first week down

so the first week of japan is over and i am so far no worse for wear. i'm starting to get my bearings in kawagoe, i haven't missed any trains yet (but i finally found out what the blinking lights mean), and i'm connecting with people/host family/teachers.

but now where to begin.

my host family lives about 40 minutes from school by feet, bus, train, and then feet again. the normal TIU school year hasn't started yet so there's only a handful of students around campus. once the year starts there'll be people everywhere so we'll be able to randomly bump into locals between classes. the food at the cafeteria is cheap and goooood, and surprisingly plentiful. a big plate of rice, curry, and various veggies is about 4 bucks. and the hot mouth ramen is indeed one of the hottest things i've eaten in a long time.

tuesday our japanese teachers took us into tokyo to give us hands on train riding experience in japanese. so we did the tourist thing and ran around the city for a bit, crammed 20 people in a ramen shop, and then ran out to akihabara and of course i bought a toy robot. it's a good addition to the collection tho, one i've only seen a few times. i also bought a little blue person thingy that sits on my desk and happily rocks his head back and forth when exposed to sunlight. it also doubles as a business card holder.

wednesday we went to the kawagoe city hall to fill out the applications for our alien registration cards, with which we can obtain our handy dandy cellphones. while we were waiting we went to the kawagoe city museum and the remains of the kawagoe castle, which was more fancy building than an actual castle. after that we went on a tour of the historic district of kawagoe with our peer assistants (tiu students helping out with the exchange program) and once again filed 20 or so people into a restaurant, this time an eel restaurant. after that i ran into tokyo and had dinner with risa's family, who i hadn't seen in about a year.

and then there was friday. first friday of the school year so of course we all had to go out and get a bit drunk. some of us a bit more than others. they have these things called nomihodai and tabehodai in japan, where you pay a certain amount of money and you have all you can eat or all you can drink for a certain amount of time. the trick is making sure you eat and drink enough in the allotted time, usually an hour and a half to two hours for about 20 bucks, to make it worth it.

i gotta say, i think we made it. we didn't do the tabehodai because they didn't really have enough food for us all (once again about 20 people) but we all still ate our fair portion of yakisoba and okanomiyaki (pancake of happiness), asahi super dry beer, and various mixed drinks. and then, because we hadn't been loud or drunk enough yet, about half of us decided to go across the street and do nomihodai (all you can drink) karaoke for 2 hours until the last trains left. and then we all had to find our ways home. courtney, another of the sou kids, had a bit too much to drink so me and matt, another of the jsp kids who lives close to both of us, got to half carry half walk her home. her host parents were pretty surprised to see the three of us come in the back door, but i explained the situation away and no one was too put off. i'll see all of them tonight at the bbq the local host family association is putting on tonight and smooth things over if they need it.

on a final note, pictures of most of the afore mentioned happenings can be found at my flicker account, or just click on the picture tab on the right and browse around.