着いた！

Yesterday my plane arrived at Tokyo Narita International Airport and a (rather attractive) Japanese lady was waiting in the arrivals hall for me with a sign saying オダワイヤ・ウイリアム 法政大学 (William O'Dwyer  Hosei University). She said that we were going to be waiting for another student arriving in about half an hour from America, but she got a phone call and was told that said student had missed his flight (wonder what happened there!).
So I was handed over to another employee (less attractive, and virtually silent... Though the latter was less of an issue, as I wasn't up for trying to fathom Japanese at that moment) of the company that Hosei hired to take us to our accommodation and took the hour and a half combination of trains and walking to get to 南葛西 (Minamikasai) and therein my accommodation.

The tour of my accommodation was entirely in Japanese, with the odd English word thrown in when I looked particularly mystified... As a result, I think I know what I'm doing (though I've just this second forgotten that I have to turn my name-tag back to present in the atrium!).

... Phew, just got back from that. Didn't realise how effective my air-con is!

As it turns out, my accommodation is not solely for students of Hosei, but for a few high-schools in the area as well. The entire 3rd-floor are not 大学生 but 高等学校生!


I went for a wander today around the 葛西 area which was cool - lots of convenience stores as well as a nicely large bookshop (I bought Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban to work my way through) and a music shop for all your CD and DVD needs, provided that those needs are restricted to J-pop and manga ;)
Since there's no food made for us on a Sunday, I've invested in a few large tubs of ラーメン (ramen) for eats later :)

Everyone within my accommodation seems rather shy (though there isn't much in the way of a common room, and there's one kitchen for the entire complex) so I've yet to meet many other people yet... I did bump into the other two English guys staying here and they gave the impression that their Japanese was a little stronger than mine :/ Either that, or smiling, nodding and saying はい every now and again is very convincing!

Tomorrow is orientation and a Japanese placement test, so I think a spot of revision may be in order!

With that in mind, that's this post over! Camera now has batteries, so photos with the next post... I promise!