My legs really hurt from all the walking I did yesterday. I even took some Advil last night to help ease the pain…but I guess it’s only for that purpose…not to cure it! LOL! Today I managed to wake up before my alarm went off again! I think I was up at 6am and I set my alarm for 645am. It’s okay though because it gave me more time to get ready for school and pick what I wanted to wear…LOL! When 7am rolled around, I ate breakfast. It was the same as yesterdays with the addition of a hardboiled egg. When I finished breakfast I gathered my things and I was on my way to school.

I made it to the train station a little quicker today because it was cooler outside today than it was yesterday. I also managed to get on all the right trains again too! I’m doing just fine so far with trains…however my Japanese still needs improvement. When I made it to the Obirin, I was looking for anyone who I knew, or at least knew was in the RJ program. I met Jacob and asked him first if he knew where we were supposed to go and proceeded to tell him that his mother commented on my blog (I’m happy you did Kim!). LOL! We went up to the CIS office, which is the office for international students and waited for a guide to take us to the building we were supposed to go to.

When we got to the building that was across from the central campus, we had orientation about alien registration, banking, and national insurance. We then filled out all the paperwork excluding the banking information because we need an inkan, which is a stamp that is used for identification. It’s like a signature but it's a stamp that's necessary for doing things like opening a bank account. We filled out a paper and gave it to a woman who would make them for us. It cost 2,500yen, which pretty much equals $25usd. After that orientation we were given lunch again and it was really good!

We had an egg salad sandwich roll thing, a deep fried (maybe) meatloaf roll sandwich, some potato salad, deep fried fish, and these weird little potato-like ball things. It was good though; I think I already said that… LOL! Anyways after we finished lunch our group of like 8 or more went in search of the campus bookstore. I’m actually not sure if we found it or not...but anyways we ended up at a store and looked around. We left and when we were a good 500ft away we realized we were missing one of our friends so we had to go find her. She is literally the one who always seems to get separated from us too…it’s funny. We found here and went back to the building we started the day in.

Once we were there we broke up into groups and took a “tour” of the school and Machida. We were guided by I believe 5 Japanese students. We went to the Japanese Language help center, the school health center, the library, and a church on campus. After that we got onto a bus and went to the train station to go to Machida. We all made it at the right time too because once we went down the stairs at the train station, the train was there. The first place we went in Machida was Yodobashi camera. It's a gigantic electronic store…like Best Buy but 5 stories. When we came out…literally 10 minutes later it was pouring rain.

It was also very humid because of the rain. We then walked to the Japanese version of a, I guess you could call it, K-mart called Donkihote. I bought an umbrella for 300yen. It's a good size too…hopefully I’ll remember to bring it when I see clouds outside! Of course after I actually had an umbrella it stopped raining like 5 minutes later. WTF? Well after that we went to the city hall in Machida to apply for our alien registration so we can be legal in Japan It took a while to get us into the application processing room but I just have to wait till mid next week and then I can buy a cell phone that actually works here in Japan! When that was done we were going to go to the daisou, or the dollar store, but I had to separate from the group so I could come home in time for dinner.

I made it home and I counted the stairs as I walked up them tonight. It’s only 88 stairs, but they’re steep and just thinking about them hurts my legs! I came inside and greeted my host family. Oh I don’t know if I’ve said this before or not, but the bugs here in Japan are intensified. By that I mean they’re huge and scary! I saw this big, cool colored bug on the ground. I took a picture but I haven’t put any pictures on my computer yet; I’ve been busy. Anyways, my host mom had a meeting tonight and she left and it was just my host dad and I for dinner. We had some cucumber salad with sunflower seeds and seaweed, some Japanese eggplant with a good sauce, more of the stew/soup/noodles from last night, and rice. It was good I must say. And dessert…or what was considered dessert was a boiled nut that you’re supposed to crack open and eat the inside. It was interesting to say nonetheless.

I’m exhausted again and I have an online Japanese test tomorrow at school. I studied a little bit but I just can’t focus right now! I think my Japanese is coming back too, which is good, although I wish it were better. Time will help though I know. I probably left some things out but I can’t help it…I want to sleep!! Good night for now!