survival orientation

Today we had 'survival orientation'. (Side note: when I emailed my mom telling her about it she shot me back a reply with this link http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n4_v20/ai_6676337/ and these, uh, words of wisdom - "this is what Brendan will be doing" - I guess that's one way to ask me to stop complaining so much) My 'survival orientation' was definitely not on the same level as my brother's (Ha! Now you have to click the link!) but for me it basically  meant some miscommunication, some japanglish, very little understanding, and a lot of waiting around. We all gathered in the kitchen/common room where we met even more MGU students/buddies. There are about 25 or so international students in my program, but at least 35 or so buddies. The buddies just seem to keep multiplying every day. After meeting our buddies we then had to try and fill out official documents, which are in Japanese. There was a lot of confusion but eventually everyone had filled out their papers and we were told that "if you did anything wrong, the Japanese officials will politely fix it." Well great! Next our ridiculously large herd of gaijin and our buddies walked to the train station (midorigaoka station), hopped on the train after buying a ticket and made our way to Shibuya station. Shibuya is a famous shopping district in Japan, it reminds me of a bit of Times Square - bright lights, big crowds, etc. We had to hop on a bus once we got out of the station and make our way over to the Setagaya Ward office where we would fill out more paperwork and attempt to get our alien registration cards. There was a lot of struggling to communicate between the officials and the buddies trying to translate and the international students having not a clue as to what was going on. And the waiting, there was so much waiting. Basically we were in a DMV type of place, and although I will continue to complain about the amount of waiting, I'm fairly sure it was run more efficiently than any similar place in the US. After much waiting we were told that our alien registration cards would be ready for pickup the following week.. hopefully we'll get herded there again. We were given a manual about life in Setagaya, subway maps, earthquake survival pamphlets, and some other light reading material.

This is an alien registration certificate that gets stapled to your passport for safekeeping. After we got the alien registration all taken care of (for the most part) we then were shepherded to a different building nearby where we had to wait in more lines in order to apply for our national health insurance cards. This process took longer to complete but seemed fairly easier in terms of filling out paperwork. I have yet to read my guide book but the lady who gave us the cards mentioned something about having to pay a monthly fee and being able to do that at any conbini (that's convenience store in Japanese!)

After we got our insurance cards, we headed back towards Shibuya station and stopped off at giant electronics store (6 stories!) where we waited again and filled out some more paperwork. This time everyone was excited, even though it was closing in on 4pm and we had yet to eat lunch, being in the electronics store meant we were getting cell phones! There is a two year contract for all Japanese cell phone companies but this particular company offers a cheaper contract withdrawal fee and a basic plan of calls, texts, and emails (in Japan, the big thing is to have a cell phone email address, it's basically texting. I think)

 

We were allowed to pick from a basket of free phones that come with the basic plan. These phones were all giant Japanese flip phones ranging in color from baby pink to raspberry, teal to dark blue, lime green, pearly white, and then there were one or two black and silver phones (boring!). I opted for the sleek pearly white phone because I figured white is a nice background for when I decorate it. Oh yes, I plan on decorating my Japanese phone! I'll post a picture as soon I come up with an obnoxiously sparkly design! I think we're planning on having a crafts night during the weekend specifically to work on blinging out cell phones. 

This was just one of the walls completely covered in little jewels, ribbons, butterflies, plastic food, sparkly letters, you name it. You can also pay to have someone glue a design on your phone but I'm too cheap for that so I figured I can do it myself. Or at least try.

Here's a close up of the plastic food. I think that's a hamburger on the left, a cupcake and a piece of cake. The amount of cuteness you can find in Japan is almost unbearable. Keep in mind this is only an electronics store! Eventually after a long day of waiting, it was close to 9pm, we finally got our cell phones (they had to check to make sure the credit card we applied for the phone with worked, etc) Now is the fun part of trying to figure them out!

They gave us a booklet but it's all in Japanese so I guess I'll just use it as a paperweight. The MGU buddies helped us put our phones in English so that was very helpful. They also helped up set up our phone email accounts and figure out what our own phone number is. Or at least how to get to the page that tells you that information. It's exciting though! Now that I have a phone it's almost starting to sink in that I'm actually in Japan. It still feels like I'm on some sort of surreal vacation though. I think that'll change once school starts and I'm forced to remember why I'm here in the first place. This weekend we have no set plans with the university so we have time to unpack, grocery shop, and get lost exploring our little neighborhood.