IT'S MOOOOORNIIIIING~

Today (yesterday for me, this time traveling business is getting difficult...), was my first day at the university, SIT. Two students from our lab were going to come pick us up at 9:30AM, so naturally, I set my alarms for 7:45AM. And naturally, jet lag had me awake at 4:30AM instead. (=_=)-b

Anyway, before I get into all that silly stuff, I thought I'd go ahead and get the serious business out of the way. You knew this was coming. You knew you wanted to see it. And I don't like to fail all your expectations, ya know. So, without any further ado and in order of appearance,

BAM

BOOM

POW

  
WHAT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR. Onigiri and cold green tea for breakfast (~$2.60), some kind of deep fried delicious chicken meat with rice and hot green tea for lunch (~$4.75), and omurice + some kind of ketchup noodle dish with sausage + milk tea for dinner (~$5.80). SO FILLING. SO DELICIOUS. SO CHEAP. I LOVE JAPAN.
 

Are you all salivating? Is the sight of savory, scrumptious sustenance surrounding your cerebrum? Does the bellow of this boast-worthy bargain beckon to you? (I know you Asians are reading this). Let me just say. Food in Japan... is wonderful. I don't think Japanese people/students realize how grateful they ought to be that they can just go into a cafeteria, ask for rice, and *not* have to wonder if the rice will be any good or not because they *know* it will be good.
My goal by the end of this trip is to have eaten only one of each type/variant of food. This means that I will have not wasted any opportunity to try something new! Yessss. Hahah, but we'll see how that turns out I guess... I tend to favor favorites too much, howzabout that.

But anyway! Food will come later and often. Now is time for first day adventures.

Like I said, two students from the lab came to pick us up; however, unlike the two students who picked us up from the airport, these guys weren't very confident in their English. They were still really nice though. Everyone I've met here actually has been extremely nice and helpful. But yea, since they couldn't really speak in English and I couldn't really speak in Japanese, Nile was interpreter for us (did I mention she's half-Japanese and has studied the language for 2 years or so?). Haha, I'm so jealous! I wish I could translate for people. I would feel so cool. Man, what a grand opportunity. But alas, mayhap another language or another time.

But wait, where was I again? Oh yes. So the lab guys, Uno and Shiokawa, took us to the train station and showed us how to get to the university. We have to walk ~15 minutes to the station, ride for ~30 minutes, get off at a stop to change lines at another station, ride that line for ~15 minutes, and then walk the last leg of ~10-15 minutes to the university. By the end of this sojourn, what with all the walking and the generally healthier food, I will be SO slim.

We found it! And look who finally shows up in her own blog.

So we get to SIT and go into the International Relations place, take care of some orientation stuff, and then have lunch with yet another student. Dangit, I can't remember his name, but I think it was Tasaki? I'm sorry, cool person, I wish I remembered your name ;-;. He showed us to the cafeteria and how it works. What a cool guy, he spoke really good English for having studied it for only like a year or two! (OワO) AMAAAAAAZING!

It's huuuge! So pretty~ So... "glassy", one could even say... ;D

At lunch, we ate and chatted (Nile and I kept going on and on about the food XD), and at one point, the overhead music started playing Sousei no Aquarion (a song from an anime called Aquarion). Recognizing it, I noted out loud, "Oh! I know this song," and Nile added, "Ohhh, yeah, I recognize it too." And then Tasaki(?) turned to us with big eyes, "Ehhh!!?? No way! How do you know it?" Hahaha, he was so surprised, and he couldn't get over how "shocking" it was that we had listened to it before. And then after that, it started playing American radio music for some reason.

After lunch, Tasaki took us back and traded with Uno and Shiokawa again so that they could show us to the lab we'd be working at.

By this point, I'd started getting a better look of the whole university, and that's when it finally hit me.

1) I'm in Asia. These are. All. Asians. Here.
2) This is a technical school in Asia, and thus, there are a lot of Asian guys here.

For every 20 or 30 male students that passed by, I would see maybe 1 female student. It's definitely different from UVA, for sure, haha. The girls that passed by didn't seem (or at least dress) extremely girly either. In fact, some of the guys looked like they put more preparation in their looks than the girls did. This isn't to say that the girls were slobs, though, definitely not at all.

Anyhow, so Uno and Shiokawa take us from the 2nd floor to the 10th floor and then to the research building. By the way, let me add a side note here. Curiously enough, the elevators don't service each floor. There were 3 elevators where we were, but each one would only go to maybe 1/3 of the floors, with only a few repeat floors among them (like 1st floor, obviously). I think this is pretty smart since this will make both the elevator wait and ride faster, regardless of whether it's only you in there or if it's packed jam full.

Oh yeah, so we finally get to meet our research adviser! Professor Matsumura. He talks to us for a long while, telling us about his lab, asking us questions, introducing us to the other students. Then he sends us off with the other students for them to show us where the other research equipment is. OH MY GOD. So. Many. NAMES. I'm going to be so embarrassed next week when I see them and have to ask for their names all over again. :x

But after that, Professor Matsumura didn't really have much for us to do, since Nile and I aren't going to start officially working in the lab til next week. But he wanted us to be there for the group discussion at the end of the day, so we stuck around in the lab for 2 hours, just whiling away on the computer.

This is what a Japanese keyboard looks like! Fascinating.

At one point, Nile started practicing with kanji on the computer and some of the other students came over and were super impressed. Then we all had some fun doing vocab. They would ask check with us for English pronunciation, and I would ask them about Japanese pronunciation. Hahaha, these are my kind of people. \(^_^)/

Finally, the lab meeting was about to begin, so we headed over to a different room for that. This is apparently a periodic meeting in which they discuss their research and what they've done. But since they, of course, discuss in Japanese, we can't really do much during then. The professor wanted us there to officially introduce ourselves in front of everybody though. And also discuss the welcome party they're going to do for us! I'MSOEXCITEDFORTHISYOUDON'TEVENKNOW. This was definitely something that I (seriously, this time) never expected to be able to experience in my life. Ahaha, but I really didn't think they'd do that for us, since we're so... short term. It's so exciting! I really hope I can become friends with everyone in the lab tho, despite my lack of Japanese speaking ability.

Well, that's enough for today, I'm off to explore! Ta-taaa~
Edit: I found out how to do alt text on this! How fun.