May 23rd: Back at Sugimoto

May 23rd marked the eleventh day of our study-abroad trip to Japan. Sadly, the previous day was our last day at the Nakamozu campus, my favorite of the two. Today was our first day back at the Sugimoto campus in nearly two weeks. Because of this, the professors let everyone know we would once again be traveling to campus as a group, and the time to meet was set at 7:55 am in the lobby. This would've been no problem if my roommate and I had just remembered to set alarms. We did not. When we woke up in the morning, it was 7:45, and we only had ten minutes to get ready and go. With zero time, we jumped out of bed, got ready in a flash, and rushed down to the lobby. We had no breakfast, looked a mess, and were barely prepared, but at least we were there. The ride to Sugimoto was relatively relaxed, as we didn't have to navigate ourselves, which was a nice change of pace. We just turned our brains off and blindly followed the professors. After arriving on campus, we split off to our usual morning classes until Lunch. Lunch at the Sugimoto campus is good, but I prefer the Nakamozu campus because they have more food selections. After Lunch, we had about an hour until we needed to meet for the following lecture, so a little group of friends and I headed to the nearest konbini (Japanese convenience store). We went to Family Mart, which is my current favorite convenience store chain in Japan.

    After our konbini escapade, we had a guest lecture by Professor Kurakata on the history of architecture. The lecture was held in a classroom on the eleventh floor with only two tiny elevators to get there, so my friend Brandon and I took the stairs. This ended up being a horrible mistake. By floor nine, we were really feeling it and barely made it to the top. This might have negatively affected us because Brandon fell asleep during the lecture. I gave him a good little elbow to wake him up though. After the lecture, we got to take a tour of the Yamaguchi residence, which is a traditional Japanese townhouse museum.

Yamaguchi residence

    We had to take a taxi from campus to the museum, which was my first time in a car in Japan. After the tour, most of the group returned to the hotel, but a few of my friends and I had dinner plans. We first went to Tenoji station to pick up one of our OMU buddies and then to Namba station. I had sashimi with some miso soup and rice for dinner. It was delicious! After dinner, our little group went to an arcade. We played rhythm games, Mario Cart, and even basketball! One of my friends got super lucky and won at the claw machines!

After the arcade, we got some candied apples, walked our OMU buddy to the station, hit up Family Mart for the second time, and went home.