I woke up in the night at 3:30 and the sun was rising. I was really confused, I finally figured out later that it was because there's no daylight savings time in Japan. I got up around 6:30 and set out to make a phone call after getting dressed. I found some phones and card vending machines but they looked like a bad deal. After studying them for a while, I finally figured out how to charge the call to my credit card. After that was finished, I went to eat breakfast. The restaurant in the hotel was called 'La Florida' where I had the best Western style breakfast I've ever eaten. Normally, I don't like breakfast, but everything at the buffet was so tasty and well prepared. Not like American breakfast at all. The eggs were soft and not overdone, and the bacon wasn't burnt. After that was done, we rode a bus to Haneda airport.
We left Tokyo on a JAL 747. JAL is much nicer than Delta. Upon our arrival, we were brought to the onsen [a traditional hot-springs resort]by bus. Our afternoon was spent being interviewed for our oral profficiency. Most of these people are first year dumbasses & act accordingly. For instance, there is a group of UGA anime fans standing around in the hallway blathering loudly about nothing.
As for the inn, there are Japanese style rooms and Western style rooms. Our rooms are Japanese style, meaning the only furniture is a table and television. The floor is tatami [floor mats of woven rushes, 2x1m in size], & our beds are rolled up in a closet. As it turns out, tatami smell rather bad. The rooms range from tiny to huge, with mine seemingly the smallest. My room is about 8 x 10 feet and I have to share it with 2 bitches. At least these little ass-cushions are comfortable. Before we could even bring in our luggage, we were made to wipe off the bottom, and then we had to take it to a conference room because our rooms are too small for it.
I'm feeling pretty shitty today because I mistakenly bought a coke in an aluminum can [leached aluminum gives Karen bad headaches]. I thought it was in a silver plastic bottle. It was actually an aluminum can with a screw off cap. Wierd.
You have to change shoes a lot. There are slippers in the toilet with "toilet" printed on them and have a silkscreened picture of a man & woman holding hands. All the slippers are red vinyl, regardless of purpose and they are literally everywhere. Little banks of lockers storing red plastic slippers. On each floor, there is one men's and one women's toilet. In each women's toilet, there is one Japanese style toilet and one toilet supreme. This thing is equipped with an ass washer, ass dryer, seat heater, stop button, and god knows what else. Found the bathing part too. Not looking good. Its exactly like how it was on television. There's a row of little shower-things in a big room. And where were the modesty towels? [properly, you soak in the springs nude, but covering with a towel is okay]
At 6 we were called to a traditional Japanese meal, complete with thousands of tiny bowls filled with tiny portions of food. It was at some point during is this meal that I really began to wonder just what the hell I'm doing here. I guess the food was good if you like that sort of thing. There was raw fish, slimy soup, wet soup, tempura chicken, egg rolls, some kind of sukiyaki thing, rice, salad, and probably plenty of other stuff that I'm forgetting. I'm guessing at what the food actually was because none of it was explained to us. I left the table feeling very hungry, tired, lonely, depressed, and pissed off for having come here in the first place.
After dinner, lots of these incredibly annoying people went for a walk to the beach. I came back to my room, but the hotel ladies were making up our beds so I waited a bit. Then I came back to finish writing. Unfortunately, there's little else to do here, so the people all standing around in the hallway again being gaijin. Turns out one of my roommates is from Ottowa and doesn't suck.
I learned today that we are, in fact, not studying at Hakodate University, but at HIF [Hakodate International Foundation, the organization administering the program] offices so I've no idea when I'll have any decent internet access. God I want to go home.