Board members of Tokyo Institute of Technology. Some of oldest (which were not giving a speech) proffessors were sleeping during the whole event...exept when their name was announced in the introduction. :)
Not too many people had shown up...and most of the others were well dressed up. Not like me and my korean friend who were there with jeans and t-shirts. Hey, nobody told us that you should be there dressed up. And my black suit was left to Finland because of this over strict young lady in SAS check-in counter (last year Finnair counter was much more relaxed with over weight...imagine, value of the ticket was 3500 € and she's telling me that either you pay all the extra kilos or leavit behind, really don't want to double my the value of my suit...).
After orientation I went to university health clinic with my dormitory tutor. There they gave me some brown powder to take for my sore throat. Taste was horrible. But it worked, next morning my voice was back again...really wonder what was that powder. It was already noon and I was hungry. Luckilly I met some chinese from my dorm and we went to have a lunch together.
I try to taste something different every day. Miso soup is excellent! I really like it. The colours of the food are somehow different (like that green thing upper left) and the tastes differ even more. Ok, pork is pork, chicken is chicken and beef is beef no matter what do you do with it. As you see from pic, here you drink lots of tea. They drink tea with food like we drink milk and water.
Does the picture help recycling. My mother, brother and his girlfrien would be soooooo happy live in this kind of recycling world. They really recycle everything here. Back home, every time when the peel of banana goes accidentally to wrong box, I'll get the same lecture about recycling...I could almost promise that when I come back home after these two years this kind of "accidents" are not going to happen any more. :D
From lunch I headed to Ookayama train station to find a post office. I tried to ask couble of times the nearest post office from locals but always the same thing. First they were reaylly helpfull and smiling and when they heard the question (in english) they were apologizing at least ten times that they don't know or something... Ok, so I had to start to speak japanese. "Kjuubinkjokuwa dokodeska?" and the first person I asked showed the way to the post office.
First time in here in a this big street. I mean that so many shops around me...yep, but this is my second day here. :)
I found the logo of the post from a wall but the place didn't seem like a official post office...Ok, what a hell, just stepped inside to find it out. Gave my official papers for opening the post account. Lady took papers in her hand for a 5 seconds and started to sell stamps. No, no, no stamps...I need to open a account. ???? P-o-s-t a-c-c-o-u-n-t, I even draw a picture of me putting money to post office and then withdrawing it from ATM. After a while we agreed with that lady that I'm in the wrong place and I have to go to the post office...official one. It was found behind the Ookayama station, opposite direction to what I took. After that everthing went smoothly. I'll have my account next week.
Rest of the day I spend in my home campus getting to know peopple in my lab and filling my application forms for insurances. In the evening my professor took me and two other finns from our research group for a welcomming dinner. We ate our stomach full with delicious japanese dishes and drank some beer and sake (but no beer for me...as everybody who knows me, are aware what will happen if you put any beer in this body;).
My campus. "J1" building and 9th floor will be my working place for next two years.
Oh oh, went for jogging this mornig firs time. Have to be carefull at the beginning not to get lost in my neighbourhood. I'll run just forward and take smallest amount of turns possible. :)
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