"Yotsuya Orientation" and "The Hosts"

     Due to the sheer amount of information that I need to post today, I'm just going to do big highlights, mostly giving you pictures followed by information rather than just information. And, to preface this post, I'll leave you with a simple question: seriously??? who the hell thought this was a good idea???

     Erhm. Now that that's that, we'll start with a short tour of my room. First comes the spoon that the magician guy in Shinjuku broke with his mind and gave to me. Moving on, there's my drying rack, desk, shelves, cabinets (I have plenty of those)... my bed and the awesome cabinet above that I don't know what to do with... and hey! My shelves.

     Sorry that this post is kind of boring so far, but it'll definitely pick up, I swear. Just wait until I get past the university pictures.

     So let's go back to APRIL 1st! Jeanette was supposed to be in Japan at 3pm or something, so we all decided just to hang out and wait for her. Hunter actually knew how to get to Yaoko (the supermarket) and lead us there to grocery buying and lunch. I think this was the day that I got like, five or six of this mini-sandwich things that ended up freezing in my fridge a few days later. That was really unfortunate. But the food for lunch wasn't too bad... there's a bakery in Yaoko where you can get excellent dishes such as hot dogs wrapped in cooked bread with ketchup, mini pizza-things, and, my (least) favorite, the BACON STICK (which is a stick of bread with bacon and cheese inside... hmmm).
     Returning home we waited and waited until it was really late, and magically she appeared! She's actually living right next door to Jen, so us UVA kids all occupy rooms next to the stair case with the exception of Jen, who is close enough. We went to Yoshinoya again that night where I got another helping of Gyuudon, this time with an added raw egg to mix in. Unfortunately the egg really isn't good for the small size because it makes everything a little too mushy, but it was still purty good.
     April 2nd was orientation day, and so we all (remember, Jen, Natalie, Hunter, Jeanette, and I) went to Sophia. After figuring out what trains we needed to take, we finally arrived at Yatsuya station and walked out the exit to face a building with our university's name smack on it (I don't remember the name in Japanese right now, and since Pokemon is in my DS instead of the kanji dictionary weeellllll... you're not gonna know yet)! More or less, this is about the size of the campus width-wise. Also, notice the cross on top of one of the buildings. Originally the university was a Jesuit establishment, and while there isn't a heavy influence of Christianity around the university necessarily nowadays, they still stick to their roots and have plenty of classes offered in the chapel and services to boot.
     We had arrived in plenty of time to cruise around until our orientation started so that we could get our barrings straight, and since it was lunch time we set out to find a cheap lunch spot. A little ways down the street we found this awesome vending machine lunch place. The lady serving us was amazingly nice and attentive, they had a water cooler, AND they had a bidet in the bathroom!!! Whoa!!! Most of us were originally attracted by the lovely looking katsudon, so most of us ordered that. You can probably tell what's on it, but if you can't, there's cheese (I think) on top of egg on top of breaded chicken (thank you James for correcting me, it's really pork and it tastes like pork... it must be that I have had chicken on my mind for the past week now since all I've been eating is noodles...) with vegetables on top of rice. Got it? Good. It was awesome. We declared at that moment that we would be regulars at this place. BAM!
     By the way, if you haven't heard, Japanese restaurants have these awesome plastic displays of food outside their shop. They look suspiciously real, but if you put your hand on top of the soba (buckwheat noodles) dish here like Jen, you won't get BUUURNED (nor wet!).
After lunch we headed to actual orientation, and to meet the rest of our crew (Mia, Teresa, Sehyun). We ran into the underside where the cross was on our way, and that was pretty neat looking (I wish I could take good pictures... that thing isn't centered at all...). When we got to the area I noticed a vending machine that offered large cups of Real Gold for only 100-en. Sweet!
     Orientation wasn't too exciting... it was cool to get a packet with club listings and the course offerings, but yeah, it was orientation. I guess there were two exceptions... one was the opening old white guy who told us that the only reason was up there was because he had to be, and to not do drugs because he doesn't want to have to come to visit us in jail. The other was Hasegawa-san's presentation of "Announcements from the Center for Student Affairs". Part of her presentation was to warn us of cult activity.
      Afterwards we got some Japanese students as "monitors" to welcome us and whatnot. My and Jeanette's monitor was Akiko, an English enthusiast who also is on the tennis team, and who happened to be friends with the other monitors that had UVA/DK students, Asuka, who used to play saxophone and directed me to a large instrument shop in Tokyo, and Ayano, who I didn't meet because she was at another table with Hunter and other DK-er Mike. You can view us here (order left to right: Akiko, Jen, Mia, Ayano, Hunter, Asuka, and half of Mike) and here (order left to right: Akiko, Jeanette, Jen, Me, Mia, Hunter, Ayano). By the way, in that second picture... I'm not THAT much taller than all of those people, I'm just on my toes.

      That evening Jen was to go meet her host mom and brother of years past for dinner. She invited us all to come, but I was the only one to actually take the invitation. It was a little awkward at first as you can imagine, but it got better throughout the night. They took us to a kaiten-zushi place near the station, and a little way through the meal Jen's host mom gets up and sits at another table with her brother who happens to live Warabi city (this reminds me of when I went to the public bath with my host brother in '04 and we happened to see his uncle in there, haha). That left Jen, her host brother Takuro, and me to eat sushi. Takuro was pretty quiet and didn't speak much English, but that was all the better for me, I guess, since I was practicing splurting out useless facts and questions in Japanese to him all night. In regards to the food... it was great, EXCEPT for the ika (squid). Ika is nasty. In any form. I tried it sashimi-style (with the meat on top of a little rice ball like in the American sushi packs) and it was still... I don't know... starchy? Pasty? The texture was awful. Never again...!
      Anyway, here's where the real story begins. In the restaurant, the uncle kept calling to us in some very casual Japanese (and you think *I* slur!). First it was because I kept picking up the sashimi and dropping it (the rice just did NOT hold, I swear! I can use chopsticks just fine...), and second was because he ordered us each a mug of beer. Man, I wish you could have heard him... his voice was very loud, slurry, eccentric, crazy. In fact, take a look at him in this picture and you may kind of understand what he may be like.
      To continue, after dinner the host family left and Jen and I were walking back to the DK House, which is the direction that the "host uncle" (as I refer to him) was heading. When we got to the intersection to turn right to go down the long road to our place, though, he motioned us to follow him. And well, we did, since he did buy us beer and he was her host mom's brother after all. Maybe he was showing us a shortcut? But nay, he was sputtering out some other stuff that neither of us understood. After walking for about five minutes or so down some side roads he stops and walks into... well whaddya know, a bar (bet you didn't see that one coming).

(that was sarcasm)

      And there we were, in a really, really smoky bar the size of maybe my room and a half length-wise (if that), and about the same width. There were a few guys sitting down and in the corner there were two women who looked about in their 40s with a baby (greaaaat). The women were cackling and stuff, it was quite a stereotypical scene to behold. Right off the bat he orders us drinks that are called ochawari ("ocha" is green tea, and wari is uhhh, iuno). Supposedly they mix the tea with a liquor called shouchuu that is pretty unique to Japan, if I'm not mistaken. Regardless, he also bought us an omelet, and then kept asking us if we wanted more to drink (this is at about 9pm, I think). We kept refusing, telling him that we had a placement test the next afternoon, and, being the crazy guy he is, he was giving us responses that were like saying "baaaaaaaaaaah humbug!" (or maybe something more modern). After we finished the omelet he ordered us this awesome fish that was cooked, as you can see, by taking the whole fish, putting it in a metal thing, and slapping it over a flame (check out it's head!!!). Jen said he called it sakana-yaki ("sakana" being fish and "yaki" being... remember???). Needless to say, we destroyed it, especially after he said the bones were okay to swallow if we happened to.
      We got out of there alive after a while and he walked us to a point where it was familiar to get home. That place was a riot... especially that guy and those crazy ladies... luckily Jen was there or else I would have been really confused by everyone's really fast, really unclear speech. Not that I wasn't still, and not that I couldn't have gotten through it... but daaang!
      To end the excursion that evening, it was really nice that the host mom took us out, especially me, not knowing them and everything, and it was also nice that the uncle wanted to take us out afterwards with our limited understanding and us not knowing him.

PS: I guess that the first paragraph gave you false hope of short posts... sorry! Part II will be posted soon above.