First full day in Japan!

I woke up so many times last night. Partly being in a new place, and partly cause I was scared I was going to over sleep cause my alarm on my computer is wonky. Woke up, had a lovely breakfast of english muffin and whipped peanut butter and instant coffee, mmm mmm yummy. Then we had a little talk in the dinning area and were off.

Today we got our temporary citizens papers and our visitor health insurance. It took FOREVER!!! There wasn't that much paper work, but we had to have the MGU buddies translate some of it. It took about 3 hours to get that finished. The Office was in Shibuya, kinda on the out skirts it seemed. It was a cool place. SO MANY STORES! We went to a 7/11 there (yeah, they have a TON of them) and got food. I got Udon noodles to go in like a sauce with pork. It was delicious. After we got all our paper work done, we went to the main part of Shiubya. It looked like time square! it was ridiculous how many people were there.

We went to this big electronics store and got Ethernet cords because it isn't wireless here, so you need them. It was pretty cheep though. We also got our cell phones today. That wasn't so cheep. But I got the cheapest plan I could. Like 40 minutes a month. It has a hefty cancellation fee though... thats the issue. But the phone was pretty much free. Like 1 Yen. 900 Yen for the charger (like $9 (drop 2 decimal points)). You should see this phone, it looks freakin awesome.

After that we didn't have much time, it was like 6 but we had to come back an hour later and actually pick up the phone, they had to do like paper work and set it up. Which is handy, but also kinda annoying cause we were all starting to get hungry. Most of us went to this little resturant on the 2nd floor of a near by building. They had a bunch of different things. I got kimchi with rice (every day rice). It was really good. Cept they put this semi-half cooked egg in it, not tastey, I ate around it. After that we went to a little coffee place, it was good. Then we went and got our phones and came back to the lovely dorms. A lot of people left early in this, I have no idea where half of them went.

Now I am home, I am sooooo tired. I'm kinda pleased, my Japanese is starting to come back to me really quickly. I'm starting to remember things again and I can understand a little conversational stuff.I really like the MGU buddies. They are very nice. I'm having a great time! It so amazing and big here. And Shibuys at night really is like the flood of people on the cross walks like I thought it would be. I had tried not to have any real expectations of Japan before coming, but it has been what I thought it would be. It's like a cleaner more squished together New York. Even the stores are crammed with stuff. Like in America, you go into a Verizon store and it's like one display wall and desks on the opposite side and you can do cartwheels in the room there is so much space. Here there is no space, they utilize every single square foot, or would that be meter (chuckle).

The cheery blossoms are lovely here and not quite in full bloom. We are having a cheery blossom watching party on sunday I think. Though it might rain on Sunday, so I dunno. We saw Hachiko today. It's this akita dog statue out side of Shibuya station. The sotry is that Hatchiko was so loyal that every day, when his master took the train to work, he would wait at this corner for him. After the master died, he still went to the corner every day at the same time. People felt bad for the dog and fed him and such, but after a while he died too. In honor of Hatchikos loyalty they erected a statue of him. It is really cute, and like a major meeting place for people.

I am sooooo tired right now. So much walking and stuff, and just the excitement. You don't feel so tired when out on the street. Thought it was really cold today too, I have the heat blasting in my room. I think I am going to take a shower and go to bed now. It is another long day tomorrow, we are setting up our bank accounts and getting a train pass and doing a lot of other things. I think we are going to the school tomorrow too. I will let you know.

Sayonara <3