Harajuku and the first day of classes

Oh the infamous Harajuku. Was it as amazing as everyone says? Hmm, yes and no. We trekked to Harajuku on Thursday as one of our last full days of touring before classes started. Once again, it was raining. And once again Teresa, Mia and I were on the lookout for certain items (boots and a bag). Teresa had warned the guys in an e-mail that us girls were going to Harajuku ready to shop, so Greg decided to bow out of this trip but Hunter and Alex figured they could brave a little shopping.

Because we went on a weekday, we didn't see all of the crazy outfits and such. Apparently the best time to go to see all of that is during the weekend, especially on a Sunday afternoon. So I'll have to go and do that sometime, if only to post the pictures here. And once again it was raining. It seems that whenever we go shopping in the rain, we never find the things that we want. This outing was no exception to the rule. I think we went to every single store on the street pictured to the right and we left Harajuku after 3 hours without a bag or boots. Furthermore, I made the unsettling discovery that the largest shoe size in Japan doesn't fit my foot! I'm only a size 9 but the large here feels like a size 8. Not good. This may mean that I will never be able to find the boots that I want here in Japan, which translates to t-r-o-u-b-l-e.

After schlepping through Harajuku in the rain we all headed to our respective homes to prepare for the first day of classes. Teresa, Mia, Greg, Natalie and Jen all had intensive Japanese at 9:15 in the morning for three hours, while Hunter, Alex and I had regular Japanese for an hour and a half at 11. The course meets for 8 hours a week so I e-mailed my advisor to see if I could get credit for all 8 hours and it turns out that I may not be able to, which is really frustrating. See the course covers a year's worth of Japanese, in my case the entire second year. But since I've already taken 201, I may only be able to get 4 credits. I'll have to e-mail my advisor again and see if we can't do something about that because it's a bother and it's 4 hours of class time that I won't even be getting credit for. Plus, if I can get 8 credits for Japanese I won't have to take 5 classes and I can take just 4! Take a moment to imagine how wonderful that would be.

Have you imagined it? Now you see why I'm so frustrated.

I went to two other classes on Friday, one of which I will definitely not be taking. The professor was just awful and the subject matter wasn't especially interesting to me either. The second course, Individual Culture and Society, however, seems really interesting and the professor studied anthropology at Oxford. So I know she's good. Other than that, I'm not really sure what else I'm taking. We'll see what happens with my Japanese credits and then I'll decide from there. Hopefully everything will work out, I don't know what I'll do if things don't.