No, I'm not overly dramatic at all! :D
But honestly. The walk to the school campus is truly derived from Dante's "Inferno", without a doubt. More on that later.
The day began with a 50-minute video, seemingly straight out of the early 90's, on disaster awareness, safety, and measures to take. It caused quite a few snickers, more than a few sighs, and universal boredom. There were some important things in the video, but they were gone over in such a way that made them... well, nearly intolerable. But It could have been worse.
From there, a handful of the buddies led the group on its first walking trip straight to campus. And mein gott, even in the winter, that walk will not be fun. Weaving through residential areas and uphill much of the way there, it was not a trek for the faint of heart. And it will be one made daily starting in just a couple weeks from now. Save meeee. But the greenery and architecture surrounding the route is beautiful, which makes the journey that little bit easier. Transportation there is technically possible via bus or taxi, but walking is much healthier, and certainly cheaper, so I doubt I'll be making using those services much. Though we'll see once school starts if I can retain that healthy mindset.
Campus seems nice. There's a lot of flora all around, with foresty areas in every which direction surrounding. Every building is this plain white that's kind of off-putting, but the trees and plants balance it out I suppose. I definitely want to get lost in some of those areas and have an adventure sometime. The campus isn't gigantic, but after The Hell Walk, it feels too large to have to walk all the way to the far end. During the campus tour we had, I saw this absolutely horrific green and black cylindrical-body spider chilling in its web bigger than three of my heads put together. Not quite what I wanted to be greeted by, but I ran in the other direction, so I can't say I was mortally offended by its existence.
We met the buddies soon after doing a short orientation and signing more paperwork. Nothing extraordinary. But the buddy meeting was intimidating! The buddies sat in a room at various tables organized by which UC student they were assigned to while we all walked up and stood in a line in front of the class to introduce ourselves. I felt a little bit like either a zoo animal inside a cage or a piece of meat dangling in a butcher shop. こわいですよ〜 But after we introduced ourselves, we got to meet them and get a full tour pointing out all the campus major buildings and such. I have four buddies total, Hiroshi, Hikari, Yurino, and Yuriko, though Yuriko-san is finishing up studying abroad in Canada right now, so I didn't get to meet her. All of them are very nice, though I felt bad because Yurino-san doesn't speak much English, so it's difficult to converse beyond the basic of basics. She's especially nice though because she's a psychology major looking into doing counseling and loves Final Fantasy! Language barriers, boo. Hiroshi-san is as fun and outgoing as can be, which is a nice balance to me and the others who are a bit more quiet. His english is superb, but that's to be expected a bit given his year-long stay at UCLA. Hikari-san is also quite good at english, and all three of the buddies I met were kind and courteous. I felt a bit boring to them, so I hope I didn't come across as awful!
After the tour, including delicious lunch (some kind of marinated beef strips on bean sprouts with delicious cooked eggplant), we headed back to MISH to just hang out and play some games. We taught them some card games and mahjong, though it was difficult since Armand and I barely remembered all the correct rules. We actually messed up some of them. Oops =X Poor Armand had no buddies because none of them showed up for the day, so we happily took him in as a stray. I mentioned wanting to go to the Pokemon Center in Yokohama, the official Pokemon store, so Hikari-san, Hiroshi-san, and Armand and I hopped on a train there while Yurino-san headed home for the night.
The mall with the Pokemon Center was amazing! It's very pretty, almost like a more comfortable and homey South Coast Plaza. All the swank with less of the stuck-up. I went crazy once we got there. All the merchandise and variety of things to buy was so overwhelming, I just couldn't pick anything to get for now. I'm definitely going to make the trip again soon so I can go back to there.... AS WELL AS THE JUMP STORE AND GHIBLI STORES AAHHHHH. Across from the Pokemon Center was a store devoted solely to the series's from Shonen Jump, or Weekly Jump as it's known in Japan. So much One Piece, Naruto, Toriko, and more. Manga, merchandise, statuettes, keychains, I couldn't pick anything to get once more. And right next store stood a Ghibli shop, with items ranging from Totoro to Spirited Away to Ponyo to even Porco Rosso. It smelled and had the feel of a Hallmark store, strangely enough, but the stuff in there was more adorable than anything imaginable. I <3 Ghibli!
Outside there was a street performer, an Englishman speaking very good Japanese who rode a approx. 10-foot-tall unicycle while juggling a torch, a sword, and an apple, the latter of which he would take a bite out of while juggling from time to time. It was actually really impressive and reminded me of the many street performers by the London Eye back when I went to London last summer.
We walked out towards another mall nearby because there they had a Coldstone Creamery! Nothing like a taste of home away from home. I had a special concoction definitely not available back in the states. It was called the Greeeeeeeen Tea Party, and it had (big surprise) green tea ice cream mixed with cake bites and whipped cream, topped with green tea powder. I didn't think I was a big fan of green tea ice cream, but I loved it. Though the price was painful (smallest size cup for about $5.75). On the way there, we passed by the Cup Noodles Museum; yet another reason to go back to Yokohama soon! Not to mention having walked by the Cosmo World amusement park with the biggest ferris wheel I've ever seen, and so much other randomness (haunted house, carnival games, roller coaster that dives underneath the bay in a neato tunnel). Must. Go. Back!!
We parted ways with Hikari-san after wandering around in Yokohama and went back to MISH to wrap up the day. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a trip to the supaa for dinner+breakfast, 7-11 for a couple drinks, and good ol' mahjong time. Together we split a bag of rice to use for a while, so we cooked some of that up while I threw some squid in a pan and dined on that delicacy for the first time. I actually really liked it, and the tiny bit of grilling made it much better than I expected it to be. Solid dinner, methinks.
It's nice getting to talk to people about just about anything. Discussion life and opinions and all that jazz. It's pleasant and improves friendships, particularly when understandings are reached. People can have differing opinions while totally respecting the other's views. It's surprising how good of friends I've made in some of the people here. Quite pleasant, for certain.
Tomorrow begins another day of orientations, this time with the UC director of the program we're in. We'll get an academic orientation, a lecture, and pick up our gorgeously old-school prepaid flip phones. Go vintage circa-2004 cell phones! :D
Also, new Flickr pictures. Go check em out! http://www.flickr.com/photos/djmarmar/sets/72157631499693054/
No comments:
Post a Comment