So, I’ve been here for little over a week now and I’m finally getting out and exploring that different “popular” areas of the city. Having come from a place that doesn’t have a train commuting systems has made it a little difficult to catch on to how to us the Tokyo train systems. But I do have some experience with trains from my various travels so those experiences have definetly helps.

I have three trains that I ride on my commute to school. Sometimes I have to hustle to make it to the next train when transferring, because some of these stations are HUGE. But everyone does it. You definitely learn the “Tokyo hustle” fast here. One of my stops is at Shinjuku, one of the most popular parts of the city and the busiest station IN THE WORLD. This place is HUGE and I feel like if I try to explore around it a bit to unknown areas, I will never be able to find my way about. Supposedly, over three million people use it everyday. THREE MILLION PEOPLE! And let me tell you, I believe it haha. A couple nights ago, my classmate and I were on our way home and we got lost and ended up taking the wrong trainline and ended up have to go back and ask someone where we were supposed to go. But I’m glad I got lost because it broke that fear for me, once you get lost and realize that hey I can just take this train back and ask someone for help and that yeah you don’t know where you are but you are not going to DIE you feel so much more at easy. I really feel like this should happen at least once to everyone when you’re studying aboard here. However, I do feel very lucky to have Shinjuku as a stop because for one it’s an awesome place that will be fun to explore and two once I get my commuter pass I get to go there without being charged because it’s on my way to school. Now If I switch lines at Shinjuku, like say I want to go to Harajuku so I need to get on the Yamamote line, then I will get charged to go there. That is how it works.

The day before yesterday we went to Ikebukuro for an earthquake simulation and we also did some practice in case there is a fire and what to do. We had to crawl through these rooms with doors that were lock or not trying to find the exit when there was fake smoke and fire. I have never experienced an earthquake before, but it was different from what I expected. They set it to a scale 6 and it was pretty powerful. Afterwards some of the students and decided we wanted to go check out “Sunshine City” a huge mall in Ikebukuro. We want ice cream for dinner so we went to this place called “Namja Town” so that we could go to this part called Ice Cream City. First I got this carmel nut ice cream and crepe mix at this crepe place there that was really good. Then we found this store that sold little servings of strange flavors like curry, green tea, cherry blossom, etc. I bought this one that was garlic flavored because it said Dracula on it and I was amused (I have this thing with vampires). This one guy in our group bought this set of flavors like Soy Sauce, Squid, Octopus, Wasabi, Barely, and I tried them all because hey when are you going to ever be able to eat squid ice cream? The Soy Sauce one was surprisinly good, but not as good as Maggie, my housemate’s charcoal ice cream. That was actually tasty! Once we were done we wandered around trying to find the exit, they place is a HUGE maze of arcade games and eating places.

Yesterday we had a scavenger hunt, each group had to go find things in the city and take pictures or bring stuff back for points and you had to do it all within the time limit of three hours! We went everywhere, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Ikebukuro… all to find special sightseeing places and cool entertainment like karaoke and purikura places. I think it was a really good idea because we learn to really work as a team and broke the ice and taught us how to get around using the train system. I feel like I can now figure out how to get around to these major areas and back easily. Which is great because I’m all for exploring the city. On our little adventure running around everywhere I saw some places I really want to go back to and visit again. Towards the end of the hunt we had like 40 minutes to get back and it takes about a half and hour by train to get there from where we were at in Ikekuburo and we could not find this one things to save our lives, the statue “Ikefukuro” We asked a few people and then finally found someone who knew with like 4 minutes to go and take a picture so we RAN like crazy gaijin (foreigners) acrossed the busy crosswalks of the streets in order to get to this thing, and then ran back to our station line. It was crazy but fun. We were detirminded to win, and we actually got back RIGHT on time. But we won’t know until the farewell party in January/Feburary which group won D:

Afterwards, those of use who purchased them through CIEE recieved our ketais (cellphones). I’m not like in love with his model or anything and it’s just white so it’s not like anything crazy cool but it’s a prepaid cellphone and I’m only going to be here for a semester so it’s pretty hard to get a contract for that short of a time here. If I was here for a year I totally would go all out and get a cool phone but oh well. Then after that Maggie, Nhu, and I went to Shinjuku then Harajuku to look around a bit since we had the free day pass to ride the trains from the scavenger hunt. It was crowded in Shinjuku but OMG in Harajuku going down THE main street, of Harajuku and it was so crazy crowed you like couldn’t even move. If you hate crowds definetly don’t come to Tokyo because there is no personal space here on the train or in the busy streets, you are going to have people bumping into you. But I’d probably say that Shibuya is the busiest of all the popular places because all the young people meet there and there are a ton of shops and things geared toward the younger generation.

Today I went out with my friend Molly who was a CIEE participant in the past and is now living in Tokyo teaching english for Amity. I introduced her to my host family and then we went to Yotsuya to eat lunch because we knew that if we ate in Harajuku (where we were planning to go) we would have to wait because it would be busy. So she showed me some good placed to eat around campus (which is in Yotsuya) and then we went to Harajuku where we went shopping at The Body Shop and Kiddy Land (which is like five or six floors of nothing but CUTE) I tried to stay clear of the Hello Kitty floor but I did by some Rilakkuma stuff for school and my ketai on the San-x floor. Afterwards we decided since we had enough time before I had to be back for dinner that we would go to Shibuya to visit the store Loft and do some purikura since it was only one stop over. It was my first time doing purikura and it was fun!

Tomorrow I will be going to get my foreigner registration card requested then we have Sophia University orientation later in the day.