Ohaiyogozaimasu! (good morning!)
Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been super busy this weekend and week school events, making new friends, exploring, etc. A lot has happened, so I'll try to remember as much as I can (^^;)
So, start with school activities. Yesterday we registered with Suita-Shi (Suita City) for our legal alien registration, so we took the local bound train to town hall and register. It was pretty easy and straight forward and I got to impress people with my translation skills. Oh, and in the sample form that they gave us the fake address was Brooklyn st. Arlington, VA, which to those of you who don't know is my mother's home town where most of my mom's immediate family still lives. Small word, right? We also signed up for the national health insurance plan. Soooo awesome. Basically you pay $18 a month and it covers 70% of all medical costs; meds, doctor visits, dentist visits, etc. Very awesome, wish we had that in America.
Then we had lunch at the cafeteria. Still super delicious than any cafeteria I've ever been to. And after words we had a guided tour. This actually sucked. extremely. It was incredibly hot outside, and we had to walk all over campus. I sweated so much my entire shirt was drenched. Disgusting. I kept asking "Where's the pool?!?!" I have to say that several times I thought about how easy it would be to sneak away, but kept remembering that all the guides were volunteering to do this (some of them have as much as an hour long commute to campus), so I just sucked it up. Afterwords we returned home I took a long shower, and I took a long naked nap with the Air Con on full blast.
Oh, speaking of showers, I used the community bath in my dorm for the first time. Thus far I think I'm the only one of the Americans who have used it yet. You have to be naked in front of everyone, and there is a bit of etiquette to it. But mission accomplished and it was awesome. Very relaxing, and I was really proud of myself.
Lets see all of that was yesterday... so before that we had basic orientation. We took the JLPT which I guess I told you guys about on facebook. It was horrible. We only had 30 seconds to read the directions, read the question, and read all the answers, select which one, and then click the next button. So a lot of the time it wasn't that I didn't understand what was going on, but I couldnt answer quick enough so a lot of my questions were left blank D: I got a really bad score. Everyone did in fact. Nobody feels it reflects their true Japanese language skills knowledge. Oh, and we (a lot of the gaijins) have been frequenting this one bar GBs a lot. Its an American restaurant with Japanese American type food, and lots of drink specials. The staff who all work there are a bunch of Japanese punk types and are super nice and funny. I promised the manager that I would make him a mix CD of punk, metal, and rock ^_^ We met the Kansai University basketball team and they taught us a bunch of Japanese drinking games. Incredibly awesome! Made sooooo many friends.
Well, I'm being yelled at to go. I didn't cover nearly as much as I wanted to, but I'll update again probably later today or tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Dorm beginnings
Konbanha minna-san! (good evening everyone)
A lot of stuff has happened, and a lot of information has been mentally processed within this time so I'll try to write as much as I can without being boring.
So I've been in my dorm for around 48 hours and I already feel pretty comfy at home. After staying at the Shin-Osaka hotel I easily managed to get a taxi to go to my dorm. The taxi driver was incredibly nice. He new a few words in English but not much. He mostly spoke to me in Japanese, but we had a pretty good long conversation in a beautiful hybrid of Japanese and English. He even gave me his personal number and told me if I ever get in trouble, I'm lost, or need to go somewhere, call him and don't worry about paying. Ridiculously nice, right? Well, of course my dumbass lost the number.
The dorm manager, Fujiwara-San (I have named him The Fujj, and I've also decided that he will become my new best friend) is also a really nice guy, and definitely a character. Though only knows a few words in English, but he is pretty easy to understand. In fact when he was going over dorm rules and regulation with us Julie and I were able to understand about 80% of what he was saying. THERE ARE TONS OF RULES. Its kind of crazy. Boys are only allowed in the lobby and NEVER in your room, you must always change your name tags on the bulletin board if you go out, curfew is 11pm, you have to record in this giant food planner book thingy if you're going to be there for meals or not, switch shoes when going to the bathroom, leaving, or walking around, no wearing PJs outside your room unless going to the bathroom, you must tell The Fujj if you're staying out for the night or if you're bringing a friend to stay the night (and there is paper work for that), and the list goes on.
Oh man, funny random story time: when I was filling out the dorm room checklist (whether things were good or bad, clean or there) some of the translations were kind of interesting. My two favorites Door Rock, and Rocker. There was certainly no rock or rocker in my tiny room. Ah, they meant door lock and locker. lol. ruv.
Oh, also the toilets in our hall have sinks built into them (the big square shelf part behind the seat) and when you flush the toilet the sink automatically turns on... and keeps running... and keeps running.... so after flushing the toilet 4 more times to try to get it to stop I walked away and came back a few minutes later to find it had stopped. Basic appliances overall have proven to be challenging.
The single room I'm in is not only small because its a dorm, but Japanese apartments/dorms are stereotypically small. But everything in here seems pretty new and nice. The bed is a very basic Japanese futon (not gonna lie its uncomfortable, but manageable), and as foretold the pillow is small and full of beans. I made my bed right away, but Julie (who had stayed with Japanese friends the past week) told me theres a specific method for doing it. Basically the . I'll post pictures soon. The dorm doesn't have WiFi, which sucks so I can't upload my pictures from my ipad.
As the night progressed more American girls arrived (all from St. Louis). One of whom told me today that she stumbledupon my blog and linked to it! :D Thus far everyone seems very chill and nice. Our floor is mostly all Americans, but there are a few others (all from somewhere is Asia, with the exception of one girl from France. Her English is really good). Most of the girls from Asia speak Japanese pretty fluently, so we can talk to them that way.
Today we had fall semester orientation. We had two student volunteers (Fuka and Mai, both of whom speak pretty good English, are super amazing, and I love already) walk us to the university. The campus is BEAUTIFUL, possibly being on of the most beautiful campuses I've seen. The entrance gate is super fancy with a really good giant metal sculpture that looks like 20ft silver metal grass with a clock at the top. The cafeteria is food is amazballz and has a large selection of food with Japanese and English names printed (thank you sweet baby Jesus). Never has cafeteria food tasted so good.
Orientation took for.fucking.ever., because everyone who got up to talk not only had to speak in Japanese, but English too. And a lot of information we already had received was repeated. We also got A LOT of papers. Most of which are in English and Japanese. It was cool though seeing all the other foreign exchange students though. They said it was the biggest group of foreigners they've ever taken in (I think they said around 64..?) and ranged from America, Europe, Asia to Egypt, Haiti, Australia, and other parts of the world. Totally cool.
Have I mentioned by the way that there are LOTS of attractive men here? >u<
More adventure time to come (I've had that theme song stuck in my head all day). Tomorrow I have the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) which will determine what language level classes I will/can take.
As always it makes me super happy to know that people are actually reading the blog. Comments and questions are much loved.
So till next time folks, Oyasuminasai~~! (Goodnight)
Erii
A lot of stuff has happened, and a lot of information has been mentally processed within this time so I'll try to write as much as I can without being boring.
So I've been in my dorm for around 48 hours and I already feel pretty comfy at home. After staying at the Shin-Osaka hotel I easily managed to get a taxi to go to my dorm. The taxi driver was incredibly nice. He new a few words in English but not much. He mostly spoke to me in Japanese, but we had a pretty good long conversation in a beautiful hybrid of Japanese and English. He even gave me his personal number and told me if I ever get in trouble, I'm lost, or need to go somewhere, call him and don't worry about paying. Ridiculously nice, right? Well, of course my dumbass lost the number.
The dorm manager, Fujiwara-San (I have named him The Fujj, and I've also decided that he will become my new best friend) is also a really nice guy, and definitely a character. Though only knows a few words in English, but he is pretty easy to understand. In fact when he was going over dorm rules and regulation with us Julie and I were able to understand about 80% of what he was saying. THERE ARE TONS OF RULES. Its kind of crazy. Boys are only allowed in the lobby and NEVER in your room, you must always change your name tags on the bulletin board if you go out, curfew is 11pm, you have to record in this giant food planner book thingy if you're going to be there for meals or not, switch shoes when going to the bathroom, leaving, or walking around, no wearing PJs outside your room unless going to the bathroom, you must tell The Fujj if you're staying out for the night or if you're bringing a friend to stay the night (and there is paper work for that), and the list goes on.
Oh man, funny random story time: when I was filling out the dorm room checklist (whether things were good or bad, clean or there) some of the translations were kind of interesting. My two favorites Door Rock, and Rocker. There was certainly no rock or rocker in my tiny room. Ah, they meant door lock and locker. lol. ruv.
Oh, also the toilets in our hall have sinks built into them (the big square shelf part behind the seat) and when you flush the toilet the sink automatically turns on... and keeps running... and keeps running.... so after flushing the toilet 4 more times to try to get it to stop I walked away and came back a few minutes later to find it had stopped. Basic appliances overall have proven to be challenging.
The single room I'm in is not only small because its a dorm, but Japanese apartments/dorms are stereotypically small. But everything in here seems pretty new and nice. The bed is a very basic Japanese futon (not gonna lie its uncomfortable, but manageable), and as foretold the pillow is small and full of beans. I made my bed right away, but Julie (who had stayed with Japanese friends the past week) told me theres a specific method for doing it. Basically the . I'll post pictures soon. The dorm doesn't have WiFi, which sucks so I can't upload my pictures from my ipad.
As the night progressed more American girls arrived (all from St. Louis). One of whom told me today that she stumbledupon my blog and linked to it! :D Thus far everyone seems very chill and nice. Our floor is mostly all Americans, but there are a few others (all from somewhere is Asia, with the exception of one girl from France. Her English is really good). Most of the girls from Asia speak Japanese pretty fluently, so we can talk to them that way.
Today we had fall semester orientation. We had two student volunteers (Fuka and Mai, both of whom speak pretty good English, are super amazing, and I love already) walk us to the university. The campus is BEAUTIFUL, possibly being on of the most beautiful campuses I've seen. The entrance gate is super fancy with a really good giant metal sculpture that looks like 20ft silver metal grass with a clock at the top. The cafeteria is food is amazballz and has a large selection of food with Japanese and English names printed (thank you sweet baby Jesus). Never has cafeteria food tasted so good.
Orientation took for.fucking.ever., because everyone who got up to talk not only had to speak in Japanese, but English too. And a lot of information we already had received was repeated. We also got A LOT of papers. Most of which are in English and Japanese. It was cool though seeing all the other foreign exchange students though. They said it was the biggest group of foreigners they've ever taken in (I think they said around 64..?) and ranged from America, Europe, Asia to Egypt, Haiti, Australia, and other parts of the world. Totally cool.
Have I mentioned by the way that there are LOTS of attractive men here? >u<
More adventure time to come (I've had that theme song stuck in my head all day). Tomorrow I have the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) which will determine what language level classes I will/can take.
As always it makes me super happy to know that people are actually reading the blog. Comments and questions are much loved.
So till next time folks, Oyasuminasai~~! (Goodnight)
Erii
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
First Arrival
I've arrived at my hotel at Shin-Osaka. The airports were completely easy and most everything had an English sign or the people working there could speak half English- half Japanese to me. I slept from Raleigh to Chicago, but only slept 5/12 hours on the plane to Tokyo. I talked a little bit (in Japanese) to the girl who I sat next to on the flight over to Tokyo, and even helped translate a few tiny things for people (telling them to "push" the bathroom door, etc.), but as soon as I was off the plane all confidence was gone.
I took the train from Kansai International Airport to Shin-Osaka station (thanks to the help of some awesome people who I recognized me from the flight from Tokyo to Osaka). Once there I easily got a taxi (the guy spoke no English at all), and showed him the address that was printed out. He had no idea where it was. He just drove for a few minutes muttering in Japanese "I don't know..." I thought he had figured out where we were when he dropped me off as Studio Shin-Osaka. Well, of course it couldn't be that easy. Thankfully someone pointed me in the directions using the map, and I found the restaurant connected to the hotel I'm staying at for the night.
Soooo happy to be here.
The elevators are small here (much like in Europe), but wicked fast. Oh, and of course the room is really really small. But its Japan. They gave me tons of bath-body stuff, free water in the fridge and like most Japanese hotels they provided slippers.
After figuring out how to use the toilet and the shower (not the same as American ones), I set out to find food. Delicious. I regret not bringing my ipad so I could have taken a picture. It was a small traditional little Japanese eatery. I got Edamame (soy beans) and Tonkatsu (breaded and deep fried pork cutlet). Oh, and I ordered an alcoholic beverage from a public place for the first time! I sat at the bar with the laughing patrons, and had a giant Asahi beer all to myself. The place (Watamin-chi) was super lively, friendly and very fun. The host gave me an English menu, but spoke to me in Japanese the whole time (it must be pretty obvious I'm American, oh well).
The hotel I'm staying at also provides me with a beautiful breakfast with my choice of either Japanese, or western style breakfast (Japanese, duh).Tomorrow I'll check out, take a taxi (hopefully he'll know where he is going) and go check into my Dorm and meet up with the other NAU girls.
But now that my belly is full, and I've alerted the internet that I'm still alive, its time for bed.
I took the train from Kansai International Airport to Shin-Osaka station (thanks to the help of some awesome people who I recognized me from the flight from Tokyo to Osaka). Once there I easily got a taxi (the guy spoke no English at all), and showed him the address that was printed out. He had no idea where it was. He just drove for a few minutes muttering in Japanese "I don't know..." I thought he had figured out where we were when he dropped me off as Studio Shin-Osaka. Well, of course it couldn't be that easy. Thankfully someone pointed me in the directions using the map, and I found the restaurant connected to the hotel I'm staying at for the night.
Soooo happy to be here.
The elevators are small here (much like in Europe), but wicked fast. Oh, and of course the room is really really small. But its Japan. They gave me tons of bath-body stuff, free water in the fridge and like most Japanese hotels they provided slippers.
After figuring out how to use the toilet and the shower (not the same as American ones), I set out to find food. Delicious. I regret not bringing my ipad so I could have taken a picture. It was a small traditional little Japanese eatery. I got Edamame (soy beans) and Tonkatsu (breaded and deep fried pork cutlet). Oh, and I ordered an alcoholic beverage from a public place for the first time! I sat at the bar with the laughing patrons, and had a giant Asahi beer all to myself. The place (Watamin-chi) was super lively, friendly and very fun. The host gave me an English menu, but spoke to me in Japanese the whole time (it must be pretty obvious I'm American, oh well).
The hotel I'm staying at also provides me with a beautiful breakfast with my choice of either Japanese, or western style breakfast (Japanese, duh).Tomorrow I'll check out, take a taxi (hopefully he'll know where he is going) and go check into my Dorm and meet up with the other NAU girls.
But now that my belly is full, and I've alerted the internet that I'm still alive, its time for bed.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
So after six years of taking Japanese language classes (starting from Freshmen year of high school and going through three Sensei’s, I am finally going to Japan for the first time!!! I will be studying abroad eleven months at Kansai University located near Osaka City (Osaka-Shi), in the prefecture of Osaka. I will be leaving September 6th (2011) and plan to return around the second week of August (2012). Thankfully, two other girls from my college, Julie and Sam, (both of whom I’ve had classes with and know) will be in the same program at Kansai with me (and the same dorm).
I’ll be staying in an off-campus, International, all female (as is the norm) dormitory, Ryokuchi Koen. This gives a brief synopsis of what the dorm is like (its all in Japanese though), but it has pictures! http://www.gakuseikaikan.com/placehall/hall/22156.html . Already I can tell this is going to be a lot different than schools in America. For one Japanese dorms generally have their own dining hall and cafeteria services (meaning that breakfast and dinner are served on a short and strict time period, super early). Secondly, they have curfews. That's right. I have to be in the dorm between the hours of 11pm to 6:30am, unless I check out with the front desk, and able to find somewhere to crash for the night. So don’t worry Mom.
On a different note, these dorms will all be single person rooms. I was originally told that I Japanese roommates were assigned to foreign students, but I guess that policy has changed. I am excited to live in an international hall though. I have already given a basic schedule for the first few weeks I’m there. The semester doesn’t start till September 20th, so hopefully that will leave me with sometime to explore as well.
Just to let everyone know so that this is not as badass as it seems, I’m taking all classes in English. Lol. Sorry, but my Japanese is not THAT good enough to be able to understand college level classes, in fact its nowhere near that good. But, hey, that is why I’m going.
I wish I could say more. But right now there is not too much to report. I’ve got my Visa already, plane tickets bought, hotel reservations made, and got a new duffle bag suitcase. Even though I’ve studied that language and culture in school for so long, worked at a Japanese restaurant, learned a Japanese martial arts (Judo), watched tons of anime in the past (even gone to conventions), I still feel very unprepared and don’t know what to expect. I’m just trying to prepare as much as possible for this trip.
As I write this blog I will try to make this as educational and easy to understand as possible for people who may not be so familiar with the Japanese way. As mentioned above this is my first attempt at a blog of any sort (I usually just stick to facebook), so this will be a learning experience for all.
I’ll try to update soon again! <3
エリー (Erii)
~~~PS: Feel free to send me comments and questions about anything!~~~
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