Welcome party at the dorm today!

I woke up around half 8, then fell back asleep.. cos it was so warm I didn't fancy getting up and having to walk around or do anything. But when I finally woke up it was 10.45 and a couple minutes later I realised that the party was to start at 11am. Oh.

By 5 past 11 I was downstairs. At the door to the lounge/party room each person was given a can of cold green tea (yeuch) and asked to spin the bingo thing to draw their seat number. A good way to get everyone to mix. See, this is an all-girls dorm for students of all years at Waseda, so some people have lived here for a while (at least a few months, since the academic year begins in April) and some people have just moved in last week like I did. First we went round the room, each perosn introducing themselves, then we ate (thank goodness - I'd missed breakfast again) and played Bingo until everyone got a prize. There were lots of different prizes and you weren't allowed to choose which you'd like. Each was wrapped and tied to a string that was threaded through a grid and you had to pull a random string. There were lots of differnt kinds of prizes. A couple of people got panties, someone got a glass jar, a few got little boxes of chocolate, I got a box of chocolate chip cookies (and I'm going to use them as an excuse for knocking on peoples' doors later by offering them a cookie), someone got a pair of slippers..

I spoke to a few people but don't remember any names.. I'm terrible when it comes to unfamiliar names. A lot of people are also in SILS and I spoke to one girl (who's going to spend the next year at a university in Tanzania) about the teachers of the modules I want to take. I also spoke to one girl who is going to spend a year studying in Germany and I asked her sprechen sie Deutsch? but that's as far as I could take it without resorting to memorised sentences such as ich habe keine Hund or ich bin sympatisch. That really disappointed me seeing as my only A grade at GCSE was in German.

Today I'm going to explore the surrounding area and hope I stumble upon the nearest 100 Yen shop to get a spoon, a bowl, a glass and some flannels/small towels for drying my hands at public toilets. I also need to buy laundry detergent, an onigiri to snack on (btw I bought an onigiri box yesterday, to stop them from getting squished in my bag, and on the front it reads 'lunch time will make everyone happy' - so true! plus it was a pack of two from the 100 Yen = 80p shop, so Fee and I each have one cos they've become our staple food) and hand soap.

Oh I've just realised how late it is.. I wonder whether shops close earlier on Sundays here too. I might just stay in and read and work on katakana since I only have a week to learn them all, then shop tomorrow before going to the opening ceremony for Fall semester admissions.