So today at 10 we had our living orientation. An hour to an hour and a half later the meeting ended. We decided to meet for lunch at the cafeteria, which strangely is called Vulcan. We met Joy, Deven, Tyler, and John. (When I say ‘we’, it generally means me, Matt, Max, and Xin Cai). After a minor upset (aka not knowing what we were supposed to do) we got meal tickets (しょっけん) from vending machines at the ‘entrance’ to the cafeteria. I got Curry Ramen for 280円…so $2.90 or so. It was REALLY good, especially for that price.
It was interesting eating in the cafeteria. I saw a few girls outside, relatively, but inside it seemed like ALL engineering guys. I wish I could have snapped pictures, but I didn’t want to be rude. But yeah, good food seems to be a standard. It has shown me just what crap American food is—it’s just that everyone’s grown up eating it, and they don’t realize how much better it could be. Anyway, afterward, we picked up our luggage from Building 1 (一号館). Finally! Clean clothes. After that, it was early afternoon. We had the rest of the day off, so we decided to walk around.
First we went to Ohgigaoka’s Post Office (yuubinkyoku or ゆうびんきょく). I took out some money… can’t wait to see what that is in dollars. Hopefully no more than $165. Next, we wandered through part of the north campus. It was pretty impressive actually.
On the east edge, we found a parking lot. A parking lot full of LOTS and LOTS of bikes. We couldn’t believe it. 
There was a section to the left with numerous motor bikes, but the regular bike section was INSANE. We walked a while till we found a 100 Yen Shop (百円), but really it felt more like a supermarket. We aimed for the other 100 yen shop on our map, which proved to be MUCH farther away than we expected. On the way, we visited a neat electronics store, but nothing too fancy. Then the next shop proved to be more fruitful. It was amazing to see all of the things they had. I got a small bag which has a bunch of uplifting English (mostly) sayings for groceries, a small notepad with pen, a souvenir pad, a pair of scissors, and wrapping paper, all for 525 yen. 
After we looked around for quite a while, we tried to walk back.
We somewhat accidentally found GEO, a used game, music, and DVD store. I couldn’t find any Super Famicon games I’d wanted, but I did see Mega Man Soccer. Finally, we got back to Nishikawa Heights. Soon after, we met again for dinner. We ran into a Caucasian, 30 or so woman who must work here, on the corner not far away. We tried one of her suggestions—DON, down a few blocks and towards campus. We spent half an hour trying to figure out the menu, and I’m pretty sure we annoyed the 2 guys that worked there, not that we meant to. We had 2 intermediate students Xin Cai and Joy, but it was still hard. I ended up with soy sauce ramen, sort of by accident, but it worked. 400 yen for a giant bowl. We went back near 8 and decided to study in one of the lounges.
We mostly reviewed kanji on matt’s Ipod Touch, and the group grew pretty big. Almost half the group was there I’d say. We also just hung out till a bit after 10. Xin Cai had these cool speakers that look like a small canister. You set one end on a flat surface, and that’s how the sound is spread—through whatever you place it on. It sounded like a radio on some surfaces. Really cool. She bought it in Singapore before the trip, or maybe Hong Kong for around $90 or something like that. Anyway, time to sleep, じゃあまた！--12:35 ＡＭ
It was interesting eating in the cafeteria. I saw a few girls outside, relatively, but inside it seemed like ALL engineering guys. I wish I could have snapped pictures, but I didn’t want to be rude. But yeah, good food seems to be a standard. It has shown me just what crap American food is—it’s just that everyone’s grown up eating it, and they don’t realize how much better it could be. Anyway, afterward, we picked up our luggage from Building 1 (一号館). Finally! Clean clothes. After that, it was early afternoon. We had the rest of the day off, so we decided to walk around.
First we went to Ohgigaoka’s Post Office (yuubinkyoku or ゆうびんきょく). I took out some money… can’t wait to see what that is in dollars. Hopefully no more than $165. Next, we wandered through part of the north campus. It was pretty impressive actually.
On the east edge, we found a parking lot. A parking lot full of LOTS and LOTS of bikes. We couldn’t believe it. There was a section to the left with numerous motor bikes, but the regular bike section was INSANE. We walked a while till we found a 100 Yen Shop (百円), but really it felt more like a supermarket. We aimed for the other 100 yen shop on our map, which proved to be MUCH farther away than we expected. On the way, we visited a neat electronics store, but nothing too fancy. Then the next shop proved to be more fruitful. It was amazing to see all of the things they had. I got a small bag which has a bunch of uplifting English (mostly) sayings for groceries, a small notepad with pen, a souvenir pad, a pair of scissors, and wrapping paper, all for 525 yen. After we looked around for quite a while, we tried to walk back.We somewhat accidentally found GEO, a used game, music, and DVD store. I couldn’t find any Super Famicon games I’d wanted, but I did see Mega Man Soccer. Finally, we got back to Nishikawa Heights. Soon after, we met again for dinner. We ran into a Caucasian, 30 or so woman who must work here, on the corner not far away. We tried one of her suggestions—DON, down a few blocks and towards campus. We spent half an hour trying to figure out the menu, and I’m pretty sure we annoyed the 2 guys that worked there, not that we meant to. We had 2 intermediate students Xin Cai and Joy, but it was still hard. I ended up with soy sauce ramen, sort of by accident, but it worked. 400 yen for a giant bowl. We went back near 8 and decided to study in one of the lounges.
We mostly reviewed kanji on matt’s Ipod Touch, and the group grew pretty big. Almost half the group was there I’d say. We also just hung out till a bit after 10. Xin Cai had these cool speakers that look like a small canister. You set one end on a flat surface, and that’s how the sound is spread—through whatever you place it on. It sounded like a radio on some surfaces. Really cool. She bought it in Singapore before the trip, or maybe Hong Kong for around $90 or something like that. Anyway, time to sleep, じゃあまた！--12:35 ＡＭ
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