コダイはどこですか？？

Congratulations, Fujikawa Sensei. Our first night in Japan, we did exactly what you told us to.

We got lost.

So we arrived in Japan, and it really wasn’t that cold. I guess 60 degrees really isn’t that big a deal as I thought. Our flight was late though. Super late. While we were going through customs… no, immigration? We met this family with the most ADORABLE little hapa children. The dad was from the UK originally, and the mom was from Japan, and now they live in Australia and were coming back to visit Grandma. The kids were SO CUTE. They had two boys and a little girl. Soooo adorable. You don’t even know.

After we got our luggage we met our Sensei in the lobby of the airport and got on a bus and headed for Kanazawa Institute of Technology, which they call KoDai here for short. When we got here we put our stuff in our rooms and got comfortable for a little bit before we went to go have orientation. There we were told about getting medical help on campus and such. We also met our sensei again. Now I definitely know what they look like; introductions on the bus were kind of sketch, because I couldn’t really see. We went over the rules of the place we’re staying, which include be quite, be quite, and be quiet. It’s because we’re living right across from a residential place, and with the other international group that comes here, they’ve gotten complaints about the noise.

We also saw lots and lots of sakura, aka cherry blossoms. OMG. SO. PRETTY. It makes me happy inside to see them :] They’re seriously all over the place. And in the randomest spots too. But there are some right outside my room :] My room has a balcony, and it overlooks the river, and there are unblossomed so they’ll blossom soon and they’ll be RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW!

After orientation we went to go get our computers. So get this. KoDai’s men to women percentage? 90-10. That’s what the teachers told us, anyway. So we were walking through the school and all these people are watching us as we go past. I think it’s because they don’t get that many foreigners here. And a group made up of mostly girls, at that. So we got our computers, and they’re ALL IN JAPANESE. Seriously. I tried to use them this afternoon and mostly succeeded, but they’re a little confusing. Mostly because the keyboard isn’t as wide, so the keys are all over the place. But I got to talk to AChan on facebook. Yay! After we got our computers we were excused back to our rooms for free time until tomorrow at 11:30 am, when we meet to go have lunch at a hotel with our sensei as a sort of welcome thingy.

So, at 5pm Ele and I decided to go on a walk around. Have a little adventure on the first night. I think our first intention was to go find something to eat. We ended up walking in this HUGE CIRCLE around Kanazawa. I mean huge. Really, really big. Like, where the hell are we big. We were walking around commenting on how many people were staring at us. That was super funny. To see the different reactions we would get. Some of the guys were giving us creeper status stares, but mostly they were just surprised I think. I loved overhearing conversations. It makes me feel like a secret agent, because we know they think we don’t understand, but we kind of do :] Like outside the cd/dvd/game/ect shop we walked out and these people who hadn’t seen each other in a long time ran into each other. And they were surprised. And I translated all that right there in my head. MAD SKILLS!

Anyway. So we were walking and walking and walking, and we were using the KoDai library as our land mark because it’s super tall. But we walked past it. So we turned down, because we were pretty sure we were too far down. Plus it was completely dark already. But we found a grocery store and went in there and I got chopsticks with nekochans on them <3 And I used my いちごかばん to carry everything! Thank you Jaso!!

So, we’re walking down this dark street, starting to get worried, and we came across this convenience store, so we went in there and I bought instant ramen for dinner (which is waaaay more delicious here, by the way) and when I went to pay I asked the guy working there where KoDai was. IN JAPANESE. Most of the whole conversation was in Japanese. We felt very skilled :] He asked if we were international students and we said yes, and then he went in the back to get his co-worker to man the cash register. Then he WALKED US outside to show us where to go. He asked where we were from and the magic word Hawaii worked again, because he seemed pretty stoked. He walked us all the way to the river and told us to walk along it and then turn at the next street, and that would take us back. And he said ganbatte kudasai before he went to go back to work. I mean, I thought he was just going to go in the back and find a map and show us on there. But he literally walked us out until we were where we couldn’t possibly get lost unless we were completely retarded. Which we’re not. It was just so… nice. We’re planning to go find him again sometime, because we didn’t get his name.

Highlight of the night was definitely using my nihongo and having a nihonjin actually understand what I was saying. It doesn’t get more real than that :]

We got back to our room around 8 and then we made our noms, which are magically delicious. AChan, I saw your milk caramels at Family Mart. And I bought some of those magic milky mint throat candies ^_^ Kai, while we were lost, I saw a car driving with one headlight out. You know what that means. I think it means I’m winning, because it was in Japan, and you can’t beat Japan. Now who owes, ne? HAH.

So, if I don’t get my butt up to the lounge to get on the interweb to post this tonight, I’ll post it in the morning. Either way. You won’t know, because I’ll time stamp it for tonight :] But I mean, I’ve got another hour and a half to interweb. So it’s entirely possible. And I think they lied to us about having cameras on our Japanese computers, because there’s definitely a mic there and a plastic seal between the two mic holes. You can’t fool me.

I still miss home. It’s cold in our little apato, but I think that’s because I have bare feet.
Ne, Oyasumi <3