September 13, 2008

This morning I slept in until about 7am I'm actually surprised. I didn't sleep with any blankets last night because it was really hot and humid. After I got out of bed I went and had breakfast. I shouldn’t have to say what was for breakfast because it’s been the same everyday! Hahaha! Today I might be going to Tokyo but I'm not sure. I'm meeting my friends at the meimeikan at school and from there we will decide what we're doing. On my way to school, I stopped by Tokyu Hands, a department store, and bought myself a planner/schedule book because I’ve been in need of one since I arrived. Now I can finally put all of my important dates in it instead of trying to remember everything!

I got to the meimeikan early so I just waited for a while and listened to music. It was an interesting wait but it went by fairly quick. I met up with everyone and we decided to go to Machida instead of Tokyo because some of us tend to get lost from everyone else. I’d say there were at least 10 of us who went. Once we got there we all decided to split up into groups and meet back at the station at 530pm. We walked around in a lot of clothing stores and other shops. It was really interesting and I must admit I liked some of the Japanese fashion for men. Not all, but some. I’m definitely going to go shopping soon! LOL!

We went into an arcade and looked at all the crane machines and were amazed. We found a purikura, those booths where you take pictures and draw on them or whatever you’d like to do, and we decided to take pictures! We ended up splitting up with our smaller group because they thought we left. It was fun and I have the pictures, I don’t have a scanner and I think taking it with my camera would be weird so I can’t show them yet! Sorry! After that we were really hungry so we went to a restaurant for lunch at like 330pm. It was really good! I ordered a chicken cheese steak. When they brought it out to us it was still on a skillet cooking and it smelled delicious! I took a picture of it and will put links to my pictures when I’m finished writing this.

After eating we went into some more shops and decided to go back to the station to meet up with everyone else. We actually found them before the station though at the “au by KDDI” shop, which is a cell phone service provider. We went in and looked at the phones with them while they were attempting to see if they could get one right then. I looked at all the phones and I can’t decide between two of them! The only bad thing is that you have to pay for the phone up front. It’s not like America where you get it for free if you sign up. I mean if you want a cheaper Japanese phone it works that way but if you want to get a nicer one you have to pay. I’ve decided to pay! LOL!

They were unable to get a phone without their alien registration card so we walked back to the station and took the train back to fuchinobe, the station where school is. Once we got back to the school we decided to split up and go back to everyone’s apartments so they could drop off things or get ready for the night. I stayed at my friend Sarah’s apartment and it was a good 25-minute walk from the school. By the time my arch in my food was starting to hurt but I didn’t pay much attention to it. We stayed over there until about 830pm then walked to fuchinobe to meet up with the group that was going to go to Wara Wara. It took us an hour to walk from the apartment to the station. It was so humid last night that you could see it in the air. It was gross.

We finally made it to the station and I was tired and already wanted to go to sleep! We waited there for about 20 minutes for everyone to show up and there were at least 30 people who went to the Wara Wara, which is like an all you can eat/drink place. It was really fun and I don’t really need to explain what we did. I’ll just post a link to the pictures! Hahaha! After Wara Wara, we went to karaoke at about 1am. I started off singing first LOL! I sang the Japanese song “Cutie Honey” and everyone was surprised! It was fun! We ended up staying until about 230am when we decided it was time to go because we had a long walk to get back to the apartments.

I’m skipping over the walk part because it was just a long, long walk. I will say however, that there was no one out that late last night. No cars, no people, only the exchange students! By the time we got back to the apartment it was 330am and my ankle was in pain. I thought it would be better when I woke up the following day but that didn’t happen. Today my ankle/arch is killing me! I don't know if it's from walking in flipflops for the past 3 days or what it is. All I know is it hurts every time I walk! I woke up at about 10am and had some laughs with Sarah. I ended up leaving her apartment at 1030am and it took me 2 hours to get back to my home stay! I was literally gimping along the whole time I had to walk. It was so painful and still is!

When I arrived home, my host mom taught me how to use the washing machine. It’s actually pretty cool because it can tell how much you put into it and it knows how much water to put in. when my clothes were done washing I had to hang them up outside on my balcony to dry. I really have no idea how long it takes clothes to dry outside so I’ll check them before I go to bed tonight. So that’s all I have for right now…I’m tired, I want to sleep but if I do I won’t sleep tonight, and my leg hurts. I also would like to shower but that has to wait until after dinner. Oh yeah tomorrow we’re going to Akihabara, which is a really famous place here in Japan. It’s a place where all the electronics are really cheap. I don’t think I’ll buy anything, but you never know!

Here’s a link to my random Japan pictures.

And here’s the link for yesterday/last nights pictures.

Enjoy!