Day 5: Orientation

We had the morning off today so I was able to get up at 8am. I woke up to the sound of water flowing. In my foggy state I thought it might possibly be raining outside, but I disregarded that thought. Thank goodness I dressed accordingly because it was very rainy and wet outside. This cooled off the temperature off a lot. (Since it is known to rain a lot here, I am thinking of purchasing some cute rain boots :) ) At 9am I met some friends for asagohan. We went to a kissaten nearby to get some coffee and food. We then went to Ikebukuro Eki to catch a train to Takadanobaba. It is getting a LOT easier to navigate in the station. At 1st we all didn’t know which way to go, but now that we have had time to observe and see our surroundings it is pretty easy. We reached Waseda a little before 11am. Today we would have our own Japan Study meeting this afternoon and then it would be SILS orientation on course registration. I received some useful information from orientation.

Finally getting out at 4:30pm, a group of us decided to go back to Akihabara to check out Japanese electric dictionaries denshizishyo. We didn’t end up buying anything though. While we were there we checked out our phone models that we we chose today. We are using Au phone company and I chose a slick Sony Ericson brand! I am SOOO stoked on getting a Japanese phone, keitai denwa! Super sweet deal. For dinner the guys decided they wanted to eat at McDonalds ha. That would not be my first choice but it is always interesting eating McDonalds in various places of the world. The food was honestly super good. I got a chicken sandwich that had a garlic sauce on it. I obviously didn’t realize that it had that when I bought it. The sandwich and fries were super fresh. Oishii! After we were done with our meal we went walking around and made some new discoveries. We went to an otaku, which is a place that is dedicated to a particular theme, topic, or hobby. They are frequently found in Akihabara. The otaku we went to was a Akb48 Japanese girl pop group otaku. The higher we went the crazier it became. It was fun and surprising every time we turned the corner. Each floor was mixed with handy utilities to clothes and costumes to cute stuffed animals and other interesting things ( I will let your mind do the imagining). I think it was 7 floors. And surprise of all surprise on the top floor (nanakai) there was a theater where the Akb48 girls performed. Guess who was there audience? All men. Yep it was one of those kind of shows : / from men school boys to older business men. Very interesting! This pop culture has a strong backing! Anyway after that we came upon a building with four floors of @home maid cafes. Yes you guessed it, we decided to check it out! When we entered the door we were greeted by a male host who directed us to one of these girls dressed up in a maid costume. She led us to our table. The girls in the @made cafe have to wear this short maid outfits with styled hair and long eyelashes. I guess this fulfills some kind of fantasy for some guys. You are allowed to play games with them and take pictures with them for a certain amount of money. We almost did it but our table bill was already expensive. All their costumers were men, except for my friend and I, so we actually felt kind of awkward. Supposedly they have a girl @home maid cafe were there are guys who dress as butlers. Well what an interesting part time job! Anyway I have digressed... At the cafe we ordered some drinks and I ordered a dessert that had a cute face on it. We talked with some of the maids and then paid and left. In return we got some souvenirs to show that we went through this experience. Oh what an experience it was! We walked around for a little bit, went to a pachinko game building and caught a train home. Long day but a lot of fun!