What would a trip to Japan be without the occasional wrong turn?
The morning started off kind of slow, particularly because not many Japanese people wake up at 3AM (I would find out later that the other Americans pretty much did). I spoke to people, wrote a blog, watched as the peeping Toms walked by my window, and eventually Tim woke up and we went down for breakfast.
Breakfast was solid. The bread here is cut in huge slices (interesting note, the bread is "Pan" in both Japanese and Spanish), kind of like Texas Toast. We had 2 slices of that with butter and jam (I had some Ichigo jam), along with potato salad, green tea, sausage, and something else I can't remember. After breakfast we went back to our rooms for a bit and I finished unpacking my things and speaking to people online.
At about 11AM Claire and Mr. Tuon came by the dorm to get us, so I slipped on my Ogre shoes and we went to go find the train station that would take us to the University. Apparently Claire and Mr. Tuon had gotten lost on the way to our dorm and had to have a taxi bring them, which wasn't too comforting, but we got to the station successfully.
Once at Ikeda Station we bought our train cards and made our way towards Ishibashi Station, the station nearest Osaka University. The campus is very similar to any college campus, except that there are a bunch of really cool bonsai trees all over the place. Mr. Tuon took us to the Chemical Engineering building and showed us where our labs would be, and then we went over to the cafeteria for lunch. I washed my hands and threw the paper towel into the correct trash can
While deciding what food to get for lunch this old guy came by us and started speaking in Japanese. "Nihongo Ga Wakarimasen, America-Jin desu" (I dont understand Japanese, I'm American) we kept telling him but he just kept talking. Eventually we figured out that he was from Kobe, and he hated Osaka and apparently "Kobe wa ichiban!" (Kobe Numba Ooooone!). Tim and I walked away to go get our food, and while waiting in line he walks over to us, looks at our trays, laughs, and then walks away. A bit later after we finished eating, probably because he felt he hadn't adequately expressed the point, he stopped by our table to inform us that Osaka is hands crossed in X formation and Kobe is thumbs up. "Kobe Ichiban!" I said excitedly and he laughed and walked away. Whatever creepy old man...
After lunch we walked over to a big grocery store near school, the 100 yen store, and the electronics store upstairs. I got a shower caddy and a 3 -> 2 prong plug adapter and looked around the electronics store for a bit. Once everyone was done browsing we made our way back to the train station, where we stopped by another grocery store that was a lot cheaper than the big one.
We didn't really need anything, but decided to scan through the alcohol aisle. Surprisingly, some things were even cheaper than they are in America, so we bought a bottle of smirnoff and I took some obligatory sake pictures. For relaxing times,
make it Suntory time.
After the grocery store we went to the train station and Claire and Mr. Tuon parted ways. We hopped on the train back to Ikeda, which was uneventful aside from the Japanese man staring us down out of the corner of his eye after hearing Joey's cacophonous laugh. We got off the train and decided we could either a) try to find our way home or b) explore and hope we find our way home.
Naturally we chose the latter, and we began wandering around the city. One thing that I like a lot about Japan is that even though there are a ton of appartment buildings, there are also a lot of quaint little houses all over the place, many of which have very beautiful little gardens. We saw a really cool looking building that I decided couldn't be a house, so we walked into it. Joey started getting cold feet about wandering around some random establishment, partly because we kept telling him we were going to ring the huge bell
but seriously, I know it's Japan and all but houses generally don't have bells. We left after wandering around for a couple minutes and continued wandering around till we stumbled on Ikeda Castle.
You know you're in a pretty cool place when you can stumble upon a castle (though in all fairness it was just a recreation of it). The view from the top of the tower
was pretty cool so we took some pictures and tried to see if we could spot the Shell Station, our landmark for the dorm. We couldn't so we decided to keep walking.
We passed by what I thought was an arboreum, but turned out to just be a gym, and then made our way up a hill and stumbled upon an elementary school. I wanted to explore the area a bit but everyone else was a bit hesitant. We decided it was probably for the best. Though Japan has no open container laws (and in all fairness our container wasn't yet open) it's still probably a bit creepy to see four gargantuan westerners carrying a bottle of spirits and wandering around an elementary school playground.
We wandered a bit more before realizing that nothing looked even vaguely familiar, even though it looked nice and chill
so we made our best guess as to where we should go and proceded with hopes that something would. Joey had taken a stroll earlier on in the morning, and after walking for a bit he informed us that he saw something that he "vaguely thought was marginally familiar." We decided to have a sort of group meeting where we somewhat decided to maybe follow the possibly correct pseudodirections that would perhaps lead us on a pathlike trail to what might be our dormitoryesque place of residence.
In an unusual turn of events the directions were actually correct, and totally unworthy of my biting sarcasm, and 3 minutes later I spotted the shell station and we were home. When we got back everyone pretty much passed out until dinner, at which point I think Joey took a train somewhere and I passed out until around now when once again, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and updated my blog. I'm gonna go to sleep now, hope you're all enjoying the blog. After all
"It is a one of daily necessaries for your life"
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