Even tho I came back with soggy socks, cos of the massive puddles at the crossings, and a pool in the front pocket of my backpack, cos I didn't shut it properly, I'm really glad it's raining cos the temperature has fallen too.

Today was day 2 of orientation but I'm going to do this post in order and tell you about day one, yesterday, first. Actually I should start with the afternoon after I settled in, on the day I arrived.

I asked the Residents' Assistant if someone could show me how to get uni cos the next morning I had to be at room 202 in building 22 by half 9 and I wanted to know how early I should leave and which building it was. The journey that afternoon took around 2 hours. There were four of us including the RA lady and they walked too slow for my liking, so when I left around 8 on Wednesday morning I managed to arrive a little early. After she showed us where building 22 was I decided to stick around, while the others went to find building 8, and see if Fee'd turn up cos she was wandering around looking for 22 too. I was really hungry by this time, so I was hoping she'd turn up soon and we'd get something to eat. Eventually I gave in and ate at a place across the road where most of the dishes cost 500Yen. The place was empty, cold with the air con constantly on and the chef was watching TV. After eating my dinner at 5pm Japan time/9am England time I made my way back to the station and didn't get lost. But I was miserable. I was aching from tiredness and in total agony over the long commute back, but I suppose the Japanese, or people in Tokyo anyway, don't think it's very long considering that when I get off the train there are still plenty of people left continuing their journey. On the platform I met the other two people I travelled to campus with. When we got off at our station I walked ahead cos they were keeping me back and made the journey to bed longer. But it turns out that I should've stuck with them cos I forgot to take a turning. It was hard recognising things I saw earlier that day cos by 6pm it was already dark.

Like I'd said in an earlier post, I had trouble sleeping that night cos of the air con and the pillow (I caved and bought a new one today without waiting for mummy to send more money), but I managed to get to orientation early. We were given goodie bags of leaflets, booklets and our student ID, had lots of presentations and talks about rules and regulations and I was there til around 4pm. We also played some games, I'm not sure why - the teams were too big and they weren't even meant to be team-building kinda games like orientation tends to revolve around. Anyways, the first game asked for 6 people to stand at the front of the room and each say a certain word from a common theme simultaneously, and the teams had to write down the 6 words. I only got the odd English word that was yelled extra loud but it was still fun. What was not fun was ending up at a table where everyone spoke Japanese really well and feeling incompetent, even playing Cream Puff Roulette and eating the mystery mustard-filled cream puff was more fun. Hmph. But our team did win and they let me pick out my prize first cos I'd been such a good sport..

Today's orientation began at 2pm and I was meant to spend the morning at the Toda City Office to apply for my Registration Card for Foreigners and National Health Insurance, but I had trouble sleeping again last night and, coupled with an irregular eating pattern, I felt terribly nauseous this morning. Then I left too late to eat a proper lunch before getting on the train. I've noticed that no one eats on the train and I suppose that why they gleam, so I didn't eat until I got to the common room area in the building the meeting was in. Big, bad mistake; I felt alright after resting that morning but eating a late lunch made me feel pretty bad again and I was very fidgety all throughout that orientation meeting. Except that could be due to half the talks covering stuff we already knew..

After orientation I didn't fancy commuting back cos it seemed as if I'd commuted for no good reason, especially as they think we're not computer literate enough to be able to follow the instructions in the booklet to set up a Waseda email address. I couldn't find Fee, so I hung out with Marion and Sasha, walking with them to see the dorm I didn't get into, Nishiwaseda. We also popped into a supermarket on the way and I bought a pillow and a bunch of bananas.