Exploring Tokyo...Has Led Me To Neglect You, Oh Blog-y One

I apologize! Though I do feel like this will be a trend. My decision this summer--on one hand, TOKYOOOOOOOOOO, with all its soba shops and yummy curry places and drunk old men who think Rene is... and really expensive boutiques and really expensive Starbucks (but it's STARBUCKS!) and wonderful people on the street and in stores who don't speak English so I can practice my Japanese, and.... and on the other hand is recounting all these stories and happenings while sitting in my beyooooooootiful apartment. Hmmm.

SO. I got to Tokyo on Thursday, late afternoon. Flew over from Newark, direct to Narita in Tokyo, with Ming. Thank god we planned that out, making that entire trek by myself would have definitely been scary. It took us two hours to get from the airport to our hotel for two nights, the Shinjuku Washington Hotel. In which we heard the greatest announcement ever:

"Foreigners, please be aware that portable telephones may not be used on the bus, as they annoy your neighbors."

Thank you, Japan.

Ming-chan (it sounds so cute, I use it as often as possible now, lol) and I wandered around the Shinjuku area around our hotel that night and saw a lot of lights and people and expensive boutiques. OH. You guys would be so proud of me. I'm a New Yorker and therefore an avid jay-walker, but in Japan, they don't jay-walk!. I'm doing my very best to curb this habit (haha, get it?), in my efforts to assimilate as much as possible. I also refuse to speak English to the Japanese on the street, trying to cultivate my what-are-you-talking-about-i'm-not-american-i'm-colombian persona. So far, asking question hasn't been TOO much of a problem, but the thing is...I can't understand the responses!! Haha, FAIL.

Ki-chan (Kisho, competing with Ming-chan for cutest Japanese nickname EVER) kept me and Ming-chan awake that night so that we wouldn't be jetlagged (partial SUCCESS). The next day, we went on the LONGEST TREK OF OUR LIVES. Our hotel was in the Tokyo district of Shinjuku, and we wanted to get cell phones, which we thought could only be found in the Softbank in Harajuku (another district, famous for the crazy teen fashion Tokyo is known for). It was a nice day, we didn't have that much to do, and we were very very ambitious. And poor navigators. We walked, roundtrip, a total of like 5 or 6 hours.

Turns out, there was a Softbank TWO BLOCKS away from hotel.

...

As much as we complain about our feet being tired, and that the temperature rose to a little under 3235972867 degrees Fahrenheit, it was a lot of fun and it was good company. It basically started a trend for this summer--walk a lot, accomplish very little, and have a lot of fun doing it. =]

Oh, and you need to be 20 in Japan to get a cell phone...which is problematic, seeing as I will remain 19 until October. Womp womp, Nihon. Luckily, Ming-chan signed off as like my guardian haha. Let's hope I don't run into this problem at clubs too (though I already have a strategy for that)!

Fellow SANCers (Sun Academy Nihongo Center) arrived the next day, and on Saturday morning we met our sensei (plural) as we had a quick orientation in the hotel lobby, were given packets of information (in JAPANESE, dear lord they're serious haha), and were taxi'ed to our new apartments. I'd just like to interject that doing anything involving one humongous suitcase and one medium-sized wannabe humongous suitcase in 293057867 degree weather is NOT fun. We had a little bit of time to appreciate the amazingness that is our apartments and then continued on to SANC where we had a (gasp) placement exam. Me and my fellow 二年生 laughed on cue at the laughably difficult exam that did not place us any differently (we are, after all, 2nd year students in the 2nd year class) but just showed us that we know nothing, haha.

Getting around Tokyo transportation has been fun and confusing and intense, haha. And if you want to take that as a metaphor for my life in Tokyo so far, go for it =]

PS
There's SO MUCH MORE I want to tell you guys/future me about. But this is already long...I think I'll double post. Or write it but post it tomorrow; I don't want to overwhelm you guys. Especially since it's 7 in the morning back home, haha.