Japanoblog

!!! I'm finally able to update my little blog! I've been a while without internet and free time so i'll try to catch up on past happenings and first impressions of my adventure here in japan.

i flew out of washington d.c. saturday, august 1. we flew continental and the flight left a lot to be desired. overall my plane ride neighbors were pretty cool and we talked about arrested development and david sedaris books and had a pretty good bonding experience. while on the plane though, i thought it would be awesome to pull out my laptop and watch some of my own movies instead of the crappy inflight movies that were available. what better time to watch movies i haven't seen yet - i thought to myself. so movie number one that i watched was requiem for a dream. coincidentally, this was also the last movie i decided to "try" out on the plane ride over. not so fun with two people you barely know about 3 inches away from you on either side.

fast forward to tokyo orientation.

we stayed in the Keio Plaza Hotel in the middle of Shinjuku, Tokyo for 3 nights.

here is the view from my hotel room, on the 17th floor.

my roommates were a mix of pittsburgh and crazy. the one roommate we later realized lived one street behind me in squirrel hill and would also be going to shikoku to teach.

shinjuku was amazing and bright and busy. pachinko parlors, arcades, bars, and just about anything else you can think of littered the place. oh yeah, and kareoke. in japan, kareoke is king.

this was my first meal in japan: wonton and ramen soup. わんとんえん

i met up with kochi zach. kochi is the prefecture neighboring ehime to the south. we met in d.c. and zach helped make japan a little more fun :). a couple of us headed to this kaiten sushiya that he went to while studying abroad in tokyo last year. it was amazing and the customers there got a kick out of our butchered nihongos.

after this the next couple of days were filled with prefectural meetings, speeches by dipolats, and wanderings around the ominous Shinjuku Eki! tokyo was pretty amazing!