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So in response to Jonathan’s comment on my last entry, I’ll talk a bit more about what I do at Keio University when I go for class.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the classes here. They seem to be done in a very Japanese style. What I mean is, we receive a reading each chapter of our textbook. This reading includes various grammar points. In class, we then go over each sentence of the reading. The teacher writes the sentence on the board, then plays a recording of the reading which reads the sentence for us. Then she erases the words and points to one of us and asks us to repeat the sentence exactly. The sentence must be repeated exactly or else it is not considered correct. The teacher does this a few times with different students and then we move on to the next sentence in the reading which she writes up on the board and the process continues.

For each paragraph, we go over the new grammar points which involves the teacher maybe giving a few example sentences and then having us make our own example sentences and then we look in our grammar book and read the example sentences there.

This is essentially what each class is comprised of. There are some other small things that we do, for example, Saturday is technically conversation class, so for maybe 30 minutes, we study a conversation which is in another textbook.

Our tests that we have after each chapter are basically tests of how well you were able to memorize the reading passage that was covered. They give key vocabulary points and then you have to make sentences. Of course, you could make your own sentences but this usually results in errors and it is looked well upon when you simply copy the same sentences as were written in the book. Grammar is tested by three or four grammar points being written and then being asked to make a sentence for each point. Using sentences that you made during homework is fine so it is quite easy.

Also for homework, we are asked various questions about the reading and usually the answer involves writing the exact sentence written in the reading. In fact, I remember back at Middlebury, my Japanese teacher (who was a Japanese man who had moved to America not too long ago) telling us that if we ever had to take a Japanese test, simply copy the sentences around where you think the answer is, and you’ll do fine since that is what they are looking for.

This is quite different from the American system (and European system, too, I think) where I remember being taught since maybe when I was a third grader that copying what was written in the book is wrong. They always stressed using one’s own words and coming up with one’s own thoughts. I still feel odd, as if I’m cheating, when I simply copy the sentences exactly out of the reading to answer the questions for homework or on the test, but this is what they expect here.

Despite all this, people do learn Japanese, it seems. There are four levels here. If you are in the fourth (highest) level, then you can essentially communicate without trouble in many different situations and read many materials pretty easily. I am in the second level at the highest sublevel (2B, 2F and 2G exist, I am in 2G. See my previous entry for more explanation of this system). It takes about one semester to complete a level. So, in my class there is a Swedish guy who I think didn’t really know that much Japanese prior to coming to Japan but he studied at Keio University last semester and completed the first level and now he’s in the same class as me. This is pretty impressive. It means that if one could spend two years (four semesters) here, they would be practically fluent in Japanese in both speaking and writing/reading.

Though I suppose having the opportunity to live in a Japanese speaking environment 24 hours a day and also being able to concentrate solely on Japanese and have many hours of classroom instruction per week helps a lot, too, in this rapid Japanese aquisition process.

As for the people in my class, there are about 18 students I think. Maybe about half of them are American. This is actually a bit unusual since I know that in many of the other classes, there are sometimes only one or two Americans. Many of my fellow classmates from Middlebury are actually in the same level as me since we took essentially the same classes so perhaps that’s how we pushed the American percentage up.

Off the top of my head, the other people in my class are from places/countries like… Germany, Sweden, Italy, Singapore, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, USA, Canada, among others. Besides the people in my class, there are people from many more countries who I have contact with in my elective classes, my dorm, etc.

In my experience here, Americans are most likely to make a joke or laugh in class. Second most likely are Europeans. Following that are Asian students who are usually pretty serious. In this program, as well as at my college in America, there is a trend of short, quiet Chinese girls who are very serious about studying.

In general, students from Anglo speaking countries tend to get along pretty well (USA, UK, Canada, Australia) as well as most Europeans. The exception being the French students. Although they are friendly sometimes, they seem to stay away from the others in their own group. I’m not sure if this by their specific choice or because they don’t feel that they speak English well enough. I’ve heard though that there are a couple of them who don’t really like English and in some of the lower classes where the students can’t speak Japanese so well, the teachers sometimes give small explanations in English, which the French students protest to.

The best English speakers are the Scandinavians, particularly the Swedish guys I have talked to. They usually have no problems with vocabulary and have minimal accents. One guy in particular who I talked to has never lived in America, though if he had told me he were American, I wouldn’t have known any better. He has no accent and speaks without any problems. People from the German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) also have very good English, usually having no trouble communicating. Outside of that, in general, the other Europeans can get by pretty well in English.

The worst speakers of English are the Koreans. They usually have such poor knowledge of English that they speak to us in Japanese. This makes sense since Korean is in some ways similar to Japanese and so Koreans can make quick progress in the language while English is very different for them.

In my dorm, there are actually a large number of German speakers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland so it is not uncommon for me to hear conversations in German or see groups of my friends from the dorm on the street holding speech in German. I’ve broken out my limited rusty German that I built up when I studied it shortly before and have also gotten them to teach me some things. By the end of this year I’ll probably be somewhat conversational in German. They are teaching me phrases such as “Hast du Schaben in deinem Zimmer?” (Do you have cockroaches in your room?)

One thing that has become particularly evident for me by living with a large number of Europeans is that they don’t smile as readily as people do in America, especially the Germans and Scandinavians it seems. If I had not known this fact from before, I might have thought they were somewhat unfriendly. Often when seeing them in passing, they will greet you but their faces will stay emotionless; it is like looking at a statue. Americans, on the other hand, almost always smile immediately upon seeing someone they know.

Anyway, for now, I’m going to finish some homework. Hopefully I’ll write sooner next time. If there’s anything in particular you want to know about, just leave me a comment.

I decided I needed some listening practice in Japanese, so I plugged the headphones into my cell phone and started listening to Japanese radio. Right now I’m listening to these guys who are interviewing people about reading novels on their cell phones. Can you imagine reading a whole novel on that little screen on your cell phone? According to them, they’re saying that 65% of Japanese youth have read a novel on their cell phone. That’s pretty crazy. Though, I’m pretty sure I haven’t spotted anyone on the trains here reading any novels but then again, I’m not really looking that often.

Speaking of things people do on the train, it is interesting to see here in Japan adults doing things that are usually associated with kids back in the United States. For example, I saw a middle aged women playing a Game Boy while walking through the train station. The other day, I was sitting next to a businessman who was playing a PSP. Of course, there are plenty of kids playing these portable game systems, but it is surprising sometimes to see grown ups doing the same. In the ads that they play on the screens inside the trains, I remember seeing an ad for a Game Boy cartridge that was basically a cookbook. I remember thinking what sort of kid would want to buy a cookbook for his Game Boy. Or, what kind of 6 year old cooks anyway? But now I see that they target adults with their ads which is something they do not do at all in America.

Also, even more popular than the hand held gaming systems in the train is the reading of “manga”, a type of comic that originated in Japan. Manga is usually read in one of two forms. Either in a bound book which is specific to a series and consists of one volume or in a large “magazine” type book which consists of cheaper paper and is much, much thicker. It usually looks more like a phone book (though not as heavy because the pages are cheap and big) and consists of various chapters from many different series of manga. I often see businessmen and others reading these on the train. Manga stories consist of anything and everything. Manga stores are much more common in Japan than comic book stores are in America and as can be told from the fact that businessmen and others read them, they are much more prevalent in Japanese society than comic books are in America.

Though probably the number one thing you see being done on the train is people staring down at their phones furiously moving their fingers. Usually they are sending e-mails to people or playing games (which are pretty advanced) on their cell phones. In Japan, it is not permitted to actually speak on one’s phone while on the train. People actually follow this despite nobody being around to enforce it. I’ve actually only seen someone on the train talking on his cell phone once and that was not because I heard him speaking in to it but rather because I noticed him bent all the way over in his seat so that his face was parallel with the ground. At first I didn’t know what was going on but then I noticed this businessman had one hand up to his ear and the other hand covering the mouth and receiver so I figured he was talking on his cell phone. To be honest, the two people further away from me on the train talking softly were louder than he was. But I guess it shows that people take the no talking on the cell phone in the train rule here pretty seriously.

Apparently it is expensive to make calls on one’s cell phone here, so people mostly send each other e-mails on their phones (basically the equivalent of text messaging though there is another form of sending messages called c-mail which is cheaper for a particular cell phone provider here called AU). So, in America, you might get annoyed because people are yelling into their cell phones constantly all around you. Here, in Japan, you might get annoyed because the person in front of you on the narrow sidewalk is walking so slowly because he or she is looking straight down at his or her cell phone typing out a message.

In other news, I had more bank trouble. When I went to Keio University’s international center to give them my Japanese bank account information so that I could pay for rent, they asked me to write my name down on a form as it is written in my bank book and that’s when I realized the bank had misspelled my middle name.

In Japanese, they use one of their two phonetic alphabets to spell foreigners’ names (they have three alphabets in all). So, for my middle name, Barraclough, it’s spelled out using the characters for BARAKUROU. But for whatever reason, they accidently used the character for “N” instead of “RA”, so my middle name in the bank book became BANKUROU. Quite a different transformation from the original “Barraclough”, eh?

Anyway, I went back to the bank and waited around for my number to be called. Luckily I ran into another student from my program, a German kid named Johannes, so I was able to talk to him while I waited. I finally got up to the counter and explained my problem and filled out some paperwork to have my name changed. They printed a new bankbook and gave it to me. I was supposed to have gotten my ATM card that day from the bank but because they had the wrong name from before, my card had to be destroyed and I’ll have to go back next week when they have my new card with the correct name ready.

One of the things I forgot to mention from before was the man who stands in front of the doors. I guess he’s a security guard since the bank is fairly busy and fairly big but the interesting thing is how he says “Irrashaimase” (“Welcome”) to every person who walks in. I remember the first time I was there for about an hour and he must have said this phrase at least a hundred times in essentially the same tone and length. Also, the workers waiting around would occasionally say “Irrashaimase” as well when customers walked in. So, all in all, it was a lot of “Irrashaimase”s, it must get pretty tiring though this is an important part of welcoming customers in Japan.

I think I remember hearing that they used to hire people in Japan specifically for the purpose of standing at the doors to shops and department stores in order to bow and say “Irrashaimase” to every customer who walked in. I haven’t seen this here yet. Perhaps this occurred in the past when Japan’s economy was doing very well and they had extra money to burn. These days, most Japanese companies have cut back on these extra things including such things as golf trips every weekend, nights out at the bars for workers on the company’s tab, etc.

Anyway, it’s time for me to do some homework. Until next time.

It’s Wednesday which means I just finished up the hardest day of the week in terms of classes. I have classes during periods 1, 2, 4 and 5 which means that I have to get to Keio University by 9:00am for my first class and stay there until the end of my last class which is at 6:00pm. Add dinner and then the commute back and I don’t get to my room until around 8:00pm or so.

Luckily though, we don’t have any homework tonight so I have time to put up another entry. In the mornings, the first train I have to take is particularly crowded but I think I’ve discovered a secret. If I walk all the way to the very end and take one of the last cars, it is sometimes not as crowded and people aren’t shoved up against me as hard as in the other cars. Actually, I can’t take the very last car because it is a women only car. Sometime ago they made the women only car available during the morning rush hour because of the growing “chikan problem”. “Chikan” meaning pervert in Japanese. When I was in one of these cars (not during rush hour), I took a photo of one of the numerous signs that are all over the car on the inside, outside and in the station. You’ll see that photo down below.

Recently I bought a new digital camera which is much smaller than my old one so it will be easier for me to carry it around and take photos. I bought it in Shibuya one night and it cost me about 8,800 yen (about $76) for the camera and 2,980 yen for a 256MB memory card (about $25) which means I can take about 160 photos at one time. I figured 160 photos at one time was good enough for me. I’m quite pleased with the camera since it wasn’t as expensive as I expected it to be and it’s much lighter and smaller (as I said before) than my older one.

Anyway, here are some photos I took using my new camera.

Sangenjaya is the name of the place where I live in Tokyo. Everytime I go to class or pretty much anywhere else in Tokyo, I walk about 8 to 10 minutes to the station to catch a train. Here is one of my station’s signs from inside.

While waiting for the train, I took this photograph inside the station. The trains here are loooong. I’m not even standing at the end of the platform, either.

Here is the photo of the “Women Only” sign that I was talking about before, taken from inside the car.

From my last entry, I mentioned eating chuukasoba (Chinese style soba) and gyoza. I ate at the same place for lunch a few days ago and took photographs of the dishes. So if you had no idea what I was talking about before, here’s your chance to see a photograph of that food right here in Tokyo, Japan!

Chuukasoba…

And the gyoza…

Another place I often eat at is called “Yayoiken” and it is part of a chain I believe. There’s one nearby my dorm and I often walk 8 minutes or so to get there. I almost always eat katsudon there. If you don’t know what katsudon is, I’ll explain it sometime when I have photographs. It’s basically a bowl of rice with pork cutlet, egg and sometimes some vegetables on top. To get to Yayoiken, I have to walk down a small street which is lined with many “restaurants”. They are not restaurants in the same sense as restaurants in America since there are no real waiters or waitresses and many of these places are simply ramen shops or sushi shops which are their own categories in themselves. Here’s a picture of part of that street I walk down.

One of the common things for small restaurants in Japan which does not occur at all in the United States is the use of machines outside or just inside the door where one buys tickets for the food that one wants. Once one has purchased a ticket, one walks in, hands the ticket over and then waits for the food. If you want beer or some other drink, you also buy a ticket for it at these machines. However, at most restaurants, iced Japanese tea is served for free. And if not that, there is usually a pitcher of water. Here is a picture of the machine while I was sitting inside Yayoiken. The machine is actually outside the doors to the restaurant.

Here is a photograph of the machine while I was standing in front of it buying my ticket for katsudon. Actually this is a photograph of a different machine from the one pictured above. There are two machines for this particular restaurant that stand about 10 feet opposite of each other. I guess they don’t want costumers waiting. According to the sign in red near the bottom, apparently you can pay with 10,000 yen bills (almost $100) here. The machine works by simply putting in coins or bills and then pressing the button for what you want. Once you purchase something, your ticket and change both appear at the bottom together in that silver looking bin.

An odd thing happened to me at this very machine a few weeks ago. I was reading this book on my computer and it was talking about how we often overlook physical things in our lives because our brains are trained to only recognize certain things. Perhaps it’s something similar to how when you’re thinking of buying a particular car, you start to see them everywhere when prior to your thinking about the car, you never really noticed them. Anyway, one of the exercises in the book said to envision finding money and you would find money. I had read on the Internet messages from people actually doing this and finding money when they had never before, so having nothing better to do during the 10 minute walk or so to this Yayoiken restaurant and also having it on my mind since I had just read the chapter before walking over, I envisioned finding money. When I finally got to the Yayoiken, I started putting my money into the machine and went to press the button for “katsudon” when I looked down and noticed 350 yen (about $3) sitting right there in the silver bin. I was kind of surprised because the change comes out in the same bin right next to the ticket when you order something, so it’s impossible to miss it. This was also the first time I had found money unattended in many, many years. Since then, I haven’t done the exercise again and I also haven’t seen any money anywhere except my own when paying for things. Japanese people seem to be very careful with their bills and coins (I suppose since the coins are worth a lot here, they even have a $5 coin). Anyway, thinking about it now, perhaps I should continue doing this exercise so I can start generating some real revenue!

Here is an upclose shot of the machine where I found the 350 yen.

Lastly, I took a shot of Shibuya, one of the major places to go for restaurants, shopping and various other stores. Shibuya is only two stops away from my station, so I go there often. Also, on my way to Keio University everyday, I have to change trains here. I took this photo while waiting for the light to change in order to cross the street. At all times, Shibuya is absolutely packed with people. If you look closely, you can sort of see the mobs of people waiting on the other side of the street to the left and walking on the sidewalk even further back. Many people call Shibuya the “Times Square” of Japan. It’s not hard to imagine why with the huge screens and crowds of people.

Although I don’t have any specific homework tonight, I should probably read the next paragraph in our reading in order to prepare for tomorrow’s class since we’ll be asked to repeat these same sentences over and over again then. I suppose I’ll write about the class format in my next entry since it seems very Japanese-like to me.

I woke up in an odd twilight. My room was mostly dark except for the bright lines of light that shone around the edges of the curtains I had pulled the night before. Though I don’t like waking up in darkness, I have to pull the curtains here or the never-ending, robotic lights at night from outside will continue to light up the inside of my room like a jackolantern.

I put my hand down over the side of my bed and felt around until it hit my wristwatch and then my cellphone. I grabbed the cellphone and opened it to check the time. The bright light shone forth and I had to squint my eyes as I leaned forward to read the time since I didn’t have my contacts in. 13:30. I translated that back to real time, 1:30pm. I tried to remember what time I had gone to sleep the night before. 12 or 1am perhaps. A lot of my friends don’t understand how I’m able to sleep so long. Maybe it’s because sleeping is one of my favorite activities. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t get the chance to sleep more than five hours a night for most of the last week.

Even though it was Monday, I knew I didn’t have to go to class because the new schedule our teacher handed out during Saturday classes announced that it was “Health and Sports Day”, some sort of national holiday. I didn’t really know what “Health and Sports Day” meant or why it existed. Nobody explained it but the fact that I didn’t have classes was good enough for me.

I got ready and walked down the stairs in my socks. As I entered the main area located right inside the doors, I saw a new sign posted on the message board. Seeing as it was written in perfect engrish, I knew that it could only be from our dear residence manager. “Public space  not fire  not use cooking”, “please send in it the control room. when you have a party”. Then I remembered from early Saturday morning as I rode the subway to school that two of my fellow dormmates, an Egyptian kid who grew up in Germany and a Singaporan girl who was going to college in London, were talking about some sort of “pot party” where they were going to throw a bunch of food they had into a pot and make it. They had invited me to come but I declined since that night I was to meet with my fellow Middlebury friends. In addition, there were two Middlebury students who were studying in Kyoto this year who had come up from Kyoto for the weekend to meet with us so I surely had to decline this new invitation.

I looked at the sign again and laughed to myself. The sign must have been put up as a result of their “pot party”. I walked into the small sideroom and located the box that said “209″, opened the plastic door and took my all white, adidas shoes out. I carried them over to the edge of where the shoe room met the area directly next to the outside doors. I put the shoes down on this area where it was okay for the outside world to be put. I then stepped directly into my shoes making sure my socks only touched the floor of the shoe room and the inside of my shoes. I could not let the bottom of my socks touch the area outside the doors or let the bottom of my shoes touch the floor of the shoe room since this would surely cause contamination.

Safely in my shoes, I walked to the doors, turned the lock and opened them. I walked five feet and opened the second set of doors and heard the first doors close and then the lock electronically locking again behind me. I stepped outside and was greeted with a sunny day. The bright light hurt my eyes and felt unusual to me after several days of rain.

While it was sunny, it was also cool and a bit windy. I zipped up my light jacket halfway and thought of how the weather reminded me of dead leaves scuttling across pavement and soccer games. I suppose some things don’t change much even when you’re half way around the world. I turned right out the doors and walked to the end of the street before turning right again, trying to see despite the bright light and the fact that my pupils hadn’t fully contracted yet in response.

I walked down the long street I have to walk down everytime I want to get to the subway station which is nearly everyday since if I want to get anywhere like school or Shibuya, I have to take the subway. Although I’ve already walked through this long street many, many times, there are always new stores or restaurants that suddenly make themselves aware to me. Sometimes a restaurant I saw my first time walking down the street but failed to notice again from that day on will appear to me again and remind me of its existence. I suppose this occurs because I’m not used to these Japanese stores and restaurants, I don’t have categories set up in my head to place them under, so they slip away or never get recognized by my darting eyes.

Today though, I am looking for a particular restaurant to eat lunch at. It is a chain and my friends and I had eaten at one in Shibuya. In fact, when I became aware of its existence in Shibuya, I began to notice that there were actually three or four different ones in Shibuya and one right by my dorm.

I finally locate it at the end of the street and walk in where the guy screams “irrashaimase!” at me, “welcome”, as he does to every customer who walks in. I walk to the back of this narrow restaurant to where the counter is located and sit down. Immediately after sitting down, a woman puts down a glass of water in front of me and I take the menu out of its holder in front of me. I already know what I’m going to get. Soba and gyoza with meat in them. I can read the characters for gyoza with meat in them but I can’t read all of the characters for the particular soba dish I want. The two characters seem familiar but allude me like an apparition.

Perhaps 10 seconds after looking at the menu, the waitress comes over and asks me in Japanese if I’m ready to order. I point to the soba dish I want and ask her in Japanese how to read the two characters. She responds, saying something that sounds similar to the sight of a car rushing past you at 80 miles per hour. Oh, I say, I’ll have that and the ninniku gyoza then. She walks away and I put the menu back in its holder. I’ll look up the characters when I get home.

As I wait, I put my hand into my pocket and pull out my notecards. I made flashcards with all the Japanese words I come across that I do not know in class or in life. I begin to go through them. Six words per card. After years of doing this for Spanish, French and other languages, I’ve learned that more than six per card is too maddening to look at or study and one soon gives up. Japanese on one side, English on the other. Write it upside down on the other side so you can flip the card more easily in crowded places. Although I’ve done it that way for years, perhaps I never made full use of this particular feature of my cards until I came to Japan and rode their subways.

First they bring me the gyoza. Dumpling like things. My friend called them “pot stickers” that other day and when talking about them in Japanese or ordering them, he mistakenly and repeatedly called them “ginza”, the name of the famous shopping district in Tokyo, rather than their real name “gyoza”. As far as I can tell, there are two kinds here, the meat ones and the non-meat ones. I’m not a vegetarian so I opt for the meat ones.

They then bring me the soba I asked for. Noodles in broth with a piece of nori (seaweed), some other vegetation and thin slices of meat. I put my notecards away and eat my meal. It is delicious and I fill my glass with water from the pitcher set in front of me.

After a while, it is finished. I get up, grab the receipt that the waitress had put down next to me and walk to the front of the restaurant to where the cash register is located. I look down at the receipt and see that it is 580 yen. There is no tipping custom in Japan so 580 yen is the true total. Exactly $5. I pay and leave the store, walking back into the bright light and turning left.

I walk back down the street the opposite way I had come. I dodge bicycles and pass people on the right, trying to remember what homework I have to do that is due tomorrow. In a few hours, it will probably be dark again.

First thing to say is that I have a new domain name. You can now get to my blog by going to http://www.robbieinjapan.com/ — pretty cool, eh? I have Mikey to thank for that for purchasing the domain name and setting it up. Oh, it was also his birthday on the third, so happy birthday to him.

I’ve been getting a lot of helpful comments on my entries recently (such as you, Jimmy) so if you haven’t been already, you should check out the comments section by clicking on the comments link below each entry. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment under the entry, too and I’ll respond to it by posting a comment underneath it. Or, if you just want to say hi, feel free to leave a comment, too.

Also, something I forgot to mention in my last entry about umbrellas is that even when it’s not raining and it’s bright daylight outside, you will still see them. Many women use parasols (which is what I guess you start calling the same thing when it’s no longer raining outside) in order to not get a tan since having white skin is normally considered beautiful. There are a few exceptions to this rule in Japan mainly for a particular fashion style where the girls try to get as tan as possible and then either add a fake tan or lots of makeup (they end up looking an orangish color). It is an odd fashion style that’s been around for a while and I’ll talk more about it once I snag some pictures of them sometime.

Anyway, it’s raining again today, as it was yesterday. I’m beginning to get into the habit of grabbing an umbrella on my way out, right after I take my shoes out of my shoe box and put them on my feet by the door to the outside. Today was particularly windy as well and my umbrella kept turning inside out as I walked to and from dinner.

So today I didn’t have classes and spent the time sleeping in, cleaning my room, studying (since I have class tomorrow on Saturday). After tomorrow, I will have completed the second week of classes.

I attend Keio University but do their Japanese as a second language program which focuses on teaching foreigners Japanese. I also have the option of taking undergraduate and graduate courses in English but I chose not to do that this semester since most of their Economics courses didn’t seem too interesting to me and I would rather spend the time learning Japanese this first semester. I might take a course in English next semester. These English courses are normal undergraduate and graduate courses and I guess Japanese students who want to use their English take them. Also, if I get up to a high enough level in the Japanese program (I think level 3 or higher), I am allowed to take normal undergraduate classes which are in Japanese. I don’t think I’ll be doing this since my Japanese isn’t that good!

So for the Japanese program, there are four levels seperated by skill level. In each level, there are various sublevels. They look like this:

1F, 1G
2B, 2F, 2G
3B, 3F, 3G, 3H
4B, 4F

The lower the number, the less advanced the class is. The earlier the letter in the alphabet, the less advanced it is. Level 1 is if you don’t know Japanese at all or have only studied it a little before. Level 4 is if you’re at a fluent level. In fact, if it’s your first semester in the program, you’re not allowed to enter level 4. We all took a placement test and I placed into 2G.

My core classes are all 2G classes. These usually take place in the morning. There are five periods each day (except maybe Saturday, I think there may only be two or three periods, I’m not sure). Each period is an hour and a half. There is a 15 minute break between each period and after the second period, there is an hour break before the third period so that you can eat lunch.

My 2G classes are on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Each day, it is for two periods in the morning. So that means 9:00 to 12:15. These 2G classes are Japanese language classes that teach us everything, meaning we read, write, speak, listen, etc. We are also required to take 5 periods worth of electives which usually occur during the afternoon.

These electives usually pertain to one particular aspect of Japanese. There are grammar classes, kanji (Japanese character) writing classes, reading newspaper classes, aural comprehension classes and so on. There are also various skill levels for each class, so you can take beginning aural comprehension or advanced aural comprehension. During the first week, we’re allowed to sit on as many elective classes as we want to see what they’re like. After the first week, we are required to register for classes and the second week marks the real beginning. Since I’ve just completed my second week of classes, I have already registered for my classes and gone through them.

For my electives, I’m taking newspaper reading, modern text reading and aural comprehension. I took the reading classes since I’ve always wanted to read newspapers and various texts in Japanese and I took the aural comprehension class because I need work in understanding spoken Japanese. I’m not sure why they call it “aural” here. I think they always used “oral” back in the United States.

Anyway, my newspaper reading class is one period in the afternoon on Mondays. My modern text reading class is two periods in the afternoon on Tuesdays and my aural comprehension class is two periods in the afternoon on Wednesdays. So the two days where I have absolutely no classes are Fridays and Sundays. It is a bit annoying that they have classes on Saturdays since that messes up the weekend.

This week, I wanted to open a bank account. Well, I had to since Keio University wants us to have a Japanese bank account in order to pay for our housing. I had to wait until Thursday to open the account though, since the banks here seem to close around 3pm and I have class in the afternoon Mondays through Wednesdays.

So I went to the bank yesterday after my classes at Keio and eating lunch. The bank was fairly big. It’s called Sumitomo Mitsui Bank I believe. It’s the green one. The three major banks here can be identified by their associating colors. There’s green, blue and red I think. This is actually the only bank that will allow me to open an account. The other banks require that one has lived in Japan for at least 6 months before they will make an account. Actually, although my bank will let me make an account, it will not be a normal account until after 6 months have passed. Until then, I have a special “ryuugakusei” account I think which is for foreign students. One of the annoying parts about this is that everytime money is sent or deposited into my account, the bank will call me and ask me to authorize it. Once my account becomes a “normal” account, this will no longer happen.

So anyway, I went in and went up to a lady standing there by the ticket giving machine where you take a number and said “koza wo tsukuritain desu ga” (I want to open a bank account) and she bowed deeply and said “arigatou gozaimasu” (thank you very much). She asked me if I had a “gakusho” (student ID card) so I took out my wallet and pulled out my Keio University student card and said “kore de ii desu ka” (will this do?) She looked down and read the top line that said “Keio University” and as I’m beginning to see is common, was visibly impressed. She gave me a form to fill out and handed me a number.

When my number was called, I went to the counter with my form and talked to the person there and set up my account. I don’t think anyone at this bank speaks English. My friend who had gone to open his account the week before doesn’t speak Japanese as well as I do and when he was there, the original person he was trying to speak with got too fed up with trying to communicate with him in Japanese so another person came and tried explaining by making huge, ridiculous gestures which he said was pretty amusing.

In any case, we only communicated in Japanese while I was going through the process of opening my account as she explained the different rules and things I would have to do. I can see how not knowing any Japanese would make things particularly difficult.

Also, on the form where it asked me my birthday, I couldn’t fill it out since it asked me to put down the year of my birth in terms of the Japanese system which is based on when the emperor is put into power and dies. I didn’t know what my year of birth was in this system so I had to ask the woman and she did some calculations before telling me “61″. So apparently I was born in the year “61″. Although curiously enough, months and days are done exactly the same way as most of the rest of the world. It’s only the year system that is different. I just looked up the Japanese emperor system and see now that I was born in year 61 of Showa (the emperor’s posthumous name since once an emperor dies, he is given a new name which will be used for the dating system I believe).

Another problem that I ran into was on my form. Everything was fine except for where I was supposed to write my name, I wrote “KUNZ, ROBERTSON B”. Unfortunately, they said afterwards that this would not do. I had to write it as “KUNZ ROBERTSON B”, so they made me recopy my entire form on to a new one without the offending comma. So remember, in Japan, don’t use commas. Ever.

I had to put some money into the account in order to get it started. There were 9 boxes into which I could put numbers to tell them how much my initial deposit would be so I wrote “1″ and gave them 1 yen (less than a penny). So now I officially have less than a penny to my name in Japan. 

In a week or two, I’ll have to go back to the bank to pick up my ATM card. This will allow me to withdrawal money from any of my banks’ ATMs. I know that at Keio University’s campus, they have these three booths which are ATMs for the three major banks so perhaps I’ll withdrawal money from there since I know there are no ATMS from my bank around the area where I live.

So far, I’ve been using my American bank’s ATM card to withdrawal money from the post office’s ATM. This is perhaps not a good idea since my friends recently told me that if you do this, the surcharge is $10 for each withdrawal. I’m not sure why the charge is so high but it will be avoided once I get my Japanese bank ATM card and transfer more than a penny to it.

It’s Friday and so I have to study now since I have class tomorrow morning. And even though it will be Saturday tomorrow, the morning trains will still be crowded. This is life in Japan.

Since I’ve gotten here, it’s rained quite a bit. For the first week, I remember it rained everyday except for one day I think. When a day finally came along with sun, I thought I was in a different place when I stepped out of my dorm.

Today was also a rainy day. Japanese people love umbrellas. Every Japanese person you see outside will be holding an umbrella which makes it very easy to spot the foreigners since they tend not to have or use any umbrellas. Even if a Japanese person is riding a bicycle or other form of transportation, he or she will be holding an umbrella up. At the front of every restaurant and store there is an umbrella holding grate where you can put your umbrella. Many stores also offer plastic bags at the front of the building which you can put your umbrella in and carry with you. Raincoats do not really exist for normal use. Luckily at the dorm, we have a whole bunch of umbrellas near the shoe area (the place where we have to take off our shoes and put them away before stepping further into the dorm), so I do not get too wet.

One thing about using umbrellas here in Tokyo is the fact that in Japan, cars are driven on the left side of the road and people walk down the sidewalk on the left side. Most people are right handed which means most people tend to hold their umbrellas with their right hand, meaning that usually the umbrella is off center to the right. This becomes a problem when you’re walking down a crowded Tokyo sidewalk since everyone’s umbrella will be occupying the middle of the sidewalk as you try to walk past each other. As a result your umbrella gets hit all the time by other umbrellas as people walk by, not to mention the people who hold umbrellas while riding bicycles who try to pass you. And to think, this could all be solved by simply walking on the right side of the sidewalk…

Another thing about walking around Tokyo is that people actually obey the crosswalk signs. They will not move until the crosswalk sign turns green, telling them they can cross. This surprised me since in the United States, people will simply cross the street as soon as they see a lull in the stream of cars going by, regardless of whether or not the crosswalk sign is green or red. When I’ve been in less busy parts of Tokyo, I have seen people standing at the edge of side streets waiting for many minutes for the crosswalk sign to turn green despite the fact that there were absolutely no cars in sight and the street they were trying to cross was a small, one way street. My friend, Andre, said that this is because in Japan, policemen will actually issue you a ticket if they catch you j-walking. To be honest though, I have never seen a policeman near any of the streets where people are crossing…

Tomorrow is Monday and will mark my second week of classes. I still have to fill out some forms for class registration, so I am going to complete that and then go to sleep. I will write more about classes later.