Arrival

Alright, don't ask me how I managed to get through a 3-hour flight to Detroit, followed by a 13-hour flight to Nagoya, followed by a 2-hour bus ride to the center. I don't even know. But I'm here.

All in all, my trip here wasn't that exciting. Once we got to Nagoya it was time to ship our luggage and get out. I also couldn't get my camera out until I got here because my luggage was packed so tightly I couldn't get to anything and figure out how to get it all back in. And then I couldn't take any today because my camera eats batteries like candy.

It's quiet here in the dorms (if you can call them that; in all honesty they're more like apartments that share a common room downstairs. I've got what's probably a 6-tatami room that's connected to a kitchen, bathroom, and my roommate's room). Everyone's studying for their placement exams tomorrow. Bear in mind that these are people who have taken Japanese before, some of them for more than two years, so unlike me, they're trying to place into a higher level class. I know full well that my Japanese vocabulary consists of a whole lot of basic stuff and really elaborate stuff I'd never use in real life, but I'll still work on my kana so I'm not too lost tomorrow.

We got our bikes today (mine is plenty big, thank you) and took a bike ride around the city today. Iga-san, our student activity director, was the tour guide for our group since there weren't enough volunteer tour guides for all the groups. We had lunch at the supermarket food court, and I got this stuff called takoyaki, which is fried dough stuff with octopus on the inside. It's delicious, but I didn't care much for the fish flakes they put on top of it. Also, they have no diet soda here. I think that might be the one thing I miss.

I went out again to get groceries, and let me tell you, I'm never doing that on foot again. Took me way longer than it should have and it's really humid here. I mean, we're on a lake, I know, so it could be worse. Still, there's a nice breeze. And clouds. Constant clouds.

Sunset around here is sometime around 6:45, and by 7-ish it's total darkness. Takes some getting used to.

I took some photos, but I need to resize them so they'll show up here.