Chasing the sun

Finally, a blog post! I am very sorry for those of you who were expecting something sooner. It's been a hectic week and I've only had so much energy to spare. Luckily today has been rather quiet - not only is it a public holiday today (the autumn equinox), but it's the first day that it has rained since I arrived, giving me less reason to go out and do stuff.

Weather

The very first thing that hit me was the heat and the humidity. Coming from the end of winter back in Auckland, it was quite a shock to the system. I had headaches the first couple of days and at other times it's just very draining. It seems that Japan has had an unusually hot summer and so I've just experienced the end of it, "luckily" enough as one of the uni professors put it.

Near Yotsuya campus in Tokyo

Public transport

As briefly mentioned in the previous post, I am just in awe of their train and subway system. Trains do indeed run on time to-the-minute; they run very frequently (I've only just stopped saying "good timing" when I walk to the platform as the train arrives); and they're easy to use, despite the spiderweb of intersecting train lines. You can get a Suica or Pasmo branded IC card onto which you can load money onto, then as you enter and leave a station, you pass your card over the scanner and the fare is automatically deducted. It puts the train ticketing in Auckland to shame really. (Though I hear that the ARC is making moves towards integrated ticketing within the following few years. I sure hope they do.)

Sobu line train arriving at Yotsuya station

I've mostly been on trains during the off-peak times, not having needed to go to early morning class yet, but it does get awfully busy towards midnight when the trains stop. "Sardine cans" may even be an understatement. You literally are squashed up against other people and in fact, when this happens you don't need to hold the handles hanging from above. As the train carriage sways, everyone kinda leans on each other so that nobody really falls. I have yet to see station-men who push (read: shove) people into overfilled carriages, but I will get video evidence when I do. It's incredibly different, but it's everyday life for Tokyoites.

The trains stop so that the train door carriages line up with markings on the platform where people queue to get in.

The only other point regarding trains is that, even though millions of people use trains, the cost is comparable to that back in Auckland. The minimum fare is 130yen (about $2NZD) for about the first two kilometers then upwards with distance. The 40-minute train to school normally costs about $5 one way. Luckily for students, we can buy a monthly pass which allows for unlimited rides between home and school which saves me about 40%.

Staples

Food is generally more expensive than back home. Fruit and veges are not usually sold by weight, rather sold in pieces or prepacked quantities. Single apples cost about $5, for example. Bananas are cheap though. Red meat is quite expensive - I eyed some sirloin steak at the supermarket that cost six times as much as back home. But chicken and eggs are reasonably priced. Given the above, I've generally been eating out and cheap eats are to be had. A decent feed of soba or udon can be had from a paltry 400yen ($6-$7) almost everywhere. I haven't had western fast food yet, except for maybe Mos Burger, a Japanese burger chain which has really decent burgers (what's in that sauce?!) Sushi is (from anecdotal evidence) indeed not so easily found as you may imagine. I have yet to see avocado and salmon sushi :(

I have cooked once though, with moderate success, and I'm gonna try learn some Japanese recipes.

Salmon onigiri at the kaiten-sushi (conveyor belt sushi)

Sophia University

The Yotsuya campus of Sophia University is quite nice. There is a lot of greenery which makes you forget that you're in Tokyo and many of the buildings are quite modern - sometimes I don't know whether I'm about to enter a hotel instead of a school.

Building 2 at the Yotsuya campus

Not a hotel lobby. It's the main entrance of the general library.

Speaking of uni, I had my language placement test yesterday which I spent the day before studying. I think it helped a little bit, but when they said "the test becomes progressively more difficult" they really weren't kidding. The kanji section was particularly tough. The first 10 kanji at 'beginner' level was really quite easy, but then I hit the intermediate section and saw kanji which I never knew existed (I quite literally had never even seen any of the kanji in that section). Suffice to say, I didn't attempt the advanced section. Grammar section was ok, didn't attempt the reading passages. In the composition section I was meant to write about "The good points and bad points about learning a foreign language", however I couldn't actually read the question properly given my non-knowledge of some of the kanji, so I ended up writing about "How Japanese is hard because of kanji".

Uni courses

In regards to the courses I will take, I am attempting to get into the Intensive Japanese II course. But rather annoyingly, all the seven courses which I had pre-approval for, now either are: not offered; or clash with the language class. So today I was occupied with sending through urgent emails back to Auckland so that I can get courses here credited back home. It is inevitable for me to now do a literature course, much as I had tried to avoid it. And I may even have to do ASIAN100 back home after all...

Where I've been

I've not actually been to many places, believe it or not. I've had to do a lot of setting up. If any of these place names make sense to you, I've been once to Ikebukuro, twice to uni, once to Koganei (one of the other Sophia dorms) and once to Shibuya - and out of these places I have only really only passed through them briefly. The rest of my time has been spent just exploring the local area, Nishi-Kawaguchi/Warabi city. However now that I have my student commuter pass and with things starting to get sorted I will definitely be doing more exploring.

Ikebukuro at night

The world-famous 'Lost in Translation' Shibuya crossing in the afternoon.

What I haven't done

I do not yet have a bank account or cellphone. It's an abomination that it takes three weeks for the foreigner card to be processed - this card being necessary to obtain the above. In lieu of the foreigner card, I've just found out that I can get a 'Certificate of Registered Matters' or 登録原票記載事項証明書 (touroku genpyou kisai jikou shoumeisho) [I like saying this out loud, it makes me feel special].

DK House

... is far from the train station. It's about a 15 minute walk (quite far by Tokyo standards) and it's kind of annoying. The people here are pretty cool and they are from everywhere! Mostly Americans, but also (surprisingly) many people from Germany. Other countries represented include England, Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium, Hong Kong, Macau, Aussie, and there's one girl from Auckland. There are about eighty people here who are on exchange to Sophia (out of about 190 in total), and I would say, about another 40-60 other residents. Some of them helped us study for our placement test.

That is everything I can think of at the moment and although I do have a bit of video footage, I will save it for another late night. I leave you with a picture what I woke up to on the way to Tokyo. It was overcast on the day so I have no good aerial shots of Japan. If you read the whole post then ka pai to you! Please feel free to leave comments, questions or requests.