9/18/08
Ishida House, Matsudo

Something happened on the Joban train line this morning. I got to the station, and while it was the most crowded I'd ever seen it, everyone was very quiet and somber save for a few crying children. There weren't any trains, and every few minutes the stationmaster gave an announcement over the intercom. He was saying some things regarding other stations, and he kept saying "terrible." After a while, a train came, and it was so packed that not everyone could get on it, which is saying a lot when you consider how much people can get on a Tokyo commuter train. This was an hour or so after rush hour, too. I managed to get on the second train that came, although it too was ridiculously full.

I arrived at our meeting place in Shinjuku Station about 15 minutes late, but I wasn't the last one there. Emma (who also uses the Joban line) was on the train until 45 after. She said that whatever happened probably happened at her station (Kameari), judging by all the cop cars she saw.

Today was our "introduction to the train system," although in practice it was more like a race. We split into two groups and took opposite directions around a five line loop. Coral, Simon, and I lost by a couple minutes.

On the way back home I got an email from Tomoko, saying there wasn't gonna be anyone in the house until 7:30 because they were at a Labo party. It being 5:30, I got out at Ikebukuro and explored a bit. I like to think of Ikebukuro as the "expensive" district, maybe in a vegas sort of way. There are tons of panchinko parlors, gaming arcades (mostly consisting of those crane games), movie theaters, restaurants, and entertainment shops (music, movies, games, electronics, etc.). There are some dollar store type places too, although I wouldn't exactly consider their stocks "bargains." I guess you could consider the place a good date spot, assuming your date doesn't mind the seizure-inducing electric signage all over the place.

Twice.

It's amazing how integrated politeness is in this culture, and mannerisms in this language. If you say any random phrase in the language, you probably included a "please" or "I apologize" or something like that in with it. One of the first things they told us when we came here was "forget what your parents said about not talking to strangers". There are no "strangers" here, you can talk to anyone on the street as if you knew them personally... Japan is the closest thing to a Utopia I've ever seen.

June 30th

Mitsuda house

The train was packed more than usual today. You don't know the meaning of "awkward" until you find yourself smashed up against an old lady on a running train.

Our classroom moved back to the skyscraper today (it's been in the other office next door since monday). Bryce never showed up, I hope he's alright. In class, we finally started studying something I don't already know much about, the "-te form" of verbs.

For lunch I had what turned out to be a packaged white bread kiwi, melon, and whipped cream sandwich with the crusts cut off. I also got to try some of Danielle's blue mint chocolate chip ice cream. Jennifer also managed to dump some soy sauce, guess I'm a trendsetter. Oops.

After school, Kage, Victoria, and I stopped in Ikebukuro again, and went to the manga store. After spending some time looking around (and discovering that there was more than one floor), I got around to translating the name of the store. "Ikebukuro Adult Comic Store". That kind of explains their rather wide library. The top two floors were evidently the interesting ones, but I couldn't work up the lack of integrity to visit them. Denis would kill to be in this place...

I watched a Doraimon ("Dry-mon") special today... interesting show. If only television content was like this in the states, it might be worth the space an antennae takes up. The show was funny, but the punch at the end was hilarious... Take and Hide could have been put up against Celeste as far as gas levels go.

Cripes... time's been moving like lighting for me. Only by thinking of how far away the WCF is can I slow it down to any reasonable rate, and even that technique is going to stop working fairly soon. Germany or Argentina? As much as I like Kahn, I'd love to see Argentina take home a cup. Find out in the morning, bed now.

June 28th

Mitsuda house

I got to school today, and the teacher opened some hidden classroom through a dank corridor... made me think of hogwarts or something. After normal classes, we had a Calligraphy master come and teach us how to correctly write our favorite kanji. I chose 碁, "go" (as in, igo). Turns out that making the strokes is quite an art, there are lots of little twists and stuff you have to do. You can't mess up anywhere in a 15 stroke kanji, cause you don't erase ink. I went through five or so tries, but I finally got one that the teacher complimented me on. I was pretty proud of that.

Kage is working on a picture of Hinata for me, it looks really awesome so far. I can't wait to see it when it's finished.

After school, Victoria, Kage, and I stopped at Ikebukuro to look for an anime store. We didn't find the one we came for, but we found a few other stores, and a few movie theaters I'm going to have to come back to. The first store had a few cool things, but it seemed mostly just Shojo and Yaoi, not really my tastes. The second place was a normal bookstore with a manga floor... They had Azumanga Daioh 1, 3, and 4, but not 2, so I just ended up getting the first one. They also had the last two Spiral books, so now I have the whole series... I think Take's already read them all, he goes through them faster than Clayton. I also got what I thought was a new issue of Famitsu, but it turned out to be the same one I already had. Why can't they just put accurate dates on the things instead of dating them three weeks ahead or whatever? Sheesh. I guess Bryce or Tim is going to get a nice present tomorrow.

When I got back to Hasuda, I went with Mayumi to pick up Take and Hide from their Labo group. We kinda got trapped there for like an hour due to a thunderstorm, so I got to to some activities with them. They have this huge library of "american" nursery rhymes that they sing, but almost none of them I know. A few ring a bell for the tune, but not the words... there was one that I could swear was lifted from "Magical Treavor", but was about a wall or something. I also read them some books (The Hungary Caterpillar and it's sequel, some cricket book) which went over well. Tatsuke brought out some Dual Master cards, and we played with those a bit. Dual Masters seemed to be a very refined form of MTG, with some very interesting fixes. In fact, I believe it's developed by the same R&D team that does Magic. If only the flavor premise wasn't so YGO level crappy.

Watched Naruto after dinner. They ended the current filler arc, but it looks like they've got more in store for us judging by the preview. Muchly Bedtime.