So Sorry for the delay

I feel so bad that I've let this blog slide while I've been adjusting to life here in Otaru. I can only blame it on the fact that I've been really busy here and too lazy to walk to the computer lab to use the internet here. I want to let everybody know that I'm doing fine here, it's getting cold but so far I haven't frozen to death. I'm expecting long underwear and a coat to show up in about a week from my parents in the US. If I'd had room in my suitcase I would've packed and brought it with me. Although yesterday and today have been unseasonably warm and so I haven't been needing to wear three layers of clothing when I go outside. :)

I want to say a few things that I've learned since coming here to Otaru that I think a person who is considering Otaru as a choice might want to know when they get here.

1. When you get to Chitose there will be someone to meet you there at the airport, that person will be your tutor and will help you get settled in at the dorm & here in Japan. They will also help you to practice your japanese when you set up times for that. My tutor's name is Jumi and she is awesome. She'S been very helpful to me, and I really like her.

2. If at all possible eat before going to the dorms, whether it's in Chitose or in Otaru get some food into you! Especially if you arrive at night like I did and you can't go to the grocery store until the next day. Or at the very least bring some crackers and stuff in your suitcase with you. If you arrive during the day make it a point to go to the international office first thing, or if you arrive at night go the next morning. When you go they will have you fill out a bunch of paperwork but they will also give you a map. This map is like a pirate's treasure map because it is: a. in english, and b. has the locations of things like grocery stores, banks, post offices, etc. which you will want to have trust me!

3. If you are lucky (I was not) the previous year's student will have left you some things like pots & pans, dishes, etc. so you don't have to start from scratch. I had to start from scratch & if you have to do this some words of advice: buy dishes at the dollar store but do not buy pots & pans there. Also make sure that when you buy pots and pans that they are capable of being used on a gas stove because I bought 1 pot and the handles were... toasty after 1 use. I ended up with a larger $30 frying pan and a medium sized $15 cooking pot which is perfect for 2 or 3 servings of spaghetti or soup. There'S a great dollar store or 'hyaku en' shop in wing bay written uingu bai in katakana. If you go down to the train station and take the train to wing bay (200 yen & about 10 min. ride) then you can buy pretty much everything you will ever need from there. It is on the 1st floor of the mall. If you don't feel like traveling that far there is also a small $1 store on the top floor of Nagisakiya department stores & they sell dishes there also.

4. The bus is your friend. Especially if you don't want to haul groceries back up the mile long "hell slope" that the school is at the top of. The bus to the school is #19 and runs every 1/2 hour or during the busy times of day every 15 minutes. The main bus station is next to the train station and #19's stop is on the back side of the bus terminal on the #3 platform. There's a big sign in bad english there. There is also a bus stop right across the street from the Co-OP grocery store that we like to take back up after shopping. Bus fair is 200 yen or you can buy a bus pass & depending on the amount on the pass you can get 1 or 2 free bus rides. If you're riding up to the dorms stay on the bus until it makes it's last stop which is right across the street from the school. It turns around and let's you off, then goes back down.

5. The cafeteria serves really cheap, really good food everyday. Even during the beginning of september when classes aren't in session. They are open from 11:00 to 6:30 & on average I spend about 400 yen there for lunch (which is a LOT of food). If you want noodles like ramen,soba,udon go to the cashier & tell them what you want and they will give you a ticket. Then go around to the ramen counter & give them the ticket. Otherwise get in the main line and tell the ladies what you want... just like at school in the US when you were a kid.

The school is located just down the hill from the dorm. There's a set of gates & a gate house with a (ours was anyway) fat security guard turn right into the school and then walk to the building on the left. It's a two story building. This is the cafeteria. If want to go to the international office go up the hill past the guard house and there'll be a building with a neon green clock in front of you. Go up to it and turn right. The next building (it looks like 1 building, they are all connected) says 4 on it and has 2 kanji which mean building... there is also a sign next to the door saying " international center". Go inside and take a right & it's the 1st door on your right.

I hope that helps anyone who is planning on coming here to Otaru. I will try & update the blog more later but in the meantime here is a couple of pictures that I took of the Otaru canal. :)

Start of Classes

So it's 10:30 am here in Japan and guess what I'm doing? Sitting online because we don't have classes here until like 12:50 today. Can you believe I have to take 15 credits here in Japan? It's not fair I tell you. Basically it means that I'll be taking class continually from 10:00 to 4:00 everyday. And it gets dark here at like 5:00 or 5:30 so it's difficult to go to the grocery store. I live on a hill that's been termed the "hell slope" by the native Japanese because it has a 10% grade (slope) but I swear it gets steeper than that when you approach our building.

Basically all we do this week is show up to classes we think we might be interested in (ie ALL OF THEM) and then on friday we turn in a paper stating which classes we want to take the rest of the semester. Sounds like fun right? In other news I might have a phone soon! My tutor is going to take me tonight to see if I can't get one now instead of waiting another 2 weeks to get the thing. We'll see what happens you know? I'm supposed to be getting my bank card today. I guess I'll see if it shows up or not. I have to sign for it so I either have to go down to the post office to get it or I have to be there when the guy tries to deliver it. Which sucks because the mail runs here at like 2:00 and I'm supposed to be in class then. Still waiting on internet here, stealing it where I can, using stupid Japanese keyboards in the meantime. Hopefully I can sign up for internet soon (was supposed to do it sat. long story there) and then it apparently takes about a month to get it installed.

I'll update again soon, hopefully this time on my own computer when I can post up pictures. Jaa!

Japan!!!!

Greetings from the Land of the Rising Sun! I am still alive and doing well here in Japan. I live in the internation dorms and have met some great people here! There's 3 french, 3 americans (including me), 2 germans (one hasn't arrived yet), 1 english man (that's him in the pic above), 2 icelanders (vikings!), and 1 austrian (hasn't arrived yet). There's also about 20 chinese people that we haven't met because they keep to themselves and a couple of koreans who we HAVE met and are very nice to us.

My dorm here (more pics to follow) is very nice, I have a bed, a desk, plenty of storage space, my own bathroom and kitchen. And I'm on the second floor so I have a great view of the ocean and the mountains from my room (also to follow). I arrived at about 10 pm here in Otaru and was very tired and hungry. I couldn't sleep on the plane ride over and was too anxious to eat so when I arrived I was frazzled and upset. In that moment I hated Japan and all things Japanese. I had no food, no dishes, no pots and pans, nothing. So the next morning I got up at 5:30 am, got dressed, and went out in search of food and a phone. Later that day, I met the other residents here and they helped me to get dishes, etc. It appears though that most of the other residents had dishes and stuff left to them by the previous occupants of their dorm rooms so I must not have had anyone in my room before.

Still working on getting a stable internet connection here and a cell phone so within the month I should be completely hooked up and my posts can be longer and more frequent. :) Until then ja matta!!!

Monday of Doom

So today is the last day I have here in the US before leaving for Japan. I'm sad and homesick already. There's still so much stuff I have to do before we leave for Chicago tonight. For one thing I'm not finished packing, not that I don't have it all together but I'm trying to distribute it all and figure how what needs to go where. Also the customs form thing is annoying because I have to know EVERY SINGLE THING that is going into the box and everything that is going into the suitcase instead. ::sigh:: this would be much easier if I could just throw it in there and go.

I have renewed my prescription, visited the dentist, gotten back my passport with the visa in it, and looked at every bit of info I could about the train schedules and airport layout. I'm also brining my japanese textbook and my kanji book on the plane with me so I can brush up more before I get there. I feel completely inadequate though because I didn't spend the whole summer memorizing kanji and working on vocab and stuff. I hate that, that I was going to school and working a lot and was just too burned out period to want to get those books out when I got home and work on them too.

Gaby from Study Abroad called me today on the phone. I was worried on friday because nothing else had come from Otaru for me about school since July and they said they were going to send me more things at that time. I e-mailed her AND Otaru's international office because I didn't know whether anyone was going to be at the airport to meet me or not. I'm freaked about riding the train by myself. Well ok not about riding the train but about getting on the right one, and sitting there for an hour and then getting off and it being 8:30/9:00 pm at night and nobody being at the international house to let me in. I mean... it would be hard to arrive with my stuff and have nowhere to sleep that night you know? So over the weekend, while being completely upset I made alternate plans in which I will take the train to Sapporo and stay in a hostel there for the night ($35) and then go on to Otaru in the morning when I know somebody will be there.

So anyway Gaby called me this morning having received my e-mail, and told me that she thought somebody would be there to get me at the airport, but like I said I'm not betting on it you know? I told her about the stuff I was supposed to receive from their office and she asked me if I'd e-mailed them about it. I told her that I had and that I hadn't had a response yet. So I think we're both a little flummoxed. You'd think that they'd be open last night (morning monday their time) and that they would answer my e-mail back but maybe they werent there, or maybe they didn't get to it because it was in english instead of Japanese. ::sigh:: Oh well. Ok so I'm heading off to Japan and I probably won't write in here again for a few days because I'll technically be in the air for a few days!

Love to Everybody! And Sayonara America!

Just for Mandi

Mwahahahaha I had to post these pics of mandi up because she mentioned how she knew that I was going to do it. So I thought I'd prove her right and make her happy. :) Just thought I'd let everybody know that packing is going on and that I'm doing well on the whole cleaning up my room thing. I expect to be packed and ready to go by saturday. Yeah! But I am very sad because my camera charger is still in Ludington and I won't be getting the damned thing back until AFTER I leave. So my parents are like 'we'll mail it to you' and I'm pissed because that means I'm going to be in Japan for the first like 3 weeks with no camera! I hate it. I want to let everybody see how things are going in Japan and where I live and stuff and now I have to wait. And it'll cost like $60 I don't have to replace it. Sucks ass I tell you. ::sigh:: so enjoy the pics anyway and I'll be working on my packing stuff some more.

One Week Until I Leave

It's monday night and guess what I've done to get ready to go? Like nothing. Seriously, this past week I bought clothes to wear in Japan and then I helped my parents get ready for their end of summer shindig. I should've started working on cleaning up the trash heap I call a bedroom and packing for Japan today but I didn't. I DID however manage to burn all those CDs for Luella from our Maine trip and took them to Meijer for her to pick up the next time she works. I also bought the last stuff I needed to go to Japan (I hope anyways): undergarments, socks, a couple of slipper socks (so warm!) and 2 packages of spacebags so I can cram everything into my suitcase.

We've also decided that I won't be taking my down comforter to Japan with me. This made me sad because that comforter is so very very warm in the winter I don't know how I'll live in frozen hokkaido with no central heat or insulation in the walls. ::sigh:: so instead I get to cram the other 3 blankets that are normally on my bed in the winter into the Japan box. They can be squished really good within a space bag which you can't do with the down comforter and they'll take up a lot less space. And I can always buy another blanket if I get too cold you know? Anyway tomorrow I need to start packing the actual box, that means washing all my blankets and packing them up and then putting all the other stuff that won't fit into my suitcase in there including winter clothes & coat. My new shoes haven't arrived yet, I'm worried that they won't get here before I leave and that'd suck because then I'd either have to have my parents mail them or I'd have to wait until christmas to get the stupid things.

No bank account with Lasalle because when we went down there the banker talked us out of it saying that I could use my atm card from FCFCU in Japan just as well as the one she'd issue and then she called them and talked to their manager just to make sure there weren't any restrictions on it. Tomorrow I've also got to call this fraud company that the credit union deals with and tell them I'm going to be using it in Japan for the next year so they won't block me from using it over there. Mandi says that I should get a credit card for emergencies and my parents agree so I guess I'll be getting one in the next couple of days although the actual card won't arrive until a week or so after I leave so it'll have to be forwarded to me. Oh! And I got my passport/visa back! It showed up last tuesday after we came back from up north (ok trip btw) it's just this dumb sticker that the put over one whole passport page, then they stapled my certificate of eligibility to the next page. I got a garish orange passport cover for about $3 and it can apparantly hold your boarding pass and stuff so I thought that was cool. Anyways more updates after I get some packing done tomorrow, I figured I would start with winter clothes/bedding and stuff. ;)

Last Day at Meijer

Today is my last day at Meijer. Last night I attended my very last team meeting and made cocoa merangue shells with coolwhip and raspberries as a treat. We also took a group pic of all of us so that made me happy. :) Unfortunately the second pic, which was a better shot of me didn't turn out because the flash went off and washed everybody out. :( I hope today goes well, I've been a bit depressed at work this past week because it seems like anything that can go wrong, does.

On to better news I got my blue tooth headset yesterday yeah! I synched the device with the bluetooth adaptor and my computer. It was really stupid because it told me to enter a pin, which I thought I needed to make up but was in actuality about 5 paragraphs down in the instructions for the headset after the 1st one which says 'follow your bluetooth device's instructions for set up' which i thought was really stupid. Well whatever.

::sigh:: well I've got to go and pack, we're leaving for my last trip to Luddington tonight for Labor Day weekend. I don't know yet if it'll be fun or just a lot of bother since my sister isn't going to be there to act as a buffer for me. I have to work until 8 so I hope my parents don't want me to drive myself and meet them up there, I don't want to spend a lot of $$ on gas to get there since I'm now out of a job and leaving the country.

*~*Update*~*

It ended up being a good day at work after all. I got there a bit late & couldn't find my name tag, but I got to see Chelsea (yeah!) for a couple of hours, and there wasn't anything horrible that occurred while I was there. Ended up running a checklane for 1 & 1/2 but that was ok because it helped the time go by faster, and I got to talk to a lot of people and have some good conversations with them about their plans for this weekend. Then Doris came in and brought me a card and a pretty bracelet which will go great with the necklace that Barb made for me last fall. :) I was happy to get to see her before I left. Mr. Sizer came in to make some photos and say goodbye to me. That really made my day, that somebody who comes in all the time, took the time out of their day to see me & tell me what a good job I had done while I was working for Meijer. I really appreciated that. Oh! And I got to see his new DSLR, 10.1 megapixels, a self cleaning CMOS sensor, and 6.5 fps. Pretty sweet. Wish I could afford one of those! Or I'd settle for an old Canon AE-1 off of ebay with a couple of lenses and stuff.

DSLRs are cool but I think as an old film SLR would be great to ween myself off of all the auto stuff. You can usually get an old SLR (depending on model and condition) for about $100 and it usually comes with a couple of lenses or filters at the least. Too much money to buy a DSLR I don't know how to operate, or know what features I really want on it you know? I could think I was getting a good deal and then never end up using the features. But it'll have to wait until I come back and graduate, and even then I'll probably be too broke to one.

So I guess for now I'm going to spend the last couple of weeks here in the US taking some pics with that old sears tower camera I got from my granny. Anybody (if anybody's reading this thing!) got any ideas as to what would make some good subjects to photograph? I've got about 5 rolls, 8 pics on each one that I need to use up because the film will expire while I'm in Japan and I don't even want to think about how expensive it'd be to get it developed over there. They need to be something I can use bright light on because I can't find any flash bulbs that'll work in that camera. Anywho that's all for now! Everybody have a great Labor Day Weekend!