Joined the dance circle :)

So Japanese Universities have clubs and circles.
Clubs are usually for sports and music and its very intense with practices everyday and even sometimes during the summer holiday.

However, the unis here also have this thing called circles where it seems a bit more casual and fun.

Out of the billions of circles (Hiking circle, basketball circle, Hide and Go seek circle?)
I chose to join the
 the Dance Circle  "Revolve"
and
the Keio Camera Circle.

Haven't been to the keio camera circle but I'm pretty sure I am going to join.

And as for Revolve, I've already been to two practices.
It's pretty much me and my other friend trying to catch up to these already very experienced hip-hop dancers. But I always wanted to try dancing and it's really a good workout.

I haven't moved this much in a while and I feel like fainting at the end of the session but its fun.

Here are some of the pictures I took at the practicing place.

 

They have these circle/club rooms and its always filled with students.

Veggies from my Aunt

 

So I have the world's best aunt :D 

I was crying about how expensive Japanese vegetables were to my family

and my aunt gave me a surprise by sending vegetables through online shopping.

All of the vegetables were really fresh.

And the label states where its from. 

I love my family :D

Old time friend and Ramen

So I met again another friend who I've known since like Grade 2.
Her and I and bunch of other girls were pretty crazy back then and we had fun time together today eating dinner and talking about the past and what's happening right now.
I'm hoping to see her more because she also goes to Keio University as well.


And for dinner she took me to this Ramen place where is really popular within Keio students.
The place is called 麺場ハマトラ　”Menba Hamatora" where they offer these black noodles.

I didn't know why it was black but she told me that there was some charcoal in these noodles.
(It is very common to mix edible charcoal in food in Japan)

Overall it was very tasty and think. I really do love ramen!

New Food: Monjya Yaki

 

So I went to Yokohama right after my 6pm class to visit three of my York Uni Japanese friends who coincidentally is all in Tokyo right now.

We ate this food called Monjya-yaki.

It was my first time trying this food because Monjya-yaki does not exist in Osaka (where I am from) because we have something else called Okonomi-yaki.

 

My comment towards this food is

1. It's good. Like out of 10 I will rate it 7.
2. It does not make me full. You need to eat like 3 of this to be full.
3. It looks like barf

But anyway I would like to explain the process of making this Monjya.

 

 You first get this batter for the monjya and you dont mix it.

And put only the vegetables and meat on the hot table you use to cook this pancake thing.

Btw this is for okonomiyaki.

 You then mix around the vegetables and meat with ur spatula.

 Close up of the veggies and meat.

 You then pour in the batter and ure finished!!

And you have this barf looking thing and ure done !?... really.. 

I was really surprised when my friend told me this is it.

Because it really looks like someone just pu...

 

As you can see the okonomiyaki on the left looks hmm much more tastier.

But it was good!! I really liked it when I ate it.

Ppl who come by tokyo should try monjya yaki one time. It really is a fun way to eat with your friends.

 

Nice cold drink of Calpis 

 

Yokohama Station 

 

The bridge near yokohama station. 

Picking my courses

So picking courses has been an awful time.
I ended up from deciding to take 7 courses to 13 now.
It sounds like a lot compared to the 5 courses I take at York but each class is only 1hour and a half.

But although saying that 13 is quite a lot with all the homework and tests.

The reason why I have added few courses to torture myself is because I wanted to be part of  a "Zemi".

Zemi is a

seminar of around 10 students studying/researching an area of their major the professor is particularly interested in. So in the business faculty you can take zemi on corporate finance or strategic management for example, and in the faculty of law you can take zemi on family law or french law and so on. These seminars usually begin in your third year of college and finish when you graduate. This means that if you pick a crappy zemi (translation: crappy professor), you’re not going to have a good time at all.  (Taken from http://ezzgoestojapan.wordpress.com/ because I'm so lazy to explain myself)

Long story short I can study tons about marketing/advertising/design, make lifetime friends, and live the normal life of a Japanese student. People say the friends u make in ur zemi is someone who u contact even after u graduate because you spend so much time with them doing research, presentation, and just purely having fun.

I am REALLY REALLY looking forward in the experience I am going to have at the zemi.
(Thank you for the prof who offered me to join his Zemi)

Let's post-pone my job searcing for now (altough I did find one place I would real like to go).
And work hard at my zemi and this club I am joining (I will write about this maybe sometime later :D)

Meeting a friend

So I met my long time childhood friend which I haven't seen for 5 years!

I surprisingly didn't feel the gap at all and we talked about our friends we had back in gr.2 and so on.

We took some pictures in the purikura machine.

I crossed out the eye for privacy reasons. 

(Japanese ppl always do it on their blogs so I thought might as well)

I also bought a water bottle at a hugge LOFT store at shibuya! 

It came in cute different colours. 

Visit their website its pretty cool http://www.loft.co.jp/ 

Loft is a really awesome place where it has everyythiinnngg.

The past few days

So for the past few days I have been doing/going to

1. Welcome Parties
2. Class
3. Sleeping
4. Shopping
5. Cleaning my room

1. So there are buncch of welcome parties for us foreigners to get to know some of the other exchange student and the Resident assistants and japanese students interested in foreign ppl. Its usually all you can drink but I have been good at controlling myself :D

 

Shimoda Welcome Party

 

Potluck Party at Hiyoshi International House

 

Bingo at the party

2. I also went to my first class this Thursday. Actually some school starts in October and we are one of the faster ones to start out of the other Japanese universities. 

The three class I took sounds like a breeze... I hope I will be learning a lot though and just the work load is kind of light. Will update more about this on another post.

3. Sleeping

So there was a typhoon that hit Tokyo two days ago and I was told by my whole family tree (Seriously cousins, aunts, grandparents, everyone) to not step out of my apartment. So I didn't and I'm glad because I saw dead birds, leaves, branches everywhere the next day. And some ppl couldn't go home because trains has stopped.

So what I decided to do for the whole day was read my new manga series I bought "Buddha" by Tezuka Osamu and sleep.

 

4. Shopping for food. Almost everyday I go shopping for cheap food.

But like everything in Japan, Japanese vegetables are really really expensive. For example two tomatoes for 3 bucks. Small small lettuce for $2. And some of the vegetables may be priced the same but the portion is very small.

I really feel like I am going to survive off bean sprouts, cabbage, and mushrooms for the whole year.

 

My girls shopping for food.

5.Cleaning my room.

I clean and clean but my room is like a war zone everyday.