we were doing because the plan we intended on doing (unlimited food and drink for 2,500 yen) was not available at the time we arrived.... SO we split up into two tables, drank SHIT tons (about 7-10 mixed drinks each) and had a few dishes of food (including some noodle food and fried rice for me). It was well worth it though.

Honestly, I got more full and sweetened out than I did drunk, but I still had a nice buzz going. We "kampai"d a few times and got a few videos so that was pretty sweet. Upon having to go to the bathroom, Ashley and Dana got up and left for a while, but then before we even saw them come back, we heard them.... MATTER OF FACT, the ended up sitting with these two Japanese strangers that were about our age... THEM PIMP MOMMAS. Anyways, after a few pictures of them pimping it up with some Nihonjin, we got our check ready and started getting ready to head out. The table of Me, Dana, Ashley, and Amber didn't get all you can eat, but instead got Nomihodai (all you can drink) for 1000 yen, as well as two dishes each which was required for the deal to work. In all, we spent only about 2,000 yen each for 7-10 drinks and 2 dishes of food so it was a really good deal...

After we got all our money problems figured out, and after Ashley and Dana were talking to the Nihonjin for a while, we headed for the door. After exiting, we split up from the main group, and about 6 of us went for Karaoke. We actually invited the two Nihonjin whose names were Daichi and Satoshi (?) and they were actually really cool.

We went to the Karaoke place and we only signed up for an hour. Being baka gaijin, we were getting all mixed up with what we were trying to ask for so the Nihonjin stepped in to help....unFORTUNATELY they ended up paying the bill, and collected whatever money was on the table... they actually paid a lot of it for themselves, so we all kind of felt bad... I didn't even pay my 1000 YEN (it supposedly costed 660 YEN each).... Regardless, we stepped into the room and had tons of fun. 1 hour goes by REALLY quick so for those who go to Japan, get at least 2 hours because Karaoke while buzzed is super fun experience, especially when they provide 4 tambourines.

Anyways, after our times were up, we exchanged Facebooks, said our goodbyes, took some group pictures, and WALKED back to our dorms (which was a nice and relaxing (appx) 30 min walk through the residentail neighborhood.

ALL IN ALL, greeeaatttt night!!!!

Not looking forward to class in two days however...

The plan for tomorrow is probably going to be either Harajuku (girl shopping / weird japanese people place) or Odaiba (touristy, datey, and has giant Gundam) so that should be fun... We'll see what happens though...

We got home at around 2:00am. So all in all, we were out from 8:00pm - 2:00am. WORTH EVERY MINUTE. Definitely got some student bonding going on.

Jaa, mata ne

Andrew

Day 10 (9/5): Sleeping in, Club Performances pt. 2, Global House

FINALLY I get to sleep in! (again). Today I woke up at like 12:30pm getting about 10 hours of sleep. It was needed because I have been sleeping in WAY too long. I'm not sure if it was a good thing though because there was an orientation about Campus Life and Life in Japan where some people got some forms that they needed to fill out.... anyways we'll see what happens later.

Anyways at around 1:15pm, I left to see the results for our Japanese Placement Exam. I'm not sure if it's good or bad because I was aiming for level J2 or J3, but I ended up getting J2. I didn't do any studying or anything but I guess that's why I got such a low placement. I'm not too unhappy about it, but it is quite low, so it's sort of a mixed package.

The air is still hot and humid, especially because of the storm but it hasn't been raining at all today. It's just been a bit cloudy and has been sort of clearing up since the afternoon. The rain made it much more humid though in my opinion so while the temperature went down, the humidity, I think, went up.

After seeing the placement results I went to the Cafeteria and had Fried Chicken Curry (400 yen), Banana (80 yen), and a pasty (~140 yen?). The curry alone was quite filling but I managed to finish everything because wasting food is not good and people don't get doggy bags.

I went up back to my room to chill and chilled around until about 4:30. I was late for the ICU club performances but I only missed about 6 performances so it wasn't bad. I watched almost all of the rest, but there really wasn't a lot of people there so I just left 10 minutes before 6:00pm. After that, I walked with my fellow EAPers Mike and Nick and walked to Donkihote (Don Quijote) for some groceries for the Potluck / kickback at Global House (where Derek lives). We took about 25 minutes to walk there, another 30-45 minutes to shop, then came back and stopped by Gutara cuz we were all hungry.

After we finally got back, we dropped our stuff off in our rooms. UNFORTUNATELY Mike and Nick left me but it wasn't a big deal. I walked around looking for Global House and eventually found it and met up with Kyle in the front entrance. We went up, played drinking games, and had a jolly good time.

Anyways, god bless america, yada yada yada, cya later guys

Andrew

Day 9 (9/4): JLP Placement Exam (First Earthquake+ First Thunderstorm)

Hey everyone. I want to write what I could before I forget. AND I've recently had more free time on me so it def. works out.

Anyways, today I woke up early for the Japanese Placement Exam. Considering I didn't study, I think I did alright, but there were tons of stuff I couldn't recognize... such as KANJI (Chinese Characters). I really do want to get placed into an easy level Japanese Course so that I can solidify the understanding of the Japanese Basics... J1 is the beginner's level which people with no experience go into, so I hope to be placed in J2 or J3, which is still elementary (I think).

Anyways, today at around 9:30 we had an earthquake! We were already inside the classroom taking our exam, but the proctors gave zero cares and told us to keep working. Personally, I thought we were going to evacuate or go under our desk since I'm so used to American protocol, but I thought it was pretty funny and a bit surprising that we were just told to stay in our seats. Granted, they have much more earthquakes than us in California and their buildings are more earthquake resistant so it's understandable

Anyways... during our break at about 10:45am, I noticed it was sprinkling... FINALLY different weather other than humidity and sun.... well... it really was still the same, it just added rain. The atmosphere was still very humid if not even more humid, and the weather was still warm. The trees and plants + the rain made the campus smell really good though.

Since then, I've just had brunch (Curry Rice / 2pc Chicken Katsu aka Chicken Nugget) and relaxed.

In about 5-10 minutes (1:30-1:35pm ish) I will need to leave for my next orientation, which is a academic one about registering for classes and information about Japanese language class..

Yeah so the orientation was pretty cool. We had 3 speakers. One was the head of the Japanese Studies program which lasts a year, so I won't be able to do it -- but his presentation was pretty creative, using a donburi (rice/meat bowl) as a metaphor to describe your experience at ICU and Japan. The last presentation was by the head of the Japanese Language Program named Kazumi Tanaka. She was an elderly woman but she was SO FUNNY and sounded so lax. Man, if only I could take a class with her, that would make my quarter. She was the most sarcastic and jokey Japanese national that I have met so far. Maybe she came from Kansai Region?

It started to rain again and it was quite beautiful because it wasn't completely cloudy. It was what I call "sunny rain". Not only was the scenery beautiful, but there were also orange and blue butterflies flying around, but I didn't manage to get a photograph of it.

Anyways, later that night we went to the first of two club orientation where there were about 20 performances, 5 minutes each. There were some really good performances like the Kempo performance where they made a Mario-type show and had mario use all these martial arts attacks on the enemies. LOL. Then there was a "hero club" where their performance was pretty much like a green power ranger fending off these evil doers. One club I was interested in was "ICU HUB" where domestic students can hang out with foreign students, so that'd definitely in my crosshairs. After the performance we got tons of papers from the clubs who performed who were waiting just outside. I had to go to the bathroom SO bad but I managed to hold it. lol.

After that I pretty much chilled in my room. It was quite relaxing again, but I'm not complaining. I actually saw my first Japan THUNDER and LIGHTNING when I was hanging out in my room so I wanted to eventually go downstairs and photograph it. I finished the last of my frozen food and had a packet of tonkotsu ramen. After hanging about for a bit, I went downstairs to the 1st floor to check out the thunderstorm. I ran into a big group of people and walked with them around outside to try and find / feed the campus cats (which we have quite a lot of apparently). The temperature outside was crazy because it had just rained, and it was overcast, but it was still a comfortable 75ish degrees! After feeding the cats we came back and went to the 3rd floor where it's always "at" and tried turning on Pacific Rim on the TV since there were people who wanted to watch it. Unfortunately the audio sucked so we turned on The Conjuring instead and watched that with Ashley, Julia, Andrew Z, Danny, and some others who came and left after realizing it was a scary movie. We stayed up until about 1:30am watching it, then we talked for a bit about other movies we wanted to watch and I later fell asleep.

Day 8 (9/3): ICU Matriculation, Mechanized Library, and Chores

Hey everyone,

Today was a pretty relaxed day. I woke up quite early at around 7:45am in order to avoid being late to the Matriculation Ceremony, which opened at 8:30am. I felt embarressed and shamed enough from being late yesterday to the Academic Orientation, so I didn't want to repeat that mistake... and also didn't want them to think badly of me.

Anyways, after waking up, I got all spiffed up, showered, and headed downstairs at 8:25am. The church is literally just around the corner so I didn't need that much time to get there. Ironically I was now one of the first people from our UC group to get there, so that was nice. Before leaving, our dorm parent Toni Tomita-Sensei commented on how another advisor called him earlier to make sure that I wasn't going to be late this time... (-_-). He also commented on how I was missing a belt (._.) anyways, I showed him that I didn't need it because It was tight enough to stay on by itself... He was probably just critiquing my style since I'm on his watch-list. (Way to put me on a guilt trip right?) While he may be strict, and really scold/remind me of things that I did wrong Mr. and Mrs. Tomita are a really nice couple. They watch out for us, while staying strict to the rules and make sure we don't disobey them...

Speaking of which, Toni-san commented to me that my roommate came into the room late at around 4:00am which I find a bit odd knowing that he knows, but there are security cameras in all the floors (except for the rooms). I guess it's for our safety, but it's kind of surprising how closely watched we are. He actually WATCHES the security tapes to make sure we're not violating any of the stringent rules all safe. Anyways, creepiness aside, they're great people and are looking for our best interest while also following the rules such that the system will work smoothly. Everything in Japan seems to work smoothly since all Japanese are quite hard workers, and efficient ones as well due to the fact that they don't slack like some Americans sometimes do. They put in quality work, and do their best in everything they do (or so it seems) while we seem to be quite the minimalist society; get it done with the least amount of time, or least amount of money used.

The Matriculation Ceremony felt like it was quite lengthy, but in fact it was only 2 hours long. However, I got there 1 hour and 30 minutes before it started, so I just hung around for a while. During the ceremony, they had speeches, lots of congratulatory applauses, some Christian prayers, gave us some MORE forms as well as our Student ID cards, and acknowledged each one of us by name for getting into ICU. When they applauded for all of our accomplishment I actually felt quite proud and it felt nice. Being a non-religious person, I could have done without the prayer, but considering this is a Christian university, I could respect it. Some people actually told me that not a lot of people on campus are actually Christian. Anyways, we sat through the ceremony and before I knew it, it was over.

Following the ceremony, all students were photographed on the lawn in front of the church, which was quickly followed by Lunch which was provided free of charge at the Dining Commons. In order to wait for everyone to get there before eating (and before grace) One of the administrators introduced all the faculty which numbered at around 20 or so people. One of which claimed to be the creator of the ATM (I looked ATM on Wikipedia, and unfortunately, his name never popped up), which was pretty awesome. The lunch was all delicious. I filled my plate high and finished it all with ease. Two Japanese regular students talked to us about a "party" (Dinner Reception) that was happening on Sept. 27th and that we should all go. It was funny because they were in box outfits. One was.....wearing a hat that said GREET? while another was wearing a cardboard armor type thing... It was quite funny.

After lunch, I relaxed at my dorm room for a bit, changed out of my semi-formal clothes, and had a chat with my Dad through Viber. I had to talk to him because I had questions about Financial stuff basically. I still need to call Union Bank about being abroad, but that now seems much more possible since my awesome Dad put money into my Skype, which will allow me to Call anyone's phone from around the world for a small monthly fee.

At 1:40pm, I had to leave for a Library Tour. Basically everything was quite normal. We had to swipe our ID card to get in, there was an automatic check-out, a computer with the database to find books, etc. BUT it got really cool when they showed us the mechanized book retrieval system that was at the basement of the Library. WE WERE ABLE TO SEE IT. It was awesome... no other word can describe it. These machines would grab books from shelves that went very far back, and used some type of claw / conveyer system to get what books were needed. 

Anyways, from the Library until now, I have been doing busywork. Mostly it was listing everything that I had to do (Crazy to-do list) and e-mailing people that I needed to e-mail, finish talking to my Dad, working out which classes I'd take, and FAFSA loan stuff. I STILL have to do laundry and fill out shit tons of forms, but I mean right now it's only 7:33pm so I think I still have time.

Tomorrow I have another early event to wake up for....THE DREADED PLACEMENT EXAM for Japanese....I found out through e-mail that if I get placed into a Japanese Course that I've already taken, the UC won't give me credit (since it's a repeated course) but it will still count to the UCEAP credit requirement, which is good! I don't really want the credit anyways, I just want to review my Japanese. While I may be enthusiastic now, however, I heard that both the Placement Exam as well as the Japanese Language courses are extremely hard, so I will probably take the option of reducing the amount of units it's worth, as well as making it P/NP.

Welp -- it's been fun! I've had a lot of free time so it's nice to just kick-back and relax (Granted I don't have any pocket money on me to do anything, LOL). And it's been good getting shit done.

Anyways, until tomorrow everybody!!

Andrew

Day 7 (9/2): Sleeping in and being late for Academic Orientation, Akihabara

I WOKE UP LATE. The dorm father knocked on my door at 10:15am and we were supposed to start at 10:00am. I just quickly got ready, didn't even brush my teeth, and left to the place. I got lost at the place and then found it after like 5ish mins. I felt horrible because the last orientation they went over culture and how punctuality is very very important.

Oh yeah, we got treated to lunch. Not cafeteria food, but like....homemade food (i think?)

We left to Akihabara at 2:30pm. As my friend from UCAEP living on the 3rd floor described, it's

"Akihabara: electronics, arcades, anime, and shitloads of porn."

She was right. There were very tall arcades, and some anime shops....but if we went too high, we'd hit the Hentai and porn shops.... on the ground level I saw one adult toy store, and then there were probably tons of Maid Cafes and stuff... Interesting place though... bright just like everywhere else.

Day 6 (9/1): Park @ Kichijoji + Donkihote

Went to the park and did some window shopping

Then at night after a few hours rest we went and walked to the nearby grocerystore / department store thing which took about 20 mintues to get to...

the air was still warm and quite moist despite being like 8 o clock