On Monday, Mom and I arrived in Mito via Train. We hailed a taxi like our paper work said we should, which was good, because our taxi driver even had problems finding the area. My room's pretty nice for $60/a month (not including utilities) I haven't taken any specific pictures of my room our the building yet, sorry to say, but I'll get around to it soon. I have a bed, a desk, two cabinets, a tiny closet/cabinet, a kitchen with a mini oven type thing, stove and sink and a bathroom. There's plenty of storage space for the time I'm here, so everything has worked out nicely. :)
Move in was a bit confusing, and communication leaves quite a bit to be desired. I was given a bunch of papers and not really told what to do with any of it. I was lucky to have met a Korean friend by pure chance who helped me fill out the my paper work for electric and water (which was really nice, especially because I hadn't even know that's what it was for at the time) and let me put down her cell phone number for my contact info, since I'm not going to get a cell phone while I'm here. I would recommend befriending a sempai who has been here for a semester all ready ASAP and asking thing to help you fill out the paper work!
Over the past few days, Mom, Tony (the other American I'm studying here with) and I have done a lot of exploring on foot. Where we are in Hori-cho, is pretty far out there...its almost a 20-25 minute bus ride (330 Yen) from the station, and other than loads of grocery stores, tailors, beauty salons and dry cleaners, there really isn't a lot out here. Our first night out here we randomly ran into and befriended a Chinese graduate student named Ma, who was so excited to meet native English speakers and drove us to Seibu, the 100 yen store in area. The store is amazing and will be my bread and butter while I'm here.
100 yen shops in Japan are the rough equivalent of dollar stores back here, except 1 million times better. The quality of things is great, and unlike America, where all they carry are things you never actually want, they actually carry pretty much anything you want or need. Pots, pans, glass, bowls, cups, chopsticks, school supplies, socks, alarm clocks, bathroom cleaners...you name it they pretty much have it. Can I once again stress my love for 100 yen stores? Once we found out where it was, we made several runs with our duffel bags (since you have to pay for plastic bags at a lot of stores here) to stock up on supplies, since the room is, aside from furniture, has nothing in it. There are no kitchen supplies, no garbage can and now shower curtain, so we spent a lot of time there. My mom essentially memorized what was in every aisle and the check out people memorized her and gave her a 5% of coupon by the end of the week.><
On Tuesday all the exchange students were brought to school and introduced, though I'm still working on names. There are a lot of Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese students, and when I asked, I found out that Tony and I are the first ever Americans to come to this University. I was dumbfounded by this. But it does explain why we're the only foreigners I've seen since coming to Mito and why everyone stares at us all the time. We also took our placement test, and all the people from Penn State tested into Level 3, the second highest level, which is awesome, because that means we're at the level we need to be to get 400 level credit at Penn State. We got a sort of tour of half the campus before heading downtown, where Fujiwara-sensei took me to Immigrations to start the processing of my Visa...according to them I should have my Visa in 1-2 weeks. Yay!
Wednesday and Thursday are kind of a blur and consist of meetings about meetings, lots of confusion, and sort of getting my classes sorted out. I met my Japanese adviser, Kanemoto Setsuko who is really nice and I'm loving lots, as well as my tutor Chiba Ayako, attended my entrance ceremony at school, met a bunch of teachers whose names I can't quite remember and even attended a safety seminar on how to avoid molesters and bike thefts.Thursday was also my birthday, which was awesome. I woke up to my Mom serving Pancakes in Bed and my Mom stuck window stickies to my door that read "Happy" with a cake underneath it :) I actually ran into Ma again who had a bunch of birthday presents for me and a book that's helpful for those who want to teach English in Japan.
Remember the Korean girl I mentioned who helped me with the electric and
water papers? Her name is Li, and when I told her that Thursday was my birthday, she told me she and her friends wanted to have a party for me. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but at 6 o'clock, Li, Dai som,Eun Yeung, Jun-ho and Eun-na showed up at my room bearing vegetables wrapped in bacon, Yakisoba, Bananas, a Cheesecake with candles and a present! I was so surprised! Dinner was delicious and after wards we played UNO, Spoons and Old Maid. It was an awesome birthday and I got lots of birthday wishes from all my friends back home. I couldn't have asked for more!
Today was Mom's last day in Japan and my first day of classes, so we woke up extra early to get her on the right bus to Narita Airport so I could get to my 10:30 class on time. It was really hard seeing her off on the bus, being as other than when one of us is in the bathroom, we've been with each other 24/7. It was really hard, and I cried, but didn't have much time to dwell as I had to literally run to catch my bus back to school. O_O I was so busy back and school it was almost like an out of body experience where the two experiences didn't happen in the same day. I love and miss you Mom, thank you for the wonderful experiences! I'll make you proud :)Back at school, it was my first day of school. At school, there are 4-5 periods of day, each an hour and a half, two before lunch and three after, with ten minutes in between each and an hour long lunch break at 12-1 where you're lucky to get a bench to sit on. Each class only happens 1 time a week, with the exception of my Japanese classes, which is unique to us exchange students, so that's kind of nice and I have a week to do homework. I'm currently taking Japanese 6 times a week, Japanese literature, Introduction to Japanese Society and Culture, Japanese Film History and The Structure of the Japanese Language in English...and by some weird trick of fate, I am taking a class that my adviser teaches in Japanese.
I thought I was meeting her somewhere after a class she teaches in order for her to help me sort out my schedule, but she was actually asking me to come join her People and Culture class. I was so terrified when I figured out that it was a class because I had no idea what class it actually was and none of it was in English, but my classmates, were really nice, especially Kenta-kun who sat next to me....the class seems like its going to be interesting, so I'll stick with it :)
This week has been stressful, of that there is no doubt since we've had information thrown at us left and right, and some of it has been really hard to comprehend whether because its so different or because of the Japanese, but I'm making the most of it, and hopefully some of it will calm down now. Obviously there is a lot of little details that I'm leaving out, but essentially because this was a week's worth of constant "go-go-go!" action, I obviously can't get it all in.
I'm excited for tomorrow because some friends and I are biking to a local lake to go do Hana-mi, or cherry blossom viewing! Have to head to bed now because Tony and I have to wake up early to make a bunch of Gyoza for our picnic, but here's till next time!
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