Update!

Next update time! it's so exciting!

This week, there was the autumnal festival at 熊本城, Kumamoto Jyou, which is the castle here. i got some very cool pictures at night of the candles that they had out and had a blast at dinner and karaoke with some friends. Classes here carried on as usual, with a plus being that i joined the aikido club, making that the second one that i am in. next week, i hope to join the photography club. so many clubs! anyways, japan continues to be awesome and the other day, i bowled my personal best of 137 while out with friends!

Last weekend, i went to a festival of sorts at the castle, part of the autumnal festival where we met kumamon, the city mascot and i was on the news with another ryugakusei talking about it. we learned the kumamon dance as well. it was a lot of fun and i got to hear a japanese band play the final countdown. here is the kumamoto surprise song and dance that we did :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBBZop5j6D0&feature=mh_lolz&list=FL6tN1rLLJKdrtQpKnQODrGg

damn strait.

my ukulele playing is also getting better, it has gotten a lot easier to transfer between the chords in songs and i know most derivations of the major chords, which is exciting. also, i am almost done buying omiyage, souvenirs for people in america, which is exciting as well.

that does it for the update!

picture time!!

Installment number 2!

Hello again!

this week here has been extremely hectic. It's orientation week this week so we've been doing a ton of official business every day, from opening bank accounts to getting insurance, registering as a foreigner, taking a placement test, and learning about how to be safe from earthquakes, taifun and fires. today we finally get to choose what classes we take and learn our placement test scores. we are required to take six japanese classes and then we can choose classes after those. I also want to join a club or two at this school but i don't know if people normally join more than one club. i would love to join the kendo club and the photography club. I've met my roommate. He and another guy in the dorm are from Liverpool, UK, so it is interesting talking to them. There are a lot of countries represented in the dorm. they are USA, UK, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and Canada. Everyone here is very nice and helpful and on campus, even some of the teachers that are american have come over and offered assistance to the Gaijin students.

There has been some really good food over here too. There is sushi near here that is 105円 for 2 pieces and it is amazing. they have every kind of sushi and more, including pork sushi, which is delicious, salmon, tuna, unagi, and all others. They also have nattou sushi, which is disgusting. A few nights ago, me and some friends went to an izakaya restaurant, where you order dishes for the whole table and ended up eating basashi, which is thin slices of Horse sashimi. they were amazing.

this weekend, starting tomorrow, i have a homestay, were i go to a girl named yuki's house and live with her family for a night. i am extremely excited and i have met her, she is very nice, and she says that her mom is very excited for me to come over.

thats the update for now! i haven't had a chance to take many pictures yet since we've been so busy and i don't want to lug my large camera around during official stuff but now my small camera is charged and i am going to the castle this weekend. here are some shots from the streets around the dorm that i took the other day though

Nattou sushi

Japan!

So as the first update in the chronicle, i would like to say: SUCCESS! Thats right folks, i am officially in Kumamoto Japan. It is very different here and my brain is going to hurt for a little bit as i get re-acquainted with the Japanese language. Will write more once i've had food and settled in a bit, but for your viewing pleasure, here is a photo of sunrise in Tokyo this morning. peace out from the future! (15 hours in the future to be exact)