While the noodles are cooking

Alright, I said I'd post from now on in english so my friends who don't speak norwegian can feel included :)

Starting with a follow up to my last post. Somehow I've managed to end up in the A class, which means me and 9 others will follow a schedule that will be slightly more difficult than the rest of the guys. I'm not sure I can manage to keep up, but I'll certainly do my best. The 4 other guys who live in the same dorm as me have also ended up in the same class, so I'm sure we will study together regularly.
The teachers seem nice, but we've only had one introductory class so I don't know yet how difficult the classes will be. Bit I've browsed through the books we will be using and I noticed that the first chapter at least will be partly repetition of stuff we learned last year.

I've gone into tokyo twice with the 4 others living at my dorm (Bjørn, Joachim, Karianne and Lorenzo). The first time was to go into Akihabara (electric town) to look for a mac for Karianne, and cool gadgets for the rest of us :) It was a fun trip, though the highlight of the day was when we decided to go to a cafe for a cold drink.
We'd been handed out a flyer earlier, for something called MaiDreams, which boasted pictures of pretty girls in maid outfits on it. The guys being in the majority, we ended up going there; needless to say I was more than slightly sceptical of the whole idea.
We took an elevator up to the fourth floor, and as the doors opened with a cheerful ding we walked into what can only be described as a mix of barbie's playhouse and every boys upost fantasy. The room was all plastic, and everything was white and pink. The second the door opened we were assaulted by a loud "IRRASHAIMASEEEEE" from three girls in maidoutfits, screeching their welcome at the top of their lungs in a pitch high enough for bats to pick up.
We were guided to our table by a young maid whose shoes seemed three numbers too large, in a dress three numbers too small, and wearing more plastic accessories than the whole of the 80's combined couldn't compete with.
We ordered some drinks only, as all the food had cute little faces painted on them and we just couldn't bring ourselves to eat them. As the maid returned with our drinks, she also brought a plastic sheet, from which she read loudly in a heavy-accented voice. Turns out there was a special ceremony that came with buying drinks in this place, and I'm still suriprised we did it, though we've had some good laugh of it since. The ritual went as follows; we made a heart shape with our hands, and while moving it around we sang "One, two three: MAKE FOOD DELICIOUS!", immediately followed by a substantial amount of cheering and clapping. Sadly we missed the two middleaged men in suits on the next table performing the same song.
After we had finished our drinks (we opted not to buy pictures of the maids), we somewhat sheepishly made our escape, with the sound of "Sayonara, master!" guiding us out.

Our next trip to Tokyo was yesterday, when we decided to go see the Imperial East Gardens, an open part of the park surrounding the Imperial estate. However, it turned out that the park was closed on sundays (whut?), and so were the ones in the viscinity. So instead we decided to go to Shinjuku to watch the kids prance around in the latest fashion, and to maybe do some shopping ourselves. In unbridled optimism, and perhaps in a slightly skewed perception of our physical condition we decided to walk. Turns out it wasn't as short a walk as it seemed on the map, and the blazing sun didn't help. It was a nice walk though, surprisingly considering how close we were to a freeway. We followed a rive for a large part of the walk, and most of the time there were plenty of trees and greenery along the path.
After arriving in Shinjuku we spent some time just walking around and enjoying the sight of the crowds and the architecture. We also spent some time in various arcades, in one of which I was beaten the crap out of in Tekken 6 by some Japanese guy, who had probably lived in that arcade for most of his life. No, I'm not a sore looser :P
Twelve hours after we left home, we returned to our appartments, tired and slightly sunburned, but on the whole pleased with our excursion :)

In other news; we still have no internet, so I'm leeching off the wireless network of one of the neighbours. The signal is poor to say the least, so I leave it alone apart from writing the odd mail and sometimes talking to des on skype. Writing this post I have to constantly save my work, in case I get disconnected, which happens depressingly often. I also look forward to being able to getting up to speed on tv-shows that are not all in Japanese (though I do watch japanese tv alot).
We also don't have bikes yet, which sucks considering the distance in Togane. Add humidity and heat, and shopping for grocieries can sometimes be a bit of a chore.
We tried karaoke on Friday, which was so much fun! I sang to my heart's content, and hardly had a voice left on Saturday. It's kind of dangerous to go there though, as for the price of the room you get free drinks for as long as you stay (and they're open to like 5 or 6 in the morning), and their oh so tasty mango drinks pack a serious punch :S


All in all I am happy here, though I do get the occasional pang of homesickness. The worst thing is being seperated from my husband; I'm still not used to having to be without him, and I miss him terribly. However it has gotten alot better during the last few days, as I have become more at home here. And I'm sure it'll help once I have a stable internet connection, so that I can talk to him more.
Everyone around here is very nice, and though they speak very little english, and we speak too little Japanese, the residents in Togane are very friendly and eager to help.

That's it for now, I'll post again later!