I made it!

Finally! After years of dreaming, months of running around, and enough prayer for everything in between - I am here in Tokyo! I arrived on Wednesday, a day later than anticipated, because (in short) I have time management issues. Regardless, the Lord worked it out for me to have a smooth flight and a surprisingly easy method to get to school on my own. Since then, I've been busy trying to get acclimated to my new surroundings.

I'll start with Thursday. I went to school with another new student, Jeanne. Japanese is her major (!) and she's been really cool about helping me with things I don't know or remember. We got breakfast and arrived at school about a half hour earlier than we were expected for orientation. I'm sure those of you that know me need a minute to recover from some kind of post traumatic shock - yes - I was early! On purpose! Anyways, I ate as much of my breakfast as I could. It was bread filled with a bean paste and some kind of frosting. Not good :-(. I ate the bread only and then went to take my placement test. What a disaster! I laugh as I write this but it really was not good. I forgot so much of what I learned at Drexel. When the sensei came back with it all marked up in red ink, I kept thinking "that was wrong!?!...that too?" I had to answer some questions about whether or not my grade matters, if I need the credits for graduation, and why I wanted to come here in the first place. I tried to tell myself that it's probably standard procedure but I couldn't help think that they were scratching their heads...looking at my file, with two years worth of Japanese classes...and then back at me, with the whack placement test. Shortly after that, Kato sensei told me about her english support classes and made it clear that I need to come to every session. I agreed and then went on to orientation.

It was loooong. I'm gonna leave it at that. Well, there was one thing that I found hilarious: warnings about chikan - the train pervert. My program coordinator's pictures were pretty good at depicting was is and is not okay on the train, but the movie took the cake. There was a movie made about a guy who is falsely accused of being a chikan, and he ends up going to jail anyway. Apparently most people accused of chikan are considered guilty, its a really big deal out here. Good to know. Especially because a friend of mine told me she was concerned that I may be molested on the train out here. Now we can both breath a little easier :-)

Somewhere in the middle of the day, we were taken out to lunch at a udon restaurant around the corner. Very  tasty! Although, I'll be honest, I wasn't feeling the tiny fish (I only ate one) . After orientation some of the students that were here longer took us around the city. That was fun! I'm most comfortable in urban environments, and this one is so eclectic and cool looking! I already knew before coming out here that Tokyo would have the perfect combination of old and new, but it's something different to actually see temples snuggled between apartment and office buildings. Plus, all the buildings out here seem to have so much more detail and flare than what I'm used to. The best discovery? The hyaku-en shoppu! It's basically a Japanese dollar store and when I say they have everythang (everythang? EVERYTHANG) I mean it!

Even after all that, Jeanne and I went to the supermarket by our dorm. I bought milk, apple juice (did I mention how delicious the apple juice is? So yummy) bread and other necessities. I punked out of buying blueberry jam (they didn't have grape, so I bought strawberry) but I'm gonna get it today. It's probably really good with peanut butter - and I love me some peanut butter (sorry babe!).

On Friday - for the sake of my fingers and your eyes, here's the fast version - I went to extra help, then more orientation, then to class. I will say that the extra help turned out to be incredibly beneficial. I thought class was pretty easy. Afterwards, some of us went out to eat (at a yudon spot with food that was cheap and delicious) and then more shopping. I bought an electric kettle for hot cocoa and tea, a handkerchief for washing/drying my hands at school (there are no paper towels in the building), and a bunch of other knickknacks. My room is coming along, I don't need much now!

Today, Jeanne and I are going exploring! Should be good :-)

That's all for now. I realize this post is pretty long...sorry if that's more than what you expected. Still, I'm happy to share my experiences with whoever is interested in them. If you have any comments or want to send me some love, feel free!

Oh I forgot to mention, I survived my first earthquake in Japan (my second in life lol) on Thursday. It happened during orientation. It wasn't bad, lasted a total of two minutes, tops.

Smiling in anticipation of whats to come,