Hey ya peeps!
It's Bikky again! Yeah, I know that I just posted the last of my Narai-Matsumoto posts, but come on! Another week of me being in Japan has come and gone!
So what of interest has happened this week...me being sick, me opening a bank account, school starting, and...a typhoon!
So let's talk typhoon! It is actually occurring right now as I type this up! It's really really creepy sounding and it's shaking my patio door! So creepy!
My friends and I went to Kichijoji today, but because I was late getting to the train station, I did not start the trip with them. But no skin off my back, I am actually glad I didn't start off with them. Wanna know why? Because I wanted to explore Kichijoji all by myself. When I came to Japan 2 years ago, I regularly traveled to Kichijoji and explored the town when I had time. So, it was nice to be able to explore my old "backyard" today. Of course, then I forgot how to get to the large park on its border and ended up walking all over town. Hence the name of this blog. But, no worries. I knew where I was in relation to the Kichijoji Station. I just forgot where the park was in relation to the station. :P
But, I finally got to the park, ate lunch and began to meander in the park, soaking up this lovely park called Inokashira Park. It is a beautiful escape from the city around it. Also, it is home to the Studio Ghibli Museum! Expect little to no photos of the Ghibli Museum when I visit it in the future because no photography is allowed in the museum. Photography is allowed only outside the museum. How do I know this? Because I went to the museum in 2010! But, I'm glad that no photos are allowed inside the museum because it makes the museum that make more magical! And it is a really, really cool museum!
So back to my day's adventures. As I was meandering Inokashira Park (for just a few minutes), I caught up with some of my friends. The trip was orchestrated by one of the international clubs, so the initial group was large and had splintered off into smaller groups, hence why I only found some of my friends.
Anyway, we walked around the park for the remainder of the day and found tons of huge, ginormous spiders hanging in their webs! It was so creepy (partially because I am a arachnophobe). So, that was the majority of the day.
Towards the end of our trip, the typhoon began creeping over Tokyo so we had to deal with large gusts of wind and some rain. When we got to Kichijoji Station to catch some trains home, we found out that the rail systems were starting to shutdown their trains because of the typhoon! So our Japanese friends raced around trying to get a handle on the situation. Never did figure out the exact cause for the chaos amongst our friends, but I'm guessing that one of our trains had already been stopped seeing that we didn't stop at Shinjuku, where we normally would switch trains. Instead, we stopped at an earlier station and took a subway line back to our home station, Takadanobaba Station.
The typhoon hadn't fully hit us yet, so walking home was not bad. The wind was definitely picking up and the rain was coming in sporadically. My friends, with whom I walked back to the dorms, and I even saw a guy's umbrella be blown inside out and break! A classic "bad storm" scene!
Since then, the wind has picked up and it is really blowing outside now! Hopefully we don't lose power before this post is published!
As for the rest of the week, it started out difficult. I had mentioned that I had been sick in the beginning of one of the Narai-Matsumoto posts. That was frustrating. It took me all week to get over it. Others from the CSU are sick, as well. It's been deemed "The Plague" by our CSU friends since someone has had it since our first week here in Japan. I'm just glad I got it before school really took off.
On Friday this week, we started school. Then yesterday (Saturday) we had our second day of class! My Fridays are jammed packed with classes, but my Mondays make-up for that by not having any classes! In a later post, I will go into more detail about school.
Now, yesterday I opened an account at CitiBank. Note that you have to have a cell phone to open an account with CitiBank Japan! They were kind to my poor cellphone-less soul and let me open an account with just my dorm number, since I am getting a cell this coming week. I just have to go back and register my cell with Citi once I get it. So, don't think about waiting to get your phone after opening an bank account! It is too much hassle to do that!
Any other words of wisdom? None right now.
The typhoon has blown leaves onto my 9th floor balcony!
Other than that, I have nothing else to discuss...for now. I will have a topical post later this week.
Until then, later peeps!
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