Orientation - Owari!

I've been on the ground for almost one week now but haven't really adjusted to the Japanese/Exchange student lifestyle.  Hopefully that will start to happen soon.

As mentioned in the title, today we finished up the orientations.  Tomorrow we are going on a field trip of sorts to Nara, which is east of Osaka.

I had some extra time today so I wandered with friends around campus.  For some reason I still haven't gotten my bearings in the city yet.  It is layed out in more of a grid in the south near the station so I have very little trouble there, but anywhere around campus I am completely lost.  Part of our explorations today were to attempt to find where our classes, which begin Monday, will be located.  I also noticed the view for the first time:



It is always surprising to look around and realize that you can see the Umeda district of Osaka from school.  The campus is very beautiful (rated the most beautiful in Kansai by some survey.)  It looks like I always have imagined universities in the southern parts of California to appear: Mission style architecture with some palm type plants which don't survive in Washington or BC.


We also took a walk out to one of the stations near the school.



As the sign suggests, we were on our way to Nishinomiya Kitaguchi station, which is the main station in the area, although it is privately owned and operated by Hankyu, I believe.  To the south of Nishikita (or whatever the slang used is) lies a large, new shopping mall called Nishinomiya Gardens.  (I think).  Anyway, it is a really big mall but there were a shocking number of exchange students from Kwansei Gakuin there.  We visited two stores as most of us were going home for dinner.  The first was called "Loft" and carried a variety of home goods, books, accessories, etc.  (Phil - you should start watching One Piece because you can buy One Piece everything and I haven't seen ANY Naruto yet.)  Next we went to a department store with an electronics section my friends are looking for cell phones.  I took this last picture on the way home.  I tried to improve the colors but gave up because and just made it black and white because then I know it isn't purple.