Of Cats and Cake

Japanese Word of the Day:

English: “Foreigner”
Japanese: “Gaikokujin”
Japanese: “Gaijin” (A very impolite word)

               8:00 A.M. Japanese time* found me waking up to my alarm before my roommates to prepare for the beginning of orientation week. I reluctantly fled the sanctuary of my incredibly soft (and warm!) futon to again brave the unknowns of a country I was quickly realizing was worlds apart from my home. Ellen, Jordan, and I had agreed to meet in the lobby at 8:30, an hour before orientation to have plenty of time to walk to school for the first orientation session. Oh, I forgot to mention meeting Jordan on the trip to the supermarket, sumimasen. Anywho, we tentatively began the walk we timed to be about 20-30 minutes to campus where we ran into Michael and shortly after Max who both joined our merry gang.

               Orientation wasn’t very memorable considering I can’t remember anything about it. They probably said something along the lines of “Hey you guys are in another country, behave and don’t act like morons.” But there were far more important parts of the day to talk about such as our first meal in the cafeteria on campus following the orientation session. The way the caf (and many other restaurants in Japan) show their menus are by displaying plastic replicas of the items they are serving that day, which is quite nice for people who don’t speak Japanese. Like myself. On that first day they had a ramen dish, a curry dish, two more dishes I can’t recall and the club lunch; chicken katsu^ with a still unknown sauce served with cabbage, pasta salad, miso soup, and a bowl of rice. For anyone curious, I had melon soda to drink. It was amazing. All of it. In my week in Japan it’s still my favourite meal I’ve discovered. It was very reassuring to find amazing food after the fiasco of trying to navigate a Japanese supermarket for dinner the night before.

               Over our amazing first real meal we discussed the Japanese phones we’d seen all the returning students using and for which we’d gotten an advertisement for in our mailboxes. For those of you who haven’t heard me gushing about Japanese phones, let me take a moment to explain how awesome they are. Not only do they come in small, sleek designs but they have an amazing feature where you can set a contact card and transfer your information to other people via infared. When you’re meeting a ton of new international students for the first time and trying to trade numbers this feature becomes invaluable. The phones also come with their own email account (you get to choose the name) with which you can email ANYONE’S email anywhere in the world, including sending attachments. Oh, and the phone has a camera. And this was the cheapest phone option. Needless to say, I got one and have been enjoying it since.

               While we waited the required couple of hours after purchasing our phones from the campus bookstore for them to be properly set up we attended a session to help us set up bank accounts in Japan. As full exchange students Ellen and I receive a meal stipend for our food expenses which requires a bank account in Japan for the money to be deposited into. It should be noted that doing 5 pages of paperwork for a bank account in a language you don’t speak is rather troublesome. Especially when they are insanely particular about how neat your writing must be and how each area must be filled out. I supposed I should have sensed danger when the session leader told us to please not hate Japan after the banking session. Luckily, I did not end up hating Japan after the session. I just think the banks here are massively OCD.

               Our patience in filling out the same forms multiple times was rewarded when we left to pick up our new phones and set off to explore the city around campus. Our first stop was one of Japans multitude of vending machines right outside the campus gates. For the uninformed, Japan is (in)famous for a plethora of vending machines providing a large variety of products such as: hot coffee, ramen noodles in Styrofoam cups, magazines, live lobsters, alcoholic drinks, and even porn. I am not making this up. Our stop was at a drink machine offering warm coffee in cans. For those who doubt the power of the vending machine let it be known the coffee was amazing and at 100Yen (~1 USD) was substantially cheaper than any coffee shop.

               Another difference between America and Japan is that all the best stuff in Japan is in back alleys. Ok mom, calm down, I swear these aren’t sketchy, dimly lit alleys with meat hooks hanging randomly around. These are incredibly clean back roadways where small business proprietors set up shop for those seek things off the main path. In fact down one alley we found a sushi shop outside which several stray cats appeared from nowhere at the sight of people. I was delighted, of course. My companions noted the cats torn ears, broken tails, and general disarray but I saw only little kitties who wanted a nice scratch behind the ears. I coo’d to the kitties in Japanese (ha, one of the few words I actually know, is anyone surprised?) and two came right up to me and rubbed all over me as friendly as can be. Those alley cats will always have a special place in my heart but I looked up to see my friends continuing on and had to separate from my favourite feline vice.

               Down the road and around another corner or two we discovered our first 100yen shop (like the dollar store). I delighted in finding crayons and drawing paper as well as an incredibly cute notebook. I think I also got some chopsticks then but don’t hold me to it. The 100yen store also had a built in grocery store in which we delighted in staring at the exotic food and packaging that we didn’t understand. Or at least I didn’t, the others may have but this is my blog so my view of the world is the only one that matters. (/sarcasm)

               After our alley adventures (ahh, alliteration) we were beginning to get quite hungry and at the request of Michael sought out a ramen shop to get dinner. We ended up finding one relatively close to school that I was pleased to see had an art nouveau in the window. We entered and found the owner talking to two Japanese men who invited us in quite warmly in Japanese. Ramen shops have seating around the cooking area much like a bar where we took seats by the Japanese men who attempted to engage Ellen (who was sitting furthest on their end) in conversation. Except that it was all of our first day in Japan and our Japanese all around was a bit rusty (except for mine which was nonexistent). We tentatively ordered dishes that sounded appealing in Japanese and were quite pleased to see just how much food we got for 500yen°.

               With our bellies full of warm, delicious ramen we retraced our steps back through what we now know is an indirect route to the dorms and back by a pastry shop that we just had to peek inside. In passing, we’d noticed the wonderful treats inside but we couldn’t pass it up a second time and stopped inside to pick up a little dessert to eat upon returning to the seminar house. I got a slice of the world’s most beautiful strawberry cake.

It did not last long.

               After our tasty reward we parted ways to collapse into our individual futons after having walked substantially more than I normally do in any given day. All things considered, I’d have to say it was a highly successful and interesting first day in Japan, enhanced greatly by the presence of good people whom I now can confidently call my friends.

               Did I mention the dorm has heated toilet seats? Because it does. And they rock.

               Ja ne!

*That’s 6:00 P.M. EST the night prior, if you were wondering.
^”Katsu” is a name for the way the food is fried
°I’m tired of converting these so from here on out move the decimal place twice to the left and add a                little. Or just google a converter.