Today was the dorm entrance ceremony. We had to dress up very nice, and most unfortunately, I left my business suit at home, thinking I wouldn’t need it. WRONG. If you come to Japan and are going to attend a university, get a nice business suit!! Preferably in black. I’m so sad that I could have had the perfect outfit but left it behind. QQ.

At any rate, my friend Megumu warned me about it the night before, and I had her pick out an outfit for me. I still stood out like crazy, but at least I wasn’t in jeans. =B

The day started by everyone meeting in the genkan (entry way) at 9:30. Together we walked to campus and into a huge room where all the dorms met. We watched a video (that no one paid attention to), then the president and other guy talked for a while. Some people introduced themselves, then we were dismissed by dorm group to go to another room.

In the new room, we were given a packet with the rules of the dorm in it (all in Japanese), as well as some other information, such as a dorm meeting schedule and such. One lady talked for 30 minutes straight, then another guy talked for about 10 minutes. I’ll admit that I zoned out during both, since I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Afterward, we were all forced to introduce ourselves. I totally blew it too. I just said my name, my room number, and in very very poor Japanese I said, “I understand a little Japanese.” But I don’t think I said that right. Haha. Oh well.

After all the introductions, we went outside and took a group picture of all the girls in my dorm, as well a few administrative people. Chris was nearby, so I had him take a picture of the group as well:

After the picture, we got a free obento lunch.

No, I did not try the black stuff. I have no idea what it was. But the rest was oishii! (Delicious!)

Since I was all prettied up, I had Chloe take a picture of me:

After lunch, I got to talk to Kevin a little bit before the dorm had to go back to the school to go over the dorm rules. Luckily, all the English speakin’ folks were thrown into a group and several people who could speak some English got together to go over the rules with us. It took nearly 2 hours to go over the dorm rules, and we even skipped a section. -_-

I came back, took a nap, and at 6pm we had a dorm welcoming party. There was a lot of delicious food. Again we had to introduce ourselves, and this time I did a little bit better. I told them I liked Ajikan (Asian Kung-Fu Generation) and several girls went “Hee~~~~!” That pleased me. Haha. I probably could have said a few more things, but I’m scared to speak broken Japanese in front of so many people. Haha. =B

The nice thing about it was after we were all done eating, we kind of broke into little groups and several girls talked to Chloe and I in Japanese and even taught us how to say a few things. One of the girls, who is from Malaysia, said the best way to learn Japanese is to say whatever we want to say in English to a Japanese person, and have that person repeat it back to us in Japanese. I think I’m going to do that method, but also keep a notebook with me so I can write it down as well. My memory doesn’t work as well via audio than it does with writing.

It’s 10pm now, and luckily we don’t have anything until 12:15 tomorrow. We have to dress up again, and unfortunately I’m going to have to do a wardrobe repeat. Le sigh.

Ah well. Hopefully I’ll get more fun pictures tomorrow.

ETA: Picture from tonight’s party.

Hitomi, me, and Chloe.

It’s really quite easy, actually. I think NOT having 25 cent pieces makes things so much easier. There are 3 bills and 6 coins, whereas the US has 7 bills ($1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100) and 6 coins (1c, 5c, 10c, 25c, 50c, $1).

Here is the Japanese currency:

Another wonderful thing about Japanese money is that most places include tax in the price. So you don’t even have to sit there and think about what the hell the exact cost will be.

The exchange rate isn’t exact … Right now it’s about 98 yen to the US dollar. It’s just easier to round.

Pretty useful, imo.

Not much happened today. We went to the school at 10 to fill out some paperwork. We filled out papers for national health insurance, a copy of the alien registration certificate, and a form to open a bank account. After all that was done, we went to the president’s office, who rambled for a while. I didn’t understand anything except “benkyou” - study. I’m sure it was probably a motivational speech about how we will study hard!!

After we were all done, Chris, Chloe and I went to eat at the ramen place again. This time I took pictures – I had the same thing I ate last time: Pork and rice, and gyoza.

I also had some ice cream. This cost 100 yen, which is just over $1 at the moment:

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Today we went to Harajuku, Shibuya, and Shinjuku.

One of the very busy streets in Harajuku. This is where all the lolita shops and crazy cosplay kids hang out. I hear they’re a bunch of dicks – I didn’t try to interact with them.

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Today, after we were done doing our Alien Registration that took all of maybe 15 minutes, Chris, Chloe and I went to Kichijoji and Shinjuku. Here are tons of pictures from our little excursion.

In Shinjuku, we went into a photo booth and did these crazy pictures:

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