We also get to take a look at the teachers' office in Japan. It seems that instead of separate rooms and office, one department would have one big room and lines of desk, and the head of the department would sit at the desk that by itself on the side. If you can see it in the picture, the desk I am talking about is behind the woman in the middle left of the picture. There may be other kinds of offices, but I didn't get to see any.

We had an opening ceremony and then a tour around the campus. Bicycles and mopeds are very popular means of transportation. You will see them everywhere here in Japan. We are even told that the best way to get to campus from the dorms is by bike, so we should get one. When I walked around town the day before, I bikes ranging from anywhere between 8000Yen to 91800Yen. That's like 100 to 1000 dollars. I guess if you ride your bike everywhere, you should invest in one.

Coffee is also served a lot after a meal in restaurants. This is different from US where you order the coffee first.

There was some paper work to do the next day. After that we got treated to lunch. The picture above is a Japanese Bento Box, a box lunch. I think the red thing on the rice was a plum, it was kind of sour. Then the tempura also included fish rather than just shrimp. In the box above the tempura is some kind of fish meat ball along with salmon cook with egg on top. The last box is some kind of tofu, with fish and carrot. It was very very different from the Japanese food you can get in the US. This taste much more tradition with less favoring, but you have to get use to the taste to like it. For me, one small bowl just isn't enough rice.

My friends sang a lot of songs, I only managed to sing two or three. They have all kinds of English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean songs. It's a great way to practice reading Japanese Characters.

Smoking is also very popular in Japan. If you can see it in the picture (I took this while waiting inside the store), the is a pack of cigarette next to the mother on the table, she was smoking while holding the baby (I feel a little sorry for the baby). And also, in the background, there is a cigarette vending machine. So if you are ever coming to Japan, you will encounter a lot of smokers. Another question I had was why the mother was going to karaoke with a baby, but I didn't ask. I guess karaoke is just that popular here.

The sign in the picture says "KA-RA-O-KE-KAN" which is a karaoke place. My friends and I decided to go in and experience it for the first time together. If you also notice in the picture, there are some high school girl in the corner in side under the television. Karaoke seems to be very popular in Japan with high school students.

After settling in and working out all the paper work, I walked around town a bit with some other exchange student. In Japan, there are a lot of vending machine. I guess Japanese really love their drinks. Most of them don't have more than one or two soda options. Instead, there are juice, green tea, and hot coffees. If you look at the picture, you can see that there is a red tags for all the drinks that are vend warm. And 120 Yen is not expensive. In contrast with the US, that is about $1.44. I don't think you can buy hot coffee for that price anywhere in the US. Next to most vending machine, there is a trash can for cans and bottles so you wouldn't throw it out in the wrong trash can.

A surprise when I use the toilet, all the toilet here can wash your butt. There are options like power shower, mild shower, how strong the water is, and a special option for women. It also have a air dry button. And of course there is the red stop button which I used when I try to wash my butt but mess up.it's really hard to get use to the toilet shooting water up to your butt. I guess you can save toilet paper that way, but after a few try, I decided to just stick with good old toilet paper.

So I was trying to throw out the trash and then I notice that there is three trash can. In Japan, trashes are sorted before they are thrown out. It is sorted into Plastics, Other, and Bottles / Cans. I think you also separate combustibles like cardboard and paper but I am still trying to figure out the details. I will explain it in more details when I understand the system.

As this is my first entry, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Tze Fung Suen, in Japan, Family Name goes first so it would be Suen Tze Fung. And I go by Francis for an English name. Since I can only seem to upload one picture per entry, I will cut my entry into piece so I can include more pictures. The day I got off the plant I moved into the dorm. Dorms are much cheaper than they are in US. With the deposit and first two months payment it only worked up to 54400Yen which is about $600. You won't the kind of quality available here in the states, they even clean the toilet for you, included in the price! So the dorm I live in basically have a common area, shared toilets, showers, washer / dryer, and then eight individual rooms in which have a desk, a closet, a bed, and desk lamps and such. It is unlike American dorm which is empty when you move in; you don't need to buy / bring more stuff since there is everything you need is already in the room and you can rent appliances you want from the building office. So the first thing I notice is that you take off your shoes for outside when you enter the house and change to slipper for the inside of the house. There is a huge shoe shelf / area at the entrance. It took me a while to get use to it.