First Day of Class and First Nagoya Adventure

On Wednesday, a group of us decided to head to class at 9:30 to allow plenty of time to reach our 10:30 class...turns out 9:30 is the latest we should ever leave.  The commute is long, but easy...the subway is only about 3 blocks from our apartment and the exit is 2 blocks from the classroom.  We start the day with Japanese.  Only 5 of us are in the beginner's class (this was definitely a surprise to me).  Our teacher seems very nice, but is a bit difficult to understand, which I guess will help us adjust to the accent better.  We jumped into the lesson with a basic greeting and syntax.

The lesson ended at 12:00 and we have until 1:30 for lunch.  The first cafeteria we headed for, the "best" one, had a line that may have taken the whole break to get through.  We ended up at another and didn't have too much trouble getting through 

even though it was a confusing experience.  There were many tempura, rice, and soup options.  It was all pretty delicious...and affordable...none of us spent more than $6.  

After lunch, we had our first Seminar: The Car Industry, Market Trend, Circumstance, and its Future.  Our presenter, Shinichi Kurihara, is a Senior Executive Officer for Mitsubishi!  This lecture was awesome!...right up my alley!  I hope to use quite a bit of the demographic and trend information we received in my graduate research.  Although fascinating, 3 hours is a long time to sit in a classroom taking notes, and makes for an exhausting day.

After class, I came back to the apartment and focused on Japanese for a few hours.  I don't think it helped.  ; )  A group of us then headed for the grocery store.  On our way, we came

across a 4-story bowling alley, karaoke bar, billards and video game room.  We'll definitely have to take advantage of this place!  The grocery store was in a mall, so we walked the mall and grabbed some food before grocery shopping.

The shopping experience was pretty smooth.  Food is expensive, but we did the best we could.  I stocked up on yogurt, kiwi, and bananas (all are kinda hard to come across).  We also found a lot of discounted food since it was after 7pm.  I think the issue with shopping is that I don't know how to cook Japanese food.  I have a full kitchen in my apartment...so I think I'm just going to have to learn.  We then headed back, groceries in hand and very tired.