I feel like I will be waking at 6am very often during my stay in Japan, because today I once again woke up around 6am. After getting ready, the Ritsumeikan buddies: Mayu and Haruka, picked us up from our accommodations and walked with us to the bus stop. Buddies are students from Ritsumeikan who volunteer to help out the study abroad students who come to their school.

They took us to the classroom that orientation was being held. During orientation we got split into four groups: A,B,C,D. For the purpose of field excursions. I am in group C with my friend Franz (thank god, because I stick to him like glue). They give us a quick overview of rules, classes, and what to expect. Then by groups we went to the University’s cafeteria. (100x better than any restaurant in FIU)

I had chicken with some sweet sauce thing and rice! It was super delicious and it left me feeling nice and full. Once lunch was over we split into groups again and new buddies led us on a tour through the university. In our group there is this really cool girl named Elaine and she can speak fluent Japanese but cannot write it safe her life. (She comes to Japan often). I really hope we become great friends, and that way I have a pen-pal in Illinois. The tour took about an hours and I did not record any of it because…well…I forgot. Sorry, but I promise to get more video footage of the university in days to come.

Right the tour was over, we were guided to a museum owned by the university called: World Peace. I would go into detail about what the museum, but it was all in Japanese (go figure!). So I understood the jist of it. The museum was about peace and how Japan has involved from being violent to being peaceful.

The museum tour was quickly over since most of us could not understand what the writings on the walls meant. As soon as that was over, we, FIU students, set fourth to buy a bus pass for the month since the University no longer provides them for its students ( we learnt this recently too, total bummer ).

Later we walked to Sanyou dori, a little street with a bunch of shops and super markets. Most of us were in dire need of doing groceries, because we gotta eat! We took an awful long time grocery shopping, we went in about 3-4 shops, and they had 2-3 floors. Nothing like the States for sure.

The day does come off as kinda boring, and I am not going to lie it would have been if there weren’t people around to make everything super fun and funny.

For dinner I was in no mood to cook, because I needed food ASAP. So Michelle, Riley, Amanda and I went to a litter restaurant across the street called Teg. Everything was in Japanese so we just picked at random and hoped for the best. ( We got lucky this time) And it also turned out that Teg was a Korean restaurant…so I ate Korean food in Japan.

Tomorrow will be much more interesting. We will be going to the golden pavilion! But first I must take my placement exam for my Japanese class, so I am off to review some grammar points and vocabulary words before hitting the hay!