#globalgorlok

I decided to just do a post for this week, since it was altogether just more orientation and bumming around within Fuchinobe and the areas around it. Not much was hugely memorable enough to deserve its own post, so have a mega blog leading up to day 1 of classes.

Monday we had medical checkups, which was required for Japanese Health Insurance, which is mandatory if you are living here for any amount of time. It was.... awkward. Everything was pretty normal, until we all had to get x-rayed and were given no privacy to put on the medical gowns, which led to fun trying to get re-dressed. There was much readjusting in the bathroom after that. We ended up going to Hashimoto that afternoon, where there’s a big mall for normal shopping. It includes quality shopping stores such as Swanky Market.

Also, there was a section of ‘discounted’ section of samurai helms and Edo/Heian era dolls.

The normal mall itself was pretty cheap, plus bought a Stormtrooper jacket that will get pictured next time I wear it. It is so warm. Instead, have a picture of the sakura from 8th floor of Meimeikan, where half my classes are this semester.

To quote Jordan, ‘There’s nothing special about sakura, it’s just the fact that Japan has planted 10,000,000 of them on every single street.’

I would be inclined to agree, but on Wednesday when I had the free time, I went to the park and took pictures of all the sakura since it was sunny. This is before all the petals started falling, and pollen-pocalypse set in. Things were still pretty and beautiful on Wednesday, and it was really nice to have a park within walking distance that gave me the sakura experience I didn’t get as well on the cloudy day of the Machida Hanami.

Thursday I had to get up at the worst possible hour to be downstairs for Registration. No part of this was an enjoyable experience. We met at 7:45, and got on the road at 8, walking down to Fuchinobe station to get to Sagamihara City Hall. Contrary to popular (read: Leader’s) belief, City Hall is no closer to Sagamihara station than it is Yabe station, the stop before it. We went farther, and spent more money by extension, to have the same stupid walk because no one decided to look at a map and figure out which station was closer. After getting to the station, 30 minutes of walking later we got to City hall to....Sit. The Hall itself ran pretty smoothly, getting all 60+ of us processed with stamps in about an hour. After that, it was another hour trek home because having never been to Sagamihara before, the only route I knew was the one they took us on. I don’t like having to rely on other people for transport unless they know what they’re doing....and I really don’t think they did this time.

Friday was an ordeal in patience at its finest. It was the last real day of Orientation, which meant leaving all the awfulness for last. From 1-2:30 we had anti-crime and drug orientation, which was held in a building with wifi (relevant later promise.) We were all split up into strange groups to discuss case studies of ‘what might happen illegally in Japan.’ Aka it was like D.A.R.E. all over again, except not in a language I could easily read. We got the case of what to do if your friend gives you weed, which was only really funny because the Chinese students in our group didn’t understand the katakana for marajuana until us two  ‘Muricans said it out loud. 

Now, as for why I mentioned wifi, as far as data goes in Japan, most of us have almost none, so we rely on wifi to communicate in a data-only app called Line, which is used by almost everyone here. Since we were in a wifi accessible building, those of us scattered about the room decided to browse Line to broadcast our groaning through 6 presentations of ‘what to do if’ which were all entirely in Japanese. Experiences were shared of Chinese students asking someone if they every shot up or smoked weed before, and the rest of us groaning and wanting to be free. It would have been less bad if they had allowed more English, but Obirin rolls in all Japanese all the time, and you damn foreigners better get used to it and follow along. It works in classes just fine, but for ‘important’ information that we may need to know, it doesn’t work well.

After that, there was a presentation from the Tokyo Fire Department about the special hazards of living on an island that’s also conveniently an earthquake hub. Tsunamis are an extra kind of horrible, caused by earthquakes and can be pretty damn terrible on many levels. This part of the presentation was subbed in English, so you knew they meant business then. Once they were done, we could go outside and try the fire extinguishers, as well as ride in a truck that simulates earthquakes. This was pretty cool all in all, though it shows how serious business Japan is about safety.