Yay for breaks!

So, at about noon today, I got up to meet Yoshiko and Brian in front of the dorm for some bike training. As mentioned in a previous post, I have never ridden a bike before. We had to go by bike to get to the station at least in order to get to school on time for the medical exam. At first I was really shaky, and none of what they were saying was actually helping. It mainly was just that explaining it in words is harder. After finding out the front wheel controls the balance and direction, I was set...at least for now.

The medical exam was oddly confusing, at least for someone that has just been in Japan for 2 days now. The language was still escaping me and I was thrown with Rin to be "experimented" on, which is what the tests seemed more to me than for medical purposes.
In the first room, we had our height and weight checked. Pretty standard for medical reasons. Next, our heartbeat was checked. Again, something done by most doctors. We next had a eye exam. It was easily enough to do this in Japanese (oh how hidari (left), migi(right), shita (down), and ue (up) make their way into my broken Japanese ~!). We later had to go outside for chest X-ray exams. As much as I have had x-rays done in my life, I don't need anymore radiation plastered to me. After this test, the real "exam" occured, the electrocardiogram (go Firefox for recognizing my misspelling the first time! :D) exam, which seemed out of a horror film, rather than reality, on a white bed, in a classroom, in Japan. First, the electrodes were attached (about as long as the average tentacle monster's appendage) to my chest and body, and some untold amount of electricity was passed through my body. Didn't really feel anything actually, so it must not have been like what happened to Bill Murray in Groundhog day with the toaster.

After that, we were told to go on our separate ways, but we were supposed to be meeting up with several people later that day for a hanami (cherry blossom viewing) party at Oyama Park. We later rode with Brian and Lin to go register for our Gaijin registration cards. After that, I rode around on my bike for a while...

...then it happened, I was making my way back to the apartment when I was ran off the road by a taxi driver, and I reacted quickly enough to hit a wall. Well, it was a chain link fence, but it was good enough anyway. A reflector broke so I had to go back and explain to the landlords in broken Japanese about what happened. By now I had a comfortable handling on my bike, but the insisted on for 15 minutes to practice riding the bike in front of the dorm. I later left with some knowledge of where the park was but took a wrong turn and ended up on a different bridge. By the time I got to the park, it was going on dark, but everyone was glad to see me at least. Food, beer, and wine followed.



"It seemed deserted when I got there..."