Various Things

So not too much has happened recently. I finally went to Akihabara, which was somewhat fun (I will upload pictures later as I am rather too tired to do it now). I have entered midterm season, which mainly means essays in my case. I will start (and finish) my only non-essay midterm this weekend, and probably start writing my other essays by next weekend. So...really don't expect many posts from now until my winter break.

In other news, I have finally put my self up on My-Sensei.com and have priced myself rather low...so I should be able to start tutoring soon! I also have been putting a lot of photography up on my old site: canteen-ninja.deviantart.com so feel free to check that out. Really, I have nothing more to say. Sorry!

P.S. I guess I also had a long conversation with a cell-phone shop clerk in which I managed to cancel my texting plan, and have begun going to the gym somewhat regularly. Not very interesting, I'm afraid.

Edit: http://picasaweb.google.com/DanielisCertus/Akihabara#

Tea Ceremony

Today has been a long day. It started with grocery shopping, which was very confusing:

The result was I avoided buying meat, and picked up cooking sake instead of cooking oil. Oh well! The food I made later was still pretty good. Everyone in the kitchen/lounge helped me figure out what I got -- Green Onion, Potatoes, Cucumber, Carrots, Cayenne Pepper, Mustard, Cooking Sake, Soy Sauce, and Vinegar.

Afterwards I ran to meet Jesse and Laur for the ICC tour, only to find out it's tomorrow. So, instead, we went to the club office and checked out basically every floor to see what clubs were available. We were greeted rather coldly by everyone, except the Tea club. They told us about their meeting later on, so we decided to go to that, and continued searching. We took a break for lunch, then headed to the Ceremony.

My lunch was "Tanuki Soba," Jesse got "Kitsune Soba," and Laur got "Katsu Don." Pictures are of Tanuki and Katsu (the woman basically told me their Katsu Don was famous so I had to take a picture of it when I was taking a picture of Tanuki. For reference: Tanuki = Racoon, Kitsune = Fox, Katsu = Fried Meat Cutlet, normally Pork as in Tonkatsu"

Tanuki Soba, Katsu Don

The Tea Ceremony was interesting. It was actually more casually done than the Korean ceremony, though this was just practice. Unfortunately Jesse is the only one that took pictures. We got to mix some powdered tea! I think all the tools and the tea were basically the same as in the Korean ceremony, however there was a bigger water boiler. It was pretty fun, and we met some interesting people. I exchanged phone information with a third-year student/possibly the club leader, Asami.

From there, Laur left and Jesse and I sort of wondered around. Eventually he led me to a 100 yen shop to buy a bowl, which was the final product necessary for me to cook. I have taken so many pictures of my food I did not bother this time. I will say it came out alright, better than I expected due to the lack of protein. Didn't do much else -- just some laundry. Though, Damon and Abby finally got phones! Also, they are cooking upstairs now with the aid of a few girls (probably a good thing).

Tomorrow I think Ben, Laur, and I will go to Edo. Should be fun!

Fun day!

Today was opening ceremony, which was long and sort of dull, but was preceded by and followed with fun stuff! Also pictures!

Before the ceremony I walked around with a friend, Misa, and found where the ceremony would be. There was a rather cool clock tower:

Afterwards, I was called over by a friend, Jesse, who wanted to check out the social circles (clubs). We ended up putting our names/e-mails on a mailing list for (what I think was) a Kanji circle, and exchanging phone numbers with someone from English club. Basically the hope is to find members of the club that want to do a language exchange sort of thing.

Afterwards I sort of ran off to meet Ben for the open ceremony. I met his host mother, Kazama-san! She is very nice, and invited me to hang out at her home sometime. I sat near her, Ben, and Leo -- I let him take some photos during the thing. He took like, 4 of himself, and some weird ones of the auditorium. I'll put the more interesting photos up. Though, unless noted otherwise, assume I took each photo.

Me and Leo. He didn't seem happy with this one, but I think he looks fairly cool in it. I believe Leo took the first.

Most of the pictures of the stage are fairly washed out, unfortunately. Leo took the first. The ceremony was basically every professor on stage giving a speech...pretty long and dull.

Waseda Glee club! They were pretty good! Apparently they have a lot more members (over 100). They sung 3 songs after the ceremony. The Alma Mater, a song played during soccer games when Waseda scores, and the song sung when Waseda wins. The latter is almost a hymn, it was very entertaining to hear!

The Waseda Symphonic Orchestra played after the Glee club. They were great and played like, 3 opera overtures so I loved them! Very hard to see.

After the ceremony, Ben, Kazama-san, and I took some photos (I don't have copies of them, unfortunately), and Kazama-san went home. Ben and I chatted a bit with some people, then wandered around, and finally met with a group for dinner. We went to a curry place! It was pretty cheap and delicious. I just got a Crocket curry, but they had an "Otoko Karii" or Man's Curry. I have a picture of it, it was apparently really tasty (I didn't notice it or I would have bought it too!).

Otoko Karii!Group shot! From Right to Left: Ben, Abby, Alex, Damon, Don't know, JiHaen, Yaz

After dinner we stopped at a McDonald's so some could get desert, than phone shopping. Everyone but Abby, Damon, and I left at some point. The three of us wandered around and got Taiyaki, and then some ice-cream...and some more phone shopping. It was pretty fun. I couldn't pick a favorite of these shots (They are actually in reverse order here, but it looks like the right order, doesn't it?):

Anyway, while phone shopping Jesse called so a group of us will be going to some International Communications club tomorrow morning. Could be fun!

Pictures!

Today was somewhat non-eventful as I spent most of it waiting to use an ATM. However, the few events that happened were rather interesting.

After I woke up and got some breakfast (Milk Tea!) I asked Kim for some help with my Japanese. Basically, I wanted to say "The back of my phone is broken. Please replace it." or "Wakareteru no de, Koukan Shitekudasai." So, on my own, I went to the au shop to have it replaced...and was promptly greeted with the English speaking attendant, as I was instantly recognized from yesterday. Oh well. They didn't even replace it -- they just bent it into place, but I guess that's ok as I have insurance for it.

Later on I met some people over lunch - Yan and Hakleh(I assume this is spelt wrong). Pretty interesting, we had a rather long conversation about world politics. It was somewhat surreal as the conversation was long, was in multiple languages, and involved multiple people helping translate without really adding anything besides the translation.

Later on I walked out to find an ATM that would work. On the way I found this, and took a picture specifically for Father:

I hope you enjoy this.

I walked around for a rather long time, checking the area. I was going to walk to Shibuya, but it was rather far away. I think I entered part of the Shibuya area, though? It is sort of weird how the sections are done. I also managed to enter the red light area (twice) by mistake. The second time an Eastern European man tried to sell me a room in a love hotel and "Beautiful, Japanese girls." It was rather creepy and awkward. I took a few pictures of the clean section of Shinjuku (I will maybe go back and take pictures of the seedy part):

This one is of interest because I WENT IN HERE THREE YEARS AGO!!!!

In the end the building with the ATM I wanted was closed. I ended up working my way back to find the Post Office in order to try it again, but on the way I found a 7-11 with a "Ginkou ATM" which worked! So, I guess I could have used any of these at any point and saved a lot of trouble. Oh well! I celebrated my victory with Tempura and Calpis Soda (It is a Milk Soda -- like Milkis from earlier posts, or a plain Egg Cream for new readers). Tasty!

Anyway, I updated my situation from last post in the comments for it: Basically father will try to take care of it, and if he can't then I will have to call. It seems like it was a mistake on the bank's part, though, that should be cleared up alright.

Edit: I almost forgot. Since I can now do the picture thing, I will probably go back and do picture-tours of my dorm, Nishi-Waseda area, and Waseda itself. Like, maybe a full post per each thing sort of deal. I will do other areas like this too, and am willing to take requests (so long as they are reasonable places for me to go and take pictures of). I will try to spread out these posts over periods where I may have little to actually post about to keep the blog updated, so I won't just do a bunch of them now that I have a camera. So, if there's something you want to see, comment and tell me!

Ugh.

So, another mixed day. I registered for my optional class today (I still need to send all the permissions and things back to AU, but I will do that later. There are more pressing issues at hand) and got my new cell phone! Laur, Ben, and I went out to find out about them and eat some lunch -- cheap noodles. I accidently ordered an enormous bowl of them. They were good...but I got too much! I almost finished it, though. Afterwards Laur ran off and Ben and I went to another phone store, where I got mine. It is awesome. It has free streaming-TV, and can exchange contact info via infrared. Also it has an 8Mega-Pixel camera, which is 2MP better than Ben's camera-camera. Awesome.

On the flip side, I am now terrified to go out as I am low on money and cannot withdraw from any of the ATMs. I had this issue last time I was in Japan, too. I'm going to call the bank when they open in an hour or so and see if they can't help me, but I am uncertain they can. I also can't go to any banks as they are all closed until Thursday due to national holiday. Thankfully I have some USD, some Canadian dollars, and some Won so I can probably find a cash changer somewhere in Tokyo if I need to. I just hope that doesn't become my only option.

More bad news -- my loan application has been withdrawn as they have not received all of the necessary documents. This is pretty scary too, as I have no idea what I can do about it being out of the US. I may have to call the bank as well and see if something can't be done, otherwise I have to restart my loan application. Added to that the semester has started, and I was relying on that loan money to pay for my dorm here, this can be really awful. I will try to call my father and see what he thinks, but he is normally out on weekends so I may not be able to reach him.

I'm sure this will all turn out alright, but it is a rather scary place to be in. In the best of circumstances I will be able to clear all of this up in the next 3-5 hours. In the worst of circumstances I could have to return home, take the semester off, and be out tons of money.

On a side note -- the backing of my cell phone is broken and I will have to bring it in to the store.