Week 2 January 16-22

Monday January 16

The JSLP group had another introduction day. I was in a group with the Finnish kids and two Japanese Nihon Daigaku students who didn't speak much English, which meant that I was doing the translating between Finnish/English/Japanese. It was nice talking to the girls, it was good practice and I actually felt like they understood what I was saying.

We walked around Ichigaya, where our classes take place, and then went to another Nihon Daigaku campus in Shimotakaido, which is a ten minute walk from our apartment building. Which is a bummer, as it takes about an hour to get to Ichigaya in the morning. After our tours we ended the day with "Teatime" at a local restaurant.

Nihon Daigaku Campus in Shimotakaido

Our closest grocery store

Tuesday January 17

Tuesday was our first day of 'Trial Week' aka we had our first real lessons. I was put into class B with 5 Americans and one French guy. Our days are in two parts, in the morning we study Genki II (which I've already studied in high school, but I've forgotten everything!). In the afternoons we either have elective classes or JS classes in which we study Japanese culture and what not in English. The electives were conversation, reading, listening, and grammar. I chose conversation, listening and grammar. The other Finnish kids only chose conversation, so we only have the JS and conversation classes together.

I really like our group, we only have 17 people and it's small enough to get to know everybody.

Lunch at school: Ramen

After school snack: Strawberry shortcake!!

Wednesday January 18

We had more school. The trains in the morning are so crowded!! It's insane. As a short person I was squished between lots of people. And on every station more and more people would get on! Luckily the trip to Shinjuku doesn't take more than 15 minutes, and the next train to Ichigaya is usually a lot calmer and you can actually breath without standing on your toes! After school a bunch of us ended up going out to eat at the same restaurant as on Monday. I had melon soda, which is actually pretty awesome. After eating we went to Seiyuu grocery store, which is apparently a part of the Walmart chain (?). It has three floors! Clearly the largest one that I've been to in Shimotakaido.

Melon soda!

My dinner, very American pizza. Sooo cheesy!

Shrimp puffs

Seiyuu snack aisle. So many snacks!

Our train was 10 minutes late and they were handing these out.

Friday January 20

On Friday we get out at 12:10 pm instead of the normal 4:10 pm, so we went to Shibuya! We ate omurice with Kaisa, Kimmo, Tim and Candy. After lunch we went to Shibuya 109, Forever 21, H&M, and some electronics store (I forget the name). Every store had 7-10 floors and were HUGE. After lots of shopping we ate in a Ramen-ya, which had really nice ramen.

Oh, and it snowed, which was something I wasn't expecting to happen in Tokyo, ever.