09/09/15 - Gyūdon

Today we had to wake up really early to start another set of orientation activities. These involved setting up banks, phones and other important things. I realised at this point that I am the worst at filling out forms! I had to fill out one form over again four times because I accidentally messed it up! I felt bad for the volunteer who had to help me, but it just ended up that way. It was boring mostly, but ended eventually.

Somewhere in the middle of the orientation, the RA's on my floor Erika, Kana and Haruna took us out to sushi. When we walked in, first we had to press a button on the machine to to request a booth and then wait patiently until one was ready. Luckily, we didn't wait long. Sitting down in the booths was really awesome as well. Everyone was lit up brightly and there was so much sushi going around the trains. But, probably the coolest part was that when you order food off of a tablet screen above the table it gets propelled to you on a separate train within a couple minutes! So cool. It was all so delicious as well. I ate 7 plates and it only cost 100 yen each! I'll definitely be going back there a few times I think.

 After sushi it was more of the orientation, but then I decided to go back to my room and make some dinner because it was around 6pm. I decided to try and work out the rice cookers here because they're a bit different than Australian ones... But, in the end I couldn't work it out. Thankfully, Amy found me in the kitchen and invited me out to dinner with Kana and everyone else again. They were going to get Gyūdon, which I now know is just essentially beef and rice, for dinner and I was ready to give up on my home cooked meal.

Going out at night in Osaka is so exciting because there is such a different atmosphere than Adelaide. In Osaka, people are still being active as if it were daytime and there are tonnes of neon lights and an excessive amount of large novelty objects hanging above shops. On the way to the restaurant, we caught a train and saw a bowling alley with a bowling pin out the front the size of a giraffe! I'd like to go bowling there one day.

When we arrived at the gyūdon shop, it had a similar system to the ramen shop. You have to go up to a ticket machine and put money in a slot, then press a button of what you want to order and a ticket comes out with your order. Then, you take the ticket to the counter to get your meal. Our meals came out in less than two minutes, it was so fast! I loved eating it as well, but I was so hungry so I gave up on the chopsticks and decided to eat with a spoon instead. Everyone also decided to do this because we were all so hungry.

After eating, we stopped by at the Senriyama campus of my new University! I was so excited walking through the gates for the first time. It's so beautiful, even at night. We had a tour originally planned for today, but they cancelled it due to the weather. There were lots of people leaving the campus from doing club activities, but there were still a lot of students practicing hip hop dancing there. We were going to go to the rooftop garden to see Osaka at nighttime but it was closed! Oh well. Either way, I was so happy to go there. Otherwise, my first experience seeing the campus would be tomorrow morning for my placement test... No thanks!