Shinjuku

On this past Saturday I went to Shinjuku which is a ward of Tokyo. I got up, put my futon away, ate breakfast, got ready to leave and then walked to the bus stop. While I was waiting this old lady came up to the bus stop and started talking to me. She asked me if I was married and stuff like that. When I got back from Shinjuku at the end of the day and I was waiting for the bus at Fuchinobe station, the same old lady found me and started talking to me again. Haha!

Well, I met up with some friends at the university: Kyle (mentioned before), Joanna and Kathryn. Joanna is from Amarillo, Texas and Kathryn is from Boston. So we took the school bus back to Fuchinobe station (thank goodness it’s free!) and then we took a train to Machida station and then an express train to Shinjuku.

When we got there we ate lunch and then we walked around to try and find this store called Bic Camera which is an electronics store because my friends wanted to buy cell phones and get an internet card for their computers. Well, the internet cards didn’t cover Sagamihara, so I didn’t get one. Joanna signed up for one, but Kathryn didn’t because you have to have a Japanese computer in order for it to work. Kyle tried to buy a phone and commandeered me as an interpreter. I did my best, but Kyle needed his alien registration card in order to buy a phone. I was looking for yukata (a cotton, summer kimono), but the department stores were too expensive. Not really a surprise, though, I guess.

The train system is really hard for me to comprehend, especially when the stations always seem to be so crowded. But I think I was the only one in our group who could actually communicate in Japanese about directions, which was kind of scary. But I think I’m getting better at it, which is precisely why I came here.