Toyosu and the Gas Museum

I got my housing contract and rent squared away, which meant I could now use the internet.

We went with Dorota and Kamila to Nishi-Kawaguchi station, and then on the trains (plural- we take the rapid transit, which skips a couple of stations, down to Tokyo and then double back using the local subway train) to Toyosu.

Toyosu is HUGE. Toyosu. Is. HUGE. It's really really new- all the buildings look really new and pristine- this is apparently because all the factories pulled out and others came in to fill the empty space. Everything is so organised and neat. It's ridiculous. The trains always come on time and are fast and efficient and spotless. I can't stand it sometimes. :)

I got my student ID card for the university (exciting!)and then went to a talk about Gakusei Project, a student initiative for a Japanese <--> English exchange. I learn Japanese (and did!) and they learn English. It's a really neat culture swap lead by one of my new friends from Toyosu, Yamaguchi Izumi. Izumi-san was so cheery and helpful and enthusiastic about everything. She apparently knew everyone everywhere, so it was kind of like a game of Katamari Damacy, where we just kept picking people up wherever we went. The students from the meeting and I went to get lunch, where they discussed their problems with the canteen- all the food was on display, but it was all in kanji and no English, so foreign students couldn't order. I ended up getting a bowl of rice with some croquettes and...french fries?

Izumi-san sat near me and was so nice and terrific. She was really happy that I could use chopsticks well and was interested in Japanese culture. We then went around the building to check out labs, introduce me to friends she knew, and show me parts of the campus. The Cognitive Engineering lab deals with emotions and communications, so they have a giant display case up front filled with giant robot figurines! They have the giant legit Wing Zero with the buster rifle, the tiny Gundams, Dragonball Z characters, Gurren Lagann! People were also kind of surprised we watched anime in the U.S and laughed at how much I was geeking out over the display case. Apparently it's really rare for a girl to like Gundam.

My favourite professor was the one that came outside to ask his students why they were standing outside talking, and then was introduced to me. I was many times introduced as 'from an American university but from India' to alleviate any confusion. He said, I have an Indian friend. I want to go to India. To eat CURRY! We'd just been discussing curry in the elevator and laughed. Luis, the Brazilian exchange student and Takahashi Keita, one of the co-leaders of the Gakusei project, went along with us and were totally awesome. Izumi-san kept saying Keita-san should take lessons from Luis, who would always hold the door and elevator for people. Haha.

The other UVa student who'd left to be introduced to his professor and lab partners, showed up later, and we all went to walk along the bay and then to the Tokyo Gas Museum (yes, they have one). It's so incredibly awesome! They have a frying pan where you can use gas to cook virtual food, and a heat-seeking room, and a room with a heated floor, and a hot air balloon at the entrance that goes up and down with a column of flame! How is gas so interesting now?!

I was also able to scare Izumi-san a bit in the food area, where I correctly IDed all the different Japanese food pictures (except the gelatinous azuki dessert). She was like, "oh my god, you're Japanese." And I said, "no, I just like to eat," and she repeated, "You're Japanese!" :) It was really fun putting together random Japanese and English, and I think we all had a great time.

Then we went to the bank (ginko) to exchange Zhuo's traveller's cheques (toraberaz chekku) so he was able to pay me back. I learned a lot of stray Japanese words and differences in them. Gomen is used amongst friends but is too rude to use around professors so 'gomen ne' is preferred. Yokoso is a casual 'welcome' whereas 'iraeshimas' is used more formally around clients and customers. Wakarimas means 'I understand' and 'youkai' is similar to the more friendly and flippant 'roger.' (lojja).

Notes:

* All the streets are straight lines, and the terrain is so flat that it's perfect for bicycles, so you don't even need a car- just a bicycle or the trains. And they have specially made bicycle lanes, and everything is clean, even in a major metropolitan city. And cars and small and compact and yield to bicycles. Why is it not like this everywhere?

* Japanese people seem to really like cute little dogs. I swear I saw more chihuahuas and papillons and beagles and Pomeranians than anywhere else. And they were all so cute. ('kawaii des')

*Whoever advised not to pack jeans because no one wears them over here and will think you're a weirdo...is a LIAR. It's a bit cool here right now, and I didn't pack any long pants (BAD idea in general). It's not bad- I can wear what I have and be fine. But really, I see rows and rows of people at the station wearing jeans. When I told Izumi-san about the whole jeans thing, she thought it was really funny.

Room Tour

Room, general layout. Everything is made of wood, which makes it really easy to keep clean. This room is a lot bigger than my single room at UVa.


Inside shoes by the door, kthx


Western style bed. Very accommodating of them, confusing for me. I might just put all the extra crap in the bed (yes, the bed is hollow) and fold it up (yes, the bed folds up) and put a futon there. The only problem is that I have a pair of shoes in one of the drawers, but I could move that to the shoe cubby.


The closet, very neat and efficient. I like the little shallow drawers.


Very nice shelves with lots of space. I...don't know why I have so much stuff...


Desk, really big. There's my bag, which I take everywhere. It houses my keys, loose yen coins, and business cards that I seem to get a lot.


This picture is extraordinarily important. It shows my burnable, plastics, and non-burnables, where the ethernet cord is located (I put the cord behind the closet and bookcase and then put it back out near the desk. It also shows that you need shower shoes.


I have a freaking BALCONY. I usually leave it open so I can hear people coming and going in the mornings. We actually live in a relatively quiet part of Warabi.

We also have a mini fridge to keep our food, but if you need to, there is also a storage space in the communal kitchen. You just have to put your room number on it, or people will think it is communal food and use it.

Into Tokyo

We got into Tokyo yesterday but I didn't have internet access till today, so sorry for the delay.

The flight was really long, so I read a bit from the conversational Japanese book I'd mentioned before and slept a bit. It was interesting how the flight attendants would sometimes speak to you in Japanese, sometimes in English, and sometimes both. I understood enough to understand but had to answer back in English.

The International Office person, Sugiyama-san we'd been communicating with came to pick us up at the airport. We took the train at the bottom of the airport (WOW, WHY DON'T WE HAVE THIS [a constant question in my short experience with Tokyo- we could all learn a little about REAL environmental sustainability from Japan]) through the province beside Tokyo. There were a lot of rural parts- rice paddies and whatnot. Then we switched to the JR (Japanese Railway) to go to Nishi-Kawaguchi, which is the station closest to Warabi House, where we were staying. When we passed Tokyo, Sugiyama-san explained that East Tokyo was the more traditional part with the old houses and the West part is more modern. Maybe I got that switched up...

DK House Warabi had an entranceway to take off our shoes and put them in a shoe cubby. Please remember your inside shoes. You should also bring shower shoes with you.

We got back really late, and we were hungry. We were just going to go to a small restaurant and get something cheap, but Dorota and Kamila, the two Polish exchange students who've been really helpful with navigating Warabi, the trains, and life in general, took us to...Belc (sp?), which is a really cheap supermarket.

They gave us a general tour of the place, which was really informative and they were really funny as they described what kind of food they'd made at the beginning of their stay and the kind of food they'd found at Belc after trial and error. They aslso told me that yakisoba saves lives, a piece of advice I took. So I bought some dumplings, yakisoba, a packet I haven't tried yet that's supposed to have Japanese curry and rice, and a kind of sweet plain yougurt from Megmilk for breakfast the next day. Dorota and Kamila also like different types of onigiri.

I prepared everything in the kitchen (yes, we have to make/buy all of our own food) and ate it while hanging out with the American exchange students that were going to Sophia university. Then I went to sleep at eleven...

And woke up at four o'clock in the morning feeling entirely too awake.

Why, jet-lag...

Packing, Boring and Tetris-like

I've been following a lot of the tips on Japan Packing Tips on About.com. Important ones include carrying multiple small suitcases instead of one giant one (which is apparently a totally Western thing to do. In that same vein, I'm not packing sneakers but bringing comfortable slip-offs) and getting all the money for rent and everything put in envelopes and separated. And packing away socks I'm not ashamed of. (I don't notice how many of my socks have holes till I actually look at them)

We had a bit of a snare with Warabi House having a staff holiday on Wednesdays when we'll be coming, so I'd advise future students to try scheduling a flight on the weekend instead, preferably in June after Memorial Day Weekend.

Definitely pack an umbrella since June is the beginning of the rainy season. I'm taking one with me in my carry-on luggage. Right now I've got two check in bags, a small bag for passport and misc items, and a backpack with my notebooks and laptop. I've got my bags down to circa 25 pounds each, but I'll be doing a lot of carrying and running (carefully!) up and down stairs for the next few days.

Two of the three meals I'll probably be eating in the cafeteria on campus depending on the cost, since I've heard it's pretty cheap, and I'll have to make food at home, so I bought a packet of Japanese curry stock and made it for dinner yesterday to see if it's much different than making Indian curry. It's actually pretty good if you use actual sticky rice instead of our regular basmati rice.

Curry is apparently really popular in Japan (YES, I'm saved. Thank you, Britishers for taking curry from India and transplanting it to Japan!) and has a lot of delicious flavours, so one option is going down to Tsukiji fish market to get shrimp and putting it in curry. (Oh how ironically times always seem to drift back to making early morning fish runs for my grandmother at the Panaji fish market in Goa)

On the subject of food, I gave a lot of thought to what I would get Kageyama-san, Sugiyama-san, and Matsuura-sensei to thank them for having me over and helping me so much (see Japan Packing Tip 6), and I settled on the closest I could get to tea biscuits in America. I figure they're Pepperidge Farm, so they're delicious, they're practical and won't take up space (especially if they like the biscuits ^_^), and very importantly don't have a lot of chocolate on them so they won't melt in the heat.

Accomodations

I got more detailed information about where we'd be living today from the International Relations Office, who has been really responsive and informative during our communications.

We will be staying in DK House Warabi during our time in Tokyo. It's in neighbouring Saitama and I'll be taking the train to the Omiya campus during the day. Warabi looks really nice- it's an air-conditioned single room with a shared bathroom and kitchen. There's also a common area, tatami room, and a laundry room. There's a dining room, but I think that's more for group activities because I was told we would be expected to cook our meals in the kitchen. Shibaura has cafeterias on all its campuses, so I don't think that's going to be a problem, and Warabi has listed a lot of restaurants and grocery stores in the area.

Internet-wise, you can either pay for internet in the room (I presume it's a wired connection and am bringing my LAN cable) or there is a computer with internet in the common area. My old pair of house shoes were getting dirty, so I got a new pair and will see if I want to rent bedding from Warabi (which is an option) or bring my own.

See Warabi's website for some really pretty pictures of the inside!

Week Negative 1

We leave for Tokyo next Tuesday, so I've been spending the week getting my credit and banking squared away, settling any loose ends with the International Studies Office, and getting the researcher's application for Shibaura done.

Note: If the application process for the SIT program is at the end of the spring semester again, try to ask for a recommendation letter before or during exam week so you'll have it when it's time to fill out the Shibaura application.

I've also been seeing what kind of weather Tokyo's going to be having (hot and humid like Virginia, I suppose and then rainy in June/July) and packing accordingly (no t-shirts, dress decently. And pack respectable socks). Google has been really helpful with small questions like this and so has About.com, where I've started learning my hiragana.

Something really helpful just to see where I'll be going is Roger & Marilyn's Photo Tour of Tokyo, which takes you EVERYWHERE. This is also where I learned most of my Japanese words about trains and some simple kanji like for enter and exit. It's probably a good idea since I'll be taking the train I believe from wherever I'm living to campus.

I've been keeping a small pocket notebook with this like this, along with Japanese words and accompanying kanji for places I would have to go like Bank and Post Office. Someone told me a friend of hers used to buy a postcard of the place he was living so he would have everything right there (image, English and Japanese name) if he needed to get back. Seems like a smart idea.

Links: Culturally, japan-guide has been very useful with etiquette and general living and henna gaijin has been great to see how foreigners adapt to Japanese life.