Chapter 2: The Orientation
September 28, 1999
I wake up, and I look around. This is my first look at my room. It is about 2~2.5 meters wide, and 3.5~4 meters long, with a balcony. The view gives on the back of the dorm, which has lots of trees, the bicycle parking and the garbage cans. The trees are great, but it is very noisy because I hear people coming back and forth all day long. On top of that, the garbage truck come EVERY DAY at 7am, and there's a guy screaming to the driver "eh eh eh eh eh" because he's driving backwards and he's guiding him... URUSAI!! but I'll get used to it.
So now... I wake up really early (like 5am) so I just start unpacking my stuff. We then went to Suita campus (my dorm is not in Osaka, it is in Suita, which is a city near Osaka) by bus, to have our first orientation meeting at the International Student Center (ISC). They gave us maps, information about life in Osaka, course information, blah blah blah... In the afternoon, we met our host family. I met Kin-san (her first name being sonryon), and we chatted for a couple of hours. She is currently learning English, so our conversation was a bit awkward... but all went well. She teaches ikebana, and also makes ceramic (eh, just like my mom ;)). Her husband plays golf, that's all I know about him (all men play golf here!). She has two kids, a 23 year-old daughter who lives in Kyoto and plays piano, and a 22 year-old son who plays soccer. They don't have pets. That's all I know. I will probably meet her daughter (Kana) later on, because she is going to show me around Kyoto.
After this meeting, we went behind the ISC to rent a bike. I was lucky enough to get a new one, although the quality of the bicycles is questionable around here. My bike is new, but the breaks make a loud noise every time I use them. The design is also hrm... you'll see some pictures soon enough :)
After that, we had to find our way back home. Hmm At least, some Australian girl named Fern showed us the way. She's been here for 5-6 months because the Australian students start in winter, unlike us. So we went back to our dorm(downhill, read that, DOWNHILL, pretty cool though), and then I went to the grocery store... waaaah! It looks like Canadian grocery store, only with more fish and weird vegetables. Everything is expensive, especially the fruits. So I only bought bread, butter, juices and the like.
Funny fact: the bread is packed in packs of 4,5,6,10 slices. If I'm lucky enough, I get the 10 slices ones!! For more than 2 dollars! The fact is, you pay the price for the weight. They just make thinner slices with the same amount of bread.
Chapter 3