Welcome to Japan!

When I last wrote a blog post, I was stranded in Seoul. After publishing the post, I got on a flight to Chubu Centrair Airport in Nagoya, and when I got off I had an email from the coordinator informing us that a man named Hazama-san, the KIEC (Konan International Exchange Center) director would be picking us up in a shuttle bus. After going through customs and such, he was waiting at the International Arrival gate for us, holding a sign that said "Konan University." There was another group of students that had gotten stuck and would be arriving a bit after us, so we waited for around an hour and half for everyone to get to the gate before leaving in the bus. It was around a three hour bus ride to the hotel, the Plaza Hotel Kobe, which is on Rokko Island. Once we got to the hotel, we were given our keys and meal tickets for breakfast, and then quickly showered and went to sleep as we were all sweaty and exhausted.

The next day we had a sort of rudimentary orientation. They weren't able to do the actual orientation they had planned for us that day because many students still hadn't arrived yet, so they put together a quick schedule for us. We had breakfast in the hotel from 7-8:30 and then at 9:15 we all met in the lobby to go to Konan University.

The university campus is located in an area called Okamoto and is around a 15 minute walk from the train station. The town of Okamoto, on first impression, seems very nice and rather upscale, sort of like Aspen or Woods Hole. There were lots of cute cafes and boutiques and such, as well as cheaper restaurants for the university students. I can't wait to try them all out!!!

Once we got to Konan University, we sat in an air-conditioned room and the YiJ coordinators, Saji-san and Flowers-sensei (a resident director from the University of Hawaii) introduced themselves. We introduced ourselves and had a short Japanese lesson before meeting our assigned tomodachi partners. Tomodachi (友達）means "friend" in Japanese, and before coming to Konan University, we were each assigned a Japanese student at the university to be our partner and help show us around and introduce us to their friends and such. Because the schedule had to be changed, the meeting of the partners was very last-minute, and many of the students were late or couldn't make it.

We were shown around the town of Okamoto by our partners, and then got lunch. Our group went to lunch at a local soba restaurant, which was really delicious. Soba is a type of noodle made from buckwheat, and is often eaten cold with sauce. I had a lunch set that consisted of tuna on rice, pickled radish, and soba noodles in a cold broth. It was quite cheap, and very tasty!

After lunch we went back to the Konan campus and were shown around the different buildings and such. Because it is still summer break in Japan, there weren't many students around. The campus is very clean and beautiful! It's up on the top of a hill, with mountains behind it, and you can see it from the train. There are lots of trees and flora on the campus, and I was told that most of the trees are sakura trees, and in springtime the whole campus is pink from the sakura petals.

Like I mentioned before, there are lots of mountains in the area. Today was rainy and they were shrouded in clouds and mist and looked very ethereal, like something out of a painting. I asked if there were good hiking trails and my partner said that they don't know, they don't really hike, but they have a friend, who I'll refer to as S-san, who loves hiking. They introduced me to S-san and we exchanged contact info, and we're going to find a time to go hiking together before school starts! I didn't bring hiking shoes so I'll have to get a pair of good exercise shoes, but it'll definitely be worth it, I think.

After the tour of the campus, we went back to the hotel. I showered and then got dinner with a group of some friends. We went to an udon restaurant inside the hotel, which was a bit pricey and not very good, due to it being hotel food. By that time I was exhausted from all the socialization and walking (I walked almost ten miles that day!) and after dinner, went straight to sleep.

The next day we got up early, had breakfast, and then met our host family!!! My host mother, Sacchan, came to pick me up. She is a very nice woman in her sixties who has hosted around fifteen other international students before. She said she's been hosting students for around ten years now, and so she has many 'children' all around the world!

Sacchan showed me around her house, and after taking a short break, we went together to the city center to get my residence card. Once we did that, we went back to the house. It was very hot and humid that day and I was quite sweaty, so I wanted to take a shower, but realized I didn't have any shampoo/soap/laundry detergent. Sacchan told me how to get to a nearby supermarket and so I went and got some toiletries and such.

One thing I had trouble with is refill packages. In America, when you get shampoo, soap, etc, it's always in plastic bottles, regardless of the size. However, it seems that in Japan, you can get those things in either plastic bottles, like America, or in these sort of parcels that aren't resealable. Because the non-resealable parcels are cheaper, at first I thought I would get them, but it turns out that the parcels are for if you already have an empty plastic bottle of that certain product. They are refills, that's why they're not resealable. In this way, you don't have to keep buying and throwing away plastic bottles, so it's cheaper and better for the environment. As expected of Japanese innovation!

I finished shopping and went home and took a shower and put my clothes in the washing machine. After my shower, Shige-san, Sacchan's husband, came home from work and we had dinner. Apparently Sacchan has a cooking license, which I easily believe. The dinner was delicious!!! It was a bunch of small dishes, Japanese style: grilled yellowtail with lemon juice on top; a sort of salad with cucumber, seaweed, crab, and some other things I don't know; potatoes and carrots and squid legs in a broth, some tofu and vegetables, and seaweed with a spicy dressing. I'm not sure what everything was, but it was all incredibly tasty. I mentioned to Sacchan that I'm interested in learning how to do Japanese cooking, and she said that starting next week, she'll teach me!! Once I get back, I'll hopefully be able to make yummy Japanese food for all my friends.

Once dinner was finished, I went and unpacked my things. My room is a Japanese-style 4.5 tatami mat room. In the center is a kotatsu which doubles as a table which I can use for studying and such. The room is really cozy, I'm looking forward to living here!!!!