Two Days Later... (Another Day-in-the-Life-of entry)

Bunka activities start tomorrow so I figured I'd go ahead and give a little rundown of the last two days before we head back to the exciting entries.

Tuesday was class assignment and the first day of classes. I placed into the class that I thought I wanted to but which was actually lower than the level I could hypothetically have gotten into if I'd taken the time. I think it has to do with the fact that speaking comes a lot more easily to me that reading or writing and the classes here put more of an emphasis on the latter than the former. That's fine by me though, because what I really want is to be able to speak and I'm going to get better at that just by being in Japan. On top of that, being in a lower level will let me feel significantly less guilty about going on EVERY SINGLE bunka outing, as well as leave me time to study for class in spite of being out and about so much.

After class we had our first foray into the dining hall which serves pretty delicious food (yesterday was a Japanese salmon and pasta dish, today was beef stir-fry) and then James and I visited the dollar store to stock up on food and school supplies, and then we went to dinner at a ramen-ya (store) that's about a fifteen minute's walk from the campus. It was absolutely delicious, as well as another foray into dining experiences in Japan.

The way you ordered in this particular ramen-ya (and in most other low-rent places, I think) works like this: you walk in and the first thing you encounter is what looks like a vending machine with different ramen options on it. You pay here and select the kind of ramen you want. The machine gives you a ticket that you then give to the chefs who will bring your ramen out to you later. It's actually pretty cool, and rather entertaining. The only problem (from a foreigner's perspective) was that all of the buttons were labeled with kanji (pictogram characters) which meant that none of us had any idea what we were getting into with our orders. Luckily Hamilton (one of the guys I was out with) had the sense to ask which of the options/kanji were associated with different types of meat (namely chicken), which made deciding a lot easier for all of us. In spite of this, I'm only about half sure about what I actually got; all I know is that it had chicken, pork, seaweed, a shoyu (soy sauce) based broth, and barley-based noodles. It was pretty much TOTALLY DELICIOUS.

While we're on the topic of food, I'm going to take a moment to explain one important difference between dining and certain other services in Japan versus in the US. In Japan, tipping is a very uncommon practice. When you ride in a taxi/eat out/etc., there is no need to tip the the driver/server/etc. Tipping is reserved for really high-class hotels and restaurants and the like; it isn't necessary for most other normal/common services. (This may be part of why a lot of Westerners think Japan is such an expensive place to visit.)

After dinner was study-time, and then it was early to bed, early to rise to prepare for a kanji quiz this morning (ON THE SECOND DAY OF CLASS. Sheesh. You gotta love the Japanese work ethic if nothing else...). This afternoon was reserved for a trip to downtown Mitaka to get our alien registration etc taken care of which took a good 2 hours, but it's REALLY nice to have it done; I'm now an official alien resident of Japan. I have a temporary registered alien form that will let me go down to the bank as soon as tomorrow to set up my account (which is good news for you, Mom and Dad; that means no more frantic "MY VISA DOESN'T WORK AT THE JAPANESE ATM, WHAT DO I DOOOOOO?!?!" phone calls) and then we're going back downtown on the 21st to pick up the actual cards. Tonight I'm going out to dinner (not sure where) with one of my suite mates and then we're going grocery shopping for breakfast stuff (like I need more of that).

Tomorrow I'm going to go visit a local shougakkou (elementary/primary school) which will be the first of (hopefully) many bunka activities to come, and will be accompanied by an explanatory entry hopefully tomorrow night (for me).

That's all from Japan for now, except for the two omake (extras) that that will be appearing periodically at the end of my entries.

The first is 'Anna's Reasons that I love the Japanese of the Day', which will consist of something that happened that day that was just another reason for me to love being in Japan; the second is 'Anna's 'Fun Japanese Word of the Day', which will be just what they sound like; fun words that I've used throughout the entry for your ease of understanding. Here we go:

Anna's Reason that I love the Japanese of the Day: They have a sound effect for humidity. Awesome.

Anna's Fun Japanese Word of the Day: Bunka - culture (N.), cultural (Adj.)

And, just because it's the first day, you get one extra!!

Anna's Fun Japanese Word of the Day 2.0: Omake - extra (N. ; especially in the context of shopping, i.e. 'buy one get one free' or 'get this gift after you pay $50'.)

Take care all!!

~ Anna