Orientation Adventures Part 1

Here is the post that (I assume) you all have been waiting for--the ultimate rundown of everything I did over orientation! Everything that occurred between the day after I arrived at my dorm and the day before classes started is in here, with a lot of pictures.

Anyway, let's get on with it, because this is really long. I did make it two parts, so hopefully it's more manageable that way.


Saturday, September 17

We were given a scavenger hunt to help us get acclimated to Sophia University, as well as Tokyo in general. We were also given a free 1-day JR pass to ride all the JR trains for that day, in an effort to save some money. I did not really take advantage of this, but it's okay. A lot of people just went home after the day's CIEE orientation, so at least I went somewhere.

"Go to all of these things. You have 6 days." Okay!

We had about an hour to go around Sophia and find the spots (and also grab lunch) before we were taken to Ikebukuro to learn about fire safety.

This guy was super rad.

There, we learned about how to properly use a fire extinguisher, and we even got to try it out ourselves with a simulated fire!

I can name maybe half of the people in this picture. Sorry guys.

The fire extinguishers were filled with water for the sake of the demonstration, but it was still cool. We also had to navigate a smoke-filled area so we knew how to get out of a burning house. If anyone knows the smell of a smoke machine, they know that it smelled delicious. (Or am I the only one who likes the smell of smoke machines? Awkward.)

Earthquakes? In Japan? Nooo.

Then we got to try out an earthquake simulator, where we all unanimously decided to go for the highest setting--a reenactment of the 2011 earthquake.

It was fine until it wasn't.

Anyway, we were free after that, so we were told we could do anything we wanted. I was planning on going back to my dorm because I have all of the stamina of a loaf of bread, but my two friends asked me to go with them to Shibuya, and I was not about to pass up that opportunity.

Before we left, though, we had a mission.

A gacha mission.

Gacha machines, for those of you who may not know, are machines that, for a paltry sum of (usually) $2~$3, will steal your soul while simultaneously emptying your wallet.

Seriously, though, they're basically the quarter machines we have in supermarkets, except they give genuinely good stuff. I'm addicted. It's a problem.

This isn't the best example, since my luck wasn't great (except for teacup pikachu), but that's what I got that day.

Once my thirst for capsule machines had been quenched, we made our way to Shibuya, where I finally got to meet Hachiko.

Good dog, best friend.

And, just as importantly, Catchiko.

I have no idea whose cat this was, but she had a US Navy tag on her collar.

I pet her and she barely moved. She was so sleepy and content.

Our group of 3 then proceeded to make our way to the Shibuya 109 building, which I had heard a lot about but I had never seen in person, much less been inside. It has 10 floors and over 120 stores, all of which were incredibly high fashion and absurdly expensive.

Here's a few photos from the stores:

Disney-themed purses. I couldn't even look at the price tag.

Japanese umbrellas are super cute.

They don't really celebrate Halloween, but they sure had a lot of Halloween costumes.

These were actually pretty reasonably priced, relatively speaking.

I bought nothing.

Until I got to one of the top floors, that is.

[Insert glorious dramatic soundtrack here]

I had never had a crepe before that moment, and wow. It was ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup, I believe. It was amazing. Japanese-style crepes are now one of my favorite things.

We left shortly after that, and I'm sure I slept fantastically.

Sunday, September 18

I had nothing to do, so I took a chill day so I could walk around my neighborhood. This basically amounted to me walking to the discount store and the supermarket. The discount store was okay, and I got a 2-liter bottle of Aquarius (a grapefruit-flavored sports drink which I had assumed by the name was just water, but it was delicious so it's okay) and some chocolate-covered biscuits. The supermarket was scary and big and I didn't know what to do.

I was so lost in here that I just left.

Since I vaguely knew where I was (I had to go through quite a few tiny residential streets to get to the supermarket) and as long as I could find the train station I didn't even need GPS to get myself back to my dorm, I decided to walk around freely for a bit. The most important thing I found was a stray black cat that I really wanted to pet, but he would have none of it.

LET ME LOVE YOU!!!!!

On my way back to my dorm, I found a DVD store that had a lot of American shows, including every season of Bones, which was exciting. Nearby there, I found a takoyaki stand. My only real experience with takoyaki was making it on some tamagotchi DS game, but ever since then I've always wanted to try it. So I bought some.

It was okay.

As it turns out, I don't like octopus. At all. The outside part was good, but once I got to the center it was game over. No more of that.

Monday, September 19

I went to Harajuku with the same two friends. It was raining the entire time, which wasn't anything new for us at that point. We mostly just walked through Takeshita Street, which is where there are a ton of stores full of lots of different things. If you've ever been to a New York City street festival, it's sort of like that.

Of course, the most important thing was what Takeshita Street is best known for--their crepes.

THIS was the greatest crepe I've ever had.

That right there is a cookies & cream cheesecake crepe. It had Oreo cookies, whipped cream, and most importantly, an entire slice of cheesecake. I would eat that every single day if I could.

My only other purchase (besides 2 cheese sticks).

After we had walked around and bought crepes and clothes, we decided to wander around until we found a place to eat. That place ended up being an okonomiyaki place, where the three of us split 2 of the okonomiyaki.

It was okay.

We initially ordered 3, but since only 2 could fit on the hot plate, we ended up canceling the third one. What I didn't realize is that that one was mine, so I ended up eating some of theirs, which did not involve ingredients I was terribly fond of. I'm beginning to notice a trend here, unfortunately.

Tuesday, September 20

All of the dorm students went to the Nerima Municipal Office to register our residency. It took about an hour, and it was about as exciting as the DMV, except apparently municipal offices in Japan have mascot characters. At least that was cute to look at.

After that, we had more CIEE orientation, which involved one of the professors at Sophia telling us about academics and clubs and the like. Given that I have no photos of anything that day, I'm assuming nothing else happened. Oh well!

Wednesday, September 21

This was the actual Sophia University foreign exchange student orientation! Here we got a plastic bag full of every guidebook we could possibly need, as well as our student ID cards. Now that we had those, we could finally buy proper student commuter passes. That took a while, because the line was long and slow, but it was eventually accomplished.

There was a welcome reception for international students, which I attended long enough to enjoy the welcome speech and then eat all of their potato wedges before bailing with a friend.

Once all of the orientation events were over for the day, we were free to do whatever we wanted yet again.

So that aforementioned friend and I went in search of an owl statue.

I am not entirely sure why there is an owl statue in Ikebukuro station, but for a landmark that allegedly everyone in Tokyo is familiar with and uses as a meeting spot, it was incredibly hard to find. We eventually had to ask some random girl who was handing out advertisement flyers if she knew where it was. She did, thankfully.

After that, I went hunting for my local shrine (lovingly referred to as the "bush shrine") in the dark.

It's an accurate name.

Predictably, the pictures I took are too terrible for me to post, so that's a Google Maps image.

Thursday, September 22

This was the day of the placement test, which I addressed in a previous post.

After the test, though, I went to Akihabara with 3 other people, where we spent a good long while going through stores and appreciating such choice merchandise as anime boy alcohol.

Japan truly has everything.

I ended up buying some rather large books at Animate, which I will regret when I have to get them back home.

From left to right: Hachiko, Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower.

Just before we left for the train station, I played a gacha to win some laser-etched glass phone charms with iconic Tokyo landmarks in them.

We were all thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day, so I'm pretty sure we all just went straight to bed after that. It was a lot of walking.

So ends the first part of my orientation adventures. I'll post the second part in a few days, so stay tuned!