Ren's Footprints

As soon as Spring chased away the frigid Tokyo winter things in Tokyo seemed to get nicer. I had a considerable amount of English conversation work in the month of April. The Spring semester also started in April bringing me new classes. I recently found out that all of the classes I will need to graduate from San Francisco State University will be available in the Fall. This has me sure that I will be back in California by the end of August so I can attend my last semester. If NBC doesn't end up hiring me for the Olympics I should be back by the end of July.
I experienced the dentist here in Japan for the first time. I got a cleaning and realized that I needed some fillings so I have make a few visits so far. I had forgotten how nervous I get at the dentist. However, I love it when they use the metal pick! I just don't like the taste of any of the stuff they put in my mouth and mostly hate having to get my teeth drilled.

Being a legal alien of Japan, I am entitled to participate in the National Health Insurance program. Because of this I am saving a lot of money, which is helpful because in the USA I don't have any insurance. I actually got one of my fillings with no injection at all.
Probably the biggest difference between my dentist here and my dentist in the USA is the way they clean your teeth. My dentist here uses a tool that vibrates against your teeth that sprays water. It sounds very much like a drill so it is intimidating at first.

On April 29th my friend Duffy had a football game against are rival school Keio (the guy being carried in my last blog). Football is not popular at all in Japan so many people have no interest in it. It seemed that even the fans were confused as to what the rules to the game are. One of the guys marking the line of scrimmage also didn't know what he was doing at all. Anyway, check out the pictures and video to get a taste of the atmosphere:

An Olympic Monument from the Tokyo Olympics



An old Olympic stadium the football game was played at