You have just entered US territory
So a few days has passed since the last time I wrote. Nothing much new has happened except for yesterday and today. I’ve been here for about 2 months now and it feels like it’s been like 1 week. I will say it again; the time goes by so fast when I’m here. It feels unrealistic for some reason and I think every other JLSP students agree with me. By next week I will know if I can stay for another term or not. The deadline for the next JLSP term was due today and accordingly to one of the senior teachers, Hosaka-sensei, the probability of staying for another term is pretty high (at least accordingly to her opinion). I also finally received my scholarship this week, a hefty 240 000 yen. A lot of the money has been spent already though, but that’s alright. I’m going to Okinawa next weekend and in the end of November to Kansai (Kyoto, Osaka and Nara). A lot of money will be spent on these trips, but it’s worth it. I’ve never been to any of these places so I’m excited.
We’ve had kanji quizzes and stuff like every day and the latest test I did last Friday I got a whooping 49/50 again, so far so good.
Yesterday afternoon some of us went and played football (or soccer (...) if you’re American) at a futsal (5 v 5 court). It was really nice actually and it’s been like 3 years since I touched a football the last time. Although my legs are a tad sour at the moment, but that’s alright. I managed to so awesomely forget to bring a fresh pair of underwear so I had no choice but to do it the Italian way without underwear. It wasn’t that bad though, freedom to say the least I guess. Nothing I would do again however!
In the evening we went to Alpis in Shinjuku. The good thing about Alpis is that you can make reservation for a lot of people there as the Izakaya has like four floors. The event on Facebook indicated that we were going to be around 50 people at least and I’m guessing we were about that amount as well. Ontop of that since it were almost Halloween, people dressed out as different creatures, things, characters and what not. I and David made masks of each other. I wore a mask with his face and he wore a mask with my face on it. Anyways, lots of fun people and fun time.
Today was the most peculiar day however. Kyle is a US Airforce soldier and US military personal has entry permission to the bases here in Japan if they want to go inside. He bought some pop-tarts and stuffs for me the other week but this time he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Me, Kyle, David, Asami and Liz went to the base which is located in Fussa, Saitama. Anyways, for the most part I wanted to go there and shop some American food and candy but the trip itself became quite interesting itself. The first thing I noticed about Fussa was of course the amount of foreigners there. The second thing I noticed was the “result” of the amount of foreigners there. If you live in Tokyo you would be surprised at first how clean the streets are. People never throw trash and such on the street, well at least not the majority of the Japanese at least. However, in Fussa where a big chunk of the population is of foreign identity the streets look dirty.
When we finally got to the base there were a lot of kids with Halloween costumes waiting to get inside. American base = American traditions, yeah that sounds about right. A lot of the kids are half-Japanese half-American since a lot of the personal marries Japanese women (or men, but I’m guessing that there aren’t that many). In any case, Kyle and Asami got to go inside and get some sort of permission papers as they’re military and Japanese respectively. Me, Liz and David got to wait outside the building and when Kyle and Asami returned we could go inside. We had to show our passports as well before we could go in. Apparently, they don’t allow people from certain countries to enter the bases. In any case, we entered the base and it wasn’t like anything I imagined. Imagined it to be more military but I guess we could only see the civilian side of the base from where we were. In any case, it was kind of surreal and creepy though. 100 meters behind us was Japan and now we were standing in America, but it wasn’t really America either. I’ve never been to the US before so I don’t know for sure what it looks like. Apparently the US bases even looks different compared to the outside in US as well. It was very open, clean and sort of plain but yet there were restaurants, a department store, a supermarket and so on. It was very peculiar to say the least.
In any case, we checked out the department store first. It wasn’t all THAT big but it had sufficient stuff for my hometown to be jealous. I found some nice Quicksilver t-shirts in there for $16 apiece and that’s like less than half the price you buy them for in Sweden or Japan. When I got to the cashier though, I was greeted by “Where’s your military ID?”. Apparently you need a military ID in order to shop here, except for restaurants. I was going around with Asami and Kyle and the others had gone their way. We were supposed to meet up 5 minutes later though so I fetched Kyle to buy it for me.
Happy ending!
Then we got to the supermarket and god there were a lot of food and stuff there. I’ve never been to a store with American food and things like that so this was kind of exciting. I managed to get hold of some nice things such Pop tarts with banana split taste, Reese’s (chocolate + peanut butter candy), some Pringles taste I’ve never seen and so on. I also bought minced meat as it was _really_ cheap. I don’t know how much it weights in grams, but I’m guessing it’s like 500g or so for not even $3 which is even cheaper than Sweden. I felt a bit like a child in a toy store actually as there were so many things for very cheap prices there. I managed to hold back some though! Asami bought only like chips and candy though!
After the supermarket we went to meet up with a friend of Kyle’s who has been stationed in Fussa since 6 weeks earlier. We went to a restaurant called Chili’s and it was kind of what I imagined. The food was really good, but the since of the meals were like made for two people or maybe even three. However, as I said the food was really good though. I had a “margarita grilled chicken” and along with that were baked beans and some sort of rice with small taco stripes.
That’s it for today though! Good night!
