Salutations from Sunshine City

After two days of rain, the clouds finally parted and the sun emerged from the smog to reveal patches of blue sky.  I was able to take advantage of the beautiful weather by storming the streets of Ikebukuro, the Tokyo neighborhood where we are currently staying. The first stop of the day was Sunshine City, a neighborhood mall as happy as the name sounds. As we were there relatively early in the day, it wasn’t filled with many people with the exception of a few kids in uniform possibly ditching school and some older men and women walking around. We stopped in a crepe store for brunch- a bitter chocolate and strawberry crepe. Nom nom! Then we perused the shops in the next couple of floors. While all of the stores were filled with very fun, pretty, and-dare I say- even “cute” things, I can’t help but think about how useless some of them are! Ah, my mom has had a deep impact on my life in this sense.. But, it was a nice way to spend the morning.

From the mall, we really put our navigation skills to the test and took a trolley from Sunshine City to the Waseda campus, a successful and rewarding adventure. Once at campus, we had about forty minutes to spare, so we found one of several beautiful parks that cover the campus. It is so refreshing to enter an area full of trees and water and stones and dirt! The Waseda campus is a beautiful haven, filled with green trees and temples. Lovely, lovely.

From there, a four-hour “survival” language session with some of Waseda’s language professors. Sounds like it could be a nightmare, but it was really fun! My instructor was very enthusiastic- even started salsa dancing with one of my classmates! We also learned about Japanese futons, table etiquette, and how to enter a home (more complicated than one might think).

While the class was more entertaining than originally anticipated, it was still a very long session, and we were all very happy to be done. Especially because immediately after we were to be given our host family assignments! I am very happy with mine-  My host father is 39 and a business man, my mother is 38 and has an unspecified part-time job, and I have a little brother who is two years old! I was surprised to be placed in a family with a child because many ACM students especially requested having siblings while I really didn’t have a preference, and apparently there was a shortage in families with children. But I’m really excited! I don’t have a curfew, which is nice as some host families can be overprotective, especially for girls, and only have a forty-minute commute to Waseda. I’ll meet them on Monday, so until then this basic information is all I have to go on.

Almost done, I promise!

After receiving this much-anticipated information, we were all famished and I ended up going to a Ramen restaurant with three Japanese students and one other friend from the ACM program.  Oh man, it was so good! We put money into a vending machine before we entered, selecting the type of ramen we wanted to eat and then received a corresponding ticket. When we sat down, we gave the ticket to the waitress and our ramen was brought to us. I wish I could describe how good it was, but I can’t. I’m such a sucker for noodles, and Japan did not disappoint tonight!

Nom nom nom