destination: nagoya!

Auugghh I just spent the last half hour writing up a post and then it failed to publish, and somehow Blogger's auto-saving of drafts didn't work! I am very unhappy. :( I will try to recreate what I just wrote, but it will not be the same and I may not be as enthusiastic or detailed this time around, sorry!

So, having safely arrived in Nagoya via shinkansen (where I wanted to get a free Pokemon notebook by paying with Suica, but was unable to do; at least I had ice cream), I am updating from my host family's house! Up until now I haven't wanted to use their computer too much, but I won't be able to use the internet at school for a few days, so I wanted to update now while I could. Also I just showed my host mother Twitter and Facebook, which she seemed to think were pretty cool!

So far my host family has been great, although when I say 'host family' I really mean my host mother - my host father has been gone on business (actually he just got home) and my host brothers are living away at college, and even the dog (Silver, because she is black and white) stays outside all the time, so it's really just been the two of us. But she is really really nice, so it's been great - we talk a lot, mostly in Japanese, though her English is good enough that whenever there's something I don't understand, she usually knows the English for it (and then if not we use the electronic dictionary). We've gone grocery shopping a few times together - the first one we went to was huge and almost like a department store - the second story had clothes and toys and everything. Yesterday she took me to Nanzan via bus/subway so I knew how to get there (25-minute bus ride, then 3 subway stops, a transfer, then one more stop over, plus a short walk to campus), then we went to the local ward office to register me as an alien (a foreigner) and get insurance, and then I got a cell phone! Now I can send emails to people from my phone, because in Japan every cell phone has its own email address, so you just send emails from phone to phone like text messages. It's cool because I can also email normal addresses without needing internet, and if you guys email my cell phone I can read/respond like a text message. Or so I think; if you want to help me test it let me know and I'll send you my address!

My host house is also very nice - it's pretty big, I think, for a Japanese house, and I have my own room. It's pretty roomy (bigger than a Watson single, I think) and has a bed/desk/dresser/bookshelves. There's an air conditioner in my room, but I only turn it on in the evenings to conserve energy.

So this morning was the first day of orientation! I successfully made it to Nanzan by myself, then got ready for the placement test. I was worried about it (I'd never taken a language placement test so I didn't know what to expect) and spent last night studying kanji, but it was not bad at all. Hopefully I'll get into the level I want. After that was lunch (ramen with miso and lettuce), which I had with Stephen (the other Carleton student in the program), and then orientation. There are 143 international students total, from over 25 countries. I met a few of them already, but I should probably try and meet more and not rely on Stephen, who I already know. I did meet a girl who rides the same bus (and subway) as me, and this afternoon we talked while trying to figure out where her stop was (luckily she recognized the surroundings and hopefully got home safe), and also a boy whose host mother is a friend of my host mother. Actually it was funny because I knew what he was wearing today, due to my questions of what to wear for the entrance ceremony and our host mothers' communication, so when I saw him in the subway I asked if it was him and it was! Hopefully he wasn't too creeped out.

Anyway, tomorrow is academic orientation, which is exciting. I have high hopes for classes and want them to start already! I still haven't decided what to take, but I am excited nonetheless. And now I will stop here, and hopefully it will post correctly this time!