Club Day

From the last post -- the lost girl made it home alright. Good thing she knows how to catch the train, though; we always lose her when we're wandering around the city.

Yesterday we spent some time at Ikebukuro. I forgot to mention on the cell phone post that we found a Don Quixote the day we got cell phones, but here are some photos anyway:

That's Tama and Saniya.

It's even more packed and random than the one in Hawaii. Don Pen is even scattered throughout the store.

I have not been keeping up with my celebrity news. Charleton Heston died? What? I saw it on one of my gossip blogs, which prompted me go to CNN.com to verifty. The headline, however, was an article on "geisha guys."

On the way to the train station today, we took a little side alley to find somewhere to eat and Natasha swears we passed one such man. He was very well dressed in a suit, had his hair dyed and styled, and was fairly good looking. "Really, really, really, ridiculously rich women pay for them," she said. I guess if I had the money I'd pay some Japanese pretty boy to keep me company.

I digress -- today was club day! We got to Sophia expecting the campus to be relatively quiet with maybe some gaijin running around. However, it was more like this:

Most of the clubs and circles on campus were actively recruiting members for the semester. It was a completely different atmosphere than Creighton's club recruiting days, where people join clubs to put it down on resumes or because they need the community service. It is to my understanding that in middle school and high school in Japan, students have to join a club or they'll be social outcasts. I suppose that mentality carries on into university.

There were sports clubs (hockey, soccer, lacrosse, soft tennis, tennis, cheerleading teams), music clubs (choir, bands, orchestras), social clubs (international friendship club, walking club), dance clubs (G-Splash street dancing, flamenco) and clubs for social causes (law, model U.N.). Most of the clubs put someone out that spoke English so it wasn't too hard to communicate. I'm told that while each group does take part in whatever they say they do, really it's just an excuse to go drinking and party.

A few clubs piqued my interest:

The Folk Music Club
- Not actually dedicated to folk music, but rather to J-Rock and American rock bands.
- Their meeting room was taken up by a four-piece band playing Japanese rock songs. In between songs I managed to talk to one girl about her taste in music. We were scrolling through my iPod and came upon one of the most awesome bands in the entire world, The Darkness, to which she said, "Ah you like The Darkness? HOLY SHIT I love them!!!" She actually said "holy shit," and it was the funniest thing ever.

Flamenco Dancing
- I think it would be pretty cool to be able to say, "Yeah I studied in Japan. I learned flamenco dancing while I was there."

Amnity Club
- Social club dedicated to hanging out with foreigners. They made it sound nicer than that but that's the gist of it.

Swimming Club
- I felt kinda bad after talking with Kentaro, the swim team representative. I like swimming, but I'd rather do water polo. I asked about it and he looked kind of sad, since he's a swim team member and not water polo. But I didn't bring a suit with me anyway, so I don't think I'll be joining either.

I'm still a bit sickly, and the other girls are catching what I have. It's going to get a bit rainy in the next few days, too. Hopefully it'll be nice by the time my birthday rolls around.

A few happy things to end the post: