Hello Keio and Shibuya

Good morning, day, evening or whenever you are reading this :) I'm happy to report that another day went by without getting hopelessly lost somewhere! At least the way to campus was unproblematic. On the way to the large lecture hall the orientation for international students was taken in, I got to know even more exchange students (especially from Germany :D) and finally met all the fellow Siegeners. :)

Mita Campus of the Keio University

The orientation covered mostly introductions and formalities (and filling out forms, obviously), so I will spare you the details. Just this one: Everyone of the exchange students had to come to the front and introduce themselves. Yep, all 233 people. It was still interesting to see how many different countries were represented (29, if I remember well). Next orientation will be on Monday and there will be a campus tour as well - so more pictures will follow :)

Mita Campus surroundings

After the event, some of us wanted to go to Shibuya, mostly for SIM cards and some other stuff. At the station, however, the others changed their mind (or just disappeared), so there were only a French student, Alizée, and I left. On our way to Shibuya, we experienced the overcrowded Japanese trains for the first time :P still not as bad as at the morning rush hours, I suppose, but it was... cuddly.

Beside our shopping, we explored the area a bit, by which I mean "went around with our eyes wide and our mouths open". Shibuya is really the kind of Tokyo you would recognise from the movies, fascinating by its huge, shining, blinking, singing and talking buildings. But see for yourself:

                           

                           

 

Of course, there are also plenty of places to eat. At a small, authentic-looking restaurant we treated ourselves to a tasty dinner:

We didn't find out what this drink was though, and whether it actually contained alcohol. It was called "Shochu with Oolong tea" and tasted bitter. A little googling revealed that it is a spirit with  20-40% alcohol "made from rice, sweet potatoes, wheat and/or sugar cane".

It was a great evening with a lot of impressions, although you definitely need much more time and energy to explore Tokyo's districts properly. To finish, here's a little video for you to get a little impression of how it looks and sounds like in Shibuya (sorry for the bad upload quality):

Now I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow without any appointments or urgent stuff to do... Have a good night and a great day :)

P.S.: I have been made aware of the fact that the comment function wasn't working properly, and changed the settings so now everyone can leave a comment without having to register anywhere! :)