Day 2

So this morning we all had to meet in the common room for a quick briefing/meeting about what we were going to do today. Joe (the member of Meiji staff that has the job of looking after us) gave us all forms to fill in, because today we had to go to the Setagaya ward office and get our foreign resident registration, and our national health insurance application. We were briefly introduced to the buddies that are helping out with taking us around that we also met yesterday, before we were told it was time to go.

On the way to the station

This was at Shibuya station,
not 100% sure what it is...

We walked to the train station up roads with no pavement, which took quite a while - mostly because the level crossings in Japan lower the barriers about 1 minute before the actual train goes past, so you sit waiting and nothing happens! One thing I forgot to note yesterday is just how many vending machines there are. It's physically impossible for you to walk down a street and not see at least 2 vending machines. Asya and I were both really thirsty so we wanted to get a drink, but because we didn't want to get separated from the group, neither of us went and got one until after we'd arrived in Shibuya. We got the train from the station to Shibuya, having to change once but it only took around 15 minutes in total. From Shibuya station we headed past Hachiko to the bus stop where we picked up a bus to the ward office. The bus ride took quite a while, but I chatted a little with one of the buddies called Nobuto.

Lunch - there were more
but I ate them. Not sure what
they were, but they were tasty.

Asya eating flavoured ice..

Once we arrived at the office, we had to wait for quite a while for the first person to be served, but after that, it all went moderately quickly, taking about 30 minutes for everyone's applications to be processed. We got told by Joe that our applications wouldn't be processed until 4 so that we should all go to the shop and get some lunch. We headed across the road and wandered round a 7/11 store to get some food. There was a lot of food in the fridge that we were told would be heated for us if we wanted, something which I took advantage of when I had my dumpling things. I think they're caled Gyoza, at least I'm pretty sure they are. Not very sure what was in them but it looked a little like cabbage, and tasted pretty nice so I'm not complaining. When we were done eating, we went back into the office where Kelsie and I chatted with Asya about her family, Pokémon, people in the UK and places we wanted to go. This meant that the time went pretty fast in the end and we got our cards and it was time to go home.

We got back on the bus and had another long bus ride back to Shibuya station. When we arrived at the station, we saw this incredibly cool bus, then we were told that if people wanted to stay in Shibuya they could, but they were responsible for getting themselves home, and that everyone that wanted to go home could go with Joe. Kelsie, Asya and I decided that we wanted to go shopping to buy food and various items, so we went back to the flat to drop things off, where - while waiting - I nearly fell asleep because I was very tired.

Dead cicada we saw on the
way to the shops. They're huge!

Then we went out for our walk to the 100 Yen store (Basically a poundland). The university provides cups and plates etc, but I decided I wanted my own so I bough a mug, a glass, a bowl, a teapot (yes for 100 yen), some cutlery and some chopsticks for about 800 yen (about £7.50). We then headed over to the supermarket to buy food, which was probably the most tricky thing we've done so far. It's a bit strange trying to buy food for yourself when a) you don't know what half of the items are, b) when you find things like mince and chicken, you don't know if they have anything to make a sauce and c) they put SALT next to SUGAR which is incredibly confusing.

After a long walk round the shop several times, I managed to buy myself some spaghetti, mince, 'meat sauce' which I'm going to assume for now is bolognese, golden sauce (a type of curry sauce I think), chicken and drinks. They have Lipton ice tea in half sized orange juice cartons! It's so tiny! I'll have to take a picture. The shop also had fresh bakery items like curry bread (Basically a sort of savoury bread doughnut, with curry in the middle rather than Jam) which I'll have to get at some point because they were quite nice last time we were here.

We then went back to the flat and on the way saw a hospital where the outside was decorated with plants. Almost like the entire hospital had scaffolding, around it, so that the plants could grow. It was a bit strange but looked very cool! When we got back to the flat we put our stuff away and went back to our rooms. Tomorrow I have to be up at about 8:30 as we have to leave at 9:20 to go to the campus, apparently we have 'Daily living orientation, Academic orientation and a Campus tour' so lots of stuff to do tomorrow!