Nagasaki city orientation

So I just got back from the Nagasaki prefecture orientation...I wanted to stay for another day of sightseeing, but wore myself out hanging out with 21-year-olds. But by car it only takes about an hour and a half, so I figured there will be plenty of opportunities to go back.

My worries about getting there were completely voided by Monica - I am so lucky to have her as a neighbor (she's in Minamikushiyama, the next town over to the west). She was helping out with orientation, so she ended up driving Erich and I there. I love listening to her talk about the hanto in her New Zealand accent - she's truly a fascinating individual.

Besides an unfortunate incident where the elevator door tried to chew on me, the orientation itself was uneventful. I did receive "The Hanto for Dummies," which the lovely hanto JETs made for us. The first day, I had lunch with Suzie (my other neighbor to the east) and her British friends (I adore the way they say, "tomato"). Then everyone at orientation went to a local beer garden - it was a great opportunity to meet more peeps, since I sadly missed out on many of those opportunities in Tokyo because of our late flight. I ended up chatting with this guy named Mario from Greensboro. Then there is George - he also went to NCSU, but lived in Hawaii before moving to Japan. Extremely interesting dude - he is also a little older but still immature like me. :) Then we gathered a group to go to karaoke - it ended up being me, Erich, Mario, Aaron (my island-dwelling friend from the DC disaster), George, and a bunch of British people. George told me that "Creep" is a good karaoke song, so we sang it (if you can call it "singing"). The British people (sorry to lump them all together, but I can't remember all of their names) were belting out some Oasis. I made Erich sing "Eye of the Tiger." (hehe) Then we stumbled out of there like jackasses...we wandered around for about half an hour with no true goal of where we were going but we eventually found the hotel.

So the next day of orientation was torture because of the plethora of hangovers present in the audience. It ended at noon, so Erich and I did some shopping and hopped on a train and then a bus. The bus driver regarded me with confusion when I asked for a receipt...

Now we are watching "The Nutty Professor" dubbed in Japanese. I am pooped!