The last three weeks!

I hope everyone reading this has been having as much stress/hunger/fun as I've been having these last three weeks. I arrived in Japan on the 26th September at about 8am, joined the very short queue (only one other person) for people with residency, dragged my very heavy suitcases (23kg and 17kg) down to the train station, got an express train to Shinjuku and prayed I wouldn't have to walked too far through the ridiculously large expanse of Shinjuku station. Luckily, the bus terminal was very close to where my platform's exit was, I took a bus to Kofu, drifting in and out of conciousness.

When I arrived I was so relieved that I had gotten to the right place I had a little rest outside for about 45 minutes before I realised that I was supposed to be meeting someone from the university. I made my way to information office, asked them to charge my (dead) phone a little bit so that I could get the phone number of the person who was supposed to collect me and it turned out he hadn't left the university yet but would be there soon. Eventually he came and collected me, took me to the dormitory where I was bombared with paperwork and reciepts, shown to my room and allowed 10 minutes to rest before I was taken to the university to meet the student they'd assigned to be my buddy and (of course) to introduce myself to the entire international student department.

After many sleep deprived, broken introductions later I was escorted back to my dorm and was finally allowed to sleep... until I woke up at 2am. Luckily my sleep schedule sorted itself out fairly quickly, unlike my body temperature which was clearly not expecting to be assulted with 30 degree blazing sunshine in late September/early October or to be greeted with two typhoons (and a very small earthquake). This week it has fortunately cooled down enough to sleep comfortably without the assistance of the aircon. Up until now I've played some zombie games, gone to karaoke, and been very hungry. Here's some photos to summarise!

The view from my room (on a cloudy day)

Some sensible storage bands.

"A taste that makes sense comes from a production process that makes sense."

Some tiny socks for chairs!

English marketing at its finest.

A view from Kofu castle.

A tiny motorbike an old man was riding (normal man standing slightly in front for scale)

My favourite section of the library.

"Government approved textbooks"

A packet of eggs with a piece of paper inside with the best before date as well as individual stickers on each egg with the same date on them.