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.

Weekend 1 in Tokyo- Shinjuku and Shibuya

So, with my infinitely awesome skills of updating everyone on what I'm doing, I'll update here about last Saturday and Sunday.

Shibuya

So, the roomies and I decided that it was time to explore. The three of us disembarked to Shibuya and, me, feeling pretty awesome about being to Tokyo before, took the reigns on leading them through the stations. For the record, from Tokyo station take the Yamanote line towards Shinjuku to get to Shibuya. =]

That went pretty well, but my problem with... er... disorientation got the better of me out in Shibuya itself. Haha.

So, the three of us went to First Kitchen and ate our potato/pasta sets (mmm... carbs with a side of carbs?! AWESOME!) and then split up to shop. The most interesting things were:

1) CUTENESS EVERYWHERE!- Alright... so, I think the reason I love Japan is because it is so f$@*ing adorable. Everything from headbands to socks, signs to toilets are downright addorable.

2) MJ and Obama- While Hannah and I were walking around, we found two statues in close proximity... one of MJ and another of Obama. Also, a lot of store fronts had MJ music playing, etc. o-o;

3) Banks?- It appears, for the record, that finding an atm that takes an American Visa is more of a feat than originally imagined. Pretty much, the post office, 7-11, and Citi bank are the only consistent places that take American issued debit cards. Furthermore, it's not the easiest to use credit cards most places. Interesting, non? Hannah and I ended up getting lost, thanks to my map dyslexia, leading to number 4.

4) Seedy Sex Shops...o-o; Some things never change, I guess. When I got us off the beaten path from map dyslexia, we encountered some interesting shops... the most amusing of which, by the way, had two signs that cracked us up- one said "So fucking cheap" (in regards to vibrators) and the other "We love toys that fuck." That is soooo awkward. Yes, it said it in English. o-o;

5) Pallette Town!?- So, on the way back home, we encountered a huge beautifully lit ferris wheel. I can't say I've always been the largest fan of ferris wheels, but I really, really want to see the view from this one. It's the tallest one in Japan. Definitely on my list of things to conquer while I'm here.

Shinjuku

On Sunday, Hannah and SeungYe were tired and, well, I was out a camera cord. Seeing a chance to get to return to Shinjuku for not only a camera, but also to see all the places I knew so well from 6 years ago warmed my heart. I set out right after getting off the phone with Steve on what I figured would be a short jaunt. Well, I ended up being out for about 7 hours. It was truly an interesting day.

On my walk to the station, I made eye contact with a colored man who was, naturally, a foreigner. Knowing how much I dislike being stared at by other foreigners, I kept my eyes to the ground, although still rather surprised to see a foreigner in my quiant town of Ichikawa-shiohama. When he passed me, I noticed him looking at me out of the corner of his eye, to which I naturally looked up. "Hello." He said, startling me. "Hi." I respond. He stops and grins from ear to ear. "Where are you from?" He asks, his eyes doing a ridiculously obvious and slow full body scan of me. "New York." He grins and says "I'm from Africa. You're a beautiful girl. What is your name?" I laugh nervously and say "Kara, what's yours?" I extend my hand for him to shake, feeling awkward about it. He then paused an awkwardly long time and, after a few beats of awkward silence, he grinned, shook my hand and said "Steve." (To which my obvious thought is wtf) He then decides that this is a good time to "exchange numbers," to which I decide it's a good time to lie about not having a phone. But, he "lives around here," his company is right by the station, and we will surely "meet again." Woo. ><

After my encounter with African Steve, I ran off to Shinjuku and decided to find the Yotsuba Camera shop, a very famous one in Japan. Ok, holy shit, those cameras are expensive. I set my spending limit at 10,000 yen (100 dollars) and I don't think I could have even bought a camera bag in there for that little. Disheartned, I began to walk around Shinjuku in hopes of finding the building I used to go to class in. Well, I ended up finding a lot of interesting things due, once again, to map dyslexia;

1) Olympic Pep Rally- I ended up at the Tokyo Municipal Gov't buildings and they were holding a... pep rally (?) for the Olympics (to host in 2016). There was a man giving a speech, banners all around [They all say "Because it's Japan, we can do it! New Olympics!"] and then on the next street up, there were all these children dance performance groups, performing in honor of being a hopeful for the 2016 Olympics. It was... interesting. Japan REALLY wants the Olympics. DESPERATELY. These banners are all over.

2) I found a Costume Museum! It was Sunday and, thus, closed, but I will totally go back ><;

3)I... walked... to Shibuya ward... >_>; I found a lot of cool buildings and think I actually saw more of Shinjuku than I did when I went there everyday 6 years ago.

4) I found where I used to go to class, but it had become really run down. It was a little depressing. A lot of the shops I used to go to were gone. A ramen shop, a book store, and a few restaurants that I truly enjoyed have gone out of business. A lot of graffitti was on all of the signs in the area. The bank where I exchanged all my American money at was out of business. Yeah.

5) I ate Indian food! I had a conversation with a Japanese waitress before going in and ensured that I could eat something... it was really, really good food. Considering I mostly eat rice and seaweed at home, it was very nice.

6) I found a garden on top of a department store! =D

On my way back to the station, my map dyslexia worked out for the best again. I was all turned around and went by a Nikon shop. I thought that I wouldn't be able to buy anything and that cameras in Japan were simply expensive, but I went in anyway. There was only a small digital camera section, but, there it was- and it was perfect. Sure, second-hand and pink, but it was the Nikon Coolpix S60 10 megapixel face-recognition, touch screen camera that retails for over $200 in the states- for exactly $100. I love my camera- and just when I'd given up on getting one too! I felt so proud of myself, buying it in Japanese and everything. I really think I'm starting to get acclimated to Japan again. It's truly nice.

Alright... now to blog about the next 7 days ;p