Getting Things Done.

Today I got up, showered, and headed for the general Kansai staff introduction meeting. Our Japanese liasons in the CIE were introduced to us along with the faculty that would be teaching our non-language courses, and they explained what they were teaching along with their backgrounds. Most of them were nice, but the sumi-e art teacher was nervous and the Anime / Film guy ironically had no social skills. I think in addition to Spoken and Written Japanese, I'll try to get into Intercultural Communication, Japan and China relations over time, and International Negotiations. I drew a high lottery number today though, 367 out of something a little over 400. So I'll need back-ups, such as Intercultural Business Communication and the Body and Communication (where I could learn Japanese Kansai-dialect sign-language!)

After that meeting I went and had a coffee (no hotdog.) You don't walk around with your coffee unless you're taking it to the library or something (if they allow drinks? I'm not sure.) It's rude to walk and drink. I ended up walking back to the dorm to get copies of my insurance for my lottery number, and I paid 26,000 yen in fees which kind of hurt. I thought Gettysburg would cover the security deposits but I guess not. So that was a good 40 minute morning walk.

After everything was registered and the like there was another meeting where we went over Seminar House rules. We met our RA's and one of the faculty members (American) explained the rules to us. The big topics were noise in the neighborhoods, and recycling.

Noise is a big problem as most Japanese houses here have no insulation at all. You can hear anything anywhere. If you are talking normally outside the dorm people can hear you just fine. People shouting goodbye at night wake the entire neighborhood, and is typical of inconsiderate foreigners, more so Americans. Drinking alcohol in the park late at night is also rude, and alcohol makes people noisy... A lot of time was spent concerning alcohol in the kitchen of Seminar House 4 where they have just allowed alcohol which will probably be shown as a mistake later. A lot of students don't want to live where that is going on, me included. But if they get noisy at all, it's done with; zero noise tolerance. I like that. The guy giving the lecture though lives next door to my dorm though, and says that Kansai students have made a glass of water shake in his room at night when the side gate is opened, and asked us to be quiet when we come home after 23:00.

Next was recycling! In our kitchen, there are six receptacles: two for burnable garabe, one for cans, one for plastic garbage, one for certain kinds of plastic drink bottles with a certain symbol, and another for glass. The plastic bottles must have the caps taken off and the plastic wrappers. This is why there is a preforation in the label to take it off, which finally made sense. The caps go in the plastic garbage along with the label, after you wash the bottle. Plastic garbage cannot have any bits of food that they might have held. If anything isn't right, the garbage is rejected and the seminar house staff (a family that lives here too and manages it for us) has to separate things on their own. The guy giving this detailed lecture lamented that he had three degrees and is teaching us how to recycle, which was pretty funny...

After this I ran into Joe at the CEI where we were getting our laptops and we went to go get some food at the cafeteria. They had the same thing as yesterday only the Kurabu Ranchi (Club Lunch) had chicken instead. Variety comes when the Japanese students get here on the 24th. I haven't used the other two cafeterias yet though, I don't even know if they are open. The Makudonarudo (McDonald's) is only open shortly for lunch, and we missed it having an early dinner. It was then starting to rain so we sat in the ampitheater between the cafeteria / store / bookstore / McDonald's and talked with Mikhael and Ean, an Aussie, while we watched the breakdancers practice on the wooden floor center. A half glass, half solar panel roof protected us from the rain.

Eventually Mikhael and Ean went on the Hirakata-shi tour, and Joe and I walked back in the light rain to drop off our computers and finally decided to take the bus from the Hirakata Central Library (across the park and dorm) to Hirakata-shi to explore on our own.

We found city hall again, where I'll go sometime to get my Gaijin Card. We looked at some arcade for a bit, then a department store which ended up only being womens clothing. We accidentally went to B1 instead of the first floor to get out and were confused, but then saw an old Japanese guy behind us who did the same and exclaimed "Ehh?!" when he got off the escalator. It made us feel better.

The then found a bigger department store to look at and looked at clothes with Engrish on them. I almost got one with zebras on it that said "strong bond." It was only 500 yen though... Anyway we then got lost in the toy section and the little kid in us that always wanted to be in Japan came out. We oogled at the video games that would never see US shores, and all kinds of neat novelties that you'd never see too, like a dancing desktop plant that didn't look tacky. And then we found stuff from the Miyazaki movies and at some point I may buy Zoe a stuffed catbus. I don't know why it reminded me of her. I hope you're reading this :P

We later found another arcade and found a Mario Kart game! It was a lot of fun and quite clever. Apparently you could use a card to insert into it to save your game and progress, so you could unlock new drivers and courses which was a good idea. We then found a bunch of capsule toy vending machines and I got a Goomba and a Pow-Block, and a chocolate donut-clip from the Misutaa Donatsu machine. I wanted the coffe and donut one though... There's always next time.

We then went into a media store, Book Off, and looked at video games and Manga. I didn't know any of the manga and I'm not a fan to begin with, but I found one that was done in a non-traditional style, in the form of one-panel comics which seemed to deal with homeless people, the elderly, and the dark situations surrounding some of them. Maybe it is some critique on society as well, I don't know. The cover material was different too, it really stood out. I hope it's good, it looks quite interesting. I may read some tonight but I'm getting tired again...

We then just went back to the bus stop and met other Gaijin and took the bus back to the library. Some of them got off on campus, where the bus announces the stop in English... They signed up for a nice 20+ minute walk, while Joe and I felt smug knowing we could ride for longer, haha. I came back to find the American, Russ in bed again but with the light on, and the Canadian, Matt shuffling around in the closet. Apparently Russ left it on. Matt told me that there is AN ONSEN nearby! And only 400 yen! I must find it. That would be so relaxing for stressful days, or before or after big tests and the like.

Anyway, I'm off for now. Tomorrow there is registration and we'll see how that goes. Then in the afternoon there is some induction ceremony and I'll dress up for that. I wonder if any other students brought nice clothes... I better make a good show for America's sake... We get a free buffet in the cafeteria afterwards though! Looking forward to free food... I don't get my food stipend for a few more weeks...

And before I forget, even though I have my laptop and it works on the network, I can't call anyone with my cranky roomie sleeping in there constantly. He's awfully abrasive. It will be nice when it's just Matt and I, he's so easy going, carefree, and just excited to be where-ever he is. Joe's roomie is a huge Korean guy that doesn't know much English or Japanese, and Joe knows no Japanese... I hope it works out for them. He's a nice guy though. He's huge but seems kind and is softspoken, haha.

Well, goodnight!