Second Half of Week 2- Entrance Ceremony, Vegan Healing Cafe, and Lazy Saturday

Thursday

Today ended up being quite the photo-op and the Entrance Ceremony was actually pretty cool. Mindy got to give the speech at the Ceremony (we all suspect that she got the highest score on the exam-- which wouldn't be a surprise! She's very amazing! =]). Post ceremony, we all went to our usual food court hang-out, this time with a few others in tow. Eventually, conversation turned to one on religion and, although it was very comfortable to discuss with the majority of the table, one girl left me feeling rather uncomfortable. Not wanting to start an argument, I went back to the house and started to watch an anime I heard about from Shanis at the Entrance Ceremony, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. That pretty much shot the rest of the day for me.

Friday

Everyone was more than nervous today- the day that we got placed. The teachers guided us through a mock class and finally, about 2 and a half hours of this, they announced our placements. Five students got into 5, none into 4, 10 into 3, and 10 into 2. I was most relieved when my name was called for 3, the class I am supposed to be in, anyway. It's a little scary, though. Shanis, who is a year ahead of me at UR only got into 3 as well. It makes me wonder about how well 200 advances one back home. Very nerve wracking. I hope I can compare. Hannah will be in 3 with me, though, so it will be nice to have someone to study with.

After Japanese, we were supposed to start Architecture, but, due to Instructor illness, the class was cancelled. Thus, I decided, today would be a good day to go buy the Vegan Restaurant handbook that Vegan Japan puts out. But, in order to do so, I had to go to one of the restaurants that they listed on their website. Thus, Nancy, Hannah, and I went to Shibuya to "Vegan Healing Cafe."

Well, by the time we got there, we were very hungry, because, as I'm sure you can guess, I got us lost on the way again by pointing us in the completely opposite direction... yeah. >>; I felt really bad, too, since Hannah was in heels. Well, when we got there, I was really excited. It was a small cafe and it promised to provide me nutrients and... well... uh... I don't know why I ever imagined that "Vegan Healing Cafe" would taste delectable... or even terribly edible. In fact, if I wasn't starving, I think I would have sad. The hot chocolate was... bitter... and the blueberry cake was... dry? And the meal was... alright? It was very... wholesome? It was very... healthy? Overall, interesting exprience, I must say. Hopefully, the places with fake meat will be a little better.

Parked outside was a PETA van, which was terribly amusing to me-- although I'm not a big PETA fan myself. They have bad tactics. Then, we saw a guy dressed as a candy bar, walking around... with a man, giving out flyers. So strange. @_@

Saturday

Today was the upmost laziest day I had here. I seriously sat around watching Higurashi no naku koro ni for most of the day and finally went to Seiyu Gyotoku for a change of pace (It's the Wal*Mart branch that's a 20 minute walk instead of a 10 minute one...). I went in hopes that they would have a more extensive selection of, well, everything. What I did find is that they had quart-sized cartons of acerola juice and, really, apart from that, not a horribly impressive selection. I did get quite a few vegetables, though, and prepared a soup with them. The soup ended up making a mean topping for the rice. Another thing I ran into at the store was this- peanut butter... it's practically odd here. They have this stuff called "peanut cream" which is pretty cheap, but I really had little interest in trying. The peanut butter that they did have was smaller than an average Skippy jar and about $4. It was a little disheartening.

Endo-san came over after all of us had eaten, took nail polish that prior IES students had left behind, was her usually rough self, and left. She seems to really like SeungYe, which is funny, since SeungYe seems to tune her out the most and respond to her the least. haha.

First half of Week 2 in Tokyo- Meikai Tours/Placement Test/Alien Registration/LaLa Port

Monday

Today was pretty dull, actually. We gathered at KUIS this morning and went through Academics orientation. Pretty much, we were told to show up to our classes and that we were not permitted to drop below 15 credits NOR could we drop Japanese. Hannah and I both elected to add a third IES area course, as IES permits us to have up to 19 credits. Thus, my official schedule is:

M,T,R,F 9-12:10- Japanese

M 2-4:40- Japanese Society and Culture

R 2-4:40- Japanese Art and Society

F 2-4:40- Architecture and Urban Planning

Everything, with the exception of Architecture, starts on the week of the 14th. Apart from that, we were taken around Shin-Urayasu and Meikai with some of the E-Pals. After we ate at the food court, a few of us (Nancy, Mindy, SeungYe, Hannah, and myself) went to the 100 yen store, the bank, the bus pass window, a cake shop, and back to our house to study. SeungYe wasn't feeling very well and nancy had forgotten to sign up for the Tokyo Tour on Sunday, so we called Watanabe-san. The five of us didn't study too much, but ended up having a pretty good time. Shin-san came around and fixed our wireless, but my computer still doesn't want to pick up on it (which, as Hannah says, is rather funny since I have a netbook)

Tuesday

Today was the big placement test. It was broken up into three different parts- listening, reading, and the "interview." The listening wasn't too difficult, the reading was, in the first half, a joke and in the second a terror, and the interview was... well, I just can't say I really know what to say when people ask me to tell them about what I think about Japanese as compared to American culture and what I think about the state of the world in my mother tongue, let alone my second language. It really caught me off guard. Overall, I felt really disheartened by the exam.

Tonight, Endo-san came over as well and is now making us seperate our own garbage. I mean, it's not that big of a deal, but we're worried about how many of the duties she is supposed to do by contract that she is going to fork over to us. I'm not her biggest fan because, regardless of me trying to communicate with her, she mocks my Japanese (like repeats me verbatim in a mocking tone). It's a little disheartening. She asked SeungYe and I about what our parents did and is offering to make us Yakisoba. It makes us all nervous though, because we don't know if she'll charge us or not. We'd all rather not get in that situation.

Wednesday

Break! What a fun break it was too! I'm looking forward to having Wednesdays off this semester. Although, it's a bummer Mindy won't. In the morning, Hannah and I went to get our Aleing Registration cards in Gyotoku. It was a pretty simple walk, but my map dyslexia kicked in and, well, I kinda didn't have us turn when we were supposed to again. A minor setback, but I still really need to learn how to read a map. When we got to the office, Hannah realized she forgot her passport. Also, SeungYe had some problems with the office telling her that the IES provided pictures were too small... but they told Hannah that they were the right size. Nevertheless, they took my US passport-sized pictures. On the way back, the two of us saw Mountain Dew in a vending machine and, getting terribly excited, bought some.

When we came back, SeungYe joined us and we left to go the the largest mall in Chiba (only a stop away!) Too bad we got on the wrong train... We ended up getting stared at even more there! It must be it was even more odd to have foreigners at that stop than it was at Ichikawa. When we got to Minimi-Funabashi, we apologized profusely to Mindy (who had been waiting) and went into LaLa Port (yes. LaLa Port. Yeaaah) There were so many shops o-o; It was amazing. The most amazing, surprisingly, was the Disney Store.

Unlike in America, the Disney store here had a lot of useful goods for adults. Aprons, hats, chopsticks, cell phone charms, bags, etc... and it was a million times more adorable than normal Disney stuff. Don't ask me how, but they managed it. Yeah. So, I bought Halloween Disney cell phone charms... they are adorable pumpins that look like Mickey... ^^;

On our way out, we stopped at a Crepe shop and dined out outside across from Ketucky Fried Chicken. They have a "Kenta-kun" outside almost all of the "Kenchiki"s here- and by that I mean, a statue of the Coronel. Yep. So we posed with him. Yeahhh. I love being dorks.

Tomorrow, we have an entrance ceremony. I wonder if it will be interesting... Hannah and I were talking tonight about how they always seem so boring in anime! Hope it's not that way!