Class orientation day

Japan means koi ponds! The fish are roughly 18 inches long. I really want to pick one up and squeeze it, but I might be deported for that.




Both the sun and the moon LOVE Kasuagai!

Hey everyone-

Well, I think the touristy feeling is finally starting to wear off. Today I went to orientation for my Japanese classes, and tomorrow I have Japanese culture class. First, lets talk about yesterday.

Yesterday nothing much happened. There was a welcome party for us, but these old Japanese men gave speeches, and I couldn't really understand them. There was some food- fruit and little egg salad sandwiches, and Japanese drinks like tea and fruity orange drink. Everyone got dressed up nicely, but it was really hot, so that was kind of unpleasant. Almost everyone has taken to the power of Japanese fans because the Japanese don't use air conditioning like we do in America. I'd have to say the worst part of the party was when they had us stand in front of everyone and had us introduce ourselves. Imagine that feeling when you're speaking to a crowd and you forget what you're going to say plus literally not knowing any words TO say. Luckily, I didn't have to say anything too strenuous; it's not like I had to give a speech about how great it is to be in Japan and how this small act will boost foreign relations or anything, but it was still a nerve-racking situation nonetheless.
This is our group. Just FYI, the guy on the far right in the suit and pink tie is Chris, my roommate.
We're so cute! We didn't even plan to match, too!



Laura and Shizuko from Malaysia Laura, Lisa (OU), and Grace from Australia

After the welcome party, we returned to the dorm, and Laura and I watched some anime. After dinner, the guys decided to get dressed up and go out drinking with their friend Kazuya. Some of the girls were invited to go along, and I decided to go too. First, we went to Roco Roco, but they didn't have 19 seats. We then went to this place that had nomihodai. Nomihodai means "all-you-can-drink" (for 2 hours,) and it's only about $15.
Because the restaurant didn't want nomihodai-ers to pass drinks to non-nomihodai-ers, Laura, our friend Ryan, and myself had to sit on the other side of this cloth. The three of us got ice cream and french toast while everyone else got pretty drunk. When we left, we were joined by our friend Jen (who was not drunk.) When we returned to the dorm, we played euchre. Funny thing about euchre- Ryan is from Ohio, but it traveling half way around the world to learn it. It was pretty late by this time, so we decided to go to bed. My roommate came back from a separate party and tried to get me to watch the 300 at 2:00AM in the morning, but I was able to resist and get some sleep.

Today
Breakfast, then class orientation. I'm in W3, the lowest level, but that's just fine for me because it was hard enough. It was also a little too easy too. There were two senseis who passed out the syllabi and class schedule and explained the classes. The first class they explained, Nihon-jijou I didn't quite understand so I felt really dumb, but I understood the aim of the rest of the classes. So here's my class schedule:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9:30-11:00	Japanese Way Suzuki sensei	Vocabulary Asano sensei	Grammar Ikuta sensei	Reading Ueda sensei	(culture period)
11:10-12:40	Grammar Ikuta sensei	Reading Ueda sensei	(culture period)	Composition Suzuki sensei	Japanese Culture class Homma sensei
1:30-3:00	Speaking and Conversation Matsuoka sensei	Speaking and Conversation Matsuoka sensei			(culture period)

After orientation, we went to building 25 to find King sensei. See, every week we get 5,000 yen for lunch and stuff, but we have to pick it up from King sensei. He was still at the bank, and we were early, so we found Australian monopoly and started playing.

For lunch, I had these really good udon noodles with mild wasabi and green onions. The noodles were just the right texture- chewy, but not slimy; they were so awesome.



Here is a fountain outside our classroom building.

Well, it's taken me a really long time to write this, so I'm going to end it here. My next post will be after I return from Hiroshima- get excited!

-Jonathan