1998.05.28 THU

Well, it's been a few days since my last message, and I'm not really doing anything ELSE constructive now... so here goes ;b

Got my bank account set up... I really don't know JACK when it comes to Japanese business encounters x.x If you ever want to be humbled, try stumbling through this - all I had to do was exchange an American traveler's check into yen, start an account, and put the money into it. Man, oh, MAN it was tough when I didn't know much Japanese and the people I was talking to didn't know much English, and on top of that, I didn't know what I was doing x.x I signed my traveler's check, but he told me to leave the 'Pay to the order of' spot blank. No no, uh-uh, I don't let those checks leave my sight. I might be American but I know how easy it would be to just walk off with that money, and the bank wouldn't even know... I trust the people and all, but it's just so easy. So I had to more or less demand that I write (or in this case, stamp) the name of the bank in the blank myself, even though he assured and reassured me that they would handle it. After all -that- mess it got a little bit easier... but it was still kinda difficult considering I still don't know my address, I don't have any Japanese credentials, and I don't have a phone yet ;b

I might be getting used to this place, or I might not. I probably would have written yesterday if I wasn't sick all through it... headaches, all sorts of stuff. I think I drank too much or something, I was sick ALL day. I =thiiiink= I might be over it by now, I think it might have just been me getting used to the environment here (different food, water, etc.) But in the words of Buddy from Night Court: "I'm feeling MUCH better now..."

The dorms here are pretty nice... each room has its own separate toilet and the usual array - bed, desks, drawers, etc. The laundry room down the hall's pretty neat too... washing machine's free. The foreign student's dorm is a lot different from the Japanese dorms - western-style everything, more or less. The showers are even tall enough to accomodate me - I've been to hotels in the States where the showers aren't that tall. @.@;

One thing I won't say that I'm fond of here, though, is all the friggin' STEPS. From the train station at the bottom of the hill to the school, there's about 300-400 steps to walk up. Until 7pm there's an up-escalator, but I'm rarely home by 7pm whenever I have to use the train.

The trains here are pretty darn efficient though - I've never seen them run late, and they usually have one around whenever you need it, within about a half hour or so. Problem is, they close at about 11:30 - the other night we kinda missed the train and had to stay in Namba until 5:30am when the trains started back up x.x Me, James, Adam (the other American from ECU), and Rashapoon (a foreign student from Thailand) pretty much had to walk around the sleazy part of town for about six hours or so - ended up napping on the streets and in an apartment complex for a couple hours... ;b I thiiiiink we learned our lesson though. (I'm pretty sure that's the main reason I was so sick yesterday and the day before x.x)

Anyways... I'm pretty much out of stuff to say for now... I'll probably write again on Monday or something. Jaa ne!