Day 2 - 31st of August

9:00 am　セミナーハウス
天気：暑い
Well I made it to my dorm in one piece. After getting off the limousine bus I realised I was not at Hirakata station. I had to ask for directions twice, to get there. I was a little worried but it turned out to be easy enough to find. Only a 5 minute walk away. When I got there, the bus I needed to get to the seminar houses had miraculously appeared. I was feeling very lucky at this point. I quickly jumped on. I overheard some girls talking about the seminar house and one of them (Amber as I later found out), helped me get there, after I payed the 220 yen fee. ~ In Japan, you pay the bus driver when you get off the bus ~
I was so relieved, when I got there. When I got to my room, after meeting my Otousan, I was immediately greeted by Georg from Germany, who is staying in our room temporarily. My roommate's name is Diego from Milwaukee, USA. He's originally from Brazil so speaks Portuguese and Spanish (you can tell by the name right). He's 22, and pretty cool. Anyway I need to make a list of what I need to buy. And, I'm meeting Dan today (my speaking partner) at 1pm.

6:48 pm セミナーハウス
Day two in Japan and I've started shedding the feeling of the impossibility of my situation. This morning I went to my first 99円 store, which I'd never heard of. Georg joked that the 100円 stores were for the snobs. It's just so crazy and weird to see that every single item is the same price. And yet, they still mark the prices on everything. In fact you actually pay 104円　for everything (I'm guessing that's the tax???) So yeah, we walked all the way to university which took about 20 minutes. It absolutely blew me away when I saw it. The buildings are huge!!! I took heaps of photos. It's sad though cause I didn't actually get anything done in terms of handing in forms. I just watched as Diego and Georg did their stuff xD. We met up with this girl from my dorm who's name escapes me, and ate lunch in the cafeteria after checking out the McDonalds and convenience store.

At 1pm I was able to meet Dan for the first time. He seems like a really great guy. He is already quite good at English. I also met his friend, Seimu Suzuki. He is better at English and I found it a bit easier to talk to him. I also talked to their friend Chihiro in Japanese. We will go to her house, and Dan's too, and they will cook for us. Dan likes basketball, piano and karate. He wants me to play his keyboard at his apartment . After walking and talking a bit more, we ended up splitting. Dan went home and Seimu walked me back to the seminar house.

I went out again to do my first "big" shop, at "Top World" (it's a grocery store). I didn't exactly know what the cashier was saying so I just smiled and nodded. Also you do your own packing. Anyway I've written too much already. Oh, I gave Alex a text at like 6:30 before I realised that she probs wouldn't get it. I'll send her an email. Anyway, going to have dinner now ...

11:52 pm　セミナーハウス
It's a great atmosphere here in the dorm. Everyone is so friendly and easy to talk to. I'll be helping Diego a lot, as he has never taken Japanese before; that should be fun. As for the other students, the degree of knowledge of Japanese is quite varied. I wonder how Alex is. Hopefully she is asleep in her hotel bed by now. I really, really need a better pillow. This one officially sucks (*Adds to mental shopping list*). LOL, and I need some cutlery for this week, as they don't provide it. I ate my curried pork and rice with the provided plastic spoon tonight. Nevertheless, it was so yummy. Tomorrow, I have a lot to do. I have to go to uni at 10:30 for the language placement test. I'm hoping that I'm at level 3-4. Then I need to make an appointment to register my laptop. Then I need to go to the PC@LL session. Maybe take the orientation tour. Hand in some forms (which reminds me I still need to get my insurance policy out) and pay my fees. Hopefully everything will go smoothly. I might meet with Seimu too. Good night ...