Tuesday was a giant orientation with OUSSEP, Frontier lab, and regular exchange students all thrown into one group. Some introductions were made by the teachers but as for among the students, most people already had their little groups either by dorm or by country. Met Tob that day whom I made friends with on facebook through the unofficial OUSSEP group page. Most of the stuff that happened was pretty boring and they reminded us to apply for national health insurance, alien registration, banks and the like. The campus tour was kind of a mess since the student organization that set it up had to deal with so many exchange students at once and trying to herd all of them around campus. After orientation some of the students met up with their host families. I was pretty nervous when meeting mine, but they're a very nice couple who likes to travel to Okinawa, which in some way makes me believe they chose me because my first trip to Japan was a home stay in Okinawa. Surprisingly enough they knew what city I was talking about when I told them I lived there. It was the country side so not very many people know about it cause the only place that gets attention in Okinawa is Naha. Anyhow, we made plans to meet on Saturday for dinner (which was really fun).
My host family and I parted ways and then I met up with my room mate, Josephine, and her host family. They took us to a cafe on campus for tea and cakes! It was great but I felt bad because they weren't my host family. XD Afterward Josephine and I were walking through campus thinking of what to do that night. I suggested karaoke and upon mentioning that we saw a very tall boy from the Netherlands posing rather awkwardly while taking a photograph of a tree. I recognized him because he was in my campus orientation group and immediately invited him to come along, but before we could discuss ligistics he demanded a picture with the three of us. He then asked a random guy walking passed, in English, to take a picture. Josephine and I thus assumed that this kid was a fellow exchange student. As I was talking to Martijn about karaoke plans, Josephine talked to Yusuke and invited him to come with. Once we grouped back together I asked if Yusuke was also an exchange student to which he replied, "oh, no I'm just a regular student here". And we were all shocked. His English is so good because he studied abroad in LA for a year. Even though it was so sudden and he had originally just planned to get some coffee during his study break, Yusuke still agreed to go karaoke with us instead. D: Martijn saw some of his other dorm mates and invited them as well, but a guy named John from Sweden (who's family is from Hong Kong!) wanted to go meet with an advisor to see if he could move out of the dorm and into an apartment, a matter that I would soon be unexpectedly yet heavily involved in. While John and some other guys were talking to advisors, we decided that since the boys had bikes that they could meet us at the closest station and Yusuke could drive me and Josephine. The three of us made our way to his car, a good 15 minute walk across campus and proceeded to make what should have been a 10 minute drive to the station. We got so caught up in conversation that Yusuke got lost a few times and had to reference the GPS on his phone. orz Once we made it to the station we realized that the karaoke place Yusuke suggested had recently closed down. With no sight of the boys we began to worry. Indeed we had arrived later than expected but assumed that maybe the boys got lost on their way to the station since it is unknown territory for them. We then worried that maybe they not only got lost but perhaps hurt. After a while Josephine came up with the logic that considering one of the boys was Swedish, if they got to the station before us then they probably wouldn't have waited any longer than 30 minutes before heading back home so we left a message for them at their dorms to email me that they were alive and then went out to eat at an izakaya in the station.
The next day on Wednesday we saw Martijn and the boys at the orientation on Suita campus. "THANK GOD YOU'RE ALIVE!" I screamed, to which they all replied, "US?! We thought you guys might have gotten KIDNAPPED and RAPED cause you went with a STRANGER in his CAR." Josephine and I looked at each other and it had suddenly dawned on us that what we did the night prior was, indeed, rather dangerous and irresponsible... However Yusuke turned out to be very nice and suggested we hang out again at some point.
The rest of the orientation was rather boring. Josephine and I had to get up earlier than other OUSSEP students since we're a guinepig group for Osaka University and trying out off campus apartments for the first time so there were lots of loose ends to be tied up. In fact we didn't even finish what needed to be covered in the 2 hour meeting before the actual orientation and had to set up another meeting.
This is Guan. He's from Mexico and very popular with the ladies.
This is Beamer. a very sexy shark.
Lunch! (top to bottom, left to right) Tim, Yuki, John, Rene, Girl I don't Remember, Martijn, and Alexandra\
Beamer wants to eat Josephine.
Rawr.
John and Martijn.
The boys. (er, some of them)
Anyway, the orientation ended and Josephine, the guys and I went back home to chill. Josephine started doing her laundry when I got an email from Martijn suggesting that we try the karaoke adventure again that night. But since the washer was going we weren't allowed to leave the apartment in such a state, so Josephine stayed home and I biked back to Suita campus to meet with the boys. Met up with John first and as we walked out to meet the rest of the gang I realized, "Wait. You guys were worried about me and Josephine going out with one random stranger, but now I'm going out with FIVE guys who, despite being in my exchange program, are still TOTAL STRANGERS." But I warned them to not try anything funny or else there would be balls missing forever.
Karaoke was difficult, but fun. The place we went to turned out to be kind of lame and didn't have a very big English selection. By the end of the night Martijn and I had messed up voices, yet we still continued to sing Bohemian Rhapsody on the way back to the station in the middle of the night. Of course the next morning we all had to wake up bright and early and some how manage to make it to Toyonaka campus for the last part of orientation.
This turned out to be a rather lengthy entry, so I will finish the adventure story tomorrow after my classes!
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