For some reason I thought I had posted since my last post, but I guess not.
Finishing my third weekend in Japan! I've made a lot of progress in class, can travel just about anywhere on my own, made new friends, and got to see a lot of familiar faces.
When I met up with AJ and his friends (two Japanese girls) I had an amazing time. Got to practice a lot of speaking (AJ wouldn't let me use English but for some reason he was allowed to) and AJ bought me my very first, and hopefully only, PASMO!
At train stations you can get tickets in different ways. If you don't know how far you need to go on the line, you can just by the most expensive ticket and if you get off early, you can use something called 'fare adjustment' so you can get compensated for the money on the ticket that you didn't use. Instead of buying tickets every time I now have a PASMO card. There are two cards: PASMO and Suica. You pay 500 yen to buy the actual card and then you can add however much money you want to put onto it. Whenever you pass through a train gate you just tap the scanner with your card and it'll automatically deduct the correct amount and tell you your current balance. Since AJ bought me my PASMO card, he wanted to put my name on it is "WHITE FURY." Except he misspelled it and now I'm "WHITE FURRY." It's incredibly amusing. I finally got my student pass so I went to the station and had them combine my PASMO and my student pass. So now if I'm using my card to go to school, it'll know to deduct it from my student amount. If I go anywhere else, it'll deduct it from my personal amount.
Another thing about PASMO, a lot of convenience stores and other transportation (buses) accept PASMO cards (given that you have enough money on them). I bought shoes recently at a store called Randa in Big Box in Takadonobaba and at the register they had a scanner for PASMO. For SHOES. YOU CAN BUY SHOES WITH YOUR TRAIN PASS Japan is ridiculous.
Anyway.
I CAN GO ANYWHEREEEEEE.
Around a week and a half ago I trekked to the Softbank in Harajuku by myself in order to finally get a cell phone. After much heckling from friends. The reason I went specifically to the Harajuku branch of Softbank is because they have English speaking staff there. Also Softbank is the only phone company in Japan that sells prepaid phones. When I arrived I told them in Japanese that I'd like to get a prepaid phone and if an English speaking representative was available or not. They said they'd go check and they had me wait and I played with iPads and overpriced Disney/Apple/Softbank merchandise.
After a little while the man I had spoken with approached me, explaining that their English speaking staff were unavailable and there would be a very long wait and then asked if I would be okay with speaking Japanese. I decided to give it a shot. A very nice older man asked me about which phones/plans I wanted and how they worked and prices and stuff and it was incredibly simple. Mostly yes or no questions or "this one" or "that should be fine" etc etc. I was expecting him to ask me for identification and my address so I was prepared. He was like "uhmm I'm going to need..." and I was like "OH MY PASSPORT AND ADDRESS AND STUFF?!" and he was like "YESS THATS CORRECT" so he was very pleased that I was ready. He was showing me how to do certain things on the phone and I was even asking him questions about stuff. When we were all done he was asking if I was a study abroad student or what and said that my Japanese was very good and I didn't even need to use English. Bwahahaa. He wished me good luck on my studies and then I trained back hoooome.
I've gotten to meet up with my amazing friend Dorothy a couple of times now! It's been great catching up and talking about our experiences here and classes and stuff. Turns out we both have the same textbook! She's starting winter break soon so hopefully we'll be able to go out and have shenanigans. And as a bonus, her train stop and my train stop are on the same line (Tozai Line)! So if I wanted to go straight to see her I wouldn't need to make any transfers/do any running around in random stations.
Although switching train lines is something I love doing everyday. I feel like I'm in a bloodstream flow visiting different areas of the body and then looping around. Weeeee.
Last weekend after going on a mandatory trip to the Tokyo Edo Museum I met up with my friend Shu! I hadn't seen him in about a year, and he hadn't used English in a long time, but his English still blew my Japanese out of the water. We had fun on trains and made really dumb jokes and people just kind of stared at us.
Yesterday my friend Kentarou drove out in the freezing cold to see me and take me out to a movie and then see the sights that my area has to offer. There really aren't any, as it turns out, haha. But I am really close to Disneyland. Apparently I should be able to see distant fireworks from my building.
Speaking of Disneyland, my level three class is taking a class trip to Disney Sea in the spring! Apparently the school is helping pay for everyone's tickets so instead of being like 5,500 yen it'll be 1,980 yen. I'm really excited. I really like the group of kids we have in class. It's a great learning environment because not everything is easy but class is always interesting and fun.
My teachers always ask me:
"So how come you speak Japanese really well?"
"Uhm I studied it for three years at my university..."
"So did a lot of people here. Out of all of the English-speaking students your accent and pronunciation are very, very good. WHY."
"... I dated a Japanese guy for two years and hung out in a household of four Japanese guys and their Japanese friends."
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THATS WHY."
"Mmhmm."
"You should enter the speech contest at the end of the semester! You'd definitely win."
"NO."
Unfortunately I missed a day of class last week not only because I had a cold I was getting over but also because a member of my CWU family back in Ellensburg passed away and I had just found out about it and was having a rough time sleeping. Fortunately, I've become friends with an amazing person named Varya who had me stay with her in Ikebukuro for a few days where we played dress up and hung out and she would make me breakfast and do my hair.
The day that I was gone one of my Korean classmates texted me asking if I was ok and to get better soon.
Today I woke up (to a text from Kentarou informing me that it was morning) and then promptly closed my curtains and slept the rest of the day. It felt awesome. So now I am studying for my makeup kanji test and another test on two units we just finished. And homework. Wooo!
Also when I woke up this afternoon it was snowing. Giant flurry of little flakes. Thankfully it stopped.
Also Kentarou just informed me that it's cold outside. And that he is dying. He wants me to re-teach him English. I think it'll be impossible.
Alright I think I covered most of everything. I'm usually not home very often or on my computer. Usually I'm out at school and then exploring or with friends after classes get out.
I am a busy lady, but busy in a good way. And now back to studyinggggggg.
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