and the coffie shop at my school

hi everyone,

currently im sitting at the coffie shop at my school bumbing free wireless off of them. is niceeee

um i had jpaanese class today. it was alright, im going to try and switch into a more difficult class.... fun times. its kinda crazy here on campus. i walked out of second peroid and there was just a mass of kids walking every which direction. it definitly a change going from a student pop of 4000 to 40000..... but good times

after this i have a international finance and econonomics class... should be good times. and really quickly, what the heck is up with all the smokeing here? kids are lighting up like its going out of style and it already is! at case you get bad looks if you are the child outside of nord smoking a cigerett.. actully i dont even think its allowed any more..... hm hm good times...

And shinagawa station

Hi everyone,

you may or may not believe it but im actually sitting in the shinagawa train station with my laptop on my lap at this very moment. Well kinda at this moment. By the time I actually go home and post this … post I will definitely not be in the shinagawa train station….

 

Anyways, the point is that I in writing a blog post in a crowed Tokyo train station waiting for some people do show up so we can all go to odaiba. This morning I went to ranporri with my friend josh and ogled at the new super upscale mall, Tokyo Midtown. It was scary nice. I don't think there was anything there under several hundred dollars. Some of the jewelry stores literally had attendants waiting to open the door for you. There was also a really cool fountain which had strings hanging from the ceiling three stories up with water droplets running down into a pool below. It was very cool. John and I had pho on the food level for a disturbing 9 dollars a bowl…. Not ok. But that's just kinda how they roll here in Tokyo. I went out to some bars last night and it seems like the going price for a pint was about 9 dollars…

Hmmm everything is going pretty well over here…. I start class on Monday which is exciting… im actually looking forward to my classes. Im taking a civil life and law class which is an introduction to law; some international economics and finance class and human biology if you can believe it. Good times…. Ill let you all know in the coming week how they are.

Note to mom and dad

And to mom and dad… if a package shows up form steep and cheep that looks like a new red arcterix soft shell…. Um ya… I couldn't help my self…. It's a coming home present from my past me to my future me…

And the suia card, nat health care, and gigein registration

So today was pretty busy. This morning I went and did some errands with my host mom yuu. First we went to the train station and bough a transit passes for me from ogikubo to waseda station on the tozai line. It went pretty quick. I mostly smiled and gave them my credit card when the asked for it. Interestingly enough Japan study actually reimbursed me today so atm im talking around with over 20000 yen in my wallet. After that we went to the city ward office and applied for my gijein registration. I don't know why I need this but I know I do. Ater that we went up stairs and I applied for nationalized health care. Can you imagine it? A first world country that provides 70% health benefits to all of its citizens AND FORIGNERS LIVING THERE FOR OVER 6 MONTHS!! Amazing! How their government has yet to collapse is a mystery.

 

After that I went into waseda and applied for my cell phone. I won't post it here in case there are any phone number bots sniffing my blog but ill send it out to you guys that need it…..

 

After the phone stuff I had a quick Japanese language class followed by a trip to the bar for happy hour. THEN I came back to school and sat though 6 10 minute presenatations which were more like 20 minutes each so we didn't get to mine tonight… to bad.

 

Any ways I hope everything is going well in all your worlds.

 

Have fun

 

Aaron

pictures....

 

here is a shark... pretty cool shark.... there were two or there of them in this tiny littl tank... they were probably just bideing their time... anyways this is from my trip to the shinigawa aquarium...


 

ah ha! i new the star fish were up to somthing... this one attacked me out of the blue. jumped clear from the touch tanks to my face. it was a similar set up to the touch tanks in the seattle aquariums but no one over seeing it...

 

this is me through the glass tubes of the sea lion tank. one of them was sleeping on the bottom is a crazy dead-sea-lion position and i thought we were going to see a retrevial operation... he woke up though...

more pictures

this is the subway map of shinagawa station.... ya its pretty crazy. the yamanote (the circular loop that connects most of the major cities), shincansen (bullet train) and a few other lines all run through this station. and this is only one of the many major train hubs in tokyo alone.



this picture above is of some fish tail statues... they are confusing but i think they have something to do with shinagawa's location adjacent to the bay and the fishing activities associated with said convenient location...

this is kind of like a man hole cover but it actually hides a fire hydrant.


dolphins statues! they were at the entrance to the shinagawa aquarium

and more!

the above shrine is located at a temple near my host families house in ogikubo. i found a week or so ago after checking out the climbing gym. it think the little box next to it is for donations but i wasnt sure... and didnt have any money...

this is the actual building... pretty cool huh? its werid because all around this crazy old shrine is the typical neon ally way with arcades and game stores and pachinko shops

this is the game store right next to the shrine. i saw this kid play the drum game in here. its was unlike anything ive ever seen. ive a video of it somwhere...

few more

so this is the sidewalk outside of the shrine. notice the narrow street with the brick street and .... ya its a street. its right next to my train station.... if i wanted to just throw away all my hard earned money i would come here every night and play pachinko



this is the pathway into the shrine ive referred to...notice the houses right off to the right. they are right there! its very interesting....



BOOSH! CAT!!! ya but you cant really it but the cats tail is about half as long as it should be... i dont know whats up with these japanese cats.... must be something in the water....

ah ha heres a picture of another little shrine.. its interesting that i has stainless steel rails... i think it might be that this is a newer instillation as opposed to a retrofitted you know... handicapped accessable shrine....

and guess what.. more pictures

heres a picture from the middle of the cross walk across the main drag in my town. notice that nothing makes sense.


heres the bouldering gym! its crazy; its a 5 minute walk away from my house. cool times. it dont quite understand the protocol quite yet about when i take my shoes off and when the slippers go on then off and the the rock shoes on... it a crazy clash of cultures

heres a picture of the logo

and a stair way...

4 more

this is my room! its pretty cool i think. its way bigger then my recent rooms at case. my host family has been really great letting me steal one of the few rooms in their house.


so my house is through the gate to the right of the covered bike. my host grandparents are to the left next to the box crates. every day i just bop out of the house and walk down the street bellow

and walk on to the train station about 5 minutes away. notice how narrow and sharp this conner. ive seen full sized vans maket his turn with about 4 inches of clearance on the side

another street!