Today was a day of learning. Learning many things! It started off with trying Calpico for breakfast. I've already had that drink in America, but here it's called Calpis, which sounds vaguely like "cow piss," and thus wasn't advertised as such anywhere outside of Japan. Nevertheless, I've never had it for breakfast before, and that was something new.
After breakfast, we took the train again to Yotsuya on the Chuo rapid line, where we had our homestay orientation at CIEE HQ. This was basically a cultural orientation to let us know what we should expect/what we should do. They also told us a bunch of stories that happened to CIEE students previously, like how one student had broken a whole door once and then deigned to repair it himself so that he wouldn't get billed by CIEE for the damage. Needless to say he got billed for more than he would have had he not tried to remedy the situation in the way that he did.
While I was on the train, there was a delay, and we were going really slowly, and the reason was that there was a passenger injury. I wondered how could passenger injuries occur, or if it meant something like a heart attack, but apparently that wasn't the case. Passenger injury almost always means that someone had committed suicide by jumping in front of a train, and apparently, it happens about once a day in Tokyo, on average. There were two today, as far as I knew. It's very sad. I never knew that there was that high of a suicide rate in Tokyo.
Ja... moving on. After the CIEE orientation, we went to have lunch at the University cafeteria. We're located right near Sophia University, which is where CIEE sends their college study abroad students. I had really good tanuki udon for lunch (sadly, I didn't have my camera), and it was surprisingly cheap. Apparently, businessmen and construction workers eat at this cafeteria too, because of its low price (though I didn't notice any when I was there).
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| This is the cool Coca Cola bottle Ian got from lunch. |
After lunch, Wakana took us to our safety training. On the way, I saw this cool bike garage, which was exactly like a car garage, except for bikes. There are floors, parking spaces, tickets and pay-by-time rates and everything. I thought it was pretty cool that Japanese people ride bikes enough for this place to be not only in existence and needed, but also packed.
We stopped for a snack before we went to the training, and I saw for the first time in my life chestnut ice-cream. At least, I think that's chestnut. Can someone tell me if it is or not? D:
I also found yakisoba pan, which I've been meaning to try for years, since I hear about it all the time through my anime and manga. It... isn't actually that good. Noodles are great, and bread is great, but together, they're not. Alas!
We reached the safety center, which had earthquake simulators and fire simulators. Some other CIEE students had gone to a typhoon simulator, which I then wanted to go to. We watched a video about the 3/11/11 earthquake, which sent a typhoon about 6 km inland in some areas, and caused tons of damage from falling stuff and liquefied soil. Apparently, the southern part of Japan is due for a massive earthquake soon, but I do hope it's after my gap year. I don't know if I could learn Japanese and deal with a major catastrophe as well.
We then went from the movie to the simulator, which simulated everything from wobbling buildings to the 3/11 9.3 magnitude earthquake itself. It was very cool.
There were actually a few Vietnamese people there, who decided to go to Japan for a few months just to learn some Japanese. Judging by their accents, they were from the north, and we talked for a while. Julien got to hear what Vietnamese sounded like, while Ian apparently has heard it before from his Vietnamese food restaurant. Though nothing is as authentic as going to Vietnam itself, I told them.
I got to escape a smoking set of rooms by crawling on the ground, my dress up to my nose. The smoke smelled absolutely horrible. Then I learned how to work a fire extinguisher, and sprayed stuff onto a screen that displayed digital fire. The screen could then cleanse itself.
After the whole thing, we decided to strike out on our own and make our way back to Kichijoji (吉祥寺) from Ikebukuro (池袋線) by ourselves, which wasn't as hard as we thought it might be. JR is straightforward enough if you're paying attention. But first, we went to an electronics store called Biku Kamera (Bic Camera?), which was a SEVEN STORY electronics store. It was massive.
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| This is just one little section of the store, and that whole wall is dedicated to iPhone cases. o.o |
On our way to dinner, after we successfully made it back to Kichijoji, but then got out the wrong gate (mataku... (meaning: of course)), we stopped by a convenience store to see if there was anything we liked (and to get pencils for tomorrow's placement exam!). I saw lemon cola mentos for the first time, and that's grape mentos beside it. I introduced Julien to Hi-Chew, which he ended up liking very much. Then at the pocky area, for the first time ever, I saw Panda Pocky. Was it true? Were my eyes deceiving me? No! There really is panda pocky. It looked like it would be white chocolate though, so I didn't get it. But it's SO CUTE.
There's also what I think to be taro ice cream. Haagen-Dazs style. The flavors just keep getting better and better (like green tea kit-kats).
We settled for dinner at a place called Freshness Burger, which was this cool burger place with stuff like a Teriyaki burger, Spam burger, Fish burger, Tofu burger, and burgers in general with rice patty buns if you wanted. It was a very cool place.
I found garlic sauce for the first time, which is exactly as it sounds. It's like pureed garlic. Plain pureed garlic. So much garlicky goodness, and it was all over my burger. Yummm~
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| Garlic sauce! It doesn't get much better than this! |
Lastly, on our way back to the hotel, we stopped into another convenience store just to see if there was anything different. I saw curry cup noodle for the first time. I didn't get any though, since I don't think I'd like curry noodles much, but it was awesome nevertheless. There was also this little section dedicated to onigiri of all sorts, which I was so happy to see. There's so much variety! You definitely can't easily find this in my neck of the American woods. So good! TT_TT
I ended the night by getting myself a strawberry and chocolate crepe from this store that had all of their crepes on display outside as plastic food. I have to find that one area in Japan where plastic food is their specialty and go visit it. Plastic food around Tokyo can look very real, depending on where you go.
XOXO,
Maggie
Every day is better than the last! The simulators must've been fun! Sleep tight and good luck with the placement exam tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteThey were! Though there were falling things and the shaking was pretty freaky in the earthquake one.
DeleteThanks for the good luck wishes. It'll be tough, but at least I'll come out of it alive!