The Weekend

This weekend, I planned on doing lots and lots of site seeing with the other students. Things didn't quite turn out how I expected...

Site Seeing
On Saturday, a group of us students went to Asakusa, rode the Sumida River Boat, and walked around the Hamarikyu Gardens. I enjoyed the trip! Asakusa is like the "old town" of Tokyo. It's not so crowded and modern, with fewer highrise buildings and department stores and more small shops. The Sumida River boat was all right. It was not the most scenic ride, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It's a nice change from the trains I've been taking all the time (not that I don't love trains in Japan!) The Hamarikyu Gardens were awesome! Everything was gorgeous and green, though I found the miniature mountains in the garden to be odd... Each miniature mountain even had a name!
During the entire trip, I was sneezing nonstop. Big loud sneezes! I thought I was having allergies or something. The group split around 3 PM. Half of us went to Ginza to look at the Sony Building, while the other half headed back towards Shibuya for siteseeing there. I decided to head back to Shibuya, but once in Shibuya, I realized I did not feel well and returned to the hotel. I had planned dinner with family that evening anyways, and decided a quick nap would be good.

Getting Sick
My nap took much longer than expected and I woke up at 5 PM, which was when I told my family I would be at their house! I scrambled out the door with a bag and headed to the train station. About 45 minutes later, I was at my family's home. I was glad to see my family, but I did not feel so well. I was no longer sneezing but my nose was running and I felt feverish. My grandma took my temperature, and it was a bit high at 37.7 degrees, so she decided I should spend the night. I was kind of bummed, as a group of us had planned a day trip to Kamakura the next morning and I would have to miss it. But, it was good I spent the night at my family's place instead. I did not feel well at all. It was a relief curling up on the futon with a nice squishy pillow in the guestroom upstairs (especially since I find the hard hotel mattress and bean bag pillow to be quite uncomfortable).
My aunt gave me some cold medicine called Shinruru (新ルル). It's different from the American cold medicine I'm used to, which you take every 4-6 hours. I took three small Shinruru pills after a meal. I also received a gargling medicine for sore throats. In Japan, it seems that gargling is an important health practice, not just for dental health but for overall health too.
But then on Monday, I woke up feeling dizzy. I had no appetite either. I stopped taking the  medications, since maybe this was a side effect, and I went to the nurse's station on the Tokyo University Komaba Campus. I managed to fill out the forms and tell the nurse what was wrong in simple Japanese, and I received some medications. The visit and medication costed 520 yen, which was great. It's much cheaper than healthcare back at home.
Since I got sick, I have been doing much better. I missed out on a lot of site seeing and hanging out with the other students, which bums me out a little. The course is only two weeks, and ends on Friday! I don't want to miss anything else, and I want to make the most of my remaining time in this course.


More About Class
From my Japanese professors at UC Berkeley, I heard that while high schools and even middle schools in Japan are very competitive and their work loads heavy, the work load at universities is considerably lighter.... basically, university is easy! Even top universities, such as University of Tokyo.
I'm finding this to be very true. The assignments here are not hard at all. Every other day, we have a two page report due. Professor Kimura told us we could write about anything topic covered in lecture. We can pretty much use whatever font, margin, or spacing size we want! We don't even need to include a works cited page, which I find baffling because plagiarism can get us kicked out of school back in the United States. The pressure is less here. However, I am actually not sure how I am doing in the course. Though I am not taking it for credit, I would like to know if my reports are up to standard. Basically, some feedback on my work would be nice.
I must say though, Professor Kimura is such an awesome professor! He took us out to a fireworks show last night, and dinner afterwards. It was so much fun. He really made an effort to hang out with us. I don't know many professors at Berkeley who even want to interact with students at office hours, so this was surprising for me.

No pictures for now, but I have plenty to share! Until next time. :)