ryuugaku-blog1

[ryuugaku-blog1]

Homodachis

A post about my new friends here in le Japan, mostly so I have urls for the pictures so I can easily add them to my scholarship blog

Mark @didjaputyernameinthgobletuvfire

My southern mom...............where would I be without him

Nick @atupda

Probably Didn’t know I was about to take this photo.  Loves birds so much, why can’t every bird become his child..............

Adrian @thedemigorgen

This is the only picture I have of him.  Probably for the best.  Luvs mothman, we are polyamory dating him

Cameron doesn’t have a blog

The only picture I have of Cameron is of him and Nick.  I didn’t plan ahead enough.  But this will have to do I Guess

Mai whose url I don’t remember

This is not the only picture of Mai but it is the best one

Together we...

Kakigori

Ramen

And Gay Shit

That’s a really shitty picture of the pride parade lmfao!

Anyway we have a good time and i Love y’all the end

[ryuugaku-blog1]

Nishiki Market

Recently, I’ve been going to a shopping district in Kyoto!  I don’t know what the whole area is called, but my friends and I always identify it by one portion - Nishiki Market.

The Nishiki Market portion is alllllll food.  Traditional Japanese treats, restaurants, street stands, sooo many things I wanted to spend money on!  I would eat there every day if I could.

But Nishiki Market is surrounded by shopping streets with even more things to spend money on.  Stones and jewelry and fans and kimono...

The way to and from the shopping district in gorgeous - you have to cross this big river.  It’s so pretty at night!

There are a few small shrines and and temples in the area - just big enough to stop by and say hello.

Japan already feels so much like home - I can’t believe that all my friends are going to be going home at the end of this semester.  That’s just another two months!  We need to have as many adventures as possible before then.

[ryuugaku-blog1]

Arashiyama!

This past weekend I went to Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari!  I went to Arashiyama on Saturday, and Fushimi Inari on Monday, so I guess it wasn’t technically the weekend...

Arashiyama was such a blast!  I went with some people from the school, and also with a couple of Japanese girls we met!  The first thing we did was eat - there was sooo much food.

After that we went to see the Arashiyama monkey park!  The monkeys are wild animals, so you can’t get close to them, but they just roam freely!  It was so neat to see them just living and interacting with the buildings and the visitors.

The area around the park was so beautiful.  I’m a little upset about how Japan sort of ropes off all the nature.  You can see it, but you can’t get to it.  I want to be out with the trees!

After the monkey park, we went to the bamboo forest!

We also went to some temples and shrines nearby...but I don’t remember the names. (;﹏;)

On Monday, I met my friend Grace!  She’s from UNT also, but she’s studying abroad up at Ristumeikan in Kyoto!  We went to Fushimi Inari!

The orange everywhere...(*ﾟ∀ﾟ*)

I loved all the smaller shrines!  And the view was sooo pretty.  You could see almost all of Kyoto.  We went to a big, quiet temple near Kyoto-eki after that to wind down...again, I forgot the name. ( •́  •̀) It was really, really nice though, I loooved it.

It was an exciting weekend of outings!  I can’t wait to go even more places!

[ryuugaku-blog1]

Classes

I have started classes, these past two weeks!  They have been a lot of fun!

I’m taking Japanese language (level 5A), kanji and readings (level 5A), a class about Shinto, a class about deaf and disabled people in Japan, and a class teaching us how to play the koto harp!

Everything’s really fun!  I’ll post soon about places I’ve gone outside of Hirakata.  But Hirakata has a lot of fun stuff too!  I recommend it.

[ryuugaku-blog1]

I went to the bookstore today.  Before you, you see 30 mangas.  17 of them only cost ￥100 - literally one US dollar.  After the regular priced ones and everything, it evened out to literally around $2.50 a book.  Amazing.  I love Japan.

I’ve read a lot of them, but a lot are also new!  So it’ll be fun to try my hand at reading them.  I think I can do it.

List of titles under the cut!

Omairi Desu Yo : Volumes 1, 2, and 4.  I will seek out volume 3 elsewhere.

No. 6 : Volumes 1-4.  (These covers are so different from the American release.)

Usagi Otoko Tora Otoko : Volumes 1 & 2.

Sekaiichi Hatsukoi : Volume 10.  They’re up to 11 now I think, but this store didn’t have it....

Terebi-kun no Kimochi : Oneshot.  (Haven’t read before.)

Ai mo Kawarazu : Oneshot?  I feel like I’ve read this before, but I can’t remember what happened ;;

Choco Strawberry Vanilla : Oneshot...? I bought it for a friend of mine lmao I’ve read it though.

Doukyuusei : !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All three volumes I believe.

Sick : Oneshot.  (Haven’t read before.)

Yozora no Sumikko de : Oneshot. (Haven’t read before.)

Kimi ni Utsuru Hoshi : Can you tell I love yaoi about stars and the sky and night?  Oneshot.  (Haven’t read before.)

DistopiA : Oneshot. (Haven’t read before.)

Renai Rubi no Tadashii Furikata : Oneshot.  I would do Anything for Ogeretsu Tanaka!!!!!!!

Sabita Yoru demo Koi wa Sasayaku : Oneshot. I would literally.  For Ogeretsu Tanaka.  Literally Anything.

Kare no Barairo no Jinsei : Oneshot.  I would DIE for Hideyoshico.

Ringo ni Hachimitsu : Oneshot.  I Would Die For Hideyoshico.

Konyoru mo Jirattai : Oneshot as far as I know.  (Haven’t read before.)

Itoshii to Iu Koto : Oneshot I guess.  (Haven’t read before.)

Boku to sono Tsuzuki wo : Oneshot? (Haven’t read before.)

Himitsu wa Sawaranaide : Onnnneshot?  Looks like it should have more but couldn’t find more. (Haven’t read before.)

Shiawase no Hanashi : Oneshot.  One of the dudes dresses like Izaya from DRRR!!.  Anyway.  (Haven’t read before.)

Isshukan Friends : Not yaoi.  More volumes but they cost more and this volume was only hyakuen so *shrugs*

[ryuugaku-blog1]

This ramen is so good and I hate it it makes me want it constantly

[ryuugaku-blog1]

Hirakata-shi

Hello, all!  Amazingly enough, I made it to Japan!

Yes, after a good 35 hours of travelling, I touched down in Osaka on Tuesday, and have spent the week in orientation.  It's been pretty busy, but these last two days I've had time to look around a bit, go grocery shopping, and make it to a big デパート!

Hirakata itself is a nice, cozy city in northern Osaka prefecture.  Near the school it’s a little hectic, but once you cross the river towards Sanko you get a feeling of small-town peace.  And the seminar house is super nice - best dorm I’ve ever lived in.  As long as you’re okay with sleeping on a bean-pillow.

Today, we ventured outside the realm of neighborhoods and grocery stores and took the bus down to a department store.  Hirakata T-Site is an amazing, 8-story building that houses a huge bookstore, multiple designer clothing brands, 3 restaurants, and more things I wanted to buy than I'd ever seen in my life.  Everything was an excellent mix of cute and classy.  And everything seemed to remind me of my friends back home!  It was so hard not to buy souvenirs for everyone.  And this yankie doodle shirt - I will literally never stop laughing about that.  Ever.

I went with a group of people who live in seminar house 2 with me - Ai and Mark, who also herald from America, and Selina, from Austria.  Mark and I were very excited - I think we might have kept Ai and Selina out longer than they liked.  Still, it was a lot of fun!  And now I know how to get there by myself whenever I want.

There’s also a grocery store inside of Hirakata station. (At least, I think it’s inside it.)  It seems a lot more international than Top World or Sanko.  It carries a few items I couldn’t find in the others...MAINLY JUST A QUARTER POUND OF HONEYCOMB FOR 2000￥.  So yeah, I’m going back.

All in all, my first days of freedom have been successful!  Once I learn to ride the train, I’ll be an unstoppable force of travel.

[ryuugaku-blog1]

Yakkan Shoumei

Or, permission to bring medicines into Japan.

I sent off my application documents for a Yakkan Shoumei just this morning.  You might realize that it is kind of close to me leaving the country.

Worry not!  You can send your Yakkan Shoumei documents completely by e-mail and they will e-mail a copy of your Yakkan Shoumei certificate to you.  While it is always best to have an original with you, a copy of the certificate is fine for going through customs.

Yes, I should have applied earlier and saved myself all the stress, but I’m here to qualm anyone’s nerves; if you’re running out of time, don’t sit and stress, just get it done.  The e-mail process is perfectly adequate, and everything will be okay.

If you have a question, feel free to send me a message!

[ryuugaku-blog1]

I am officially leaving on August 21!  I’ll be departing from Dallas Lovefield, making a connection at LAX, making another connection in Taipei, Taiwan, and then finally will make the final flight to Kansai International Airport.  I leave Dallas at 9 am local time, and arrive at KIX at 9 am Japanese standard time, a complete two days later but only 30 hours of travel.  It sounds very confusing, but I’m super excited.

[ryuugaku-blog1]

Today is June 16th, a month and a day after the deadline for applications at Kansai Gaidai, and I got my acceptance!  I am documenting the time-frame because I was getting very nervous as time wore on, but apparently this amount of time is normal.  So anyone going to Kansai Gaidai, a month or so is very normal for application responses.

[ryuugaku-blog1]

Study Abroad Application Process

I realized that some people might be wondering about how it was for me applying to study abroad, how long it took, what was required, etc.  So I thought I would make a post describing my experience.  Keep in mind that I’m doing a direct exchange between two partnered universities - there are other ways to go about studying abroad during college and high school, I just don’t have any experience with them.

First off I think I’m going to talk about the cost, because I think a lot of people are concerned about how expensive study abroad is.  I’m pretty lucky that my university has this direct exchange program - I literally pay the exact same tuition and housing fees as I would be paying for the time at my home university.  The only thing making study abroad more expensive for me is A) the plane ticket costs and B) all the payments I have to make/things I have to pay for right now without the help of financial aid.  For instance, there was a $100 application fee, $200 confirmation fee, it was about $210 to order my passport, I have to make a $950 insurance payment on the 15th, and there’s around $300 in fees when I complete the application at Kansai Gaidai.  Having a job is naturally the only way I’m paying for all these, so without a job or savings this part of the process can be very difficult.

When it came to the actual application process, it wasn’t all that difficult, in my opinion.  I had to fill out an online application form and pay the application fee, and then I had to submit an approval form for my transfer credits.  That part was rather difficult, because my adviser didn’t know what she was doing, but aside from that it wasn’t hard.  What I had to do was write down the course names and have them approved by my adviser as equivalent credits at our university (all of mine are electives lmao).  Once that was turned in they reviewed my application and nominated me to Kansai Gaidai, and I moved into the stage of the application process that I am currently in.  This is where passport information and insurance payments and agreements are due.  I also have to attend a pre-departure seminar later in April.  Once that’s complete, I believe I am basically finished with my application on the UNT side of things.

The Kansai Gaidai application is a little different.  They ask for similar stuff like your birthday, marital status, graduation year, but they also ask for the names, ages, and occupations of all your family members, where you intend to apply for your visa, what languages you speak aside from English, and then they asked me questions about my understanding of the Japanese language.  They were questions like can I read and write hiragana, read and write katakana, how many kanji can I recognize and how many kanji can I read and how many kanji can I produce.  They asked if my main interest in the exchange was for language study or for cultural or historical knowledge.  They also asked for my housing preference, whether I wanted to live in the dorm, an off-campus apartment, or with a host family.  They also asked how tall I was, my weight, and “the state of my general health.”  The application is entirely in English.

There are several forms that they require to be mailed, as well.  A printed application form, two letters of recommendation sent directly from the professors to the university, a medical reference form, an analysis by my Japanese instructor, a copy of my passport, etc.  All of these have to be received by them by May 15th.

Once that is finished, there are a few more seminars, I have to get my visa and make sure the university has a copy, and some other tasks like that, but I’ll be basically done with the application process.  My tuition is, I believe, due to my home institution before the time I leave.

And that’s my experience with the application process of a direct exchange.  There are other ways to study abroad, but I have no experience with them.  If you have any questions, feel free to send an ask!