First weekend

My first weekend in Japan was surprisingly boring. The rain from the coming typhoon kept me in my dorm for most of it, but I still went to Sengawa for food on both days. I am getting more adjusted to dorm Japanese food for breakfast and dinner, but I am really craving some IHOP right now.

I had my first adventure to the grocery store yesterday. Turns out, I had forgotten to pack an umbrella and I didn't want to go through all this rain without one. The store didn't seem that different from stores back in the states except there were two floors. And, you know, everything was in Japanese. The selection of fish was impressive, I even saw whole octopus tentacles. I wish I knew how to cook, because octopus is my favorite seafood. I didn't buy any octopus, but I did manage to find some delicious "Japanese noms" (phrase courtesy of Jamie Tomiye), including frosted flakes and lots of ramen/cup noodles. I uploaded a picture on Facebook.

Speaking of pictures, I have finally started uploading them. For those too lazy to look (or those without Facebooks), the link is here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150275983912033.376338.600777032&l=da47a8569a


And I forgot to mention two things in my last post, dancing and my new cell phone. I haven't been able to go dancing yet, but Pejing sent me a link for blues in Tokyo and I emailed them. They don't have anything planned yet, but something should come up soon and I'll try to make it there. They seem pretty excited to have a blues-er from the US. I hope they won't be too disappointed by all the fusion in my blues. I'm still looking for salsa, and Cari (the girl from IMSA) said she would love to go salsa with me if I can find it.

I also went out and bought a Japanese cell phone since I will be here for eight weeks (seven left). My friend Nobu had to technically buy it, but I got a prepaid phone from a company called SoftBank. The phone is pretty plain, but it has plenty of functionality that US phones don't. For example, infrared is really popular here. Instead of asking, "Hey, what is your number?" you just hold your phone up to their's and they beam their contact info over. It works really well.

I have wandered in to a few electronics stores and I am really jealous of Japanese cell phones. I have seen a lot of phones with 13.2 megapixel cameras and even a few with 3D capabilities. I'm jealous, but my phone works well enough. Texting in Japan is different than in the states. SMS (the way we text in the US) only works between phones of the same carrier. Texting between carriers is done by S! messaging, which uses email instead of phones numbers (which SMS uses).

Tomorrow Ben and I are heading back to the Shinkuku campus to find out what our options are for clinic projects. Hopefully I will be able to find an interesting project at Shinjuku because it is cheaper and easier to travel to there than it is to Hachioji. Oh, that reminds me, I am over here in Tokyo to work on clinic. Well, Ben is here for Global Clinic but I will also be working on a clinic project. I don't know how much I will be able to contribute since I haven't even taken E4 yet, but I'll do what I can. If I can't help much, I'll just work on my Japanese to get a head start on intermediate next semester.