Picture duuuuump

Sorry for the long break between updates. I just got wireless for my laptop, so I was finally able to upload pictures and take time to write stuff. Beware, this will be a huge picture dump!

Let's see, it's hard to write like 2-weeks' worth of stuff in, so I'll try to briefly recap.

-My host family is awesome. The dad is usually off with work business and doesn't converse much, but I went to a soccer game with him during my first weekend here. My mom on the other hand loves to talk (sometimes it gets to be exhausting, but I do my best to at least look like I'm following, haha), and my sister Akiko is always willing to help me out and take me around to places. The brother Naoki lives in a different city, so I don't usually see him, but he came to the house to see me for a couple of days, and he's cool. Typical Japanese dude though. Lastly, the youngest, Mayumi, is currently studying abroad in Canada, and won't be back until after I leave, so I'll never get to see her, but I got to see her on Skype the other day. Everyone seems awesome. My family used to have two dogs, but one of them died, so they just have the one shih-tzu now. He's adorable. I've yet to hear him bark. Kind of amazing.

-CIEE stuff is a pain in the butt, but at least the orientations don't usually last all day. We sign up for classes soon. I have to sign up for my IU classes soon too, but I don't have a list of next semester's classes. Eek.

-I can't think of anything else major to add, so PICTARS


The very first one hurr is a picture of the fancy schmancy chandelier that was in our first hotel in Narita. The hotel itself was okay, nothing memorable. The chandelier was cool though.


This is one of the entrances to the university, though not the main one, apparently, even though it's the side that faces the city. Anywhere, here's the gate.


Not the best picture, but you can kiiiinda see the name at the top.



This is the dinner party we had. We were originally supposed to go somewhere else I think, but plans changed and we were crammed into this restaurant. They somehow were able to accommodate us, and brought out plates upon plates of food. Good lord.

The girls I was sitting across from.



My host family got tickets from someone for the local team's soccer game, so I went with my host dad. I didn't get a picture of him though, sorry. Too awkward. XD;


The mascot is a squirrel couple, lol. Kei's sister would have been delighted.


The Japanese fans are hardcore. That entire side was cheering relentlessly for the entire game.


The next day, Akiko took me to Harajuku to window-shop, and since crepes are apparently super popular to get there, we got some for lunch. They were DELISH.


Fast forward a few days to Asakusa. Took a lot of pictures there despite how boring it was, lol.

Sorry, I don't know the names of these buildings and statues. I wasn't paying much attention, lol. >_>



OMFG THE PIGEONS. They were so fat and cute, and they got SO CLOSE.


OMG This was taken without zoom. I could have touched it if I had extended my arm. I almost did, too, but my group was like "JESUS CHRIST LEAVE THE PIGEONS ALONE" so I didn't get the chance. D:


Moving into the touristy area..



The Imperial area.

Again, don't know what building is what. I had to pee like hardcore so my mind was occupied on holding my bladder. I KNOW not to drink coffee right before trips like that, but alas.


You can soooorta see Tokyo Tower in there.


This whole area was in/around the Imperial Palace area.

Pretty.


Statue of a samurai.

Nothing special, but I thought it was pretty.

Shibuya is huge.

The famous dog statue, Hachiko.

Here's the famous intersection that everyone and their uncle crosses at once. To be honest, I thought it would be bigger than it was, but it was still fun.





I thought this restaurant building looked neat.


Saw this in the DONKI in Shibuya. lol'd. Do you really need a costume for that?

Then Akihabara. Since it was getting late, we didn't get time to really go anywhere, but I took a couple of pictures.

Jetlag sucks

Let me start off by saying that I made it to Tokyo safely, all is well, but MAN did my trip start out bad.

I'm at Kei's apartment, and we decided not to bother going to bed since we had to leave for the airport at 4:30AM, and when 4:30 came along, we headed out the door. We wanted to have a little extra time in case we took a wrong turn somewhere, so that was a very good idea. We made it to the airport with no problems, but when we get there, we find that...that airport had moved. Yes, we were at the airport and the airport wasn't there. That was the first time in my life where I had a 100% genuine moment where I thought I might have been dreaming and not actually awake. Seriously, the airport isn't there? Baffled, we quickly drove into a nearby hotel to ask where the new airport was, and a shuttle guy had us follow him to it. It was pretty far away. That really freaked me out, but thankfully we made it there on time.

The flight was long. I bought sleeping pills between flights in hopes that I might be able to sleep while it was nighttime in Japan on the plane, but that turned out to do nothing. I just CAN'T sleep on planes. I barely managed to doze off for a couple of hours total. I saw the girl that was part of my program and on the same plane, and we could have sat together since there were empty seats, but we both ended up sleeping/attempting to sleep for pretty much the entire trip. That's okay though. For the times that I was awake, we had individual touch screens on the back of each seat, which had movies, games, TV shoes, music, etc., so it provided time-passing entertainment.

Our plane actually arrived in Narita about 50 minutes early, not that we minded. We zoomed through customs (seriously, they glanced at our cards and that was it) and waited for CIEE staff to arrive. When they did, they sent our check-in bag off to our host family houses and had us get on a bus to go to our hotel.

Upon arrival at the hotel, we were given an envelope of information, including info about our host families. It turns out that I have both a host mom and dad, both of which are in their early 60's, and they have 3 kids; a son that is 30 and lives in a different city, an older daughter that I think lives with them, and a 21 year old daughter that is just 3 days younger than me, but she is currently studying abroad I believe. I think it will just be me, the parents, and the one daughter (I hope). In addition, however, they have two dogs! One is a shih-tzu (I think), and I'm not sure what kind the other is since they only sent a picture of the shih-tzu. But I'm really excited about that. I was really hoping my family would have a pet, and they have two doggies. :] Lastly, my info says that everyone in the family (aside from the daughter that is abroad), has zero knowledge of English, so that is a huge relief. I'm glad I will not have English-learners that will want to speak to me in English. Perfect!

The sheet also said that the parents were BOTH company executives, which is weird since the women don't usually get jobs like that. I'm assuming they own this company. I wonder what kind of company it is. I get to meet my host family tomorrow and go home with them, so I will find out in no time. I can't wait!

Today we were given a tour of the campus, and it's actually a lot bigger than I thought. There are about 11 or 12 buildings (I thought there would be only a couple lol). It's right in the middle of Shibuya, which is awesome. A lot of hot spots are either in walking distance or just short (cheap) train rides away. We had orientation in there, and afterward, we were sent to this hotel. We had just enough time to check in and check our email (free Internet in this hotel, whoo!) before we had to head out to get dinner.

Oh my god dinner. We went to...I don't even remember the name of the place because it wasn't where they told us we would be going, but we had 100 people crammed into this restaurant and they served us SO MUCH FOOD. They had 4 different dishes of food on the table when we arrived, and from there they brought out like 5 more courses, no exaggeration. It was awesome. I had to lol though when they brought out plates of tater tots that were wrapped in bacon and topped with a pork sausage. It looked like a joke American version of a piece of sushi LOL. I took pictures, but I don't have time to upload and edit them. I really need to get to bed. I woke up at 4AM this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I am dead tired.

With that said, I am heading to bed. Good night!

Packing

I am still in the process of packing. I want to take a million things with me, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'll be doing laundry MUCH more often, and the less I pack, the more room I'll have for things to bring back. So far I'm doing okay, I think. I'm going to be saving stuff like shampoo, pads, etc. for buying when I get there. I bought travel-sized toiletries for starting out, just in case I can't go shopping the first night or two.

It's nice that the trip is coming up! My last day of work is Wednesday, and today I have two friends driving down from Chicago to see me. They will be here until Wednesday morning, and then Thursday I go up to Kei's to stay with him until I leave the following Tuesday. It will be sad times (especially since it'll be our year and 10 months mark that day), but exciting things are ahead.

A star is born

Or just a blog. Just trying this thing out. :)