and so it begins…

I got a webcam!!!!

So Sunday night a bunch of us went out for dinner.  Me, Ele, John, Reid, Tasha, Sher, Tyler, and Aida.  2/3 of our group.  We were having a hard time finding somewhere that had enough room for all eight of us.  First we went to look at a ramen place, but they were pretty crowded.  We wanted to find somewhere fast, because it was suuuuper cold outside.  We eventually ended up at this donburi place, I think, and they had the raw egg deal going on, which I’ll tell you about later.

Okay.  So a lot of these food places in Japan have this system, where you order food out of a vending machine type deal.  That’s a really bad explanation.  So they have the menu board.  And you put your money in and the board lights up, indicating what you can buy with the amount of money you put in, and you punch in what you want.  When you’re done, you press this big black button and they give you this slip of paper.  Then when you sit down, the waiter comes and takes the slip of paper and then brings your food.  Amazingly cool.  Very efficient, and it eliminates a lot of human error. 

I ordered a 牛どん, which basically a beef donburi.  The rice in Japan is amazingly delicious.  So, it comes with a raw egg, and what you do is you crack the egg over the rice and the beef and mix it all together and eat it right like that.  And I know some people might find the raw egg thing kind of sketch, but I think it’s okay in Japan, because I didn’t get sick or anything.  And it was SO GOOD.  The eggs here have a slight sweetness to them, I think. All the food is so good.

I went to sleep at like, 9 or so.  Then I woke up at 3.  And again at 4.  And then at 5.  By 5:45 I just decided to stay up, because it wasn’t worth going back to sleep.  But it was pretty unpleasant, not being able to sleep in.  So much dislike.  After I decided that I wasn’t going to go back to sleep, I went up to the lounge to get on the internet, and I got to talk to a bunch of people from home and watch Kai at work.  I miss the Chip and Cookie store.  And I miss my room and my bed and my house and Kailua and everything.  It’s been cold and rainy for the past three days.

We met in front of the main building at school at 9:00 am to go get pictures taken for our alien registration. After that we went to go check out the cafeteria for food and Japanese class started at 10:40.  The bells that ring to start and end class are absolutely amaaaaaazing <3  I love them to death.  Our class today was just introduction stuff and then we went to hook up our computers to the printer, but I’m not entirely sure about how that works yet.  Still pretty amused with all the people staring at us though xD  Afterwards we went to get our alien registration worked out, and we had like an hour to kill, so we went to the little shopping place across the street and they had an electronics store!!  So I dragged Ele there and I finally got a webcam ^.^  It’s been so good to actually SEE people and talk to them.  My tutu was pretty amazed at the technology this afternoon xD  I got to talk to AChan and Falcon and Mom and Bear and Nebka… all the people I love <3  It’s such a relief to be able to talk to them, but I didn’t get to talk to my dad, and I really miss him.  Hopefully he gets a skype soon, or Falcon is over there when I’m on so I can talk to him <3 There are other people I really want to talk to, but there are communication issues there or something, and it gives me a headache, so we’ll just skip over that.

After dinner that night Ele and I watched the first two episodes of Hana Yori Dango.  She wants to watch more of it tonight ^.^  It gives me happiness to know that she likes it.

This (Tuesday) morning, I managed to stay asleep until 8, which is wonderful.  Then Ele and I went to school to go find some morning noms before class.  We had culture class first today, and it was more introductory-going-over-syllabus type thing.  Then we shared our pictures and went to lunch.  I’m loving how short the classes are.  Two 45 minute periods per class is definitely something I can live with.  Ele and I decided to go to the “fancy” part of the cafeteria to get lunch, and as soon as we got into line these guys started looking over at us and talking amongst themselves.  Then they waved at us, so I waved back and they got all stoked.  It was pretty funny.  We got our food and sat down and they kept looking over at us.  Everyone kept looking at us.  I’m kind of getting used to it though.  It almost feels like celebrity status *.*  So when the guys left they turned and waved to us again, and I waved back.  It’s what I do that’s why xD  Then we went to go find everyone else, and we met this guy named Yuichiro.  He was telling us about the different clubs they have on campus.  I’m pretty sure we’re all going to be expected to join the SGE, which stands for Students for Global Exchange.  I’m pretty excited for that.  Making new friends will help keep me away from being homesick.  That hit me pretty hard tonight, actually.

Anyway.  We had bike orientation today, so now when there’s good weather, we can go ride bicycles!  We also met Rob, who is from… the mainland somewhere.  But he came to dinner with us and these two Japanese guys that helped to tell us about the bicycles.  It was pretty fun.  Then we went and got Coolish, which I’ve pretty much got everyone hooked on.  Happiness!  I love introducing things to people.  That’s pretty much it for the past two days.  Tomorrow I think they have club meetings, so we’ll probably go to the one for SGE.  Then on Friday we get to meet the small children at the preschool!!  I’m so excited for that.  I love small children.

Jaa  <3