Minna de Ikou!: Day 3 of Orientation, and the Giants Game

Good morning! Today has been quite a full (and late) day, but very fun nevertheless. As many of you know, I had to take my placement exam today, which was very difficult — but I won't get to that yet. First things first, we had breakfast at the hotel as usual (all three of us are usually awake by four in the morning), and then went off to the Intercultural Institute at 8:30. The picture above is the train when we first got on, and as we got closer to the city, the picture below shows what happened. It's not fully packed though. I could still breathe and move my elbows. Shannon (one of the CIEE coordinators) says that if I wanted to experience getting pushed into a train, I would have to get on the Yamanote line at 7:30 or something. It's the busiest line in the whole system during rush hour.

It looks like a face!

There's this weird platform part of an escalator right
in the middle. Why?

When we got to Akihabara, which is one of the stops near Intercult, the coodinators, Shannon and Wakana, gave us maps and told us to find our own way there. We were relatively successful at it, though we were one block off. On the way, there were a lot of old houses with old-style architecture, which is very cool and traditional. You don't see that much of old architecture in places like Kichijoji. There was also an elevator parking garage too, which I thought was pretty cool. :3

We reached Intercult just in time for the orientation to begin at 10:00. Yep. Travel around Japan takes longer than I thought it would. It took us an hour and a half to get there. CIEE has told me that my school commute is probably fifty minutes or so by train. From one end of one line to another is much longer than anything I've ever experienced. Tokyo is very big.

We had orientation about our classes and class levels from 10:00 to 10:30. There would be a basic necessity Japanese class, a kanji class, and then some elective classes, which they didn't go into much detail about, but I'm very excited about that. After orientation, we then went to take the placement exam, which was very daunting to look at. It's ALL in Japanese. No part in English. Even the instructions. D:

Julien left a couple minutes into the test, then Ian left about ten minutes into the test. I am proud to say that I finished half the test and then gave up at the fifty minute mark (the rest was going to be pure guessing, if anything). The people quickly graded my test, and though they didn't tell me in what level I would place, they did tell me that it wouldn't be the first level (which is where Julien and Ian are going to be).

After the orientation, there came the interview portion, which was just a sensei talking to me about my family, my hobbies, what I want to study, etc. This is to see if I can speak and understand Japanese as well as I can write and read it. I think I speak and listen better than I write and read, so reading and writing might be the determinant for my level. Either way, I left the test and interview proud of myself, and I think that's what counts. I did my best.

This was in a tiny model on a desk. A little creepy, but also cool.

Cute kitties~

For lunch, we then went to a massive shopping center that mainly focused on electronics (imagine a nine-story Best Buy with a book store thrown in there and a food court at the top). Japanese food courts don't have a general sitting area for people who buy food from different places. Rather, there are separate stores at which you can buy different foods and stuff. We went and had okonomiyaki, which the boys have never tried before, and I've only tried once before. It was very exciting, and I got pork, cheese, and scallions in mine. For those of you who don't know, okonomiyaki is basically a cabbage pancake, held together with egg. Other ingredients are added as you wish, then it's seasoned, then just thrown onto a grill and cooked. Then it's covered in okonomiyaki sauce, which is slightly sweet, and mayo as well. Very decadent.

A food court stall.

On our way to take Ian to withdraw some money, I encountered this really cute doughnut shop which sold such interesting doughnuts like pumpkin and very berry. They were also very cute, though not as delicious as they seemed. :I

Later on this night, we went to the Giants baseball game at the Tokyo Dome. It was very full and very loud, and I was feeling somewhat sick from the train ride (and I still had a headache from the test earlier on), so I didn't stay long, but what I saw looked very fun. There was like, a sea of orange people, and a little blue section for the opposition. As we entered the dome, we were handed a free t-shirt. Everybody got a Giants shirt. They probably don't do that every game, do they? o.o

It was very nice of them though.

During the game, there was this man who was sitting near us who was very into his cheering. He taught us all the cheers that went on, and though I don't remember any of it, I know that they were complicated. Each player has his own cheer, which is chanted when he comes up to plate. But they're long and complicated, with different' clapping patterns each. And every time a Giants player came up to the plate to bat, there would be this introduction sequence ont the screen with his name and a cool pose picture. A song would also be played, and each player had his own song. The whole stadium sings the song too, and they're up to date songs. Like Rihanna's S&M.

The cheerleaders were fun too. They would run onto the field at the beginning of every half inning and do their cute little dance. Sometimes they would have shirt guns that they fired into the audience. And of course, it's always accompanied by music that the audience sings.

Here's a video of just how much cheer happens in this place. Even children knew these cheers by heart, and this is just a video of someone stepping up to plate. It gets so much more loud when a homerun is scored or a base is stolen: