Food

This is part of my campus!!! Pretty much all the buildings are big and brick... I guess they are appealing in their own way. I am not getting lost so far because all the international students pretty much stay in one building. As you may also have realized, my English is getting worse the more time I spend with all of my international friends. I have friends from all over the world, which is really awesome, but it also means that I spend a lot of time speaking slowly and in a simple broken way at times to get other people to understand me. Being an international student is odd, I finally understand how the kids at Wilson feel. We are kind isolated and our lounge is like a fishbowl, all glass and easy for people to stare at us in. We start class on Monday, but the Japanese students don't get here until the 21st, I guess that will change everything. My school is in a district of the country known as Kansai, kind of like the Triangle in NC, and specifically the school is right outside of Hirakata-shi (Hirakata city). Hirakata-shi station has a train that takes you to Kyoto, Nara, or Osaka in pretty much 30 minutes to any of those. The other day I went on a tour (organized by the school) to Hirakata-shi to learn how to get there and to have some fun walking around. Here is a picture of my tour group. To be honest, I can't remember all teh Japanese student's names because I meet so many. So from left to right, a very sweet Japanese girl, my friend Erin (from Huston, we get aong really well), me, an awesome Japanese guy, and Wes from Missouri. We went to a Ramen shop for dinner, which is competely different than the instant thing we call Ramen. Ramen comes in a huge bowl filled with your choice of type of broth and meat and egg if you want it. I got miso broth with meat and an egg, the egg soaks up the broth and turns a funny color and a funny taste, but it was yummy. As soon as I got home from being in Hirakata-shi I was dragged off to Karaoke with my roommate and some of my other friends. Supposedly the best way to get over jet lag is to go out and be social, or so people keep saying. Karaoke is a custom I am not sure how to explain. There are not karaoke bars like in America, but rather you get a room for you and your group of friends. In the room is a TV or two and you use a touch-screen controller to pick songs or artists that you want to sing. It is a huge socia thing here, it is the one time people are allowed to be loud and crazy, because in Japanese culture being quite is valued. The "proverb" I am going by is that fact that you should never be the loudest person on the bus, it is considered to be incredibley rude to speak loudly. However, at karaoke everyone lets loose. In the picture of the group from left to right is Fanny (France), Havi (Chile), Audrey (Spain), Jhorje (Mexico), and Claire (Belgium). In the front is Taka-kun, he is one of the Japanese students that lives in our Seminar house (he is a goof-ball, can you tell?). Yes, I sang karaoke. Claire and I sang Queen together (Fanny helped too). It is very fun. At the end of the night we got the two boys who were working there to take a group photo, they were kawaii (cute), and spoke no English, so it was pretty amusing trying to understand eachother.














Like any orientation to a college you have to have the opening ceremony and a big dinner afterwards. We, of course, had to get dressed up for it. In the picture from left to right is Sebastian (technically Finnish, but he lived on the border to Sweden and goes to school in Sweden, so he'd tell you that he is Swedish), Lin (Vietnam), Rebecca (Sweden), and Havi. I have been spending most of my time for the past several days with Sebastian and Rebecca. Unfortunately it is HOT and HUMID here. It is like the hottest part of the summer in Wilmington. So, getting dressed up and then having to walk is not fun. Luckily Mishka (Australia) gave me a ride on the back of his bicycle, he owed me because I helped him with al his registration stuff. Most people here have bikes and most bikes have racks on the back, perfect for sitting on. For those if us in homestay who don't have bikes it is a good walk in super hot weather, so it is always nice to find someone who will give you a ride. Anyway, continuing on, dinner was incredible. There was so much food it was impossible to take photos of. They really like custard here, and all the custard is very much like flan, so thats what the pretty little cups are. Also, before you can eat a big meal like this you pour the person to your left a drink, I'm not sure why, then you all say kampai (cheers) and clink glasses. The beverages here are so much more unique than the ones in America. Have I mentioned the vending machines on every block? I need to take pictures of that soon. More photots of my friends and I being ridiculous soon to come, as well as photos of Kyoto.