Breakfast at 8,  out the door at 8:30 in plenty of time to get to Aoi Hall by 9 except that the front door was locked when I arrived.

Aoi hall looks like a repurposed warehouse. As I couldn’t get in the front I wandered around to the side and found an open door that led me into a large open area with a few tables and a couple of vending machines, probably a lunch room. I asked a person passing where the test were given and was asked to wait while she found out. When she returned she led me up a set of blue painted metal stairs on the outside of the building to the second floor and from there to a room with 2 other people in it. By 9 AM there were 5 of us when the teacher walked in. We were asked to introduce ourselves in Japanese starting with me. There were 2 young women from Taiwan, one from Singapore (I think) and another women from LA. We were then given an impressively large test, told we had until noon and told to do our best. Silence except for the sound of pens and pencils. The test got more difficult as it progressed. It was mostly multiple choice, fill-in-the-blanks but had some reading comprehension and writing as well. During the test we were individually led away in turn to another room to take the oral part of the test. I did OK. There was some unfamiliar vocabulary and I definately ran into stuff that I had no idea about toward the end of the test. In the end I was judged to be at an intermediate level and was told to pick up my texts and start studying the potential verb form for tomorrow’s class. This was a pretty accurate assessment overall as this was what I had been studying in class a week before I left Vancouver.

For lunch I walked a half a block to a supermarket and bought a bento and a bottle of tea. I had a look around while I was there and it was pretty much like shopping at a much larger version of Fujiya. There were a few striking differences though. There was an alcohol section where you could buy anything from beer to whiskey. Some whiskey came in 2.7 liter bottles and shochu and sake came in bottles as large as 5 liters.

After lunch was an orientation and campus tour which was conducted in English. There were also orientations in other languages. I was with Julie the woman from LA and it was kind of relaxing to be able to speak without a lot of effort. We asked a lot of questions, paid fees, and got a bit of a tour. Afterwards we bought textbooks and got together for a bit of a chat.

I cycled home about 4 PM and got to play bicycle chicken with all of the bicycle mounted high school students were were also on their way home at that time. Today was the hottest day yet here with a high of 31C and a really high humidity.  I am getting a tan from cycling.

I studied some before dinner which smelled pretty good as it was cooking. We had miso with tofu and mushrooms, buri teriaki (fish), rice with melon? (gourd I think) and pickles one of which was made from the shiso plant. We talked about various thing and the electronic dictionary got workout. It turns out the buri is the name for the adult version of yellowtail which is also called hamachi and 2 other names that I don’t remember depending on what age the fish is.

One of the people from Yamasa has a sort of a by invitation only Irish Pub that was hidden away and that I had been invited to. It was his birthday so I decided to go and buy him a Guiness which is what is on tap there as  he imports it  by the keg from Ireland. I tried to explain this to my host family and they found the idea of a secret bar hilarious.

I met up with some other new students  and once our guide showed up we walked to the pub which was basically a room up a flight of stairs with  a couple of couches and tables, a small PA, a projection TV and beer. Very bohemian in a student kind of way.

I had a couple of pints and then cycled home. My bicycle has an anemic generator powered light which goes out when you stop. It’s still better than about half the bights on the road which have no lights at all  and no reflectors.

Well, classes start tomorrow and I want to try and get up and study a bit before hand so I’m off to bed.