I deliberately scheduled my classes so that I would have a four-day weekend. Here at Nagoya University for Foreign Studies (NUFS) international students have Friday off so they can go on weekend excursions that NUFS orchestrates. I made sure to schedule so that I would have Thursdays off. This way I could do my homework from NUFS and from ATU. When I first arrived, I had tremendous trouble with the Wi-Fi and fell behind in my classes from ATU, and I could not keep up so I ended up deciding to drop them. I have nine class periods between Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I split them into three classes per day. My Japanese language class is four periods a week, two back-to-back on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. They are from 9:10 am to 12:20 pm. My other five classes are once a week for an hour and a half. This doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is. I spend so much time on homework it isn’t even funny. But once I’ve completed my work, it’s time to have fun. I have been all over the place here in Japan, including Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Those were all day or all weekend trips that were planned out in advance but for a typical weekend here in Nagoya my favorite place to go is to a Bookoff. Imagine a Goodwill on steroids and you will know what a Bookoff is. But it includes more anime stuff, manga and sometimes kimonos. Anytime I can I like to go to a bookoff with my friends. Sometimes I buy a lot of stuff, sometimes only a little bit, but I cannot go and not buy anything. I might have a problem. I love shopping here. Everything is cheaper than back home and it’s all amazing. I wish some of the stores that are here were back in the states. There are Harry Potter stores, anime and manga stores including a One-Piece store that might just be my second favorite place to shop. With everything I have bought I think I’m going to need a new suitcase. I was not expecting to spend so much, but everything is so awesome, and I am having poor impulse control. I don’t only shop on my weekends. Sometimes My friends and I go to Joy Joy, which is a karaoke place and sing so much our throats hurt, other times we go to take pictures in kimono and just walk around. I love that everything here is interconnected by the public transport system. I enjoy being able to know Japan by all the walking I must do to get from one subway station to the next. Sometimes the buses or subways are not enough, and I have to walk for a bit, but I have come to really enjoy walking.
