The beginning

Well, despite the fact that I can barely handle one blog, let alone the three I currently have (four if you include this one), I have decided that it is just going to be easiest to start yet another diary for the duration of my time in Tokyo. Otherwise, I may end up being inappropriate and uncoordinated and no one may ever hear from me again. So difficult....

We arrived in Tokyo about two days ago, which feels like a lot longer than it has been. It takes two hours to get from Narita Airport to downtown Tokyo, and given that my brat of a cat kept me up the entire night previous, I'm pretty sure that I slept the whole way there. Tokyo is a big bright city, and I woke up in time to see the city lights and several giant Ferris Wheels as we entered the city. After sitting in traffic for several hours, we finally got to the hotel.

Now depsite the things that I've heard about the hotels in Japan, ours were pretty nice. No capsule rooms; no big group showers. Everything was very Western. In fact, my hotel here was quite a bit nicer than some of the American hotels I've stayed in. I had my own room, with a bed, a desk and a flat screen TV, and my own kitchen and washing machine and dryer. Sugoi! Despite the fact that it was 9:00pm and we were all on random American timezones, the kids from GW immediately decided that we wanted to get lost in Tokyo and we set out on our own.

And so we arrive at a randomly chosen Japanese restaurant, picked because there was a man from the shop standing on the street corner passing out fliers. It was a cute little place that was off the street level. We got handed hot towels to wash off our hands before we ate. The waiter didn't speak much English, and since most of us were too tired to understand much Japanese, we communicated by pointing at things on the menu and watching the waiter draw the main contents on a napkin. After dinner we got sidetracked by a Pachinko arcade, which was easily the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. I have absolutely no idea how it is played, but I think that a disproportionate amount of my money is going to be going into these ridiculous machines.

The next day we traveled the five minutes to the Yotsuya campus of Sophia University( or in Japanese, Jochi Daigaku). Yotsuya is Sophia's main campus, but it was pretty small compared to GW. It definitely had more of a campus feel than GW. Everything is contained inside these gates--the North Gate, the East Gate, the West Gate, and (you guessed it) the South Gate. There's a chapel in the front corner of the University near the North Gate, and there is also both a subway station and a train station a block away. Very convenient, since we are all commuting in during the school year. We spent the entire day going over the rules and regulations of CIEE and Sophia University, as well as learning what kinds of special programs CIEE would be offering during the school year. So far I'm all excited about our trip to an elementary school in a couple weeks. There's also a discussion section with a couple of geisha, a trip to Komyouji Temple, and a field trip to one of the biggest confectioners in Japan. Sugoi!

We also learned about all the different clubs that welcome foreign students in to their group. I'm particularly excited about the Go Circle. In case you didn't know, Go is a Japanese board game played with black and white stones on a lined board. I have no idea how to play, but I think that it would be a lot of fun and very Japanese. I'm also considering a fustal circle (which I'm told is a lot like soccer) and a guitar ensemble. I'm going to have to see what works with my class schedule when I finally do registration two weeks from now.

After all the time inside, the group was taken on a bus tour of Tokyo. It was unfortunate that most of us were pretty hungry and pretty jet-lagged, because I think it would have been more entertaining if we had been awake. We got to eat kushiage, which is basically skewered meat and vegetables that are deep fried. The okra was particularly good. I also enjoyed the fried pumpkin and stuffed shiitake mushroom (yes, Debbie, I am aware that I just said that I enjoyed mushroom). Afterwards we were taken to Tokyo Tower, which is this huge Japanese replica of the Effile Tower. From the observation deck we could look out over all of Tokyo. I have never seen a city so huge. The view at night looked a little like that of the Sears Tower, but there were more skyscrapers that all of Chicago, and it stretched on for forever. I felt really, really small.

Today was host family day. Those of us doing homestays were taken into a lecture where we were given a crash course in basic Japanese manners. I'm pretty sure that it made most of us more nervous than we already were, but I remembered more of it than I thought I would, so I guess its okay. We practiced formal greetings and important phrases for our host family, including things like "onaka ga suki mashita" (I am hungry) and "tsukare mashita" (I am tired). My favorite is still "kyukyusha wo yonde kudasai" (Please call the ambulance), though I hope I'm not going to need to use it while I'm here. I was told ahead of time that my host family could not pick me up at the appointed time, so one of the girls would take me to their station later. In the meantime, while the other CIEE students were meeting their families, Nao-san and I went to Kagurazawa. There are a number of temples there and lots of little shops, so we walked around and enjoyed the sights. We stopped at one of her favorite shops to drink some Soymilk Green Tea, which wasn't at all bad when you added some honey. Finally, she took me to Minami Asagaya, where my family lives.

Miyaki Shigeaki and his wife Asoko live in an apartment near the Minami Asagaya Station in Tokyo. They're both junior high teachers and they love to travel. Shige loves sports and the Chicago Bulls. Asoko likes to travel and she enjoys watching "24" and "Prison Break". They're both really nice, and I had a great first dinner with them, despite fumbling through every Japanese sentence I tried to make and feeling slightly frustrated when I couldn't make my sentences do what I wanted them to do. All the more reason for me to study hard and learn to talk to my host family properly. Their apartment is small, but very nice. I have internet in my room, and I sleep on the floor on a futon mat. The family bath tub is optional, but I do have to shower sitting on a stool. And of course, when I enter the house, I have to take off my shoes and set them neatly to the side, and then put on my house slippers to wear around the house.

Everything is wonderful so far. Tomorrow I may end up in Akihabura (the electronics district) with some of my friends, but right now my immediate concern is getting to bed. Mata ne!