I'm still here!

Wow, it's been a little while since I wrote here. Well, here are the basic things:

Keio University is in full swing for me now. I've gone up from my 13 hours of classes per week in Australia (with about 6 hours of Japanese), up to 19.5 hours of just Japanese per week! Today and yesterday, I had 6 hours of classes. So today, I had university from 9 until 6. It's quite tiring, and don't forget, this is 6 hours of listening to someone speak Japanese to you, seemingly non-stop!
There was one occasion where I went to bed at 5:15pm because I was so exhausted. Another day, I went to bed at 6:30pm, woke up at about 10pm, read a book, then realised I hadn't done my homework...until after midnight! Whoops.

Homework is a funny thing here; we are studying the history of Tokyo, and there are naturally questions we need to answer about Tokyo to show that we understand what we're reading. To my surprise, after my efforts to be creative and push the limits of my Japanese, the teacher tells the class that it doesn't matter if everybody copies the answers straight from the textbook! This is a good thing though anyway, isn't it?

I don't have any new photos as yet, but I'll post some ones I've already taken but haven't posted.
This is a picture from Yoyogi Park. Just thought I'd show you an example of the "squiggles" that I'm learning to read! This sign basically says that, 'musical performance is prohibited unless you have a permit'.
There's a story behind my trip to this park: I went there to meet people from church. These people are a mix of foreigners and Japanese people, so I thought to myself, "I'll look for the foreign-looking people." Bad idea! There were foreigners everywhere, and the park is gigantic! Too bad I didn't take anyone's phone number with me. Funnily enough, I bumped into one of my friends on the way back to the station, shortly after I'd given up!


This here is vaguely what my room looks like. I'll have a more up-to-date picture soon...This picture doesn't have my drum kit in it.....

This is my balcony. In Japan, it's common to hang all your washing from your balcony. They use these neat little racks that have all the pegs already attached. (I learned the hard way that they're not designed for heavy things!) Note the power lines...they seem to be everywhere!

In the Japanese language, there are heaps and heaps of English words.
Here's a weird thing I learned today: you can use the English word, "my". For example, you can say, "my home", or "my car".
However, someone might ask you the question, "Are you going to buy my house?".
Huh?
What they really mean is, "Are you going to buy a house of your own?"
So, the correct English translation is in fact, "one's own home". This is just one of many examples of how Japanese people have taken English and...taken it up a notch.

In Osaka, which is about six hours West by car, there is an unlimited day ticket for the train that you can buy one Friday a month. It's called, "NO MY CAR DAY". Gotta love it!

More pictures soon.