I'm Livin in Tokyo, Japan now and for the next 4 months
 

Hey, everyone I had a thread going from before I got to Japan and now that I'm here I'm starting a new one, I hope to be able to post every once in a while about what going on and what I've learnt while living here.
Just a few facts:
I'm living in Tokyo and I'm a college student

Guess I missed the last thread.

...so...what, you're studying abroad?

My first shopping experience was soo cool i'm livin in Jiyugaoka, and we walked to a store it was kind of cool to carry everything back (but also kinda heavy) :-D It's amazing to see how many stores there are. :-)

Also had orientation today, found out I've got so much more paper work to still do.

Oh and I'm a history major

lucky you, atleast with jyugaoka you'll never get on the wrong train at shibuya, then have to back track to naka-meguro to jump on another train to get to toristu-daigaku where your hosts are waiting for you for your first dinner with them.

:P

Harajuku is crazy but I love it. The stores have the coolest stuff and the Crepes are soooo delicious, well so is all the food :-D I'm still amazed at the number of people.

Wow, your semester started early. The university I went to here in Osaka doesn't get the ryuugakusei until next week, and classes don't even start till the week after that!

Staying with a host family?
Also, since you're in Tokyo, are all the stereotypes about the different areas and their fashion (Haraujuku punks, Shibuya fashonistas, Akihabara T-Shirts, Bandanas, and Glasses) true?

Hey nope i'm not staying with a host family I'm staying in an appartment. Yeah classes start today but I'm kinda a school person so I don't mind.
Not to sure about all the areas, I haven't been to them all, but there seems to be a variety of fashions all over; yeah you may see a few more in certain areas but overall its really diverse.

My first trip to Shinjuku and I get lost *laughs at self* but it worked out ok I was looking for a book store and found it after asking three different people which way to go. Considering I got lost trying to get out of the station tells you how well I am with directions. It was definitely an adventure, an interesting and overall fun adventure. :-D

You dont have to be bad with directions to get lost around Shinjuku station. Without a map its hard to get Orientation. Shinjuku is far the worst in Tokyo (in terms of getting lost) as it is the biggest Station.

thanks, i didn't know it was the biggest, that kinda makes me feel not so silly I guess. :-)

if i recall right it is even the busiest in the world with over 2 millionen people passing through a day. Other stations might be bigger ( i think Nagoya is) but Shinjuku is hard to navigate for beginners. Its ok as long as you stay insinde, you can follow the signs, but meeting with you friend or searching a specific exit is difficult the first times.

Anyone have any good maps of the station? I found a few for other stations in Tokyo but could for this one. We're going to be based out of Shinjuku so I'd be interested for our trip. Thanks!

Shinjinku station is HUGE over 150 exits alone. Had lots of fun trying various ones out when I was there this year.

I found it very easy to get around in with so many visable landmarks but finding an exact place can be tricky.

Map

Doesn't really help I know.

I am sooo exited I got to go to the GazettE's tour final in Saitama. it was awsome i love their music. i had a nose bleed seat but i could still see great. i do have to explain something though, i am a 5' 5'' long blond hair green eyed american, that kinda tells you i stood out just a little bit while there, but it was cool i like trying and feeling new things. :)

So basically the concert was GREAT!!! :D

loves to GazettE :rheart:

Try having red hair and freckles :D

hehehe yeah that's different too :)

I just got a bike today and what happens i get lost even a cop said i was too far from where i was headed. (just my luck :( ) but it worked out ok found where i was headed after about 4 hours of riding/walking. only had 1 colision and 1 near miss :eek: so not to bad i think for my first day of riding around Tokyo, i haven't quite figured which comes first in importance pedestrian or biker... i guess ped. but not sure. i'm riding tomorrow, hopefully no hits *crosses fingures*

YAY I made it to the end of the week without hitting anyone else I'm so proud :-D so yeah biking is fun especially when you get used to it and figure out what you're supposed to do :-)

Jnekolove, it seems to be interesting, let us know, how does the student housing in Japan look like (you can try www.seemyliving.com). I´m definitely interested, while i do live in a different part of the globe and was spending my studies at "common" european colleges. I´m sure many of european educated people would be also curious.

Regards

Robert

hey its been a while i've been so busy:

I've been to Kokyo (imperial palace) in Tokyo
to the Tokyo National Museum (just had to do it I'm a history junky)
to Shikinejima Island to go camping (it's beautiful but there is aloooooot of bugs)
to Akihabara which is crazy fun :-D
and of course last but not least School (lots and lots of school work)

All in all I've been having loads of fun

If you have any questions or comments about my adventures don't hesitate to PM me or post of course :-) also if you have any suggestions of some other cool adventures I could try just let me know Thanks

not only are there loads of bugs here, but theyre FRIGGIN MASSIVE!

umm tokyo metropolitan tower in shinjuku is nice, and its free to go up to the observation level to see just how huge tokyo is.

Yup, pretty big ;)

Also yeah, Japanese bugs are massive. In America you can barely see mosquitoes. In Japan? They freakin walk up and strike up a conversation with you. Or they fly up and get in your face like WHAT, WHAT, WANNA STEP?? And then suck all your blood and when you finally smash them there's like a small pool of your own blood on the floor and your girlfriend freaks out and runs away and this is in no way related to actual events >_>

man, tell me about it,.... last night this spider the size of my palm just strolled across my living room floor like if effin' owned the place.

when i finally got over the shock of seeing something that big, i grabbed a can of assjet ( earth jet really but i like calling it assjet) and went to spray it,..... i'm pretty sure it looked up at me and went " 'sup?"

I lol'd pretty hard. :D

I was at my part time job the other day and the doors and windows were open so a moth flutters in like "hay guise!". My boss goes like "oh I got this", grabs a can of assjet, and freaking powerwashes half the room with it. I'm sitting there watching, slowliy lifting my shirt up over my nose, wondering why the hell he didn't just shoo it out the wide-open door that was less than a meter away.

:rolleyes:

Oh, not to mention the other week the King of Cockroaches sauntered into the apartment and my girlfriend flipped OUT. She was in the corner with her hands curled up to her chin and one leg lifted up and EVERYTHING. and as I crossed the room she would follow me, clinging to my back and whining. It was nothing short of hilarious.

haha been there too!

mind you i really really hate roaches more than anything else so yeah i would probably have done the same thing.

assjet rocks on roaches too!

Ok what as earthjet i need to get some of that i have massive roaches around my appartment. And the I'm headed for the tower this weekend :-)

Also i just went camping in Doshimura it was nice; reminded me of the mountains back home, very beautiful :-D they told us it would be cold but it wasn't really it was really nice, we did make a campfire though. (fire is always fun)

oh yeah and i highly agree Japan is BIG :-)

click on the link in my signature, it'll take you to my not so awesome blog where i put a picture of assjet up. you should be able to find them in the drugstores that populate every corner of tokyo.

enjoy the towers. :D

How is a-su jyeto not assjet?


That doesn't sound like Earth.

Awesome,Am thinking of studying college in japan,Am in grade 9 and I still have around 4 years to go..Did you visit Kyoto :D,Is it green?I really wanna live in Tokyo too. :pompoms:,How about treating the train station as an RPG game? :pinkart: ASSJET for the win! :pandahurray:

Maybe i'll run into you in dec :p

Awesome then!Someone to explore japan with!(RPG) :D !

Wow there is some random stuff here, now I know what happens when I don't post for awhile :-)

Well my latest adventure was to Osaka and Kyoto. I went to both in one weekend and still got to see so much. In Kyoto I had a friend that was there at the same time so he showed me and my other friends around. In Osaka we got to see Osaka Castle where we got stalked by a creepy old man and had a parrot put on our sholder. All in all the trip was great, to anyone coming to Japan if you have the chance I recommend going to both Osaka and Kyoto.
:-)

It's been crazy busy with classes, Japanese is hard to learn (for me anyways)

I haven't done much adventuring since the last post but I did celebrate Halloween. It was crazy awsome I dressed up like a zombie and walked around Shibuya with about 12 of my friends and scared people for about 3 hours, it was AWSOME. I will never forget making a man in a business suit scream like a girl, or the group of school girls I made run the opposite direction they were going, my friend even made one guy run an entire block (but she did sneak up on him so... :D ), so many memories. Also now I know what its like to be a celeb what with taking so many pictures and people actually chasing me down for them. That part did however get old by the third hour but hey what can you expect when you look like a zombie in the middle of Shibuya. :D

If you want to hear more about the fun that was scaring people in shibuya just ask I am more than willing to share. :D

this is a link to the video that was posted of the zombie walk on youtube I'm not in it just two of my friends are :-) its so cool
YouTube - Zombie Attack in Shibuya

wow im feeling so envious right now, please keep on writing if your not busy with your school work that is. Oh and also tell us how school in japan is like.

Cheers!

Yeah living in Japan is awsome. :D

I think I need to clarify something though because I have been asked this a couple of times now. I am studying at an American university here in Tokyo so all my classes are in english, which also makes the whole atmosphere and teaching methods alot different from the Japanese universities. School though is awsome; tough but awsome.

Wow that's cool, a english unv.

OMG Tokyo Tower is huge. As you can tell my latest adventure was to celebreate my birthday and what better way than to go to Tokyo Tower and get a bird's eye view of the place I've been living. It was awsome though I did freak out just a little on the way up (I'm a tiny bit scared of hights). Also I went to this really cool place in Shibuya called the Lockup which was awsome, got scared by monsters and a birthday cake and all. :-) I highly recommend spending a birthday in Tokyo, its awsome. :-)

happy belated birthday !

Ahh! I read all of this... you are sooo lucky that you are living in Japan! Is my dream... is true that in Japan the bugs , insects in general are BIG then? :eek:

Thanks :-) I really love living in Japan :-)
About the bugs i think it really depends on where you're at for example yeah in Tokyo the cockroachs are pretty big and when i went to the island to camp the spiders and ants were amazingly big. But other than the occasional creepy crawly in your appartment, you don't see the bugs that much.