So, what have I been doing during my first week in Japan?

I have to admit my first week in Japan has mainly been filled with visits. I went to Akihabara with New-Zealand. Akihabara is also known as the electric city, if you need anything informatics related, that’s the place to go. The place is just filled with shops, small and huge where you can find from the oldest up until the newest phone, laptop, Tablet, Television, Play station, etc. and all the electric cables you could ever dream of (if you do dream about cables, I guess…). It is supposed to be very popular with Otaku’s which might be the Japanese equivalent to ‘geeks’ or ‘nerds’. You can find loads of mangas, animes and computer games as well as the famous maid café’s. A maid café is a very strange concept which would not work anywhere but in contradictory Japan. It is a very basic Café except the girls serving you are dressed in maid costumes and you are to interact with them. You play games and take pictures. It is a little bit awkward, certainly at first, and I was happy to be there with New-Zealand who is very outgoing. Well, I guess I would never have gone had I been alone. It ended up being a fun experience and I’m very happy I got to do it.

After that I went to have supper with my friends living in Tokyo. Supper was delicious, as usual, and I really enjoyed spending time with them. My friends live in a neighborhood called Asagaya. It’s a
residential area which makes it very different to the other areas I have been to in Tokyo. It’s
atmosphere is set by all the small neighborhood shops, the people going to or coming back from
work and school, doing the groceries for that night’s dinner, going on a date, having a drink at one of
the local café’s or bars, … I love this atmosphere. At the station, most signs are written in Kanji, no
hiragana, katakana or alphabet for the illiterate tourists. However, all the main information (the
station’s name and the direction of the train) can always be found in alphabet.

The public transportation in Japan is amazing! You mainly use the trains or subways, depending on
where you are going. At each station’s ticket machines, you have a map of the train or subway
network. The station you are at is clearly indicated and all the other stations are followed by the fare
to get there from the station you are at. If you are lucky, the way I al, you have friends who have an
extra ‘suica’ or ‘passmo’ card. You basically put as much money as you want on it and you ‘beep’ it
when entering and leaving the train/subway station and it will withdraw the correct fare. You can
also use it to buy things in the conbini’s (convenience stores such as ‘SevenEleven’ and ‘Lawson’).
You also have busses, but as far as I know, they are not used as often as the trains and subways. I
guess they are mainly for when you are moving within the same neighborhood.

On the next day I went back to Ueno with London (male) to meet his Japanese girlfriend who is
studying Greek and Spanish. Her English is very good so it was easy to communicate with her. I had a great time wandering around Ueno with them. I ate Taiyaki which is a sort of hot pancake filled with sweet bean jam and shaped like a fish. After walking around for a little while longer we went to have Yakiniku. It would be kind of similar to saying we went to have barbeque in a restaurant. You
basically sit at a table in the centre of which there is a whole. The waiter brings you a bucket filled
with hot charcoal which fits perfectly in the whole of the table. You have a huge choice of meat and
side dishes on the menu, so you basically choose whatever you want. I tasted beef tongue for the
first time in my life (I’m not exactly a huge fan of meat and certainly not of ears, tongues, “feet”, liver, etc.), but I have to admit it was delicious!



What else have I done? I met some friends from Asturias to have lunch with them. It was fun to see
them in Tokyo! We had Udon together (noodles in a kind of soup with meat and veggies – similar to
ramen, different kind of noodle I guess) before I went to my future Japanese school to have an Oral
Japanese level test. I was listed as a High Beginner which made me very happy. From coming Monday on, I’ll have 3 hours of Japanese every afternoon during two working weeks. I’m really looking forward to it!

I also went to Shibuya with London, London’s girlfriend and a friend of hers. Shibuya is an extremely active and popular/fashionable neighborhood in Tokyo. That’s where the huge crossing is which is very often seen on TV when you see a movie or documentary about Tokyo. The one where heaps of people suddenly walk towards each other, as if they were going to crush one another, once the traffic lights turn green for pedestrians. We went there to check out a sports bar where we would be able to watch the Japan-Jordan football match! I ended up not watching the game because I went to have dinner at my friends place again, but I’ll definitely go there to watch the Japan-Australia game on Tuesday! It will certainly be a tighter game than the Japan-Jordan game.

Yesterday evening I went to an international party in Roppongi with London & girlfriend and with
New-Zealand. Roppongi is mostly a shopping and going out area of Tokyo where many foreigners go as well. It is not my favorite area in Tokyo for two reasons. 1. It is very stereotypical for a foreigner to go to Roppongi; 2. I don’t go out that much. I’m talking about disco-going out. But the party was great! I met loads of people. There were many Japanese people eager to meet foreigners but the best part of that party was that I spoke Japanese during most of the evening. I exchanged e-mail addresses with a few of the people I met to do some language exchanges (English-Japanese), so I am very much looking forward to that. However, today I tried to talk to a girl in the street to get some information about a hairdresser and unfortunately we weren’t able to communicate at all . It really depends on the subject I guess.