Busy first week

Well it has been a busy first week with mostly ups but a little bit of a downer at one point.

I  started by getting more acclimated to the dorm. It is a little different from the dorm I stayed in at GSU my first year.

This is the common room of the dorm. sits about 10 people around a little table with a TV to watch.

Trash is a bit different, there are 5 trash cans in the dorm, and any trash we throw away must be sorted into the right place. It is separated into combustible, incombustible, plastic, glass, and aluminum. These are behind the seats we all sit on.

Then there is this bookcase. It has been dubbed the porn bookcase because it has basically been filled with porn and hentai magazines. I was bored while waiting for people to go to campus and just started looking through some of the stuff in the dorm, and saw the bookcase full of these things. I don't know why they are leaving them out in the open like this, but i found it kind of funny.

Other than that there is a really basic kitchen and a table with like 4 rice cookers on it.

Other than the dorm I've been going to campus everyday, taking placement tests, getting registered at city hall, and filling out a whole lot of paperwork. It is not hard it is mostly just time consuming.

The placement test went well. It is graded on a scale of E1-E5. E5 being near fluent and E1 being a beginner. I scored an E2 which it what I was hoping for, except for in the Kanji writing section of the test, in that part I scored an E0. Which I wasn't to surprised by. At GSU we do very little Kanji writing, its mostly reading grammar and speaking. So they basically said I'd have to study more to catch up, because we have 3 big Kanji tests throughout the semester, and by the looks of it those are the only tests we'll have. At least based on the schedule they've given me.

Other than all that I have been exploring down town Hachioji a lot. I have been learning the bus system quite a bit since it is about a 35 minute walk to downtown. There are quite a few store downtown. Most of which are near the main train station, which is the main shopping district. While there we found 3 big video game stores, each of which with varying selections.

Game Pao, Book Off, and Yotobashi Camera. Game Pao was purely a game store, Book Off was a big second hand book, music, movie and game store, and Yotobashi Camera was basically a big 7 floor electronic store, with each floor being a different product.The very top floor is nothing but video games, gundam models, and gachapon machines.

We also found a bunch of arcades and pachinko parlours. I was exploring the city with Stephanie, one of the people who came from GSU as well and we found an awesome arcade game where you flip over a table, throwing all the stuff off of it and trying to do as much damage as possible.

It is a pretty crazy game, but unfortunately it is expensive like most of the other arcade games. Most arcade games on average cost about 100Yen per play, which is about $1. In America most arcades are like 25 or 50 cents. So it is a bit pricier.

Other than that I've just been hanging out around the dorm, and exploring different parts of the city, which is surprisingly large, considering the dorm I live in is around a bunch of tiny suburbs and farming land.

(side note; while writing this posting my roommate gave me a bag of BBQ Corn flavored snacks that kind of look like Cheetos. One of the weirdest tasting thing that I have tasted while here so far, and I have been trying some very different things, like sea urchin sushi. It tastes like corn on the cob with bbq sauce on it, but in chip form.I didn't completely understand what he said about them, but I think it was something like the founder of the University, Daisaku Ikeda, gave these to all the foreign students. I wonder if they are his favorite snack or something. I have taken multiple classes and done some research on Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai religion that this school is founded on, but was caught a bit off guard by this. Its funny, because I have surprised multiple people when I'm able to talk about the religion with them because of these classes and research, they dont seem to expect it very much.)

Any way back on topic,

Apart from a pretty active week there has been one down side.

Basically the TV we have in the common area of the dorm only gets about 12 channels, and at one time about 9 of them are showing some kind of news show. So the roommates and I were thinking of ways to entertain ourselves at night when its to late to go into the city, or to go out in general because of the curfew, so we start talking about video games, and I decide to buy a Wii. I hadn't planned on buying one this early on while in Japan, but I had still planned on buying one so I can play Japanese video games when I get home. So one day while we are out as a group with one of the Japanese people who help the foreign students find their way around town, I ask him to help me go to the Yotobashi Camera to buy a WiiWii, and cannot play it unless I go out and find a TV to play it on in my room. It was a real bummer because the guy helping me buy it didn't say anything about this rule. If I had known I wouldn't have bought it right away and waiting until before I come back. So now I'm either gonna see if I can find a cheap small TV for my room, which I'm not even entirely sure is allowed either, or I find my receipt and attempt to return the Wii to the store.

So now the Wii is just sitting on my desk until I do something with it. Me and the other people who I had talked to about it seemed pretty bummed out. But oh well.I wasn't planning on playing it to much, I got my class schedule today and I'll be pretty busy in the mornings, and I looked up the Kyudo club on campus,

and they have practices like 4 nights a week, so I would have only been playing it on the weekends.

Other than all of that it has been a pretty good week, and we get a full campus tour on Saturday, with classes starting on Monday. So I'll be going and figuring out buying a cellphone and a bike soon, once the government sends my Alien certificate in.