The Awesome DAY-NIGHT

JAPANESE CLASS and HIYOSHI CAMPUS

      Finally awesome sunny days are back to Tokyo. Today is Thursday, a day that most or our CEMSies are having a Japanese class. It is a basic Japanese for beginners who never had any Japanese before. As last night I promised to go to the class too, the is morning 5 minutes before leaving the dorm Ondrej came to my room and woke me up. 

      We met other guys at the Hiyoshi station as only they knew where we were heading. We wondered around the campus for 15 minutes looking for the correct building and finally found it (a little late to class).

The teacher was really nice and friendly and spoke good English. The content of the course was quite basic: my name is, I am from etc. I remember when I had my first Japanese class back in St.Petersburg. Everything just sounded like a set of unordered sounds impossible to memorize. I guess that is how it now sounds to the guys. For me now I understand the language a little better and some things start to make much more sense than before, when I was starting with the language. 

      After the class we headed to the cafeteria to eat. Outside there were lots of students. It was the third day of recruiting for circles (extracurricular activities clubs). What it is: it is many people with leaflets, dressed up , are going around campus trying to recruit you. They give you papers and invite you to info sessions. Of course all of them want to have gaijins in the circles, that's why they try hard. In the center of the main square of the campus there is a stage where all music and dance circles are performing today. They actually play really good music sometimes. 

      We had a big lunch in canteen and relaxed a little after. On the way back from the cafeteria we heard some really great music from the stage. Mattia, our CEMS colleague, started dancing. We joined him and went to the center of the crowd. Mostly people were listening, around 20 in front near the stage were moving to the beat and jumping. We formed our small group and started dancing. Japanese people were really amazed. Suddenly people started joining our dancing circle, smiling and happily looking at us. Others started to take pictures and videos. It was really fun and the music was awesome! We have received a bunch of papers and offers to join tons of clubs... Now we have to choose. 

ROPPONGI

     The evening has started... We were supposed to meet with other CEMCies in the center, in the district called Roppongi. the plan was to meet up at 11:30 p.m.. Having approximately calculated the time needed to travel there we agreed to leave the dorm at 10:50. We came out and I realized that I forgot to take my money... As usually... Ondrej said, he could land me some, thus we went on. In a few minutes Ondrej realized that he has forgotten his phone... Lol. We returned back to the rooms.

     Somehow already in the train we realized, that we are late. No just late. Really late. We messaged the guys and it turned out they were also late, as they have taken a wrong train in a wrong direction.

To get to Ropongi we had to transfer once and go one more station. We got a little lost on the transfer station and somehow came out to the street. As we already (finally) had our Internet on phones working, we decided to take a walk. Finally we arrived at the meeting point 40 minutes late. But we were not the last ones yet, some people were still missing.

     Roppongi is very central locations with many restaurants, clubs and karaoke places. There are many foreigners (like us)wondering around at night, drinking and looking for fun. It was probably the first time I didn't feel a 100% relaxed, as the street is fool of African-Americans trying to offer any services you want. It is quite annoying. But the point is, that 90% of the "night promoters" were African-Americans, and 5% foreigners and maybe 5% were Japanese girls. 

     We were looking for a karaoke place with a all-you-can-drink option. In the end we decided not to take that option and buy drinks separately. The price for all night karaoke from 23:00-5:00 was 10 euro per person. Drinks around 4-5 euro. Really good deal. The guy at the counter didn't speak any English and seemed a little scared of a group of gaijins (there were 11 of us). But finally we got our big room and had looots of fun (as usually at karaoke). The hit of the day was Without Me by Eminem. 3 hours passed by quickly. We wanted to finish strong and as the last song have chosen Barby & Ken. Impressive performance by everyone! 

     Around 4:20 we headed out. Just a little of topic: in Japan you never leave tip, it is not polite. Back to the story. We got out of the place quite full of drunk Japanese people on high hills and in pink shirts. A police was taking care of some drunk guy in a suit who was laying down on the ground and smoking a cigarette. We split in 3 groups and got a cab, the direction: famous Tokyo fish market. 

     The ride was quite expensive, as only catching a cab costs 7 euro. We paid around 24 Euro for 10-15 minutes. Taxi driver seemed to know where we were going, however turned out he didn't. We got out somewhere and called the guys - there were already at the meeting point.

 Tokyo metro

 Love hotel

 Shibuya

 Karaoke

 Drunky1

 Drunky 2

Tokyo by night

TOKYO FISH  MARKET

      Now we had phones and Internet so finding our way to the place approximately 15 minutes. Tokyo fish market is quite a famous place for tourists. 30 people can get a guided tour every morning. We arrived before 5 and all the spots were already taken. We had a look around the market:looks like fish market. People are busy working, riding at their little cars and motorollers. Seems like they don't really like the foreigners there too much, as they always disturb them from work. 

     As we didn't get the tour, we went straight to the famous sushi place. Actually, there are 2 famous sushi restaurants, really small ones. As Larry says, the quality of the fish differs there approx 10%. Thus we queued in front of the best sushi place. There were at least 50 people in front of us, none of them Japanese. At 5 in the morning by the way. After waiting in line for around an hour (and the line wasn't moving) we decided to queue for the second best restaurant. The wait there was 20-30 minutes. We were close to the food, delicious food...

     The sushi set there costs 3500 yen ( approx 30 Euro). 6 little maki and 7 sushi, plus tea and miso soup. The place is really small, 12-15 seats, around the sushi bar. 3 people working at the sushi bar in front of you. You can see the fish (already cut and ready) sliced behind the glass in front of you. The miso soup is delicious, with little shells inside it. The sushi are tasty! This is not possible to describe, you have to try it yourself! The sushibarmen are cooking in front of you and putting sushi to a plate in front of you one by one, smiling and telling you, what that is, in Japanese-English. Everyone gets slightly different sushi set, seems like it is completely random. When you are done enjoying, you stand up, pay, thank them and leave - so that the next customer can come in and enjoy amazing sushi experience. No cameras are allowed inside, so unfortunately no pictures and no videos. But great aftertaste! The only possible problem now is that we will not be able to enjoy sushi anymore, the quality won't be the same...

 Inside the famous sushi restaurant

DAY 6: The first day on campus

FIRST FOGGY DAY

     Monday. The first rainy day in Tokyo so far. Today we had to get to the center of the city where the main campus of Keio University is located. It takes approximately 35 minutes on metro from the dorm to the Mita campus. In the morning Kotani San met us leaving the dorm and kindly notified that it was raining outside and we could borrow some umbrellas. We thanked him for hiss kindness, but decided to go without an umbrella. People say, that in summer there is real rain here in Tokyo, so everyone should better carry one around. I have noticed, that in front of some buildings and supermarkets there are boxes with umbrellas. Apparently, those are free to take and use. 

MITA CAMPUS EXCHANGE STUDENTS ORIENTATION

     The Mita campus is located in the center of Tokyo, close to the Mita subway station. The ride from our dorm to there is 16 stations and costs 380JPY one way. The campus is well integrated with buildings around, so it is not so easy to find it.

East entrance to Mita campus of Keio university

     As usually, me and Ondrej were extremely prepared, so to find the correct location, we simply followed a group of exchange student who were heading to the exchange students orientation. We arrived 5 minutes late, but somehow no CEMS students were there... We figured there had been something wrong. After looking at some info papers we had from before, we figured out that CEMS orientation has started in another building 10 minutes ago. We rushed out and luckily the other building was not far away. So we arrived there 10 minutes late - great job doing creating such an important first impression on other CEMSies and especially on Japanese people. 

     The orientation itself was nice and useful, with 10000 papers to fill in and more to turn in later.

CEMS Students orientation

CAFETERIA

      After the orientation, we had some time to have a look at the university cafeteria. We managed to find the building. Looks quite similar to European Menza. You take a tray, then pick your dishes and then pay. The prices are acceptable, however the choice is very strange for a European. Additionally, the plates are small as well as portions, so I ended up with 5 different plates on my tray. There is also a possibility to take a "special menu". I had a piece of meat, miso soup, coffee, salad with some meat, big bowl or rice - everything for 555 JPY. Quite a good price and tasty food. In the middle of the room where everyone is eating there is a table with chop sticks, spoons and lots of spices and sauces. 

     After you are done with eating, you have to first separate your used items: put hashi to a box with hashi, spoons to another box. All the plates remain on the tray and you simply put the train on a machine that automatically takes it away to the kitchen. 

     The school hasn't started you, so the cafeteria was quite empty. I guess at the "rush hour" it will be really packed. Let's see. 

REGISTRATION IN THE CITY HALL

      Upon arrival in Japan, everyone has to register in the period of 14 days. Otherwise there is a deportation possibility or a find of 200000 yen. 

     Today was the day we wanted to have it done. So as usually Ondrej and me have decided to follow our CEMS colleagues who lived in another dorm to the registration hall. 

     The registration hall is located 4 stations down our subway line from Hyoushi station. When we arrived there, friendly staff have showed us that there was information available in English (and Portuguese by the way). When we came to an English info desk, an elderly lady but in a great shape has approached us. SHe asked in perfect British-English: Would you like to register your residence in Japan? THis was the first person I met in Tokyo who spoke English so good. She was really helpful and started to explain how to fill in the form which was completely in Japanese. In a few minutes she figured out, that our guys and us did not live in the same dorm. So it turned out, that we were again at a wrong place... Second time in one day! We needed to go to another registration office, which was located 4 metro stations away... The lady was once again nice to print out a map for us and explain everything in detail. 

     In half an hour or so we were close to the place. But as the map she had given us was not so detailed, we were not sure to which building we should go. So we entered one. It turned out to be a hospital or something. We have asked how to get to the place we needed, the guy there asked if we spoke any Japanese. Than he came out from his desk and said to follow him. We came out of the building and followed him. In a few minutes we were already entering the correct building, still following him. He asked staff there where we could get some info in English and a staff member has showed us a way. We thanked the gentleman as it was really nice of him to show us the way. 

     One of the employees there spoke English too and she was able to find samples about how to fill in documents in English. Even though the samples were in English, we struggled for quite a long time... Until we saw some guys from our dorm with Kanae, a Japanese student and a residence assistance at the girls floor. We were now safe! It took us another 15 minutes to figure out how to fill out other forms. Then we simply gave them and needed to wait. It was an electronic queue, so we were assigned a number and had to follow the screen until our number would show up. The wait was around an hour and we appeared to be the last people at the whole registration hall. But we did it! It was done! The toughest thing was accomplished!

At the Ward office

JAPANESE RESTAURANTS: OKONOMIYAKI

     As Kane was really nice to spent 3 hours of her time helping us at the registration office, we all decided to invite her for dinner in a traditional Japanese restaurant that she would pick. She was not exactly sure where to go but finally she remembered a good place near our home base - Hiyoshi station. 

     I would never be able to find that place without here. We entered. The place was packed with people, most of them were sitting on a floor and eating from low tables. We took a normal table with chairs. In the middle of the table there was a huge frying pan. So the concept of the restaurant: cook it yourself. You receive a plate of ingredients that you choose. On top of it is usually mean or fish. YOu start by frying it. Then you mix all the other ingredients in the plate. After you put those on the pan too, trying to create a fat pancake. Then you put already cooked meet that you started to fry before on top of your pancake and flip it around. Then you add dried tuna skin, soy souse and some spices on top, cut it and serve. Ready to go! Really fun and inexpensive place with a great concept! I suggest everyone to try a place like that! Here are few pictures and vids from a place.