I Couldn't Be Happier

This one is a long post - sorry about that. And also, here is the link for pictures, as I promised:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017965&id=1230390045&l=fe935f12ae

Wednesday was fantastic. It started out a little bit rough but it only got better.

The easier part of orientation had ended when course registration time came up. We will have our tutors to help us pick classes later but just looking at schedules on our own was very stressful. As expected, only a few classes are taught in English - everything else is in Japanese. Trying to find the right classes is stressful enough in American university. Not being able to understand the class names, their descriptions and the fact that you know you won't understand everything in class was upsetting.

*Sigh*

However, the day started getting better after orientation and some of my friends and I decided to eat at a kaiten-zushi bar or "sushi merry-go-round". The 2 pieces of sushi are on little, different colored plates (which indicate the price, ranging from 126 yen to 316 yen...which is close to $1.00 to $3.00 for a most basic conversion). The plates are placed on a conveyor that goes around the bar. You pick up which ever one you like and just eat! You can make requests as well! So far, my favorites would be salmon (shake - pronounced sha-kay), tuna (maguro) and eel (unagi). Eel is cooked with a special sauce poured on top and the other two are served raw. It was so delicious, I can't wait to go back again!

After that, we decided to go to a karaoke place. For two hours, the four of us sang to our heart's content and one free drink was provided. I had this overpoweringly sweet milk/caramel drink that I should have mixed together to make it less strong. Oh well, next time!

They had plenty of popular English songs (like Lady GaGa, Phantom of the Opera, Bon Jovi, etc.) and all the Japanese songs I love and know (like YUI, Younha, and Abindgon Boys School!!). Better yet, for those who do not read kanji very well, the screen provided the hiragana reading on top (which is called furigana) for those less educated as myself. XD So, I was able to read everything! I absolutely must go back to that place. Also expected, Japanese karaoke is much better than American karaoke place, even with basically the same set up.

[By the way, a mini lesson on the writing in Japanese for those who don't know - bare with me as this is sometimes hard for me to explain. This could be long...:

The characters in Japanese that look like, 日本 (Japan)、青山学院大学 (Aoyama Gakuin University)、写真 (picture)、are called kanji or 漢字. These are Chinese characters that the Japanese borrowed forever ago to use as their written language. Unlike Chinese however, Japanese uses a syllabary (instead of an alphabet like English or Korean) to make the sounds. So, when you start learning Japanese you learn:

a i u e o / あ、い、う、え、お
ka ki ku ke ko/ か、き、く、け、こ
sa shi su se so/さ、し、す、せ、そ
ta chi tsu te to/た、ち、つ、て、と

And so on and so forth, with r, h, p, b, y, m, w, n, d, sounds. The characters used there are hiragana which is used for Japanese original words. So, you use different hiragana to build words such as, にほん (Nihon = Japan)、あおやまがくいんだいがく (Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku = Aoyama Gakuin University)、しゃしん (shashin = picture). As difficult as it is to read kanji a lot, it's weird to have everything written in hiragana as there is no space in between words. For example, 私の名前はタリアです which is "my name is Talia" or "watashi no namae wa taria desu." If it was all hiragana it would be, わたしのなまえはたりあです...this wasn't the best example, but I'm running out of ideas. Is this making any sense?

To make things more complicated, there is also katakana or カタカナ which is (mostly) identical to hiragana in sound but look a little different and used for foreign words.

a i u e o/ア、イ、ウ、エ、オ
ka ki ku ke ko/カ、キ、ク、コ
sa shi su se so/サ、シ、ス、セ、ソ
ta chi tsu te to/タ、チ、ツ、テ、ト

Words like bus, Harry Potter and America would be written like バス（basu), ハリーポッター（Harii Pottaa), アメリカ (Amerika).

So yeah, that's Japanese written language in a cracked nutshell... ]

Moving on! After karaoke, went to a party for the new exchange students (about 40 of us). Met some new people, international and Japanese - had a splendid time at a place called Dande Lion. A friend of mine, Elizabeth and I decided to head back early. All was going just as normal until we were waiting for the train to leave after we transferred. I think I was laughing about something and I threw my head back. My sunglasses promptly slid off my head...right into the gap between the platform and the train. Elizabeth and I just sort of stared in disbelief. My habit of laughing at unfortunate events such as this started and I was just so shocked. It just had to fall in between - not in the train, or not on the platform. I had already set up in my mind to get over it and just buy new ones - despite how much I loved those glasses and the fact that I bought them in Barbados when I visited family with my mom and grandma made me love them more. As I stared at it lying by the tracks, a woman sitting near us told us in English we could ask for help by the train officials

I knew that would require knowing Japanese I couldn't think of, so I told her I didn't know how to do it (feeling very pathetic). At that moment, she bolted out the train looking for someone. I was trying to tell her to come back and to please don't worry about it, but she proceeded to hit the SOS button and the alarm went off. Train officials started running and I wished so desperately that I hadn't caused a scene, thinking, "It's not like anyone jumped! No one is hurt! It's just my sunglasses! Please don't come over!" So embarrassing.

People started staring in my direction and the train officials asked me to step off the train. Elizabeth and I got off the train and as the train left, the woman who pressed the button was still with us. I started apologizing and bowing and she said it was fine. She explained to the train people that my sunglasses fell and a few moments later, one of them came back with a grabbing device. My sunglasses were neatly folded on the side, far away enough from the tracks to not be damaged in the slightest. One of the officials took it out for me and again, after I received them, I started apologizing and thanking them all again.

Everyone else left but the woman who essentially saved me from losing my sunglasses, turned out she was going to the same stop. We talked to her about how we were exchange students from America, how we liked Japan, and other things like that. We got on the train and continued to talk in a mix of Japanese and English (she kept responding in English, I guess she wanted the practice). We went our separate ways eventually and I thanked/apologized to her again, bowing several times. Again, she made nothing of it and just wished I had a good time in Japan!

I wish more people could be this kind. I wish I asked what her name was - she made my bad-to-good-to-much better day possible.