Sorry for the wait
So I finally made it,
here will follow a (what I hope but seriously doubt) fairly short summary of my first week and a half.
Thursday (arrival day):
Landed in Narita Airport around 9:50am after a pretty sleepless flight since I couldn't really find suitable position to sleep in (and my screen for movie-showings didn't even work). I then had to wait about an hour for the bus to leave the airport (don’t ask me why I took this one, maybe because I felt I had all the time in the world that day, which was kinda true) and we ended up right in the middle of traffic (and now I was really sleepy, think I might have dozed off a couple of times). The trip took about two hours, and up until now everything was fine. However I had to walk the last bit by myself and somehow managed to make a wrong turn and get totally lost!
I went up and down some slopes, eventually passed two young girls looking at a map on their phone. I quickly decided to ask them for help, though they barely knew any English I managed to get them to understand my need to find the hotel (which of course they had never heard of). While we were trying to find it an old man came up asking if he could offer his help (now this man spoke perfect English ^^, ) and once he saw the address he could point me in the right direction.
Though I still had to take a taxi the last bit (my arms were hurting so bad and it was raining!) I finally found the hotel, around 3pm, and it turned out to be a cheaper form of a Japanese inn. With the rain and my arms already aching I knew I should go out for dinner but I just didn't feel like it. I ended up talking to my friends and family for about 2 hours before the sleep broke me down and I went to bed.
Friday (meet the family):
The JETLAG somehow backfired and instead of staying up late I woke up around 6am and decided to pre-check the way to the station to make sure I wouldn't get lost with my luggage/bags again (also to make sure I didn't have to walk in any stairs). On my way back to the hotel I bought some breakfast and at 7:30 I was ready to leave. Now this wasn't great, I didn't have to leave until about 09:00 at the latest, so naturally I turned on the TV just in time to see the Sakura (cherry blossom) countdown (apparently it should peak sometime next week, as in the week that just passed..).
I made my way towards Asagaya Station where I was to meet the family at 10am. Advice to you all, don’t try to get on the trains in Tokyo with two suitcases and a bag. Not only is it hard but you'll barely make it and look real stupid while doing it. Take it from someone who knows. Looking back I should have left one suite case at the hotel and gone back for it later (it's always easy to be smart later on isn't it?). Either way I was early to the meeting point, so sat down watching the people at the station (As well as the announcement about all trains being late due to an open window somewhere).
This is an amazing house!
Everyone’s so nice, and my room is much bigger than I’d thought it would be. So fresh and beautiful. Though I had nothing more than just gotten all of my things up to my room on the third floor when it was time to leave again. I signed up for going with Mariko-san (the mom) to her Friday tennis with the retirement group. I had so much fun but I also had mussel ache for days after it. I really need to get out and exercise more often!!
This home consists of the pair: Mariko-san and Shige-san as well as two Japanese university students (who just happened to stay here) Aya-chan and Mari-chan and the cat Ren-chan. For Mari-chan I haven’t seen much of her yet since she’s been working hard at her part time job, but I know she has a fairly good English because she had dinner with us my first day in the house. As for Aya-chan I’ll get to that later.
Saturday (Shinjuku Gyoen):
Mariko-san and I went to Shinjuku to experience a day in Shinjuku Gyoen, however since it was a personal injury somewhere along the Chuo-Line all of the trains were late (I don’t know but both times I've been riding the trains in Tokyo they've been late.. Are they really the most punctual once in the world?? =P ), and because they were late we ended up in a rush hour kind of situation where they had to push the people on to the train. I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic!
The park was absolutely beautiful! About half of all the Sakura trees were in full bloom. We bought an onigiri obento (lunch box). After lunch we decided to take an extra-long walk back and how lucky were we?? Right as we turn the first corner we spot one of the most beautiful trees neither of us has ever seen. It’s in full bloom with white flowers on branches dropping down like rain towards the ground. (I would show you a picture but seriously none of them are any good and they definitely don't show the trees beauty.)
As we got back home the three of us (Mariko-san, Shige-san and I) went out for a Yakitori welcome dinner for me.
Back home again we ended up talking about what I know about Japan, and obviously the topic was music, movies and dramas! What else? Do I know anything else? Oh yeah, sports too, not much about Japanese sports I’m afraid. Aya-chan joined us and got really impressed with my knowledge (not really impressive if you ask me though) before asking if I wanted to go for lunch tomorrow. Naturally I said yes! This would give me an opportunity to learn some more Japanese, that's why I'm here isn't it?
Sunday (lunch with Aya-chan):
Aya-chan had asked me to join her for lunch but we still hadn't decided what to eat, so when she suggested Okonomiyaki I jumped on the train, nodded intensely, saying “HAI!” This was one of the dishes I’d wanted to try before coming here and to get the chance so quick after landing I couldn’t believe it. We made our way towards a restaurant Aya-chan had never been to before and let her pick the menu since, let’s face it, I had no idea what anything actually was.
Aya-chan’s English is almost as limited as my Japanese at the moment, but since she wants to learn we made a deal. She helps me with me Japanese and I’ll do what I can to help her with her English. And so our conversation started. Talking about almost anything between heaven and earth, we had so much fun and the food was absolutely delicious! I long to the day I master the art of turning the food (I didn’t even try today, I would have completely messed it up).
Just a footnote: the first 5 songs played in this restaurant were Kis-My-Ft2 songs.
As today was filled with rain I sat down watching Captain Phillips with Mariko-san. Since at least 25% of the movie isn’t in English I had some trouble understanding it all with Japanese subtitles (but not to worry I will watch it again, not only do I want to but Mari-chan offered to watch it English subtitles).
Monday (operation find school and buy a commuter pass):
Calculating the time to get to my school Mariko-san and I decided to go to the school to ask if they could issue a certificate for a student commuter pass. It was such a short walk from the station we missed where to turn, we hadn't even started to think about turning when we were supposed to do it. We just passed it and then had to turn back.
Once we got to the school they were unable to issue such certificate, since they're a private school they aren’t connected to the government funded discounts. But I did get a few other questions answered. On our way back we bought a seasonal commuter pass (3 months) from Asagaya station to my school.
As I got home both Aya-chan and Mari-chan were awake and ready to go to lunch. We ended up at a steak house. With Mari-chan acting kinda like a translator we all talked for a while having so much fun. With the sun back for a day we made a longer walk home as Aya-chan stopped to buy some traditional Japanese sweets. Which she gently shared with me.
Tuesday (Address Registration & Inokashi Koen):
The day started out at the City Hall office (one of the many) to register my address (where I live now), so woohoo! I have an address =D next we took a detour to withdraw some cash and to see about this nailist (unfortunately they were closed today), because I seriously needs to fix my nails ASAP! I did some washing (and found out I can only do two washes a week, that shouldn't be a problem but we'll see) before we headed out to Kichijoji and yet another wonderful park.
Inokashira Kohen was filled with wonderful Sakura trees hanging into the water on each side of the river. We stopped for a moment and had our lunch under the trees before making our way past Ghibli Museum (we didn't go in as you have to reserve a ticket beforehand) och Mariko-san practiced some tennis swings against the free tennis wall.
Aya-chan joined us for dinner today and suggested we’d watch the last episode of Shitsuren Chocolatier as neither of us had seen it yet. Though it turned out Shige-san didn't know he was supposed to record it for her, we ended up talking about Aya-chan's day at Ueno Zoo and watching Harmonep Japan Cup 2014 (an acapella group competition) before we went to bed.
Wednesday (Opening Ceremony):
I thought I was early (well actually I was, I had planned to leave the house around 9 am but ended up being at the station at 9:02 and it takes at least 5 minutes to walk there, usually closer to 10) and I see my train pull out from the platform just as I arrive. Not to worry I thought, as there should be another one coming in about 10 minutes or so. But, something had happened (I didn't catch what today) and the train was delayed about 20 minutes. Then the 9 minute ride took over 20 minutes. When I arrived at the school I was just in time. Though I guess it wouldn't have mattered much since they didn't start the ceremony until 10:15 (15 minutes late) anyway.
The ceremony were all in Japanese and since I'm here to learn I didn't get much of it. Then they wanted us all (new students) to come up and present ourselves. Some saying more than others I found it fun to look at the principal since at times he seemed to be really pleased with what he heard, had a great smile on his face.
Then it was time for the placement test, for me the best would be to be as bad as possible that way I'll be learning it all the right way (seeing as I don't have any real learning yet and all I know is words and no grammar). And I succeeded!! (I think) Let's just say I managed to do the hiragana/katakana section but after that I was LOST! Then again I am a beginner and I’m here to learn, I've already learned so much from staying with this family. So let’s say I failed this test miserably and that's a good thing.
Time for lunch, and seeing as about 50% of the students are Korean who already know each other and there for only spoke Korean and about 30% are from Russia or Ukraine and also seemed to know each other (and the ones who didn’t quickly joined the Russian conversation), I had a hard time finding someone to talk to during that time. I mean I’m not the most forward going person in the world and we hadn't had any kind of “meet some friends” happening yet (not that I expect we will). Instead I decided to explore the school, managed to find a wonderful spot on the roof, which will soon be filled with smoking people, I guess. Anyhow I went around the corner looking for an obento and something to drink and headed up to the roof for my lunch break. My favourite floors in this building are the top 2 (the roof and the 4th floor, it’s smaller but much roomier).
Orientation, now this one was in both Japanese and English (mainly because it was all important information and they know some of us can't understand Japanese yet, though I've learned to understand the main topic of a conversation for the most part by now). We were scheduled to be there until 4pm but it was all over by 2:30.
So I headed home, everything went fine for a while. I easily found the station, I entered it and made sure I was looking in the right direction (the train coming from Shinjuku not going towards it), I saw the yellow line (Chuo-Sobu) coming (though this part wasn't hard as there's only one line at this stop..) and entered the train. Here's when I went wrong, the train only went to Nakano and then turned again, I kinda missed that detail so when the train turned and headed back towards Higashi-Nakano station I was confused for a moment thinking “didn't we come from here? Aren’t we going the wrong way?” the answer was: Yes we did! I jumped off and made sure the next train I took was going for Mitaka (I wanna say I won’t do that mistake again, but I highly doubt it).
I made it home and today all four of us girls had onion tempura for dinner. Then Thanks to some very nice people (BC, I don't know if they want me to mention them in an open post like this) I had a copy of the last episode of Shitsuren Chocolatier (with English subtitle) and so we plugged in my EHD into the huge TV and watched it. After which Aya-chan went to bed (she had a part time job starting 6:30 tomorrow) and the rest of us (now Shige-san included) sat down to watch some Honamadekka TV before we also went to bed.
Thursday (operation find a phone number):
We made our way to see if I could book a time to fix my now extremely long nails (I wanted Sakura themed ones) and to figure out which phone plan would be cheapest for me. Starting with SoftBank then Docomo and Emobile all of which either wants me to have a bank account or be a Japanese person (kinda hard to become a Japanese person now though..).
So the option was get a bank account, we only had time to talk to one bank and they required you'd lived in Japan at least 6 months prior to opening an account, so my search continued. I still had a few tricks up my sleeve and companies to talk to before making a purchase. Also almost none of them wanted to sell just a plan, no you have to buy a phone to get the plan. Ehh???! I just bought a new phone a few months back because my old one just stopped working on me. But like I said the search continues.
Back home again I ended up watching the last few episodes of How I Met Your Mother. I will definitely miss these guys, they've become a part of my life just like Shawn, Cory, Topanga, Eric and Mr. Feeney (and Minkus!!) did in Boy Meets World and all the guys in Friends. (This also made me truly realise I'm gonna need to purchase my own WiFi, I can’t take advantage of the family’s WiFi I'm totally gonna use up all of their usage if I do.) Also managed to watch the latest Revenge and Easy A again. I don’t know why but I never get sick of this feel-good movie as I so easily do once I've seen it a couple of times.
Once again we had a chick dinner with all of the females in the house (I managed to get us all to half watch VS Arashi, which accidentally happened to be the Most Dame Arashi episode, during dinner as well, this made me realise it’s been ages since I last saw an episode, I've really missed it). We also had a really good conversation, Aya-chan is doing her best at learning English and I'm slowly getting better at Japanese.
I'm having so much fun here, I sometimes think it might be okay to stay the whole year here. Then something happens and I realise how much I like both my freedom and alone time. (I guess I realised a lot today..) As much as I like them all and wants to keep seeing them throughout the year I don't think I'll be able to handle living here all of the time (also it's not possible). After growing up basically without restrictions it's weird starting now but I get why they have it and I'm doing everything I can to keep them.
Friday (find my class):
Today we found out what class we’re in (and therefore what time we'll have to be in school for the next three months). Which meant either calling the school to find out or to go there and read for yourself. I choose the latter since I was to meet with an agent from my Homestay agency for an orientation anyway. Around 1:30pm I made my way to the school, found out I'm in the morning classes (meaning I'll be in school during the morning hours and I'm free after lunch) then decided to explore the library (honestly it's mostly manga in there). I still had some time so why not have lunch, and thinking like Ikuta Toma I decided to have Curry Rice (I'm sorry, if you really don’t know what I'm talking about you should see the resent promotion he made for Mogura no Uta when he went to London) and seriously became like him too as today’s dinner turned out to be Curry Rice as well. I met with the agent, and I'm sorry but he didn’t really say anything I hadn't already read myself (basically since he just went through their leaflet).
Since I now had time to go back home I did so, and ended up in front of the TV with Mariko-san. I almost forgot the time to go to the nail salon. The nail lady was really nice, barely knew any English but we did our best. Got home with new shorter nails with Sakura, they are a little thick but I’m pretty sure she’d destroyed the Sakura if she had filed them a bit. So I’ll go with it for now (it’s only gonna last about a month anyway).
Also managed to watch the very last episode of Psych. Wow! What an episode, I know I said this about How I Met Your Mother too but I’m gonna miss these guys. They have all been a part of our lives for almost a decade now (well at least the ones who have watched the shows). It seems like an era is ending, One Three Hill two years ago now these this year (I'm sure some long running shows ended last year as well). Though I must say if The Big Bang Theory keeps this up I'm definitely gonna be one of those who drops the show before it ends in 2017 (I think I heard they renewed the contract until then), I'm not one to drop a show easily.
As Aya-chan and Mari-chan got home I showed them my findings in the library, which were a couple of Japanese language classes (thought by volunteers, Aya-chan is looking for those jobs) and an International Exchange Salon.
Saturday (Yukie-day):
Learn how to write your name, this was my morning task (given by me). May sound weird, but knowing how read and pronounce the katakana isn't really enough, you'll also have to be able to use them yourself. Which lead to me learning how to write my name in katakana today. When I was done I moved on to organising and updating my calendar with new activities and TV shows.
Time for a small lunch we had.. yes you guessed it: Curry Rice!
Then I went to meet my friend Yukie at Shinjuku Station. We walked around Shinjuku for about an hour then had dinner and we managed to get ourselves some purikura. We’re both really just trying to figure Tokyo out (she’s from Osaka).
Managed to catch today’s Tensai! Shimura Doubutsuen (though I missed the beginning) 10th anniversary SP and Arashi ni Shiyagare 90 minute SP as well. So cute animals!! And huge laugh to Arshi's dates with Arimura Kasumi.
Sunday (Tokyo Tower):
Trying to catch the last Sakura’s of the season we (Shige-san, Mariko-san and I) had decided to go to Tokyo Tower (mainly because they were meeting their tennis friends there). First up, tennis practice (or Kanji practice for me, I know I said I’d start exercise more but these people are even better at tennis than the retirement people.. which were actually pretty good), then Mariko-san and I went to find the one friend they have which actually doesn’t play tennis. He had a good spot but not nearly enough food for everyone, off to the Supermarket/convenient store we went. Though before we got out of the park we found a great spot for Tower pics.
Back again it started raining and with the unstable weather we decided to move to one of the friend’s restaurant. Yeah one of the tennis playing friends apparently owns a Chinese restaurant in Manato-ku (I’m thinking Asakusa, but I’m not sure..).
As Mariko-san & Shige-san went to buy food for tomorrow morning I went home and managed to have the alone time for this week’s Criminal Minds and The big Bang Theory (surprisingly good episode on the latter one) before dinner.
I’m gonna try to make some weekly updates (The keyword here being: try..) during the weekends. I really don’t think I’ll have the time during the week.
Also, my memory fails me so if I've forgotten to say "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" to tegohika, lalatormenta and/or alltimeberry I'd like to do so now. I know I'm super late but I hope you had a great birthday! ^^,
Happy Monday everyone!!