Moving Day

Today (Thursday) was our last day at the Hachioji Seminar House, so we just had a morning class, then loaded onto buses for the Nishi-Waseda campus just north of Shinjuku.

Pics from the last few days at the Hachioji Seminar House

Yesterday the guys had to move out of our rooms and stay in a different dorm for the last night, since evidently there were some new students coming in that needed our rooms. The other dorm was even weirder than the last one and was just pretty ghetto overall. More than one night there would have sucked, but it wasn't so bad for a one time thing. That night we had a going away party that started with a dinner (much better than the regular food), then Keith, a songwriting major played a few Beatles songs with our awesome RA Takashi on vocals. We were skeptical that anything would be able to follow that, but next Liz, Jane, and Carrie, another 3 musically-talented students gave an extremely impressive performance. After that we moved into the (cockroach infested) auditorium for the after-party, for which Takashi provided some sake.

I would have partied a little harder, but I still had a little homework to do that night, so I left around 11 (which is my regular bedtime).

Pics from the party

Everyone is really excited to be at the new campus since people were getting really sick of having nowhere interesting to go (Hachioji and Kitano are only fun for so long).

After getting settled into my new room (and having a mighty struggle with my fitted sheets), my new roommate Daniel (it's 2 to a room here), my buddy Ethan, and I went out to explore the surrounding area and buy ethernet cords so we can get online. We went to a store called "Picasso" which is kind of a mini department store that sells everything from electronics to food to clothing for the cables, and grabbed dinner at Subway (Shut up. A tuna sub sounded good!). After getting back, I set to work reconciling all of my various maps of the area. It looks like we have very easy access to trains and subways so we can get just about anywhere in the city pretty easily (1 train direct to Akiba!).

Later I joined a group going out to celebrate Liz's (another classmate) birthday. We first split into two groups since some people wanted to go to a noodle restaurant and the rest of us had already eaten, so we wandered around the area for a bit before meeting back up with the rest of the group and going to the Hub, which is an English Pub-style chain of bars in Japan. We hung out there for a bit (I got a Malibu and Coke) before heading out again. We continued to wander when suddenly one of our companions, Cooper, suddenly sensed booze and led the way to this shady looking shot bar called "Outsider". At first it seemed like a cheap dive bar (there was only 1 other customer), but after looking around for a bit and getting our food and drinks, it turned out to be a really classy little place (despite the wierd late 80s lawyer movie that was playing on the TV). The drinks were a little pricy (between 700 and 1000 yen for a drink), but dollar for alcohol content, it was actually a better deal than the other bar. After looking at the menu I decided on the most Japanese thing available and ordered a Kamikaze (it was also a western style bar). I'd never had a strong cocktail like that before, but it was actually really good. I might have to come back (they also had good looking food for a little bar).

Much of this was written post-kamikaze, so forgive me if it's not perfectly readable.

This new dorm is an incredibly strong contrast to the last place we stayed. The seminar house had all these quirky concrete buildings with almost rustic interiors, while this place is eerily monochromatic and sterile (everything is painted white and we have to take off our shoes at the entrance). We also will not be provided with meals here (though there is a campus cafeteria we can buy food at), which should be interesting. There are lots of grocery stores (we have a kitchen on every floor) and restaurants around though, so I won't go hungry.

My room and tonight's antics

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And mom, Fuji-Chan is what I call the little Mt. Fuji-shaped bag I bought at (naturally) Mt. Fuji. Since the smallest paper bill here is 1000 yen, you end up with a lot of coins, so I bought Fuji-Chan to keep my coins all together.