Oct. 4th - 5th

I finally got around to using the internet again! My poor laptop died, and the cord is three pronged, and all the outlets here are two pronged, so I can't plug it in. There are computers here in the international student house, but we didn't know the password for them till now. Surprisingly the computers in here are really old. They are still Windows XP and the keyboard kinda sucks :P. Oh well, at least it works! I've felt so disconnected from anybody without any internet, and I haven't been able to call either. I hope I can find an adapter for my laptop tomorrow. There isn't any internet in our apartment, but we can connect our laptops to the modem here in the lab. So far things have been quite busy, but eveyone here has been super nice and helpful. Today we went to City Hall to register ourselves as foreigners in the city, and we signed up for the national health insurance. Tomorrow I think we are going to open a bank account and hopefully buy cell phones and maybe bikes too. Oh, and cockroach killer. Man those things are nasty. Thankfully I've only seen a couple live ones, and a few dead ones, but we're going to buy some bug spray just in case we see any more :P. The other international students here are really nice. There is only one other american student, a guy named zack, and we've also met 3 french students, a couple of chinese students, and the couple who lives beneath us are Nigerian, which is really cool cause they know english! They are really nice, they have a little boy named Joseph and the wife, Fumi, is expecting another child sometime next year. There is a japanese student named Hiroki who has been helping us alot, and he studied in the states for a year or so [he's even been to Ellensburg] and so his english is really good. This is all good for me, cause I still know very little japanese, and its frustrating when I can't talk to anybody! But I am learning new words everyday, so hopefully I'll be able to communicate with everybody soon.
Tomorrow is orientation, and then hopefully braden can sign up for his classes. The other students here have already started school, but I guess the international students start later then everybody else. The University here is not too big, but not too small either, its pretty nice so far. We went to the cafeteria today and got some authentic japanese food. I'm still trying to get used to real japanese food. All the restaurants smell really funny to me, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. There are a few stores close by where we were able to buy some food. Everything here is so small though! Nothing ever comes in a gallon sized package, not even half gallons it seems. The milk, juice, even the laundry detergent, everything comes in small packages, even the fruit is small [at least the bananas are pretty small]. There is alot of cool technology here, but its usually small stuff, like the bus stations have electronic signs and the elevators too, and everything seems to talk. So far, surprisingly enough, I have seen very little sign of the anime culture. Everything is cutesy, but I haven't seen as many signs of anime as I thought I would. Just a few posters here and there, and I'm sure the book stores have lots of manga to choose from, but everything else is pretty normal, at least by japanese standards. Oh, and mom asked about the train ride so I guess I'll talk about it too. It took about five hours total to get to Matsue by train. We took a normal commuter train from Shiga to Kyoto [It started to get really crowded, but then it emptied alot just before Kyoto, I guess it must've been a business sector] and then we took the Shinkansen. The shinkansen was pretty cool, it kinda feels like you're on a low flying airplane, and the ride is pretty smooth. We took it to Okayama, which took about an hour. After that, we took a normal train to Matsue. It was an older looking train, and the ride was not as smooth, but it was still pretty fast. It was also the longest leg of the trip. Unfortunately, when we got on the train, we accidently boarded on the wrong end. We entered in the reserved seat section, and our tickets were for the non reserved seats, which meant we had to move ourselves and our heavy luggage down several cars to get to the right section. It was pretty difficult, since the aisle was narrow, and in between every car I had to pull my suitcase over a metal disk that helped the cars turn around the bends, and by the time we were done my arms were very tired. They're actually kinda sore today. Finally we arrived in Matsue and a couple of people from the university picked us up and took us to the apartment, and then some students took us shopping. Well, all in all its been an exciting and exhausting couple of days. I can't wait for us to get our bicycles so we can see more of Matsue. Right now we kinda have to rely on the employees and students of the international exchange office to give us rides and show us around town. I'll be sure to post some photos on facebook as soon as I get an adapter for my laptop.