Day 7: The Adventure (And Paperwork) Begins!

I will be there first to admit, that compared to my other blogs there just isn't as much actually going on in this one. Today I hod orientation for my dorm in the afternoon so I really couldn't plan any trips, and I was very tired from the past few days so today I decided to relax a little. When I woke up this morning I had a sudden realization though. I was really in Japan in my own space about to start this wonderful adventure of studying at a whole new semester in a whole culture. It was a little surreal, but sadly it didn't last because my dorm wasn't serving breakfast yet and I was pretty hungry. After getting breakfast from a convince store (they are truly superior to the US version in every way) I settled into the study/multipurpose room. There more students were hanging out and I started to make some of my first MGU friends (besides my cake buddies from the night before). They were from the UC program so they were all from California. It was fun talking about the different things we had experienced so far, and what we were looking forward to. We also all had to go buy wifi routers together so it was a fun bonding experience. After that we had our orientation in the cafeteria. It was the basics like how to use certain things, rules, and any extra paper work we had to fill out (The first of many I presume). The most exciting piece of information for me was the trash system, for the many days I had been here it had puzzled me. I was never quite sure where to put my trash, and here at the meeting was given the Bible fo sorting trash of Japan. Hopefully when this Monday comes around I will do it correctly. After the orientation a big group of us decided to get dinner. I suggested a ramen place nearby that had been recommended to me by my Japanese Buddy. On the way there I lost the whole group and thought I was going to eat alone. It was strange for me, a moment before I was confidently leading the group to some good ramen and the next they were all gone and I felt this weird brief sadness come over me. Perhaps it was me realizing that even though I was enjoying all these new people and their company they didn't really know me, or even notice if I would walk off if I did. After a while I just realized that I shouldn't take it personally after all they were all excited in nervous in their own ways, and that feeling that way meant I had the capability to care for these new people in my life. In the end I had a great dinner with some friends who had noticed my absence and wanted to eat with me. The ramen was really delicious and I can't wait to go back again. After dinner we did see shopping the others needed to get done, I personally bought some snacks for my room. I am a firm believer in proper snacks in your room at all times. After the shopping we all agreed to go to bar, and seeing I was now freshly legal in Japan I decided what the heck let's go for it and have my first drink. We settled on a bar close by called Bar Bebop. It may sound like a rinky dink bar but it was actually really fancy bar with slow jazz to set the mood. I had really wanted to try Sake but unfortunately they did not serve so I settled for for a simple glass of red wine. As a chased the wine with water the whole evening I enjoyed fun conversation with people from all over the world. I may latter not remember what we exactly talked about or what stories made us laugh so hard, but I will definitely remember how happy I felt at the end of the evening and even now. As my first official day of an MGU closes I look forward to the next four months with this fun group or people. Tomorrow I had very vague plans so I might not update, so until I see you next time!