I guess yesterday's thing was just a 1-day sickness or something.
Hopefully I don't get it again.
There was something that happened yesterday that I forgot to mention that was really funny.
Since I was freaken tired and feeling not well, I came straight back to the room after class and after eating and watching a little anime I went straight to sleep and buried myself under the nice blankets.
I heard a knock and I assumed it was Demetri, because the door opened.
It happened to be the cleaning lady and I don't think she noticed I was there.
She started messing with my blankets and grabbed my leg.
Once she realized she just grabbed a human she like jumped back and started saying, "SUMIMASENSUMIMASEN," and ran off. It was actually really funny now that I think about it.
So today is gonna be a picture-heavy post, with not too much text to back it up.
We had class again today, but this time we also had a field trip to the Edo Museum.
I forgot my camera to class because I completely forgot we were going out for half the class.
I had to go run back to get it and meet everyone else at the station.
Train ride to the museum area was fairly short.
On the way over we passed by a statue of a shogun. One of the first, if I'm not mistaken.
Again, the museum itself was pretty close by to the station.
So this next DUMP of pictures is gonna be accompanied by very little text.
I just wanted to use this opportunity to take pictures of interesting things.
And practice my pic comp.
Dat Japanese tech.
Tribute to E. Honda.
I think starting from this photo forward was when I started to correct my white balance, and overall I think the pictures came out a lot better.
Giant cock!
The REAL giant cock LOL.
Since the Olympics are going on soon.
This shot took me a while. I wish there wasn't a pane of glass in front of me.
TeruTeruBozu!
Some weird S&M stuff.
So anyways, the city we were in was famous for hosting some sumo matches, although unfortunately there were none going on for the month that we were here.
And since sumo was so popular here, there were a bunch of sumo things on the streets.
We passed by a stadium where the sumo matches were held.
And some other things as well.
We finally arrived at a restaurant that served sumo style meals. I felt it my duty to eat the same things that my Street Fighter main does every day of his life.
Not everyone was down to get down with the sumo way of life so some people headed back. The rest of us went inside.
The actual chanko nabe that real sumos would probably eat cost around 3000 yen for a pot, and even if people were to split it, it would still cost 3000 per person.
So most of us weren't super down to spend that much, so the alternative was kind of a mini chanko meal that cost around 840 yen, which was much, much more reasonable.
Behold, E. Honda grub:
It had lots of cabbage, some greenies, some tofu, some purple thing that I had no idea what it was, small mushroom sprout things, and chicken.
We headed back shortly after where I took a shower, because an important event was happening today.
The welcome dinner!
It was supposed to be at the beginning of the week but somehow got pushed to the end.
The welcome dinner was held at J-Pop Cafe in Shibuya, although it seemed to be just a name in retrospect.
We arrived with a bunch of Japanese students from the school and they were directed up first while we were told to wait for a little, so I went back to the manga store that I went to last time (the one I couldn't enjoy before because I had to take a shit). We came back and all of us were rounded up.
Up we went.
I didn't have anything nice to wear because I didn't bring anything, so to look as nice as possible, I wore my dark jeans with a shirt and my red jacket. Everyone knows what that looks like.
Up in the room before the main room, I saw this poster.
This goes out to Jay and Sam.
Autographed, too!
Anyways, the signal was given, and for whatever reason, we were NOW allowed inside.
We soon discovered the reason.
We walked into a room full of clapping people, welcoming us to the dinner.
On the stage (yeah there was a motherfucking stage in that room) was a cast of drumline performers and dancers ready for action.
All at once they sprang up and gave their breathtaking performance.
It was absolutely insane to see these people get so excited and crazy for our welcome dinner. I felt super touched, and I'm pretty sure everyone else did too.
Following their performance was a word from the CEO of the Jikei group of colleges (which is the group that the school we go to belongs to).
He gave us an extremely warm welcome and good advice for the next 3ish weeks to follow this one.
It was at this point that I felt extremely underdressed.
A few more introductions followed and then they directed us to food.
I forgot to take a lot of shots of food, but I managed to take some of the desert.
I sat down surrounded by Japanese students, cuz I wanted to make some new friends.
I met 3 new people today, in addition to seeing Erika-san again. Kiyoto wasn't there today for some reason.
The first person I met was named Kotarou.
He spoke enough English so we could kind of have a conversation.
He's a very happy person and he likes rock music, like Foo Fighters, AC/DC, and other things like that. I'll see him tomorrow on our day trip, too. ^^
The person sitting across from me was called Ikki.
Kotarou told me that Ikki was a crazy singer. He ate a shitload of food. Although he looks intimidating, he was actually suuuper nice.
The person siting next to me was Chiami.
She's the third from the left in this picture.
I guess you could say she's your typical Japanese girl with a sparkly personality.
She said everything was oishii to me and went out of her way to tell her friends that what she ate was super oishii.
We had a formal introduction from all the "student-teachers" soon afterward.
We went back to eating and then all of the sudden it was our turn (the UC students) to give our introductions to everyone in the room (which we were not prepared for at all).
Desert was pretty cool.
I got a couple of things.
Chiami commented that it was AMMAAAAIIII.
Then an ensemble from the school of music came up and performed 2 songs for us. It was super cool and fun to watch.
With that, the dinner came to a close, which was really sad, cuz I honestly wanted to talk to the students more.
Oh I forgot to mention, I saw Erika again.
Oh, wait I think I did say that.
I'm too lazy to check.
Here she is.
She has a really outgoing personality and she's fun to talk to. She tries to teach us Japanese and it took me a while to tell her my name again (she forgot T-T). I said "Matto" (to kind of put it into Japanese-ish style pronounciation). I think she thought I said "Natto".
I think everyone was in pretty high spirits by the time the dinner was over because everyone wanted to do something. Someone suggested karaoke and it spread like the plague and soon everyone, including me, wanted to go.
I had never been to a karaoke before, by the way.
At least my first time was in Japan.
Our professor, Professor Jonathan Hall, came with us (he was also at the dinner), and Erika, along with some other Japanese students, came along with us as well.
It was a really fun time.
Oh, this is what my professor looks like.
It was mostly the girls singing, although occasionally the boys would hop on for a silly song (take a wild guess what song choice popped up).
Some of the Japanese girls sang the openings to Evangelion, FMA, GTO, Naruto, and Pokemon.
It was freaken awesome cuz they were really into it.
Even Professor Hall sang.
So to wrap things up, we ended our session, went back to Nishi-kasai and I'm here in my hotel room writing up the last bits of things.
I really have to schedule things better cuz Demetri tells me that the backlight from the computer wakes him up.
I have to call BS on that one though cuz his head is always under the covers LOL.
But I should plan it better.
Oh, one more thing I'll say before I end here.
For the last few days I've been learning some of the letters.
It's not too hard once you get used to seeing them every day all around you.
I am determined to speak elementary school Japanese by the last week so I can at least hold an OK conversation with one of the Japanese people here.
I hope I'll have the time to fit that study in, along with my other readings.
Speaking of which, I'm not doing the reading for tomorrow because it's damn late.
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