Welcome to
my blog! This is where I share my experiences as an exchange student in
Kanazawa university from October 2014 to August 2015. I have two main goals for
the blog: firstly, to keep my friends and relatives etc. up to date with how I’m
doing and secondly, to give information about living in Kanazawa (or just Japan
in general) to anyone who is planning to have a similar adventure.
Updates are
likely to be more frequent at the beginning when everything is new and shiny
and strange, but I’ll try to keep an at least weekly pace even afterwards, probably
focusing more on special events and/or themes.
Since almost
a week has already passed, here is a recap of my first few days in Japan!
The flight
was pretty smooth. There was no one sitting on the seat next to me, so I could
keep my bag there and move around just as much as I wanted. However, I couldn’t
fall asleep except for about 40 minutes near the end…which was fun considering
that I arrived in Japan 9:00 local time (October 1st).
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| View from the plane during the takeoff. See you later, Finland! |
I had
signed up for a charter bus from Kansai International Airport to Kanazawa, and
it was there that I made my first friend: a British girl who turned out to be
in the same program and in the same dormitory as I.
After the
fairly uneventful 6-hour bus ride, we finally got to the dorm. The dorm
consists of several “units”, each of which rooms 8 people. The kitchen/living
room is shared by the entire unit, and there are 2 showers and toilets in each
unit. Everyone has their own bedroom (which, if I may say so, is pretty
spacious by Japanese standards. It’s about the same size as my room at home,
but with less stuff!).
Thursday
and Friday were orientation days. So far they’ve handed out probably 300+
pages’ worth of info about course registration, syllabus, traffic rules,
disaster prevention, insurance, house rules, university Wifi connection,
language programs, garbage sorting guidelines…
On Friday
morning, we also had a Japanese language placement test to determine which lessons
we should take. The test was done in a computer lab and it was nothing too
special: multiple-choice questions testing kanji skills and reading/grammar.
The slightly surprising part was that we had to write a composition BY HAND
after completing the other tests. But the theme was quite easy (along the lines
of “In order to become good at a foreign language, one must go live in a
country that speaks the language. Discuss.”) and the space reserved for the
text was less than half of an A4 sheet, so it was alright.
The plans
for Friday night included a welcome party in the other international dorm (the
one that has a more convenient location than mine but has really small rooms
and looks a little depressing). You had to pay 1,000 yen to get inside and
there were snacks and free drinks and a whole lot of people. This was a place
where I got to witness the power of what the Japanese call “nominication” (nomu
(=to drink) + communication). The local students were really enthusiastic about
getting to know the newcomers and I had to keep introducing myself left and
right – thank goodness for the person who came up with the idea that everyone
could write their name in their plastic cup, which made the task of learning
foreign names much easier in a noisy environment. I am happy to announce that I
made a few acquaintances (Japanese and international) and was invited to a
couple of things I’ll probably write about later. Mission accomplished!
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| The Central area as viewed from the South area (where I live) |
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