Soul Rescuer

Okay, so catchup time! Yesterday was pretty full, and tonight is less so. Feeling a bit down and bleh because of the party tonight. Kinda wanted to go, but then everyone got all dolled up and pretty, and the best I've got are my jeans and sneakers, seeing as it's too cold for a skirt and I didn't bring leggings because they told us not to bring anything fancy. Plus the talk about going to Jusco to get alcohol bottles for everyone kinda turned my attention off, but with the dorm so quiet and no one around, it's kind of lonely. Once I'm done this I'm probably going to go curl up downstairs with Highlander and a blanket and hopefully feel a bit better.

Yesterday had an interesting start, as I rushed out to get the train and didn't get breakfast. I was on the train with Dan, a friend who's in my Japanese class that I was heading to. We got to Tamachi really early, and he was in the mood for coffee, so we gave Makkudonarudo Hanbaagaa (McDonald's!) a try. Blech. Really terrible for breakfast. Dan likes his coffee black, so he was happy with it, but I got a McGriddle or whatever that thing is, and it was nasty. The bacon was barely cooked and the taste of pancake and egg together was just off-putting. People have said that McDonald's in Japan is alright for burgers, but not for breakfast or anything, and I can say from that experience, the breakfast part is right. It does seem incredibly popular with Japanese people for dinner, though, since it was packed when I was on the way home today.

I actually just found out about the Setsubun festival that's coming up for the beginning of February. It apparently involves eating an entire handrolled sushi roll, putting on an oni mask, and throwing things at our dorm managers. I HAVE NO IDEA. But it sounds like fun xD.

We had our first real Japanese class today. It was pretty neat. A lot of acting out conversations, mostly invitations in polite and casual speech and how to accept them and turn them down both ways. Best part ever though was the homework, which I still have to do. We were given a list of about 10 or so things, and we have to pick one to do by Tuesday, and eventually do up to 5 or 6 of them throughout the semester. They're interview things, and we have to write down what vocab we plan to use and all. It just gets a bit tricky. The things on the sheet are like "Go have yourself made up at a department or cosmetics store," "Get a haircut and talk to the hairdresser and tell her how you want it cut," "Go to the public baths," "Ask someone their favorite kanji/proverb/tongue twister and why and translate it," "Get your picture taken with two different people and get both of their emails," and such. Really cool and interesting and sounding like fun, but SO FRIGHTENING TOO. *nervous nervous*. Going to try the onsen one for this weekend, but if things don't work out for that, I'll head to the ramen shop by campus during off hours and ask their favorite kanji. I went the other day when they weren't busy, and they were mostly just bored, so I figured it'd be a good chance xD.

Next was Japan Today, which is actually turning out pretty interesting. We bring in articles for different topics, and discussion ensues. This class's theme was disparities, such as gender and age and such, and we mostly talked about the work force and how getting a job is difficult these days due to such job security that Japan has. Keeping one is easy, but getting a job is getting really tough, so some young Japanese grads end up working part time jobs all their lives. If you don't jump onto the ladder right out of school, it's difficult to get on at all, which is the problem nowadays.

After class, I hung out in the cafeteria a while to wait for a friend and ran into Heather from high school. She said her art class had gone on a trip to the best place ever: Sailor Moon's neighborhood. They actually went to the town that the show was based on, and she said they even found the temple that Rei was a priestess at :o. Pretty awesome stuff. She also advised me to get the "beep beep beep card" when I said I was going to get my commuter pass, so from here on out, the Suica commuter pass should be known as the beep beep beep card. I probably won't stick to that :b

The activity clubs here look so cool too~. I wanna join the cooking club, or maybe the anime club. More likely the card and board gaming club. Who knows? xD. They all look interesting, even the fishing one, though I lack the equipment to join, really.

We left later and went to get my beep card, which wasn't actually as bad as I thought it'd be. It was expensive, but it really does cut the overall cost of the commute in half. Plus, I don't have to buy tickets or stick anything in the machine anymore. Now I just flash it and it beeps and I'm good :3. Sorta like an EZpass for the train. Good stuff, and I highly recommend it. If you're living here and commuting anywhere by train, you can set your commute route on the Suica card and they'll give you a good deal on 3 months' worth of travel. It also makes me feel more like everyone else to just beep it and be done :3.

Afterwards (and after using my card for the first time!) we came home, and I stopped at Jusco to get tuna, mayo, and dashi to make a bento lunchbox for the next day (the dashi was for dinner that night though). I will say this: Japanese mayo tastes SO DIFFERENT. It's called Kyuupi Mayonnaise, and it's really good, and they love to put it on EVERYTHING. Takoyaki, okonomiyaki, etc. It's crazy. We did have a bit of trouble trying to find dashi, seeing as I've never used it and didn't know what to look for at all. So I asked a woman that worked there about it, and she literally spent at least five minutes of scrutiny and a phone call to a friend to figure out which would be the best instant dashi for oyakodon (which is what I mentioned I was planning to make). Completely unexpected helpfulness. I only know a couple of people Stateside that'd actually go to all that trouble :b. It was really nice and sweet of her =). We also found this crazy stuff that looks like flavoring for rice, like herb and dried things and sesame seeds you mix in with rice. I'm going to try dipping my onigiri in it to give them some more flavor. It'll be interesting at least xD.

We came back then and hung out a while to wait for my other friend so we could make dinner, and in the meanwhile, I got cultured in the face. Keisha showed me pictures of her family and pictures of the Cropover festivals from Barbados, where she's from. It was really cool to see all the costumes and finery and find out that a lot of them were related to her. Really neat stuff =)

Unfortunately, dinnertime never came. When Abby came home, it was late, and we found out the kitchen had been closed down due to clogged sinks D:. So I couldn't make dinner or my bento, and Keisha was out of instant food. Fortunately, another friend got her some good noodles, and I had an emergency bento in the freezer of fried chicken and something else. Always keep an emergency bento tray in the freezer, in case of kitchen failure. That is my advice. Abby tried to make rice to make onigiri for lunch, but apparently the rice cooker on out floor is dumb and doesn't work (though the buttons being written in Japanese certainly doesn't help). Paul gave her permission to use the kitchen rice cookers though, as long as she took the dishes upstairs to be cleaned, so it turned out okay. A little bit soggy and frustrating, but alright.

Also, I don't know whether I mentioned this, but the other night when going to get phones, I had been having a bad day, and the phone stuff didn't help, and everything else, and I kinda snapped at one of my neighbors. She's a good person at heart and I know she doesn't mean any harm and I like her as a friend, but she does get under my skin sometimes. But this does bring up a good point: if you're living in a dorm/apartment/whatever with someone, especially abroad, try to be as civil as possible, because you have to put up with them whether you like it or not. Fortunately, I stopped things from taking a downwards turn and we're on okay terms again. Now I've learned to try harder from now on to be as good as I can be to be dormmates, too.

Random stuff though? The other girls went to Jusco and bought Ikea-like shelves for their dorms, 900 yen. They're build-it-yourself, but they looked pretty nice and handy, so I would suggest them =). Also, 100 yen shops - if you're taking beginner's Japanese and really want a good hiragana practice book, 100 yen shops sell ones for children. So you're learning them just how the Japanese do! They seemed pretty handy for the people I know that are beginning Japanese.

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On to today. Today started off fairly well. Couldn't sleep too well last night, so I was tired this morning, but I still got to campus 40 minutes early to get breakfast. I had been craving strawberry milk for the whole week, too, so I knew I was getting that. It's crazy the things you crave when you don't get them anymore. I don't even like milk all that much xD. I will say though, strawberry milk in Japan is DELICIOUS. Tastes just like strawberry pocky <3. I was at a loss as to what to actually have for food, though. Bento get old after a while, so I decided to try a salad. Someone had been saying how good they were. All the dressings are in Japanese, though, so I picked one at random. It was sesame! Yum. It was actually a really good change. Much healthier than McDonald's. It was pretty complex for a salad: iceberg lettuce in big leaves on the bottom, then cabbage as the bulk of the salad, then topped with half a hard boiled egg, some tuna, some corn, some carrot slices, and some cucumber. It was really, really delicious, surprisingly so as a breakfast. I'm proud of my healthy breakfast :3.

Anyway, first Japanese Culture class today. It looks to be really interesting and applicable to my time here. We're learning about Japanese culture that's used every day, like mannerisms and such. It looks to be pretty cool, but we didn't get into anything much yet. Then came Japanese Lit again, where we talked all about Japanese history during the Edo period and the Meiji restoration and Commodore Perry and such. The Japanese depictions of Commodore Perry were really funny. One looked like a weird Reagan, and the other looked like Beavis. It was a good class. I really like the teacher; she's really upbeat and funny and leads a good class.

After class, I got my ID card registered in the library since I went exploring Azabu Hall a bit, and I figured I wouldn't go to the party tonight due to lack of sleep and clothes and general confidence. I have a hard time going to parties with people I don't know well, but that's just me. So I checked out the library with Jess, and looked through the INSANELY HUGE collection of DVDs that the library has and will lend out for a week at a time. There were several I was debating, but I settled on Highlander, due to many many recommendations and Sean Connery and the many references I have heard in my time among the nerd clan of Pitt.

Then, to the real adventure of the day! I had noticed a bunch of restaurants near the station that seemed to have cheaper food than near the actual school building, so I decided to try one out for dinner. I'd been craving curry all day (for a couple days, really, since Abby mentioned she had made some homemade~), and I found a really cheap place where you pay at a machine outside that has pictures of all the food (I usually have a hard time ordering because I can't read kanji well, and the machines don't rush me), and tried Curry Gyuu. It turned out to be a really good deal. A cup of hot black tea and miso soup with plenty of kelp and seaweed in it, followed by a plate of mildly spicy curry with carrots and slow-roasted beef in it next to some rice with sliced cooked beef piled on top, all for 540 yen. The beef was wonderful, kinda strange in that it was long and thin like bacon, but with the taste of really good roast beef, combined with curry sauce. It really hit the spot and satisfied that curry craving. Plus, such a better dinner deal than most places that jack their prices up to 1000 yen or so for dinner. Still haven't gotten to go to that world's best ramen place yet - it was closed when I passed by on the way home. I will get you one day, best ramen!

Anyway, got the train back home and was feeling good and full and happy using my new beep beep beep card and the fact that the train was the least full I had ever seen it (it's pretty rare to have an open seat as far as I've seen, and there were many open), but then the train stopped one stop before mine and they kicked everyone off >_<. I couldn't hear why, but we had to wait on the next one, which of course was packed, as well. Ah, well. Got home to the dorm and I figured I'd do something different instead of just running up to my room, so I went to the lounge. I got to watch the one dorm manager and my neighbor playing Left 4 Dead, and it was a good time. The party people came and kidnapped her, though, so I got to take over for her for the finale, in which I was punched clear off the building by a Tank. Nonetheless, it was fun.

Back in my room now, and feeling better after having written this. Just missing all you guys back home a lot, and kinda mad that my classes cut out the best time to talk to all of you. Love you all, though, and can't wait to see you all again~ Mwah <3