June 11th Thursday, 1:00 AM

Kanazawa is MUCH more urbanized than I expected. (Don’t be confused however, we will attend Kanazawa Kougyou Daigaku, or Kanazawa Institute of Technology, but it is actually in the neighboring suburb of Ohgigaoka—technically Oogigaoka, I think.) Kanazawa station itself was pretty amazing.

We mainly walked around, and eventually decided to eat—but we couldn’t decide where. It was nearing 8 o’clock, and many restaurants were closing, so we made a somewhat obvious, safe, and relatively cheap choice—McDonald’s. I just got a cheeseburger and fries and a drink because I wanted to see if a regular oldcheeseburger was different in Japan. Verdict? Not much of a difference. I thought I could taste a big more pepper, but that was it. Coke (Coca-cola however, is slightly less sweet here, but it was good. The fries were salty—actually a little TOO salty. The others tried the teriyaki burger, but I couldn’t really tell if they liked it. Max said it might have been a sausage patty with a special sauce, and not a hamburger per se. I’m not big on teriyaki, so I left that for next time. Afterwards, we sat outside the front of the station. Gradually, we met up with people also taking the free shuttle at 10 pm. Finally, the bus came and we were on our way. We briefly (and awkward) met a few SGE (Students for Global Exchange) students, and one showed us how to lay a futon. SGE kids are basically here to help us out, and maybe make friends. We settled in a bit, but then my roommate, Naomi from Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, asked if I wanted to go to the conbini (コンビニ) which is short for convenience store. I only bought a big bottle of water—we still need soap and a rag for dishes. Well, I’m tired, and we have orientation tomorrow (ashita or 明日) at 10. Time to brush my teeth and sleep! – 1:14 AM