Week 1

So continuing on from the last post...

Saturday 18th September
The next day (Saturday before classes started) we went to hang out in Osaka. We stayed in Umeda area. It was surprisingly quick to get there. It took about 15mins on the Hankyu express train from Nishikita (Nishinomiya-kitaguchi station). I really gotta get used to the fact of how close Kobe and Osaka are => 30mins on the express train! Geez, if only Melbourne and Sydney were that close eh?

We did a whole bunch of things that day. We first went to the big Yodobashi store opposite Umeda station. Yodobashi is an electronics chain store, but this particular store was like 7-9 floors or something of electronic goods. O___o!!! Friends bought the newly released Pokemon black and white versions and we had some fun in the Gachagacha corner (the little toy dispenser machines), before going to the Pokemon Centre. This ended up being a store full of Pokemon merchandise. (Pokemon is still pretty big here in Japan, and in the US and Canada apparently =S)

Then we went to the Hep5 building and rode the big red ferris wheel before going into Namcoland and played taiko and took stickies with the machine that gives you creepy eyes. Then we went to the nearby shopping mall street and had some ramen, where we bumped into a couple other KGU exchange students, so basically the whole ramen place was bombarded with KGU exchange students =]. Then karaoke! Then we caught the train back home.

Sunday 19th Sept
ME DAY! Was feeling bored at home so took a stroll to Sannomiya and explored Centre Street again.

Monday 20th - Wed 22rd Sept
First week of classes
Monday was a public holiday (Day for the Respecting the Old or something) but us exchange students still had classes. Nothing too exciting happening besides classes.

Thursday 23rd Sept
This day was also another public holiday (Autumn Equinox Day). I asked my host family what do Japanese people do on this day every year and they said that nobody does anything and the reason why this was special was because the day was gonna be exactly 12hrs of day and 12hrs of night. [I wish Australia had as many public holidays as over here....]

So on this day, we went to Takarazuka and checked out the Tezuka Osamu museum. For those of you who dunno, Tezuka Osamu was the creator of Astroboy. *thumbs up* Had a bunch of fun there, camwhored, became amused with the halograms, and watched a biopic of Tezuka Osamu where we all felt sleepy afterwards. Afterwards, we had lunch at Lotteria (ebi-mayo burger is *thumbs up*)and then went bowling at Round 1 =]

Friday 24th Sept
Back to uni again. Nothing too special besides how unfamiliar this Japanese tertiary schooling system is to me..... It seems a lot less stressful and disorganised....

Saturday 25th Sept
Sports Day
Went to Nigawa and checked out friends' host siblings' sports day (undoukai) at their primary school. It was quite the experience. Very very different to the Athletics carnivals we have back home. Got to see some events, such as the one where the kids have to throw as many of their coloured balls into the basket above. Another was some sprints. It looked kind of like a production line the way they went through all the races. All the relevant kids were lined up near the starting area, and one after another they went through all the sprints. It was done very methodically and efficiently. And then we tried to explore a bit of the school before checking out the finale, which was a whole bunch of human pyramids made by the students and even some of the teachers participated in them too. You could really feel the mentality of working in a group is so strong here. The coolest one was perhaps the 6 storey one. And the way they set it up and went back to the ground... wow...

Afterwards, we met up with Evelyn who was also at the undoukai (Turns out she was in my Japanese class last year.... and totally did not know that... >____>) and we went k and had dinner at Denny's, which turned to be not the Denny's the north american kids were used to.

Orientation Week

Okay I know this entry is a tad overdue but oh wells. So much has been happening these days... Firstly recount of orientation week which was 3 weeks ago.

So moved into my host family's house on the 11th Sept. It was a bit awkward at first... meeting a middle aged Japanese man who was struggling with helping me carry my large suitcase... but yeah... that awkwardness has eroded somewhat and I'm feeling a lot more comfortable staying with them now.

So recap of orientation week...

Day 1 (13/09/2010)
Placement test day!
Had to attempt 3 exams in the morning. First was the grammar and reading paper, then listening. Afterwards it was speaking exam in the form of an interview, and while people were waiting to go for their interview, we had the writing paper to complete. Then afterwards, we went to the Fujita Lounge room and had lunch and some introductions. And then we met our nihongo partners.

Day 2 - 4
yeah... mind's a bit fuzzy atm. I think we had a bunch of orientation talks about life in Japan and such. Perhaps a campus tour to the library and computer room... We also received our placement exam results. I got placed into Level 3 with a side note that my grammar level is lower than required (><') So yeah had to e-mail Iida-sensei and get my subjects sorted again. The one part of orientation I remembered distinctly was the one on what do to in the situation of an earthquake. During this segment you could really feel that they've never forgotten the Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 whereupon Nishinomiya, where the uni campus is, all the way to Sannomiya went down. My host mum told me that the Sogo in Sannomiya used to be much taller before the earthquake and how unexpected it was. But looking at the Hanshin area and Kobe, it's been rebuilt so well that it looks like it never happened though.

Day 5
Field Trip!
... to NARA!!!! Even though I just went to Nara to see the Daibutsu like just a week before it was still heaps of fun. Had to get to KGU at 8.30am (eurgh +__+... soo early!) and caught the bus to Nara. We saw the Daibutsu, then we went to some Japanese restaurant and had lunch there (超うまかた！） and then to Kasuga Taisho, which was some famous shrine of love or something =S.

日本にいるよ！

So it’s been almost 3 weeks since I first arrived in Japan. There’s already been some downs but mostly it’s been going uphill so far. Probably the most bummer things at the moment is not being able to get a mobile phone and not having a bank account set up yet. For a gaijin to get a mobile phone, you are required to present your alien registration card. However, you don’t get this card until a month after you’ve applied. So what do you do during this time when you need this card for pretty much anything related to signing a contract for something (bank accounts, mobile phones, etc)? Ans: you purchase this green paper document for 300yen from the immigration office, where I hear it’s like a temporary alien registration card. So why didn’t I get this paper when I applied for alien registration? Cos I got screwed over by the ridiculously short trading hours of the Kobe Immigration office, so they refused to give one to me on the spot and told me to come back the next day (when there was still like 30min before closing), whereupon I pretty much wouldn’t be able to get there in time since it takes a little more than an hour from school and the orientation week schedule was pretty full on on information overload. It seems that’s what it’s like here in Japan. If the trading hours state that it closes at a certain time, they will ensure that it actually happens and stop doing services to leave the office at the precise time. So unlike home where you’ve got people running in in the last 10mins and keeping the office/shop/etc open until whenever that case is over. So, now I’m feeling bad for my host mum changing her plans making time for me to come with me to the city ward just to get this piece of paper.

I’ll write up more later when it’s not at such a ridiculous time (currently 4.47am after a 6 hr nap)

UPDATE: i've got the 300yen paper now! but still no phone cos none of the 4 softbank stores we visited yesterday sold the prepaid ones. =[ you'd think that since they sell prepaid ones in a local branch store like Kotoen, you would expect a big shopping district like Sannomiya would have them as well, eh?

only 2 weeks left XD

holy crap! I can't believe that there's only 2 weeks till I leave for Nippon and it just feels like there's still heaps of crap to do before leaving. Most things for the japan trip are organised (i think) except deciding on the method of getting to Sydney airport and getting to the hotel in Osaka (fingers crossed Jetstar won't have a bloody flight delay and screw up our plans on somehow getting to the hotel via public transport before midnight ><). had to go to STA and get my ISIC reissued because they printed my date of birth incorrectly. it wasn't the fact that they couldn't input 10 correctly into the computer that annoyed me, it was the way they decided to fix it up when I visited them. the STA girl seemed really clueless about what to do with ISICs if there was something wrong with it. she asked her colleague what to do, i didn't hear what that other girl said, but apparently the solution was to change the 01 to a 10 with a black marker. are you kidding me??? what kind of ID card would be acceptable if there was an obvious texta mark to modify the details on the card? and this card is supposed to be internationally recognised... such a dodgy solution.... so after a session of annoyance and outrage over this solution, the girl told us to come back in 20 minutes. we came back and the new solution was to reissue me a new card, but it'll take a week to process. jeez... why couldn't they have told me that when I first walked in instead of wasting another hour of my day.... *shakes head* it's just simply incompetence and the failure of double checking data entry of STA staff which has resulted in wasting my time.... which I don't have much of left.

Message received....Destination: KOBE!!!

omohwkjfohefefejf!!! I've finally received some news on where I'm going to be living for (at least) the next 5 months, and as the title summarises this piece of news in a nutshell, yes, I'll be staying in Kobe this semester. Hello Kobe beef, nadagogo*, Iron man no.28 and many more things to explore and experience in this culturally rich city! It seems that I'll be staying with an elderly couple, so hopefully they'll like me and won't be too strict on me with curfews that I've heard some people have received with host families in the past.

I'm writing this up at 2.30 in the morning just because I am simply too excited at the moment. It is such a contrast to how I was feeling this morning when I had just realised that I couldn't completely fill up my VISA application since I still had no idea this morning where or who I was gonna be living with. This has just totally made my day.

So update on the progress of my pre-departure preparation:

• KGU fall semester fees TICK
  
• KGU arrival info form submission TICK
• pick up ISIC TICK
• apply for VISA
• book flight TICK
• change flight itinerary
• book accommodation HALF TICK
• dental check up
• update on wisdom teeth situation
• get remaining three vaccination shots
• revise Japanese
• clean up room
• learn to cook some meals
• organise 21st
• fix up sleeping pattern
  
• continue compiling "To do" list in Japan
  

Looking from this list I've still got a heap of crap that still needs to be done.... gahhh...

*some sort of sake specialty from Kobe

Time to start preparing...

FINALS ARE FINALLY OVER!!!

The one thing that stood between me and Nippon was sitting for that project mgmt exam.

Now that that’s over, it had finally hit me how much stuff there is to worry about before leaving: visa, accommodation, travel insurance, airfare, travel itinerary, money issues, school fees, enrolment etc but anyway, only less than 2 months to go till I can meet the glico man ... =]

Officially accepted!!

YATTA! I am officially accepted as an exchange student at Kwansei Gakuin =] =] =]

Last Friday was the pre-departure briefing that all exchange students for S2 had to attend. Didn't realise that there were sooooo many people going next sem. There's like over 400 UNSW students that are gonna be studying abroad, most of them going to US, UK and Canada. The briefing wasn't anything out of the ordinary I think. It covered the typical talk about the travel insurance cover we've got, enrollment for next sem, and a heads up on coping with settling into the foreign country and settling back when we return. Some interesting questions were raised amongst the students during the insurance talk. Stuff like what if you get pregnant, have a car crash and kill somebody, get HIV, accident from bungee jumping, skydiving or any other extreme sport, etc. But I think the absolute worst part of the day was the crappiness of the heavy downpour. Walking on the main walkway was like going through a carwash tunnel, with the wind and heavy rain. My socks, shoes, jeans up to the knee were just drenched. Also felt a little worried since I hadn't received my acceptance letter then after learning that most people had already gotten theirs.

BUT all that's fine now because I received this in my lovely inbox today =]

I am pleased to tell you that the Kwansei Gakuin University has accepted you as an exchange student. Please come to the Exchange Office to pick up your acceptance material.

Congratulations!

Only bummer is that I have to make the long trip back to uni during stuvac just to pick it up (=___=) why couldn't they have just mailed it to my house and save me the time and money to get it....