Saturday and Sunday

So once I touched down and made it through customs and immigration, I was directed onto a bus to take me to the Shinjuku Washington Hotel. While waiting for the bus, I met another Waseda student by the name of Jun (we were the only two from the program who arrived around that time, so there weren't any others with us). On the bus ride from Narita airport to Shinjuku (which took about 2 hours due to it being rush hour) I got a good look at the city of Tokyo. I was struck by how green the whole city is. There are bushes and trees everywhere. It's amazing how efficiently space is used here: any space that is not used for streets (which are quite narrow), sidewalks (also narrow), and buildings (tall and tightly packed) has something planted there.

That night, surprisingly energetic despite an incredibly long day of travel, I met some other students (including my roommate for the night, Jon, a History major pursuing a PHD in ancient Chinese history) and joined a group of them in search of a good ramen restaurant. We ended up meeting with Keith's (another member of the program who was with us) dad who is an American living in Shinjuku. He brought us to a great little ramen shop a short walk away. I can honestly say the miso ramen there was the best I'd ever had, of course all I'd had before was the instant crap...

Today was orientation day, so the program administrators gave us a presentation with an overview of what we'd be doing over the next 6 weeks. After that we loaded up on buses and, since we had the afternoon to kill, spend a few hours at a huge outlet mall. It was pretty much entirely clothing stores so it wasn't particularly interesting, but it was nice to wander around and get to know my classmates.

I did buy an effing amazing hat, though. I'll post a picture once I get the chance.

After arriving at the Hachioji Seminar House where we'll be spending the next 2 weeks, I joined up with a group of people and explored the campus. It's probably the weirdest place to take classes you can imagine. It's in the middle of a large, hilly, forested area, and all the buildings are oddly shaped concrete structures. We ended up walking down a small dirt trail for about 20 minutes until it suddenly opened into a residential neighborhood. All in all, its probably the best setting for a horror movie ever. Think surrealist soviet-era eastern europe with lots of trees and wildlife around.

I also bought an alcoholic drink from a vending machine and consumed it and no laws were broken.

This evening after the welcoming party (in the upside-down trapezoid building with the creepy eyeball) I wandered the area near campus to find that there really isn't much in the area besides a couple 7-11s. A little disappointing, especially since the train station is probably a 45 minute walk away, but I'm sure I'll have no trouble keeping busy.

Class starts tomorrow and I'm anxious to see how difficult its going to be. I still haven't really gotten into the groove of speaking japanese all the time, so I think it'll be useful in that, at least.