Akihabara, Asakusa, Sky Tree, and Harajuku

After our last day of orientation on Tuesday we had the rest of the week off. The weather was really lovely (if not a little hot) so we went on a few outings.

Wednesday:
On Wednesday a few of us from the dorms went to Akihabara, the centre for electronics and general nerdiness.

The streets are also filled with these cutely dressed girls promoting the maid cafes. I suspect they either aren't allowed to be photographed though, or just don't want to be, because they tended to avoid the camera.

Thursday:
On Thursday a group called JOINUS (a group created by Rikkyo students where they show us places in Tokyo and hold get togethers for us exchange students) took us to Asakusa and the Tokyo Sky Tree. I visited Asakusa on my previous trip to Japan so I didn't take many photos but I have a couple for you.

We saw some fun things on the way to the Sky Tree...

Sky Tree! For anyone who isn't aware, Sky Tree is basically just an observation tower. To be honest I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle. We waited in line for 40 minutes to get a ticket to the first level (350m high, if you want to go 450m high you then buy an additional ticket once you're on the 350m level). Sure, it's one of those things which are good to do once, but once you look out one window they all start to look a bit the same. Here's the proof:

Friday:
On Friday Olivia, Ilse and I decided to go to Harajuku to do some shopping. Harajuku would have to be one of my favourite places to shop in Toyko, it's the centre for all things cute and I could spend literally a week straight exploring the stores there and not get sick of what's on offer. There's also a million places to buy crepes, which I will never get sick of. Like Asakusa I didn't take many photos because I've been there before, but here's a pic of some crepes and also the entrance sign to Takeshita Dori (it's constantly changing, but always cute).

And so that completes my week. Classes start tomorrow so I'll do a post soon with some pics of the campus. And also a big thank you to my family who sent me a care package (or as they decided to dub it after chasing after all the things on my list of wants, a 'we don't care package'). Please continue to not care lol. I spent last night making tassels with the tissue paper I requested. Finally my walls look a bit less bare!

Anthea xx

My Dorm Room

Well since I'm stuck inside you guys are getting two blog posts in one day. Lucky you! Although I'm not sure what happened to that typhoon...there's no wind or rain in sight now. The sun is even shining.

Today's second post is an update of my dorm room now that I have it more or less set up. I'd like to get a rug for the floor to disguise all the hair I'm leaving all over the place and some posters for the bare walls, but other than that I have pretty much everything I need for now.

We'll start with the hallway. This is what I see from my front door. Toilet and bathroom are on the left, kitchen on the right, and just past the kitchen is my wardrobe. I have to leave my bathmat in the hallway because the bathroom is designed to be a wet room, meaning EVERYTHING in the room gets wet when I have a shower. My bathmat is super fluffy though, so I don't mind stepping on it every time I walk down the hallway.

Next is the toilet. Pretty self-explanatory. The pink thing in the sink is a toilet cleaner. When you flush the toilet the tap runs so that you wash your hands and then that water fills the bowl.

Bathroom. Unfortunately the bathroom does't come equipped with a towel rack (yet the toilet does?). I bought a towel rack that attaches with suction caps, but guess what, the suction caps don't stick to the walls in the bathroom, or the door for that matter. I even bought some clear stickers which are made to go on the wall so that you can then attach the suction caps to the stickers, but the stickers wouldn't stick to the walls either. I gave up and just bought a hook for my towel. Future RUID residents take note, don't bother with suction caps in the bathroom (unless you're sticking them to the mirror). I now have a pile of discarded suction cap fixtures. The hooks I have above the bath are stuck there with sticky stuff, so hopefully that won't leave any marks on the walls when I leave.

Kitchen. I bought some double ended hooks from Daiso and hung them from the drying rack so that I could hang my cooking utensils. I'm still not entirely sure how the stove works, I just push the buttons and hope for the best...

Fridge/shelving. I swear I do have some real food hidden behind the junk. And as you can see I got my microwave, so now I can heat up my heatpack for my back/neck (which has saved me a million times now, my shoulders are so sore from carrying shopping bags all the time). Thanks to the boys who carried the microwave back from Ikebukuro for me.

Moving on to the bedroom. Here's my bed. I am SO SO SO glad that I ordered my bedding online. It's actually pretty comfortable, although I did have to buy a new pillow that's better for my neck. I've felt what some of the guys who rented the dorm bedding are sleeping on, and let's just say that you should only rent the bedding if you like sleeping on a rock.

My mirror that I ordered online from Rakuten. I think it only cost me about $30AU.

My desk. I bought the whiteboard from the Aeon department store for about $10AU. It's been really handy this past week. My room phone and lamp are hiding behind my laptop.

Shelving. My make up lives here rather than in the bathroom because it would get wet every time I had a shower if I kept it in there.

My balcony now that I've strung up my clothesline.

This is the view if I look left over the edge of my balcony. Some of the guys have seen a cat that sometimes hangs around there. I've yet to see it, but if I do I'll be adopting it as my own.

And that's it! Now I just have to try not hoard a tonne of junk while I'm here so it stays clean. I'm already running out of places to put things.

Anthea xx

Shibuya

Hey guys, today is a holiday here in Japan, and apparently while I'm writing this there is a typhoon going on outside. There's some pretty intense wind, but not much else. Maybe it hasn't fully hit yet? I've taken a video of the vine-covered building that I can see from my balcony to show you the wind. I don't think it really shows just how strong the wind is, but it's pretty mesmerising to watch regardless.

I think I'll just stay inside today haha.

Yesterday Olivia and I went to Shibuya to do some shopping. And look who I found just chilling on the side of a vending machine at the train station. Spock! See how well he just blends in with the crowd? (Sorry for the bad photo quality, I was using my phone camera yesterday. I'll have to start being more of a tourist and use my actual camera).

Outside the station I came across an advertisement for Juice=Juice (Hello!Project's newest J-Pop group). The Shibuya 109 building in the background was just a happy coincidence...

Here's the famous Shibuya crossing. It can get pretty busy, it wasn't too bad yesterday though, plenty of room to move.

There was also some sort of festival going on in the street (I think it was some sort of a parade?) so I have some photos of that too.

I love how comfortable these old guys are wearing so little. This is a pretty good example of cultural differences I guess, in Australia we don't even want to see old men wearing so little at the beach...EWW BUDGIE SMUGGLERS.

And finally here's a picture of some shoes that I saw in the Shibuya 109 building that I knew some of the girls back home would love.

I thought that shoes here wouldn't fit me, and most don't. However I did buy a pair from Forever 21. They're an American company so it makes sense that some of their shoes are stocked in larger sizes here. The boots I wanted didn't come in my size though. Typical that I've been searching for boots for months, I finally find some that I love, and I can't have them (well, technically I could order them from the American website, but the American website doesn't ship to Japan so I'd have to get them sent to Aus, which is a $35 shipping fee, and then forwarded from Aus on to me in Japan. NOT WORTH IT).

I'm also having trouble with clothing here. Most of the clothes in the Japanese stores are 'one size'. While I can fit into them they make me look bigger than I am because they're cut for someone with a smaller frame. Fail. Guess Forever 21 will be my best friend over the next 6 months.

Providing this 'typhoon' passes, tomorrow we find out the results of the Japanese placement test (eep!) and then register for our classes. Then we have the rest of the week free. Yippee! Hopefully the weather won't cancel our trip to Disney Sea on Wednesday :)

Anthea xx

P.S. I'm missing my cat terribly. Dad, hurry up and buy a web cam or something, I want to see him.

Orientation and the Placement Test

Hey guys, sorry I haven't written in about a week, the past week has been really busy for us and by the time I get home I've been too tired to do anything. 

Other than all the activities we've been doing to meet new people like karaoke and outings for hamburgers, we had orientation start on Tuesday. I'll give you a quick day by day run down as to what that entailed. Try to stay awake, I had to.

Tuesday: 

General Rikkyo orientation. This was just a basic 'Welcome to Rikkyo' type thing that somehow took 2.5 hours. Then in the afternoon we had the placement test to determine which level of Japanese class we'll be taking. The test is split into 3 parts, and unfortunately all 3 parts are taken separately, so you can't refer back to what was on a past paper if you forget how to write a kanji or something haha. In saying that though, the test takes about 3 hours so it's probably good that it's split into 3 separate papers. The first part is grammar, which is multiple choice. Second part is a writing test/essay. The topic that beginners were given was 'give your opinion on studying a foreign language'. Needless to say my Japanese isn't really good enough to express my opinion, so after I wrote 'I study Japanese and it is difficult but interesting' I ended up writing 3/4 of a page of nonsense just to show that I knew some vocab. The third part is a reading test, which again was multiple choice. There are 2 different reading tests, and the one you're given depends on how well you did on the grammar test. SO DON'T FALL ASLEEP LIKE ANGELA DID.

Wednesday:

We had the interview part of the placement test. Of course, I got completely freaked out and froze. It took me 3 attempts to work out that they were asking me when I arrived in Japan, and after that I panicked and couldn't answer any more questions. Good one Anthea. Anyway they said they want to put me in a lower level, which I agreed with because I need to revise pretty much all of the sentence structures that I already learned. I just hope that they will put me in the 3 day a week class instead of the 5 day a week class like I requested, because while I need to revise, I'd rather be doing it in a fast tracked version rather than a slower version where I'll be bored silly. Plus who wants to be at uni more than they need to be? :p We'll find out the results on Tuesday morning.

Then in the afternoon we had the orientation for the College of Business. If I wasn't already stressed enough after my failure of an interview I was stressed after this orientation. Some of the subjects that I was planning on taking (including one of the ones that I HAVE to take to fulfil the requirements of one of my QUT subjects) are limited placement, meaning that there are only about 5 spots available to those of us in the College of Business. I've had to fill in a form for the subject that QUT needs me to do saying that I need it for my course at home, but there's still no guarantee that I'll get in. A couple of the other classes that I wanted to take aren't available to CoB students at all so I'll need to have another look over the class schedule and work out what I want to do before class registration on Tuesday afternoon. We also met our buddies who will help us out if we have any questions about uni/Japan in general.

Thursday: 

In the morning we had orientation for the dorms. This was pretty much a waste of time because they just told us the rules that we were told of when we moved in. In the afternoon we had computer orientation and library orientation. Once again, a waste of time. We didn't even get to visit the library. I think this was the most painful day of orientation and I was having serious trouble keeping my eyes open.

Friday:

Friday was a little more interesting. We went to the fire station where they have fire, smoke, and earthquake safety training. We got to use a fire extinguisher (the water-filled sort), crawl through a few rooms filled with the fake smoke stuff you find at theme parks (which actually does make it hard to breathe by the way and I was coughing on the way out despite having my shirt pulled up over my mouth), and experience an earthquake similar to the one that hit Japan in 2011. What we experienced was a 7 on the seismic scale, and while I have to say that it was probably more fun that it should have been because it was a controlled simulation I wouldn't want to experience one in real life. We had to get under a table and hold a cushion on our heads and hold on to the leg of the table, but it was really quite violent and if you weren't holding on to the leg of the table you could very easily have been thrown across the room a bit. The table moved a good metre or so in some of the simulations even with 5 people under the table holding on to it and some people came out of it with carpet burn on their knees. Let's hope I never experience an earthquake of those proportions. 

So that was orientation so far. The only orientation related stuff left is on Tuesday, when we get our placement test results and enrol for classes, and then classes start on the 23rd (although I'm not sure how that works because we don't get our schedules until October 1st. We also don't get our student ID cards and wifi passwords until the 25th, which is really annoying because at the moment we're all paying adult prices for trains. That's 600 yen a day (or about $7 Aus) just to get to Ikebukuro where the uni is and back.

I'll leave you with this photo I stole from Lauren of most of the Shiki dorm family outside of Rikkyo. I'll try and take my own photos of the campus soon! Oh and I now have my mobile up and running. If anyone wants the number just let me know on facebook or by email. I also have Line (an app used widely in Japan as a replacement for text messaging/calling, it uses your data allowance rather than your call/text allowance).

Anthea xx

I'm alive and well!

Hey guys, sorry I haven't written about my arrival, I am in fact alive. I've just been very busy getting my dorm room set up and meeting a million new people.

I guess I should start with packing. Packing was very last minute for me, so I just went around my room and put things in my suitcase. I think packing to stay at Michael's house every few nights has trained me well in the art of packing, so I didn't forget anything. Phew! This little guy didn't want to make it easy for me though, and I'm missing him immensely right now. Maybe I should have just let him stay in there...

The flights were ok. Both my flights were fully booked, but I got lucky and whoever was supposed to sit next me on my first flight didn't make the plane. Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky on the second, longer flight, but I was seated next to a very polite Japanese lady so I didn't have any issues. I couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep though which resulted in me sleeping on the bus on the way to the dorms the next morning. We also flew through a lightning storm which was interesting.

Once I got off the bus in Shiki I was greeted by 2 students from Rikkyo who took me to the Aeon supermarket (with my giant suitcase) to buy toilet paper since there was none at the dorms. I then arrived at the dorms and met the dorm manager who tried to explain everything to me, although I couldn't understand a word he was saying so I'm still not entirely sure how to work the washing machines or separate my rubbish.

The days following my arrival have been spent shopping for groceries, and several trips have been made to Daiso for cheap dorm supplies. I also needed to make a couple of trips in to the Bic Camera stores in Ikebukuro to get an adaptor for my laptop (I stupidly didn't check before I left Aus and my laptop plug has 3 prongs and the adaptors I bought only accommodate 2), and a microwave which I got special permission to have in my room so that I can heat up my heat pack for my back. Boy am I glad I have my heat pack. After the flights and the extra strain on my shoulders from carrying heavy shopping bags I need it badly. For once my bad back is useful for something, now I can cook microwave meals too.

Oh! And I've experienced my first earthquake. The morning after I arrived I was woken up a bit after 9am because the building was gently swaying. I thought it was just vertigo (I've been suffering from vertigo since I got here from using lifts so much, hopefully that will pass) but it turns out it was an earthquake. They really aren't scary at all, although I guess I wasn't anywhere near the epicentre.

So finally, I guess you want to see what my room looks like, so here's some photos from before I pulled all my stuff out of my suitcase (click on them to enlarge them). I'll post some more photos of what it looks like soon once I've bought a few more things. It's really quite big by Japanese standards I think, although I am struggling with the size of a few things like the kitchen and bathroom, I'm used to having more bench space. I guess I'll adjust.

Front door and cupboard (with shelves).

Entry area. I need to leave my shoes here.

Kitchen.

Kitchen.

Toilet. Yes it's a fancy one that washes your bum. I'm yet to try that setting. The fun part is there's a tap in the top of the toilet to wash your hands and that water then runs into the bowl so that you save water.

Shower. There are a couple of small shelves in the corner that you can't see, and the bath really isn't as big as it looks.

Cupboard (next to kitchen) for clothes. This is actually quite roomy.

My bedroom.

Desk and shelves. Those boxes are my bedding that I ordered before arriving.

Bed. I'd say it's about the size of a king-single in Aus.

Balcony. Once I run some string through that bracket it will be my clothesline.

View from my balcony. I got pretty lucky, just to the right of that is an ugly grey building. I can see half and half.

So that's it I guess. If you want to see the dorm a bit better a past resident of the Asakadai dorms made this video which is pretty good. The Asakadai dorms are the same as the Shiki dorms, they just have a slightly different fridge I think.

I'll try and write again soon. Also I'm really missing western food right now, and I'm struggling to find food in the supermarket that I can cook with just one frypan/saucepan, so if anyone wants to send me some food I have a list going. Donations are welcome. Please don't let me starve! (This might be slightly dramatic, but I haven't really been eating too well because the prospect of what I have to eat here doesn't make me want to eat, so seriously, care packages with Aus food are welcome).

Anthea xx