Smokey Dog and Coffee

Today was fun. I woke up before my roomies and showered early. I should have before bed since it keeps the bed clean and is relaxing, but my new roomie was sleeping so I didn't want to wake him when he needs his sleep. I got to the CIE building at about 8:00 and wandered about and gave them my laptop at 8:30. Hopefully I can get it tomorrow and not have to use this computer lab, although my room is cramped as it is with three people. I'll find somewhere on campus to park it.

I then met up with Joe who was also registering his tiny laptop and we met another guy, Sam, and went looking for breakfast. The cafeteria was closed so we tried Seattle's Best. Turns out Sam is an addict too but went for the cold vending-machine stuff, I had my first real coffee in days. 220 for a grande though. It was good. They had some breakfast item wrapped in paper, called a sumouki dougu so out of curiousity I had to get it. A hotdog. With coffee? Coffe companies go for an image of sophistication, I mean, why not a scone, or a tea-biscuit, but a hot-dog?

The hotdog wasn't bad.

The placement test was after our breakfast, so we headed over to the media center. Joe just got to take a questionaire that said "I don't know Japanese." Then he and the others who knew none left, which was surprising how many. I wouldn't come to Japan if I didn't know any, that would be too frustrating.

Next was the listening part and I didn't know what was going on until the 3rd question. Didn't do too well. Then the basic hiragana katakana part, followed by grammar. There were five sections, A B C D and upon request only (if you think you got 50% or more on D,) E. I made it about halfway through D so it might put me in D or a high C. The Kanji part was difficult too, but they got harder as they went on. Over all it seemed to be a good test, and it isn't the final determinator. I'm not worried at all about where I go.

And now I'm going to bed. The sleepy-bus has hit me. I don't have anything to do tomorrow so I'll do this. I was going to read Guns, Germs and Steel tonight but bed sound good now. Sorry everyone. There will be fun stories about Kizuhara Mall, bowling, and how nice it is being amongst people from all over the world.

G'night.

EDIT: Let's resume where I left off.

After the test I went shopping at Top World and bought some fruit, soba, two bottles of Qoo, and TWO BATH TOWELS!!!

Back at the dorm I signed up for the Makino Station / Kuzuhara Mall tour. I was dismayed to see these two American idiots and an equally dumb Australian going on the tour too, due to fearing having to have a meal with them, but they eventually broke off and did their own thing (presumably to get drunk.) Our group consisted of two other Americans, a Slav whom I befriended, and two Japanese girls, Kaori and Yuki.

We had two hours at the mall so I went and explored on my own.

Things I have learned:
-Crocs sell for over $30. In America they sell for about $1-5 if I'm correct.
-Hot Dogs seem to be popular in most coffee shops.
-Drip coffee is $2.80-$3. About as much as specialty drinks, unfortunately.
-Aside from architecture, all Malls are the same.

I bought a きのこ銀行 or a Mushroom Bank for $7. Finally somewhere for my coins to go. I also got two Mario Galaxy keychains from a vending machine but I lost the Black Boo one today while walking around campus :(.

When it gets colder I'm going to go back and buy some trendy Japanese clothes with silly English on them. I'm looking forward to that.

While sitting on a bench looking at my DS Dictionary, a Dad and his 5-6 year old daughter sat next to me and she exclaimed how I was reading Japanese and English, and the Dad told her to be quiet, hehe.

The guy from Slovakia, Mikhael was pretty cool. We both complained about American cities and not being able to walk in America, and how tacky consumerism is everywhere. That and how rude the other two Americans with us were. They were mostly interested in stupid Japanese You-Tube videos and TV culture, and narrow-mindedly made fun of the two girls for not being able to say "Bus."

I have to go somewhere now, so I'll write more later. Sorry!

EDIT:

Where did I leave off?

Right. After Chinese food we Mikhael went back to the dorm to sleep due to jet-lag. The five of us went to an entertainment place where we went bowling! Apparently our foriegn college ID's got us the student discout so it only cost 200 yen a person. I finished with a lame score of about 83 or so. We got in a... what I think they are called,purikura photobooth, and the pictures took 5 minutes and the girls spent about 20 putting hearts, bubbles, and stars on them... If you've seen these booths, you'd understand. The other two guys spent more time than I'd like playing video games though, but I met another Kansai-Japanese student there and talked to him for a bit.

This reminds me of something about the Mall I forgot to tell you about. There were some Japanese students from the University of Michigan? They (well, the one with the best English) asked me about what I expected the mall would be, why I go there, and so on. First we tried this in Japanese then quickly retreated to English. I told him it was cleaner than American malls, and the design was better, but it had pretty much the same things in it. Also I came there due to being on a tour, haha. Apparently they were doing a study on the International-Kansai students which was interesting. They were pretty nice.

Anyway, back to the entertainment place. The walk back to campus was a little long. The street was very narrow, apparently a lot of accidents happen on it. I keep fearing some drunk ramming into us, but the only one we encountered was a guy on a bike who swatted at one of the other Americans when he couldn't figure out that a bike was coming and that he should move.

I think I then came back to the room and slept.