4/9/2011

(This post was written on 4/9/11)

Yesterday was pretty laid-back. All the exchange students had to meet at the Media Center or whatever building on the Toyonaka campus to receive orientation on how to use computers and the internet. It was actually the most informative session we've had so far, in my opinion, because we learned how to access our school e-mail accounts and how to register for classes and view our grades on-line. This is something I could likely figure out on my own (much like how to get around on campus, which classrooms are where, etc.), but for this particular instance, I feel there is a real benefit in just having someone show us where everything is at. After that one meeting they actually let us go for the remainder of the day. I wish they'd had that meeting the day before, when we had other reasons to be on-campus, but perhaps they thought it was too much for one day, or a bit overwhelming. It's all somewhat overwhelming anyway.

M signed up for a host family ("hosuto famiri," haha, just kidding) so she went to the Suita campus, so K and I parted ways with her. We spent about an hour on our laptops, basking in the warm glow of the internets, and then had lunch at Don Don which is a udon/ramen/rice bowl/noodle bowl place on-campus. Lunch was 300 Yen which is probably the cheapest lunch I've had so far. Tonkatsu udon, mmm! Then we took the trains back to Yamada station and checked out the mall there, including a Japanese Toys R Us and a bread shop. I cannot overstate how much they love bread here in Osaka. I don't know about the rest of the country, but there are bread shops (patisseries, paneria, whatever you want to call it) everywhere and they do all kinds of things with bread. You have your mochi (red bean paste) bread, your doughnuts which are innumerable in flavor, style, and variation (fried bread, unfried bread, soft fluffy bread, chewy bread, bread coated with stuff, dunked in chocolate, stuffed with things, etc.), there are lots of savory breads like bread with zucchini and cheese baked into the top, or one with salmon, cream cheese and garlic cloves baked into the top. There's so much more I can't even really describe it all, so I should just go snap some pictures of a bread shop. Everything looks so delicious.

After our time at the center we went back to our respective dorms. Minji invited me to meet her and some others from the Go Kai Group (what I'm referring to our bunch - we are all almost exclusively from the 5th floor and "go kai" means "fifth floor") for beer in the commons at 7pm. I went and had a couple of beers and it was fun to talk to the girls, but by 8:30, I was totally wiped. I slept until 9AM this morning. I had the foresight to cover the windows with one of the blankets, which is important because the damn sun comes up at 5:30 AM here. Yes, I know, "Land of the Rising Sun" and all of that. Your rising sun can stuff it, you guys need some Daylight Savings Time, for reals.

I had heard rumor of a grocery store that was closer to our dorms than the ones at Yamada or Mina-Senri stations, and so I asked around and the ever-kind Minji led me to the store. It's called Peacock ("Pikoku" - this time, I'm NOT kidding) and it's about three blocks from our dorms. Well, technically, it's closer, but we'll get to that in a moment. To get the Pikoku, you go left out of the dorms, down one block, swing a right. Swing your next immediate right and go down another couple blocks and you're there. Pretty quick and easy, especially compared to the 15+ minute walk to either Yamada or Mina-Senri, both of which are almost completely uphill the way back (Yamada being a much steeper incline). There was a couple of ladies selling produce outside the store so I picked up some things, and then we went inside. The beer at Pikoku is much cheaper than at the station grocery stores (by about 300 Yen for a particular brand I like, which is more than $3.00 USD difference for a SIX PACK). I bought some more veggies and stuff to cook, as well as some milk, cream cheese, Coke Zero (there is no "Diet Coke" here to be seen), laundry detergent, an onigiri (stuffed rice in the shape of a triangle that's wrapped with seaweed), Yakult (a yogurt drink, you can get it in the states at the Asian grocers and some regular stores), and some kind of veggie patties that you can drop in oil and fry up.

It's very hard to do LC here, also. Meat is really, really expensive. I did pick up some chicken that was on sale, I think it's creeping up on its expiry date, so I brought it home and immediately put it in the freezer. When I cook lately I've been making stir-fry with egg and then eating it with a side of kimchi, but I can see that getting old pretty quick. I have tried almost everything that I wanted to try here though, so that's not really an excuse anymore, but the meat dishes tend to be the most expensive (you can easily spend over $10 on a very "fast-food" like lunch, I'm not talking full-service restaurant but a quick sit-down-eat-get-out sort of place). For the stir-fry I try to augment it with inexpensive beef or pork and then egg, but it's difficult. That being said, I am walking what is likely several miles on most days, so perhaps that will help balance things out.

Today is Saturday, and I've reserved this for a day to decompress. I don't really plan to go out or socialize too much, but rather hole up in my room like the hermit I am and play some Dragon Age II. Sometimes it's important to get some alone time in, even if that time is spent slaying imaginary dragons and bandits. I hope everyone is doing well. I will do the Umeda Sky Tower update next, unless something really interesting/frustrating happens :D

Well, I quit writing this hours ago and I'll pick up now. I spent several hours in my dorm playing games and/or watching episodes of shows I'd downloaded onto my laptop. Then I was bored and felt like it would be nice to get out and explore the city a bit on my own. People here are far too nice to let me venture out alone (for example, Minji and the grocery store)... When I was downstairs I ran into Ildako, who is from Hungary, and she inquired about my plans. We ended up venturing out together and just picked a random station off the Hyanku (sp?) line and went that direction. We explored more suburban/tightly packed neighborhood areas and got to explore a Buddhist shrine.

The Buddhist monk/shrine caretaker allowed us to tour the grounds and even go into the temple. He explained that yesterday was the Buddha's birthday, and gave us a bag of puffed rice as a gift from the Buddha. He showed us how to pray to the Buddha and explained a lot of the figurines, paintings, calligraphy and the likes to us. I didn't catch most of it, but Ildako's Japanese is excellent, so she translated for me. It was a really neat experience, and I'm glad we did it. After, we had okonomiyaki at a restaurant and then headed back. Oh! We also poked our heads into a pachinko parlor. SO. INCREDIBLY. NOISY! And smoky, but mostly noisy! I couldn't imagine spending hours in a place that was so loud, you'd lose your hearing.

Came back to the dorms, got 9 free minutes of wi-fi and now debating whether I want to pay 200 Yen for an hour's worth of wi-fi. It might be worth it, but I don't think I'm going to. I'm starting to forget what the internet is for. I used those 9 minutes to check my Facebook, and it feels like things have really slowed down. Sometimes I can't check it for over 24 hours and it feels like there are still very few updates. I wonder what was so fascinating about it to begin with. If I had wi-fi, I could Skype, but the only place to tap into it is in the study lounge, and there are people here working on things, so I think it'd be very rude to try to hold a conversation over Skype.

So, I guess I will post this next time I'm on campus. Oh, there is one more thing I did want to tell you about, though. I think my little group got into some trouble. There is a "home room" thing every Monday on the Suita campus that was on the calendar where it showed us what classes we could register for. We weren't sure if it was required, so we asked. They said it was part of the program, but we were still confused. Why? Because we have no classes on Monday, and no classes at all on the Suita campus. All of our classes are on Toyonaka campus. Anyway, I suppose we sort of pressed the issue, but we were looking for clarification. To me, it doesn't make sense to make us pay $6 to take the stupid train to a campus we don't even have classes on, on a day where we don't even HAVE classes, to go to what will likely amount to a pointless class. The lady even told us, "Well, you can socialize with your friends." or "Maybe you could take classes on Monday just for fun." We had explained that none of the classes on Monday would count towards our major and frankly, I am going to be taking like 8 classes so I really don't think I should cram a 9th into my schedule. I'm not completely insane.

Anyway, in the end they told us they would ask whether we had to go or not. I figured that was a "no" because in Japan, pretty much anything other than "yes" means "no" (such as "maybe," "perhaps," "it's a little difficult," etc). They don't want to tell us "no" outright for some kind of cultural thing that I'm not 100% clear on (I think it involves saving face), but I figured that was a no so we all made plans to go on Monday. Then we got an e-mail today from one of the A&M program directors that said he was told we were skipping some of the required meetings. We have absolutely not skipped anything, despite how sorely we may have wanted to (and believe me, we have wanted to). We have gone to every single meeting, meet-up, orientation, symposium and/or whatever that we were told OR asked to go to. So now it's like, so frustrating because we of course look like we're making trouble for A&M and disregarding OU, but at the same time, we have done everything we've been told to do. Pffft.

It's Japan. There are rules.