Baka gaijin

Some people seem interested about it, so I'll write about some funny situations. Most of them happened during the first months in Japan.

• My worries when arriving at Itami airport where I was supposed to look for someone knowing only the name. (Actually that person found me first... I wonder why... hehe)

• My face when I first entered my room (or should I say "cube"?). It's smaller than my bedroom in Brazil. Plus the fact that was my first time living alone and I imagine that I made a funny expression. At least the reactions I noticed from Silvia and the coordinator for international students (who were with me at the time) make me think so.

• Feeling like an illetarate for being unable to read things properly (that even now. It's way better than in the beginning, but there're still lots of things I can't read or I just guess).

• My first time buying things for home at a supermarket.

• Being unable to find the way back home from Silvia's house to mine. It's less than 10 minutes walking far, but it's hard to find your way in streets here. And that happened at night... I couldn't find the right road to turn.

• Not being able to find out the correct bus fare. It changes depending on where one gets on and where one gets off.

• Entering the wrong bus, noticing the mistake and riding another wrong one. This time one that loops and returns (only one terminal). I wonder what the driver thought when he noticed that one passenger haven't got off when the bus started to go back...

• Taking almost a week to learn how to use the washing machine with everything written in Japanese. Solution? Throw the clothes in and press the start button. XD

• Having to use for the first time a "traditional Japanese style" toilet (where one have to crouch in order to... hum "do what nature demamds you to").

• The first Engineering class in Japanese (Electronic Circuits using a Japanese textbook). Guess my first thought was "what I'm doing here?" and "this gives a new meaning to the traditional students' complaint of not understanding the teacher..."

• Surprised with Japanese women wearing miniskirts even though it was cold.

• Feeling like in some kind of anime when seeing students wearing sailor uniforms.

• Discovering that almost all exchange students that arrived in April or May have the same mobile phone model and color. That's because au company offers student discount, only one 0 yen model have option for menus in English and that model is available in black, lemon green or pink colors...

• Looking at the menu in some restaurants without knowing what to order for not understanding descriptions and dish names (for the last one, the solution is pointing).

• Mistaking wasabi (or some other spicy thing) as noodles and eating a mouthful at once.

I'm sure there's more... I'll continue this series as I remember more situations.