2nd day - orientation

today was orientation day!
and one of the things we did, besides sitting thru *boring* talks and watching videos was ... to take our photos for the Alien Registration card that ALL of us had to get, cause we'd be staying more than 3mths in Japan! pro la, their photographer, he was giving some instructions in japanese, and it was so fast it was indecipherable - not that if he slowed down i'd know any better! This is Gift, my friend from Thailand, getting her photo taken. Gift is seriously a gift to us - she knows every detail about what's going on (abit like how small Yanyan sometimes is?) yup.


then we were brought on a tour of the facilities in the institute! hey this place has great facilities ok. FREE washing and drying (bring ur own detergent though!), FREE MASSAGE CHAIRS (there are 5 altogether) - think OSIM!, FREE loan of sports equipment, and bikes, a japanese styled room used for cultural lessons, learning lab (language classroom equipped with computers), 24hr karaoke room, 24hr self study room, where you can print materials for free (bring ur own paper la, but hey, pjc's like that too what...), and a library! like WOAH! impressed la. this is us on the tour. we asked questions about things as simple as what buttons to press for washing machines and dryers - cause everything is in japanese!!!



In the evening, we had a dinner reception that included some bigshots (don't ask me the names i forget. i only know i spoke with this sensei, sakura san, who looked really young! she will be one of the teachers. Met some of our seniors (senpai) from the 10th batch, most honourable mention goes to Johanna from the Phillipines who really rocks ! she's doing research on moral education and was investigating the state of singapore's moral education syllabus. needless to say, i said my piece! and guess wat! our views are soooo similar! what are my views, u ask? well, suffice to say i cant' put them on this blog for fear of censure! :P but we had a good time talking to various people. and. OH. I FINALLY HAD SUSHI!!! YUMMY SASHIMI!!!!! but the rest of the time was spent kanpai-ing (toasting pple).... and listening intently to what others were saying in japanese in order to try to figure out bits of what they wanted to communicate- siong leh!

this is shiaw jia, johanna, and me!

the combined batch of 10th and 11th AYFers

the 11th AYF batch!


after the dinner, we took a night walk out along Rinku beach - which really isn't a beach - its a huge mass of largish stones. and if u weren't careful you could sprain ur ankle walking! Raziah, one of my friends from Bangladesh, was in platform shoes (which were SO Wrong for the poor girl) and she had to take off her shoes and walk barefoot - it was like a mini foot massage session for her (u know like those painful ones?). We also saw 2 groups of pple lighting fireworks! yippee! tried to take some photos but they didn't turn out that nice. tough.



So the beach leads on the the park - and we managed to grab a couple having a romantic stroll and get the girlfriend to take photos with us! and the boyfriend actually came into our photo too! hurhurhur. spot the non AYFer!



notice that i haven't mentioned anything about studying? hahah ... we were given our schedules, textbooks etc, and its soo massive that i'm in denial. and Oh. remember the test? no i don't remember :P it was a 1hr test and pple started walking out after like FIVE MINUTES cause they'd completed it already... wah piang stress man! ok.. TEST??? WHAT TEST????