Weeks 4 and 5

I nearly lost count of the weeks, possibly because the fourth week was really short for me in the university. I arrived back to Kitami on Monday, but since Tomomi was getting really sick, I already went back to Obihiro on the first bus on Thursday morning. Since I didn't have school on Tuesday anyway, I ended up not doing much at all during that week. On Tuesday though, there was the International C hour, a meeting between some enthusiastic Kitami residents and exchange students from various countries. In the meeting, there were mostly old people from Kitami, at least compared to us - in their 50s, at least.

Basically, all we did there was a game where you had to interview as many people as possible, asking some basic questions like their home country, favorite food, favorite place in Japan and so forth. In the end of the meeting, I even forgot my paper there so all those new names ended up not being all that useful. Oh well.

I also went running with Oeda again during that short-spun week. Although we can't communicate that well, he's a really nice guy, one of the few level-headed ones, it seems. Most Japanese people that Ville and Petri know are somehow twisted, like, otaku, ero-otaku, chronic masturbators or something like that. This guy is really helpful and doesn't try too hard to be funny or forthcoming, unlike some Japanese, but instead acts just casually around me and other Finns when he meets them, so it's great to have him around. As a plus, I can learn some Japanese from him as well.

I went to Obihiro on the first bus on Thursday and obviously missed my classes for that day. No harm done though, since the somewhat strict English teacher, Mr. Bozek, didn't seem to mind about it and the other teacher didn't even ask about my abscence.

Week 5

By the time I left Obihiro again, Tomomi's sickness had gotten better so that she could go to work on Monday. That was a real relief for her since she wanted to go and for a good reason too - no work equals no money in Japan. Newly arrived employees don't get paid for being sick and in her company, the time it took to get a permanent employee status in that sense was something like one year. Shoop-da-whoop.

Well, when I got back to Kitami, I wanted to really go to another Japanese class on Monday since they had moved the classes around. However, that wasn't an option, since I didn't even know where the class was being held. I just went back to the dorm and relaxed. After a while, I asked Oeda to go running and he was all for it, so we went to jog around Kitami for a little bit. I remembered a friend in Finland, Jimi, talking about "interval exercises", so we did some of that - sprinting for all we could and then slowing down to normal jogging speed again. Oeda couldn't keep up the pace that well but he did the best he could.

On Tuesday, every new-arrived exchange student had to partake in a medical exam. It was really nothing more than a blood test, which I really don't enjoy, but it had to be done. Hopefully nothing bad comes up from them, but I really doubt it.

We went jogging again with Oeda on Tuesday, but we also cooked some Ramen. On the day before, we'd been talking about ramen restaurants and he said we could cook some ourselves, too. So we went shopping for some foodstuff and cooked it pretty soon afterwards. It was definitely much better than the typical cup noodle ramen that can be bought from almost anywhere - the noodles themselves were from a different planet, much softer and more tasty. Our choice of soup was made solely by the price tag, so the soup didn't cater to my tastes, but all the fresh vegetables and the fresh meat, too, were really something else after only eating instant noodles since... always.

On Wednesday, I had Artificial intelligence class in the morning, so after that, I thought I should spend my time usefully. I studied kanji for about 6 hours and some Japanese too. I can't say I would actually remember all the kanji I've studied so far by heart, but I can memorize most of their meanings for sure as well as recognize the rest of them and draw them in the dictionary. By this time I have studied only 76 kanji though, so I'm still far away from being able to read most things. Yet, it's a whole new world in this country when all of a sudden you're actually able to read those lunatic markings of a crazy language.

Finally, on Thursday, the last of our introduction procedures was to be finished. We went to the city hall for the alien cards which were due to be finished on that day and got them too very quickly. I went together with Mika and we were supposed to get the phones right away too, but that proved to be more difficult.

First, we went to eat at the school diner to wait for Kenji, a tutor of Petri, who was supposed to have all the Finns talk some Japanese during that day, a casual conversation. However, everyone else had disappeared, so we were by ourselves. Kenji came there anyway with a bunch of friends - Hachi, Tera and Keisuke, who introduced themselves in English. We did our best to do the same in Japanese and talked for a while about nothing, until someone thought it was best to ask about our girlfriends. After that, the conversation was almost only around me, since everyone thought it was incredible I had a girlfriend in Japan. I was a bit bothered about it since I really want to choose myself who to talk to and in this situation, we had just a meeting with some guys who seemed to be very interested in me. But I guess it was good though, at least for the sake of the conversation.

After lunch, me and Mika went to the city to find a cell phone. We went to "au" store since everyone had recommended them to us. They have student discounts for 50%, so it seemed like a good idea. After cycling there, we found ourselves in a tiny, empty shop along the main street with four girls behind the counter, shouting "Welcome!" in Japanese to us. After what seemed like half an hour, we decided not to buy the cellphones just yet since the deal they offered us was a 8400 yen payment at first and then the typical 2000 yen / month tax for the account itself. The two thousand deal was what we were looking for, but we were not going to pay the 8400 for some half-assed cells.

We went to another shop, DoCoMo, in which they offered much cheaper phones (0 yen, in fact) but a much higher monthly fee, 3500 yen. All this took something like a hour and a half, after which we were both pretty pissed off about the whole deal and thought it best to just go back another day with a Japanese guide. To feel like we'd have accomplished at least something, we went to Mr. Donuts to consume some of the most unhealthy, yet the tastiest donuts of all.

While drinking our coffee and thinking about getting back, it started to pour rain with no warning. We thought it was better to skip class than go to cycle back in the rain, so we went in Tokyu, an expensive department store, to buy rye flour. I wanted to make Karelian pies at some point, so it seemed like a good idea to get some. We bought them straight from the bakery which used some rye in their own breads, but the price was somewhat steep for just rye, so to speak. For one kilo, I was charged 1500 yen. That's over 9e for just some flour! What the christ... Well, I will make some excellent pies with that flour for myself, the other Finns and some Japanese as well if they want to have any.