A coca cola add...notice the samurai's hair.Me and Su at the shrine
Me and the Okuma Shigenobu statue on campus. Yes, I am wearing a skirt! It was 90 F...No pants for me!
Today was day one of orientation. Our day began with an early interview (mine was at 8:00am!) concerning our host families. I think it went pretty well.....I hope. Then, we met some Waseda student volunteers who took us to campus for our orientation class. Overall it was pretty boring...mostly I learned things I already knew. We also watched a funny informative video about customs of Japan which was pretty humorous. (The actors were way melodramatic and messed up simple things). "Yes, the water is safe to drink in Japan!"
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After orientation, the Waseda students took us to lunch, where we ate soba. I made the mistake of ordering hot soba (noodles, basically) when it is about 34 degrees Celsius (aka, about 100 degrees F). Then, the students took us to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building where we went up 45 stories to see the view of Tokyo from high up. I knew Tokyo was big, but I didn't appreciate how big until I could see the 360 degree view of city.
After that, we ate dinner in a traditional Japanese restaurant where we had to sit on the floor on pillows and everything! My feet fell asleep after just five minutes...It really makes you appreciate chairs. We ate MORE soba (cold this time) and a crab/rice/shrimp dish that was pretty good.
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By the way, whoever said the Japanese eat small portions was wrong. At every meal I seem to have way more than I can eat! I even when to great effort to shrink my stomach before I came, but it turns out I didn't need to. All the food is really delicious, however, and I have yet to have something I do not like.
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The Waseda students also took us to a small shrine, where we put coins in a box and made a wish. It was cool because everyone in the shrine was wearing traditional clothes, which looked pretty cool.
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Toward the beginning of the day, I had a difficult time talking to the Japanese students. They all speak very fast and very casually so it is very hard to follow along. Its hard to join a conversation if you have no idea what it is about! However, as the day went on, I became more comfortable and understood more. It was also easier if I started the conversations, because then I know the conversation's topic. I also decided to stop making my Japanese sound so perfect (which was causing me to take forever to form a sentence) and just winged it. This worked well!!
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Asuka's help also made the transition easier for me. Asuka gave me a suica card (which is basically a charge card to use on the trains) so I don't have to buy individual tickets everytime I use the train (which will be a lot!!!). The waseda students were pretty impressed that I had one. Also, Tokyo Disneyland proved to be a good conversation topic! Thanks again Asuka, I am forever in your debt!
Stay tuned for day 2 of orientation. :)
2 comments:
I can only relate that you have to get past your first embarrassing linguistic experience. I thought I told a Russian elevator man, in Russian, " I want to go to the 3rd floor". What I actually said, was "I am a third-ranked idiot." The third person for the word "to go" and "idiot" are pronounced the same, in Russian.
He did look at me with a benign expression, that said, "You certainly are!"
Oh well. It seems like they will be kind to you, over there. They, and you, have to have a sense of humor.
Good luck with the language barrier! The hardest thing for me to do, as well, is to stop myself from perfectly forming every sentence and just speak naturally.
Sounds like you are having fun!!
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