Checking out Surroundings

Orientation Day 6:

Had the morning off to sleep in a bit. A group of us went to go eat lunch at a cheap ramen shop. It was a chain ramen shop, so it was definitely not the best ramen I had but the portions were big! I think it was one of my hugest and cheapest meals so far. I honestly didn’t expect that much food. I don't think I want to do that again ha. We all definitely overate but it was a good day for that because we had a 4 hour language intensive class starting at 1 and going until 5pm. By the time we got out everyone was super hungry except for us. After the Japanese lessons we had a quick Japan study meeting and FINALLY found out our home family for the year!! It was like getting test results back or anxiously waiting for college acceptance letters! We were all excited and nervous in a good way of course. When I was given my home stay family’s information I was really happy with mine.

After our classes, mostly of the group went back to Ikebukuro. A few of us walked around and explored a little bit of Ikebukuro. For dinner later that night we decided to walk through the dinning and bar area where there were plenty of waiters with menus inviting people in. My interesting observation of that evening was that the waiters seem to avoid or ignore gaijin, (foreigners ) or they don’t what to be embarrassed because their English is not good. They might be scared too. This seems to go for most Japanese people. A few brave ones will step up and try their English out. Those ones are most likely college students that are pursuing English. This is something all of us foreigners have to deal with, but it is eventually okay once they realize that we can understand them pretty well and that we can speak a little bit. We talked with one of the waiters and checked his menu out. Liking what we saw we followed him up to the 2nd floor, nikai. We all shared various dishes of tonkatsu,sushi and takoyaki. It was good and for a good price. After dinner we decided to part ways and go to bed. It was a long day and we were exhausted!

(picture of sushi platter from dinner) :D