Karaoke, Bike, and Phone

It's Friday!
This week has been busy but enjoyable.

I finally met my speaking partner. She's a Japanese student at this university. She's from Okinawa, and I got a gift from her

I also had a home visit meeting. I signed up for the home visit program which is for students who aren't doing a homestay. It pairs us with a Japanese student whose family has volunteered to do things together with an exchange student a couple times a month. I'm invited over for dinner next week, which means there will be one day on which I won't be eating cup noodles or ramen :)

For both meetings we conversed entirely in Japanese. I guess that's pretty good. I haven't taken a Japanese class since December and I was busy with Korean this year. I thought I forgot a ton but most of it is actually right there. I still feel like a beginner but I can communicate fairly well when I need to.
Things are going fine with my roommate, who's Japanese, as well. This is my fourth time having a roommate and I wasn't looking forward to it, but so far this is the best roommate experience I've had.


I went out for fried chicken with a dozen people a few nights ago, and last night I did karaoke. The thing is, everyone has Japanese quizzes today. My class was at 9 AM this morning and we had our review test. I was going to study last night, but I went out for karaoke instead. That's fine, except we sang for four hours and I got to bed at 2 AM. Which means I didn't even consider trying to study.
The test was fine though! It was easy and I was the first to finish.

Before karaoke, we stopped for hamburgers

People were calling the karaoke place sketchy, but I thought it was fine

I hate singing and I can't sing, but I do like going to karaoke. Except if you go, everyone will force you to sing something. I ended up speaking (instead of singing) a few songs in English, German, and Korean.


After taking the test this morning, I went to get a cell phone. I've gone to the store about 5 times but they were sold out of pre-paid phones each time. Today I finally bought one!

I also gave in and bought a bike. This whole time I had no desire to buy a bike. I didn't want one. It would be a hassle because I'd have to buy it, somehow resell it when I leave, register it at the university for parking, register it at my seminar house for parking, worry about safety, and pay attention to what side of the sidewalk or street I'm supposed to ride on. But then all my friends got bikes, and my schedule has time in between classes, and bikes are a lot faster... I like walking, but the seminar houses aren't close to campus. Biking instead of walking can reduce your travel time. It will take 1/3 of the time to bike. I like riding bikes but I've never used one as a form of transportation before. Almost everyone got a bike though, and then I realized it would be convenient.
After buying my phone, I bought a used bike. I'm glad I got one. Also, I was lucky with the color. Usually they only have silver bikes.

I'm going to eat now and I have two more classes this afternoon. After that I'm going to the sushi restaurant with some people. Tomorrow we plan on going shopping in Osaka, to some area with lots of anime stuff. I'm not an Anime Fan but I'm happy to go anyway.
I'm having a lot of fun here so far.