Orientation and Izakaya

So it's my third day in Japan now and I'm leaning more every second. Two days ago, we had orientation at Sophia University where we met other students and got the instructions on how to sign up for classes and various other administrative stuff. After that we took the Japanese Placement test which might have been the single hardest test I've ever taken in my life. Kanji is very hard to understand!

After the placement test, a few friends and I walked from Sophia to Shinjuku just to get a feel for the area. Shinjuku is pretty interesting. There's a lot of shopping and place to eat, but it seems like more of a nightlife/bar type of area (especially at night). Later that night we had a reception with the Sophia Faculty and got a bunch of free sushi and other random foods. Immediately following that, our support students at Sophia took a large group of kids out to an Izakaya in Shinjuku. Izakaya is kind of similar to a bar, but instead of paying per drinks or food, you just pay for the time period you want to stay there and food and drinks are unlimited. It was really fun with a large group of people and I got to know some Sophia students pretty well! The drinks at the Izakaya weren't that strong, but they taste amazing! All in all it was a cool cultural experience. So that was my second day in Japan.

Yesterday (on my third day), a group of other exchange students and I went to the Nerima government office to get our Residence cards properly set up. Basically think of the Japansese DMV. We had no idea what to do there, most of the signs were only in Kanji, and not many people spoke more than a few words of English there. Luckily, one of the students we were with lived in Japan during High School and was able to figure out for us what we needed to do. I don't know if I want go to the government offices again, but it was cool to see what that is like in Japan. After that, we went to Shinjuku station to get our commuter passes so that we could get to school and back for much cheaper than paying for a ticket every time. Speaking of which, the Tokyo rail/subway system is super complicated. Each train line is run by a different company and to switch back and forth between them is very expensive, so the commuter pass will definitely come in handy.

After that we spent most of the day wandering around Akihabara which is the Tech/anime/gaming portion of the city. We went into a few manga shops to look around and then played a few arcades here. The arcades there are amazing. The one I went to had 7 or so stories and different game types on each one. My favorite was the mecha game where you sat in this enclosed pod with screens all around you and piloted your giant robot to shoot at other robots.

Anyway, we got bored of playing games and it was getting late, so me and a few friends stopped by Shinjuku again to see what its like on Friday nights and to check out this cheap bar one of my Japanese friends recommended to me. We couldn't find the one we were looking for and ended up stopping at an Arabian Nights themed cocktail bar and ordered some Shachu (japanese version of Soju). Luckily we left at the right time and managed to get the last train back to Fujimidai where we stayed up a bit more talking to all the other foreign kids about their days.

It's raining pretty heavy today, so I'm not sure if I want to go on a big adventure, but I had planned to go look at Harajuku and Shibuya and maybe stop by the Meiji Temple. I will update again in a few days about all thats happened!