Another photo walk

Friday again and we went on another photo walk in the town around KAIT. We turned southward and followed the road toward downtown Atsugi this time. As we were walking down the sidewalk we passed a familiar spot. The sidewalk that our bus broke through on our first night in Japan.

Patched over with new concrete.

We kept walking and came across a little neighborhood shrine of some sort. We took a few pictures before heading on our way back down the road. The sun was pretty bright and I played a bunch with the exposure on my new camera. Fun times.

A little farther down the road we stopped by a field.

Found a white koi in the river.

Then back to KAIT for lunch hour. I ate my food on a Lusty Lunch Tray:

Saturday again

Saturday yet again. This time we have plans to head to Akihabara with some friends from KAIT. Started the morning off with a walk through some of the small streets.


Then we got on the train and got ourselves down to Tokyo! Not as rainy as the last time we were there. This is good.

The sign coming out of Akihabara station.

The light store. Not a joke.

We grabbed some food at a place called "Pepper Lunch", my new favorite place to eat in the whole entire world. Apparently there is only one in America... somewhere in California. There needs to be a second one right inside my kitchen.

DELICIOUS

We stopped at some arcades and had at ton of fun. This was after all our general plan. Success.

Yamanote leaves Electric Town.

Of course, everyone knows that there are Gundams watching over Akihabara.

We hopped back on the train and when we arrived at Hon-Atsugi station, there was a musician set up on the courtyard with a keyboard. Her name was Zushi Tamami and she was very friendly!

Playing away.

We bought some CDs from her and she signed them for us!

Good adventures.

Around Atsugi

Today for photo class we took a walk around the rural area in the town of Atsugi. Atsugi itself has a city center with skyscrapers and all the jazz, but our school (Kanagawa Institute of Technology) is a 20 minute bus ride away from all that, and there are farms nearby. So we went out in the little roads between these farms to take some pictures.

Panorama of the hills around the town.

Cute crayon drawing on a sign about some school field day.

We continued our walk and found a little place with a small playground and what appeared to be a shrine. We stopped and took some pictures and a few people tried out the swings.

Sam and Whitney on the swings.

Erin decided to help rake up some leaves.
She also made a zen garden in the process.

And lastly, a sign that I saw on the road as we walked back to school to get our bags:

I was quite disappointed to learn that this was not in fact a cistern full of fire,
but a cistern full of water for putting fires out.

Reporting In

The day before yesterday we all landed at Narita. Since then we haven't been able to connect to the internet so I apologize for not being in touch! The internet in my apartment is very complicated to set up and the menu is all in Japanese. We managed to get through most of it but got an error that was 2 paragraphs of kanji... o_o

Anyhow. At 3:30 Tokyo time we escaped from our airplane prison (being in a seat for 10 hours is a lot more exhausting than I expected). Here is the first picture that I took in Japan!


We all hopped onto a charter bus and spent another 2 hours in seats while we drove to Atsugi. We were dropped off in groups and directed to our apartments by Dr. Aoki and Ms. Aya (our contacts from the KAIT international office). About halfway through our apartment drop-off process our charter bus drove over a fragile concrete panel in the sidewalk (there are channels beneath the sidewalk in Atsugi which allow for new wires and pipes to be layed without digging up the road). The panel broke and the bus was stuck.


It was about 9:30 when I finally arrived at my apartment. It is actually a lot more comfortable than I expected. I won't post any pictures of it quite yet because our bags are still a bit of a mess. The apartment building that I am in has about 6 students from our group in 3 different apartments. When we had put away our bags and set up our futons a few of us decided to explore the town at night. We stopped at each of the convenience stores near our building and found our way to the school. The sound of crickets at night is very beautiful and I enjoyed walking at night. I took a picture of the first vending machine that I used in the town (there are vending machines even on the very small back roads near our building).


I purchased a drink called "Super H2O" thinking that it was water. It was actually a very tasty lemon flavored juice drink.

In the morning our group met in the courtyard at KAIT and we received a tour of the school. the Cafeterias on the campus have good food for very cheap. Yesterday I had some rice and pork dumplings for 300yen! The campus is very spacious and pleasant.


After our tour Gary (our teacher) took the train back to Narita to pick up a student who was arriving one day late because of an expired passport. We had planned to go as a group to downtown Atsugi and get our transit cards but that was rescheduled to Saturday. A few of us adventurous people decided to take the bus ourselves and get the cards.

First bus ride

Candiece and the Street

The intersection outside of Hon-Atsugi Station

Ticket machines in the station


My PASMO!

I will post more pictures tomorrow and hopefully I will have internet in my apartment soon!