A Plethora of Japanese Natural Disasters

Well today was a little more exciting. I managed to stay up till 1am last night, which is more akin to my normal sleeping habits. Just before I went to sleep I experienced my first earthquake. All of a sudden my bed just started moving back and forth on its own. It took me a second to realize what was happening and it was a little scary even though I know small ones are nothing to be afraid of. It only lasted about a minute.

There's also apparently a typhoon coming. It's been raining cats and dogs today. On the day I had to walk all over campus of course. My pants were perpetually soaked. Japan's rain seems to have homing capabilities or something, I feel as though I was getting considerably more wet than I do in America. I had to go and sign up for my Japanese placement test this morning. I picked Friday of course, more time to "study." Tori and I went to eat after that, and we actually met some other international students there, which was nice. There were a bunch from Uzbekistan, and one from Kazakhstan. It's sad that I know absolutely nothing about the culture of those countries, and of countless others as well. I can't even remember the names of all those countries. Oh, I met a girl from China on the bus from the airport on the first day, as well as two girls from Egypt. It's pretty cool to meet people from so many different places.

After lunch Tori and I met our tutors at another orientation for our specific college (International Studies). It was all in Japanese for some reason. Stuff about paperwork and course registration. Then we went to the bank to open accounts, where once again I wondered how I'd get anything done without my tutor talking to everyone for me. I had to rewrite the forms 3 times though, cause first I didn't write my middle name and then I didn't write my last name first. Next we went to the cell phone shop to get phones. I barely understood what my tutor and the nice cell phone lady were saying and my poor tutor had to explain everything to me in much more simple terms with lots of charts and numbers before I understood what was going on. Then the cell phone lady realized that my middle name was written on one of the official documents necessary for a foreigner to get a cell, but not on the other. See Mom, my middle name is evil. So I have to wait for my student ID card to be sent to me before I can get a phone. The phone was free though, and with the plan I picked it's only $25 per month, assuming I don't use more than 55min or 245 texts.

We went to the supermarket after that, cause I was getting sick of cafeteria food and dessert bread. Normal, plain bread seems to be a surprisingly rare commodity here. They seem to like to put everything under the sun in the bread in Japan and the stores mostly have this dessert bread. They have melon bread, chocolate bread, margarine flavored bread, bean paste bread, and lots of other weird looking ones I can't understand. I'm personally obsessed with bread, but I like it plain and simple, it tastes best that way. So I was quite elated to buy normal sandwich bread (hallelujah) and a french baguette at the market. I got the bread, gum, Apollo chocolates (those chocolates you love Jill), laundry detergent, a small ready-made dinner, a piece of yakitori (meat on a stick), and a box of crackers (Maria cookies actually, they have them here too, except they're called "Marie" instead?) all for $15. Food doesn't seem to be too expensive here. Although apples are $6 EACH here D: I nearly cried. So much for my daily apple fix.

After we got back, Tori and I headed to the showers. Oh, the showers opened at last, but to be honest they're kinda gross and creepy anyway, so I like the bathhouse better (guess I got over that quick). Anyway, as we're walking I felt a leaf on my foot, so I tried to shake it off, but it wouldn't come off and felt like it was moving, so I looked down... there's a giant cicada grabbing onto my toes. They're about 2.5in long. I proceeded to scream and shook it off. I nearly puked after that, and scrubbed my foot raw in the shower. At least they don't bite. I hate bugs, I really do. And yet I just had to come study abroad in the Land of Giant Bugs.

Wow, this post is really long today, sorry. I finally took pictures today! Well, two... but it's a start. The first is just of the soaking wet campus and one of the many crazy people who were riding around on bikes on the wet ground while trying to hold umbrellas with one hand, and the second is of some pond so covered with lily pads, it doesn't even look like a pond. I neglected to take a picture of the nasty cicada.

Classes start tomorrow bleh...