4/7/2011

(Note: this post was written on 4/7/11)

Yesterday was our tour of Osaka University's Suita Campus and our program orientation. We were on campus for most of the day (from about 10am-4pm). We got to meet other people in exchange programs (either ours or those similar to ours), and they went over course registration, credit hours and the likes. It was informative, but much of the information overlapped and was repetitive, so it was boring at times. The tour of the campus took about an hour, and most of us had not eaten breakfast so by that point people were a bit grouchy and hungry. The "tour guide" was a fellow OU student who was in a school organization that volunteered to help out. I feel sort of bad for her because people weren't really listening after a certain point, and then we passed a vendor selling pastries and pretty much everyone dropped off the tour and bought something to eat. Lunch was obentos at a cafeteria, and then it was back to more orientation meetings.

After, Meaghan, Kathryn and I went to one of the International Student organisations and were able to use their internet to access FACEBOOK. Oh happy day! I had about nine e-mails from real actual people in my gmail inbox, four messages in my Facebook inbox, and multiple post updates and responses. It was good to touch base with the world again, even though by that point it was about 1AM in the U.S. and most people were asleep. I got to shoot out some e-mails though, and post that I wasn't dead on FB. Then we headed back to our dorms, but on the way there we were intercepted by some fellow International Students - one of which is actually also from Texas A&M. They asked where we were going and then invited us to nomihodai, which is where you go to a restaurant, pay a set amount, and have 90 minutes to drink as much alcohol as you possibly can. I am not even kidding. They require you buy two food items as well (probably to offset the cost of nomihodai), but it still ended up being about 1700 Yen per person, which at about $21 USD is a pretty small amount for ALL YOU CAN DRINK. Plus, it would have been cheaper for me but we ended up all just splitting it up evenly (the food items I chose were pretty inexpensive, and some people ordered more than 2 items).

Apparently many people were either intimidated by the idea of nomihodai (some are under the legal drinking age of their respective country, be it 20 or 21 - in Japan, it's 20 but I have yet to see anyone carded), or some simply didn't want to partake. We were then a group of about 15 people, so the indecisiveness got old pretty fast. At nomihodai, if you don't want nomihodai but your table does, you can't stay. I think they are afraid that not everyone will pay for nomihodai but then the drinks will be shared. I was frustrated because I thought it was pretty apparent when we were invited that this would be nomihodai­, and so why would you come if you can't handle it? At one point, someone suggested we just not do nomihodai since 3-4 people didn't want to. I was like, screw that. The majority of us want to do it, so let's do it. After about 20 minutes of debate, the group who didn't want to do it decided to leave which in all honesty was probably for the best. We will have time to hang out with them later, I am sure.

So, we did nomihodai. I had kimchi and chicken for my meal and the vast majority of my drinks were Gin & Tonic, which seemed to be the favourite at the table. I did have some whiskey, sake, and umeshu (plum wine?) too. We won't talk about volume because frankly, it's none of your business, but I feel confident that I got my money's worth. After 90 minutes we were all feeling pretty good and much more at-ease than we had been when trying to organise the event. We had people from all over the world at our table and some were quite fun. There was Jasper, who is from Amsterdam and a pretty cool kid; there's Yuan who is from Korea and was surprised that I love Kimchi... He got really wasted and started sitting on Yuuki's lap (Yuuki is the other kid from A&M, and also? He's a he, heh). Yuuki's girlfriend was there so it was all in good fun, but man Yuan must've been wasted. There was a guy at the end of the table from Denmark and so I learned that to toast in Denmark you say "skoal!" Which is a pretty cool-sounding toast. There was also a girl from Canada who is really nice and I enjoyed talking to her, though she was wayyyy at the end of the table. She got us into the umeshu.

After our time was up (90 minutes), we paid the tab and someone mentioned karaoke, so we decided to go do that, too. It was my first time at a Japanese karaoke bar! We rented a room and sang for about two hours - with more drinks, of course. Afterwards, Meaghan and I raided a Mister Donuts because they are the embodiment of awesome, but Kathryn decided to go back to the dorms early. It was a nice walk back to the dorms. The evening was pretty quiet and the temperature was nice, and Meaghan and I took our time and just chatted along the way. The cherry blossoms are in bloom and are quite a site.

There were plans in the works to go to Kyoto for hanami (flower viewing festival), but the other girls and I decided that sounded like too much trouble, so we're going to do hanami on Sunday at a local park. It'll be fun!