Orientation, Tests & Alcohol

Ok, the bandwidth of the place I'm staying sucks, so you'll get pictures when I'm next on campus!


The past couple of days have been somewhat busy:

月曜日
Primarily orientation at the Hosei campus. We took the metro there, which (including the walks to the station from accommodation and to the campus itself) was about a 45 minute job. We were taken to room F501 for the orientation, but before this was to begin we had to introduce ourselves. Whoever invented the system of everybody in the room standing up and introducing themselves whilst everyone stares at you (foreign language not withstanding) ought to have been shot. However, the orientation itself was given in both Japanese and English - so I was able to listen to the Japanese and then compare what I thought had been said with the actual translation... I came out at about 50% accuracy, so plenty to learn!

In any case, an hour later we had the tour of campus (some parts of which are still undergoing minor repairs post-earthquake) - and very lovely it is too :) Following that was the placement test: multiple-choice "insert the correct particle/kanji/phrase/grammatical construction" (delete as appropriate) The second part was to follow the following day...
After the test we had a brief talk about where we're living and some of the rules surrounding said accommodation. All terribly exciting, wouldn't you say?

To round the day off, a small group of us went a-wandering around the area in which the campus is situated (I'm not sure if it's called Ichigaya or Iidabashi). There was a rather cool looking temple, unfortunately no photos could be taken inside, but I got a good snap of the exterior!

火曜日
Yesterday was mainly part two of the placement test: the dreaded interview... Expected at 10.30, actual time - 11.55... Sweet.
In anycase, it went pretty well - I had to ask them to slow down a couple of times and forgot the word for "culture" (文化 for them that care). As a result, I'm into level 4 classes for Japanese language :)
Later that day was the welcome party for the ESOP students... Thoroughly fun and met a whole lotta Japanese folk!
To round off the day, we all (about 66% of all the students both foreign and Japanese) stocked up on alcohol and hit the park for a spot of drinking - classy right?

Right, I'm bored of typing now - and I have lots of forms to fill out for my alien registration card application which is tomorrow's job... Signing off!