Ladies and Gentlemen... I love Japan and want to stay here forever...

Okay, maybe just for a year. ha ha ha Anyway, this is probably going to be a really long post because soooo much has happened in the past 48 hours I can't even BEGIN to explain. Where to start...

Last time I wrote I had just finished my placement exam and stuff, and then went to Shinjuku. Well, Friday, we had orientations on campus all morning long. They were uber boring and whatever, but I somehow survived and we all decided that that night, we were going to go out allll night long. Wow..

Ok, so before I go describing our night out, I want to tell you about my very first, "I HATE Japan, nothing is going my way, I can't friggin communicate, I want to go home" moment. At the orientation, we all got our student IDs. This means we could go and purchase our train commuter passes. I had heard that it's the best deal to get the 6 month pass right away, AND it's less hassle. So, that's what I did. I was proud because I even filled the form out correctly!! (Thanks Sarah and Kenj for helping me... ha ha ha) ANYWAY, so the guy behind the counter is punching in my address and information. He makes my card and gives me all my stuff and then says "Ok... san man yonhyaku en desu." Which in English translates to: "Ok, that will be $300 bucks." Now.. had I heard the English translation, right away an alarm would have went off in my head and I would have figured out how to avoid what happened next immediately... Instead, after hearing the Japanese version, automatically, I start pulling out the cash... Then realizing that I did not have enough money.. I was short by about 2000 yen... So my friend Ken floats me 2000 yen... but that doesn't make it ok.. Because it was after 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon and I had just given all of my cash to a little old man behind the counter in exchange for a plastic card... After the transaction had finished, and after realizing that 30000 yen = 300 dollars.. I proceeded to freak out... Because A: I just dropped 300 bucks in one sitting, B: I just dropped 300 dollars!!!! and more importantly, C: I just gave the man all of my cash and I cannot exchange any more because the banks and the post offices are closed for the weekend... which means I have no money to eat or do anything all weekend... After all of this dawned on me, I freaked out. Immediately I hated being here.. I hated my lack of ability to completely understand the situations I am in while I am here.. I hated that I still don't really have the hang of how to spend my money here (i.e. I just hear numbers and give them bills.. It all feels like monopoly money to me right now.) So by this point, as you all may have guessed, I am crying in the middle of Shin Kawasaki Station... What am I going to do? Luckily, Kenji (this guy from So Cal who lives in my dorm) tells me that you can pay by credit card. So another guy, Ken (Who is way better at JApanese than I am) somehow finagles (umm yeah I hope thats how you spell it.. ha ha ha) a way for me to get my cash back and for me to pay with my credit card for the pass. However, when the guy ran my credit card through, it didn't work!!!!! So then I had to use my debit card... ugh!!! What a day!!! So, after a bunch of crying, freaking out, and trying to figure out what I was going to do without any money.. I got all my cash back and was able to charge the damn Suicard... (Suicard is the name of the commuter pass for the JR Railway System).

So ok.. huge story number one...

Now onto number two...
So after the whole Suicard fiasco,..
We went to Shibuya today to pull an all night party!! ha ah ha WE meet at this area which I think is called Honcho or something.. But apparantly its where everybody meets before hanging out in Shinjuku because its right outside the station. So there was tons of people (I mean Japanese boy lol) watching to be done. As me and Sarah made our rounds checking out the stylish boys, we finally all gathered into this colossal group of foreigners (about 20 of us) and headed to karaoke.

Note to self (and everyone else): Japanese karaoke is the best thing in the entire world!!! Not only do you get all you can drink for a set price, but you get to sing songs in your own private booth with your friends. They had every song you could think of.. from any American song you can think of to anime themes to anything.. I sung the opening to Dragonball Z and the opening to escaflowne. Daniel (the Brit) and I both did a Brandy and Monica duet of "The Boy is Mine". Apparantly that song was really popular in England for a time.. lol We sung everything!! And I drank so much in such a short period.. It was awesome!!!!

So after karaoke... When all of us were pretty lit, I decided that it was time to use my Japanese.. Because we all know that when you are drunk, your foreign language abilities skyrocket because you are no longer inhibited. Jesus, I was talking to everyone I saw!!!!! lol There was one point that I tried to be the elevator girl at the karaoke place and asked people "Nan kai degozaimashou ka?" (What floor please?) People were a bit apprehensive, but eventually told me. lol AND, the manager of the karaoke place who kept telling me the only english words i think he knew ("So pretty!") actually wanted to hire me almost... lol ok not really. Anyway, so we went back to the meeting place to meet up with the people who did not karaoke with us and then decided to go to a hip hop dance club.

While waiting for everyone, I met a sweet Japanese couple who took their pictures with me. lol God, I talked to any and everyone, and most everyone was pretty receptive... IT was awesome!!!

We also met these two guys: Seiji and Atsushi.. They were really cool guys and they decided to come with us to the hip hop club.

Note to self and everyone: Japanese hiphop clubs are the most hysterical places!! Not only do they play strictly American hiphop... but everyone dresses like thugs, nobody really knows the words to songs except for when they say "westside" or "mother fucker" or some other totally cliche word used in rap... And the DJs just scream into a microphone "Everybody scream!!" or "This is sweet motherfucker" or some other horribly obscene or overused phrase. lol

So yeah, at the club I hung out mostly with Sarah, Kylee, and Seiji and Atsushi... Seiji was such a sweetheart! He bought me a couple of drinks and we talked a bunch. He knows about three words of English and so we spoke in Japanese.. And he was amazed at how good I was... However, I had to remind him that it was only because I was drunk. lol

So anyway, we all danced (including our new Japanese friends) until about 4 in the morning. After that, Seiji, Sarah, Kylee and I left the club and sat outside and talked until everyone else was ready to leave. We then headed for the train station and bid our new friends adieu... but not before getting their phone numbers. (wink wink) lol

So all in all it was a wonderful Friday night!!!

Also, we decided that we were going to go to the Tokyo Game Show (Like E3 but bigger!!) on Saturday. I will post an entry about that later.. and I will post pics from our Shibuya karaoke/hip hop adventure as well.

In the meantime... "EVELYBODY SCLEAM!!!!!!!" lol