Weekly Update #3: First Week of Classes

Well, here I am for another weekly(sorta) update, covering the last two weeks! Though despite the fact that it's been two weeks, I don't have quite as much to say as the last few posts, but I guess I'll see what I've got. Also, not many photos, so sorry for any of you visual kind of folks reading here. =(

So the main highlight of two weeks ago was basically the start of this thing at Keio called the Auditing Period of classes for people in the exchange program. Basically for a week, you go and try out classes for a day before you actually register for them. Speaking of registration, registration at Keio is really quite different from the US, at least for this exchange program. They didn't give us a schedule of classes until like a week before the Auditing Period, and you register for classes on the Thursday/Friday of the week after this auditing period.

You keep going to the classes you want to take in the meantime though, even if you haven't officially registered for them yet... it's quite jarring in a way. Especially when you have to communicate what courses you plan on taking, but the university [Keio] doesn't give you any correspondence until the last minute. In the end, I'll call it a cultural difference so it's not wrong or anything, it's just... inconvenient the way it ended up causing problems with US university standards I suppose.

So as for courses, in case anyone's curious, I'll talk about what courses I'm going for this semester. The most substantial one Japanese Level 5, which is just a language course, much like I've taken at CMU. The methodology of the course is a lot different than one I'm used to though! You can see the difference between Japanese and US teaching style the most here I think - there's a lot more rote memorization and learning concepts by mimicking the examples given to you. It took a bit for me to get used to since I'm not accustomed to the kind of style, but I think it's better in the end since I tend to cut corners in language studies, and this method doesn't really let you do that. On the minus side, talk of apples or supermarkets may drive me insane now after I've listened to the textbook's audio tape of the aforementioned chapters at least like, fifty times each. >_>

Anyways, let's talk other courses that aren't as time consuming but are still courses. Aside from language class, we're taking two history classes for CMU requirements lol. The first one is called uh... Modern History of Diplomatic and Cultural Relations Between Japan and the World. The other is called Gender, Culture and Modernity in Interwar Japan. I've only had one class in each so far, and they were all kind of "do you want to take this class or not? find out after the cut!" kinds of first classes. So not much to say on this front, maybe more later if they get interesting.

I saved the best for last though - I'm also taking a class called Japanese Culture III: Anime and Video Games. As you can tell by the name, the course content is highly relevant to my interests as an anime and video game fan. The instructors are actually people who work in the field! The teacher for the anime section of the class is an actual working animator named Oosumi Yuuka, who took the first day of class to show us a compilation of some of her previous works, and explaining the different animation techniques used in each of them. Really cool. (I can't seem to find much of the stuff we saw on Youtube though, unfortunately... so I can't really share that much except for Puchi Eva, which is really funny, so I'd recommend it).

Anyways, that's all the classes I'm taking. I'll take this opportunity to take about school life now though. Language classes are at 9AM, which is worse than it sounds. ^^; It's a little less than an hour commute to school, but 8AM is rush hour, and the trains really are as packed as they look in the pictures. =( So we leave at like, 7AM to beat rush hour early, though the crowd still kinda sucks even at that time.

There's also a period of time between Periods 2 and 3 for lunch - which also ends up being a rush hour... =( We end up just waiting an hour for the crowd to pass since we don't have Period 3 classes, but it's kinda a pain. But the katsu curry is delicious so it's worth it. =D

Well, these last two weeks have mostly been school, so that's mostly it. Oh, we went to Akihabara again though! And my camera was charged for this, so I have pictures this time! Shazam~

Skyscape of Akihabara outside the station. It's cool.

A Sega gamecenter.

Basement of the aforementioned gamecenter. It's a floor dedicated entirely to
Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme VS. And lots of people were here.

Dat #1 arcade game in Japan.

An entire wall to showcase the Gundams you can choose from.

A maid cafe advertisement in the gamecenter. Panda pancake!

UFO catchers!

This one has BUZZ LIGHTYEAR. Aww yeah.

Monsters Inc - it's a Disney-Pixar anniversary or something in Japan.

And Mickey.

Pokemon poster UFO catcher!

Madoka UFO Catcher. I got told not to take pictures after this one. Oops.

Here's some other stores. Gamers!

Card game advertisements. I like card games too much.

I actually dunno why I took a picture of this. Cool advert I guess.

CARDFIGHT VANGUARD

Do you see on the right hand of that shop window? It says
Tales of Shop. Did you know I'm a huge Tales fan?

So that last picture is really important because Tales of Shop. I threw over a hundred dollars at just Tales merchandise, and I regret nothing. My purchases include a Tales of the Heroes: Twin Brave messenger bag, Tales of Legendia trading cards, Tales of Xillia Ramune, an Asbel Lhant glass, a Tales of series news magazine, Tales of Graces folders, a Milla Maxwell phone bag, and a Yuri Lowell origami figure. Tales of merchandise, I am so happy.

Last highlight of this week's Akihabara adventure was lunch at Goodsmile Cafe. It's one of those themed cafes - this month's theme choices were Sakura Miku, Project Diva f, and Vividbutts. Obviously, we went with Vocaloid. You get cool placemats with your meals, and you can get them laminated to take home. Nice souvenirs along with your meal! =3 Pics after the jump:

Project Diva curry rice!  It was actually quite tasty! Also the carrot shapes
correspond to the buttons you hit in-game. It's cute. =D Also, the cheese music
note in the middle is both awesome and a surprisingly tasty addition to curry.
It was expensive, but quite yummy for what it was worth - would order again.

Dango that Steph ordered!

A better peek of the Sakura Miku placemat!

Miku parfait! Comes with a coaster too. =D

Chocolate cake I think? Kaito coaster. So bishie. XD

A snapshot of the cafe interior. Pretty chill place. And Project Diva
videos played on the monitors. Best cafe music ever.

Music videos! =D 

Parfait, now with milk tea!

Some of the showcases.

Vocaloid character designs in the showcases! Kagamine Len~

Meiko!

Another Meiko!

Kagamine Rin. The outfit's adorable imo. c:

Megurine Luka

Hatsune Miku

Alright, that's it for this update I think! I kinda wanted to comment about culture stuff, but I'll do that next week lol. And maybe I'll have an update that doesn't end with Akihabara for once haha. =D; 'Til next week!

-Kyle