v-japanissa

[v-japanissa]

Year of Dog

Like I said in my previous post, New Year’s celebrations are very big in Japan. Japan has a whole bunch of traditions just for the New Year. In Finland the traditions my family has consist of fireworks, good foods, and melting a tiny tin  horse shoe and casting it in cold water to see what its shadow reminds you of, as a hint of the coming year.

Before December 31st, the shops started to stock up New Year’s supplies like decorations and various foods. And since year 2018 is the Year of the Dog, dog motifs were in abundance. 

Check the tiny puppy on the bottom row, just above the 400 yen sign.

Japan also has its share of fortune telling as a New Year’s tradition. 

Like these scratch-stickers with fortunes (I got good luck!)

One the New Year’s Eve I went to the Chiba Shrine with Hanna and my Japanese friend Suzuka to see what it’s like to go to the shrine on the eve of the  New Year.

People usually go to the shrines or temples during the first days of the New Year, but we managed to avoid the rush by going in the afternoon on the New Year’s Eve. 

The traditions also include fortune telling through various methods, like buying small charms that had a random fortune written inside or represented through a small object. These traditions are not tied to New Year’s celebration and you can get them at any time you visit a shrine or a temple. These paper fortunes are called omikuji.

Here’s one I got in September from Senso-ji in Asakusa. “Not good” fortune, nothing I would attempt would go right. If you get a bummer like this you can tie it to a nearby fence in a knot, like shown in the background, so the bad fortune won’t follow you. That’s what I did. The omikuji I had for the New Year had “Not good, not bad”, but it definitely wouldn’t be good so I tied it up too.

Of course there are specific fortunes for the New Year besides omikuji, like above where Hanna is pointing. It’s telling you what ages are lucky, unlucky and so on, in the coming year. 

New Year’s decorations were scattered around everywhere and it seemed like they multiplied the closer the New Year was.

Kadomatsu in a train station. People would even decorate their houses!

This has been the only time I have seen people decorate the outside of their homes for special occasions.

One of the biggest traditions concerning the New Year was sending New Year letters and post cards so they would arrive on January 1st. For kids, there is the Otoshidama, or New Year’s money, which is given in a small envelope by the adult relatives. 

My grammar teacher gave us (empty) envelopes for the New Years! Year of the Dog is great for these things.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and peaceful year 2018! Thank you for reading! -V

[v-japanissa]

December Holidays

It’s December in Japan!

And plants are still alive.. For me, December is the first -real- winter month, November is also pretty cold but usually not winter-y cold and the snow usually melts completely, but in December the winter is there and the sun doesn’t usually shine through the grey clouds.

Sigh

I haven’t felt much homesickness during my stay, but for me December has so many memories and feelings associated with the weather and holidays that I can’t help but miss my home a little bit. Being able to wear winter clothes without sweating in the sunlight, or to turn around and go back on the street without running into someone behind me, or being able to walk through the food shop on auto mode and pick up the usual groceries, or just having a toilet without any buttons next to it (although I have started to appreciate the pre-heated seats in the cold mornings).

The semester in KUIS doesn’t end until January 22nd unlike in Finland, where the autumn semester ends before December 22nd at the latest, since the holidays are right afterwards. Christmas in Japan, compared to the Christmas/Yule/Midwinter celebrations I’ve known for all of my life, has a very distinct feel to it. I don’t know how to properly express it.. It’s certainly a Western celebration that exists in Japan, but it feels very different. The Christmasy holidays are noted with the seasonal musics in shops, seasonal decors and beautiful lights, and with foods which may have appropriately themed designs on their wrappers but that is pretty much it. Of course, the Midwinter holiday is one of the biggest yearly celebrations in Finland, which might affect my reaction to the Japanese version. I miss the smells of fresh gingerbread and glögg, but eating oranges and drinking hot drinks with cinnamon sprinkled in helps.

The lights are really nice though.

We have a two week break from school as well! Some of my friends will visit their families for the holidays and some will go travelling around Japan, but for now I thought it was the best to spend the holiday time peacefully with my friends.  Our plans for the Christmas eve, day and boxing day included making a nice dinner, baking a Christmas cake, and eating KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). Basically enjoying good foods. The Christmas cake and KFC, or just fried chicken, seem to be the most cherished traditions of Japanese Christmas, but it didn’t mean I had to compromise my own traditional ways of celebrating Midwinter (which are mainly different forms of taking it easy). Basically I just made rice porridge and watched nice films, and had video chats with my family which gave me the holiday fix I was after.

The porridge! Maybe the only traditional tradition I wanted to include

The Dinner! We thought about buying a Christmas cake but since every cake had a minimum of 4,000 yen price range at the places we happened to visit, we decided to make it ourselves with ready-made cake base. The strawberries were the most expensive ingredient but really sweet and tasty. And the dinner was excellent, it felt so good to have foods from home on the plate.

All in all it was a very nice Midwinter holiday even though it was different from the ones I’ve had so far! Thank you everyone for making it special!

And there’s the New Year coming up, which is taken to a whole new level in Japan

Thank you for reading! -V

[v-japanissa]

The neighbouring Tokyo

From my station, Makuharihongo, going to Tokyo was relatively simple: Hop on Chuo-Sobu line train towards Mitaka or Nakano, wait around 40 minutes, and you arrive at Akihabara station. 

Platform at Makuharihongo station

Akihabara station is to the right of the picture

Akihabara is a part of Tokyo, as are Ueno, Ikebukuro, Harajuku, Yoyogi, Ryogoku, Sumida, Ginza, Odaiba, Shibuya, and Mitaka, places I visited more than once and can remember on the spot. Tokyo is a metropolis, having a population around 9 million people, which is four million people more than the entire Finland has! Tokyo is big! 

 All of these places felt like their own cities, and during my visits to Tokyo I got to experience two of my biggest culture shocks I had in Japan. 

One of these is the transportation, particularly by train or metro. It took me a while to get the hang of transferring from train to train and line to line to get where I wanted. But the more I travelled, the more I got used to changing trains and different stations. To get back to Makuharihongo station I get on Chuo-Sobu line train towards Chiba, once I get to a station that has Chuo-Sobu line trains within it. Otherwise, I managed to get around with Yamanote line pretty easily. Metro gave me more trouble, I could get to my destination easily but coming back always ended up with a detour, either the metro didn’t stop where I needed to exit or it went to a completely different direction. I prefer trains.

Another shock was the sheer amount of people everywhere. Tokyo has a lot of famous places for tourists and Japanese people alike to visit, and places can become very crowded. Especially on weekends. But it’s not uncommon to have big crowds on weekdays either. Coming from a country where I like to have a minimum radius of one meter of personal space around me, being huddled shoulder to shoulder in a train during rush hour or on Takeshita street during the busiest shopping hours needed some time to get used to. Although it’s possible to navigate through this mass of people in a hurry, which fills the street from side to side and moves very slow, it’s always a better idea to pick a direction where you want to go and move with the flow towards it. With that many people, chances are that you’re not the only person going that direction. 

This is the Takeshita street in Harajuku around 9 AM when nothing is really open yet. You can see the ground.

Takeshita street after 10 AM.

At first I felt really uncomfortable having people in my immediate vicinity but it can’t be helped. Also as it was with trains, I got used to having my shoulders meeting shoulders with other people and picking the right people to follow in a crowd to get where I wanted relatively quick. Besides the shopping-centred areas, like Harajuku or 

Shibuya (again around 9 AM, not very busy) that can typically get extremely busy, the temple of Senso-ji in Asakusa could get very sizeable crowds.

It wasn’t any less beautiful though.

Another beautiful place was Ryogoku, where I went to visit Hokusai museum with my Japanese friend Haruna.

The building is very modern although Hokusai lived during the 18th century, but the design is very nice to look at.

Not too far is the Kyuy Yasuya park, a small and peaceful place in the middle of a busy city.

And right close by in Sumida is the Tokyo Skytree, a 634 meter high tower that you can see pretty much anywhere you go in Tokyo. I could see its lights blinking at night from my dorm room!

Skytree in the distance.

Bit closer.

And right underneath. I have a slight fear of heights, so of course I went up.

That’s Hanna. And there’s the shadow Skytree casts on the city below.

Panorama of the skyline facing south.

I have so many pictures and thoughts to share about Tokyo, so I might make another post, especially since I couldn’t even cover Ghibli Museum in Mitaka in this one.

Totoro was there!

But that’s for another time.

Thank you for reading! - V

[v-japanissa]

The eats

Food in Japan is delicious! The flavors, ingredients, mm-MM! Even fish, which I don’t prefer but people in Japan eat a lot, was good every time I ate it. Which is why I can say with pretty good confidence that I (more or less) loved everything I ate in Japan! Of course some exceptions exist, but they are so few in number that I don’t take them in account with the previous statement. 

Since the last few posts have been text-heavy, I’ll make an effort to add plenty of photos of some of my favorite foods.

In general, eating in Japan is more affordable than eating in Finland. Whether I went to buy ingredients from a store or ate at a semi-nice restaurant, the cost could be the half of the Finnish prices on almost every item. Except the fruit. I saw a bunch of grapes that would cost the equivalent of 50 euros, which are meant as gifts, but even the regular grapes could cost around 7 euros, which is also steep. Generally the fruit and vegetables had a similar price range in Japan compared to Finland, but the variety of produce could also go beyond the everyday broccoli and tomato with seasonal produces and Japanese foods, like bamboo and variety of leafy greens.  At first it was relatively tricky to find the groceries I had gotten used to buying in Finland, but the more I ran through the supermarkets, the better I started to adapt my menu. Different shops had different things, but I lived in a neighbourhood where there was a convenience store located almost every 500 meters, and even the usual Family Marts and 7-11s had a good selection of groceries in case I didn’t feel like walking the extra few hundred meters to a bit more affordable markets with bigger selections after a long day of studying.  Even the instant foods, like ramen and soba cups and ready-made meals were delicious and cheap, especially the cup foods, costing sometimes 80 yen. I got fed up with these foods pretty quickly, so I feel lucky we had a small kitchen on the fifth floor so I could have something else besides the instant curry or ramen. My favorite foods to cook in Japan were the Japanese curry (you basically chop and boil everything and add the curry powder or roux before eating), all sorts of mixed fried vegetables with rice or noodles, tomato sauce with minced meat and onion soup. The last two were my comfort foods, and usually I would cook a big pot of them and put portions in the freezer for later. The meat was generally pricey but the quality was always excellent, so I wouldn’t eat it as often or as much, but this was not an issue. Tofu came in all sorts of varieties besides the unflavoured, solid block I’m used to in Finland, and after a few misses I found a nice, tasty, pre-fried tofu that didn’t crumble during cooking. I also consumed a lot of pre-cooked rice that came in convenient one serving packets, since our rice cooker on the fifth floor didn’t work.

Now for some pictures! I’m sorry I don’t have pictures of the shops, but I was usually too preoccupied to consider taking pics.

The school cafeterias had good menus ranging from 250 to 600 yen, but they remained pretty solid week after week. The curry was always a good choice though, it came with pickles and soft boiled egg.

Cafeteria ramen was also pretty good, but not quite as tasty as

This ramen (near Asakusa)

Or particularly this ramen (Ichiran, Shibuya).

Yeah I went to a theme cafe in Harajuku no less.

I got a (huge) dessert too.

Actually I went to two theme cafes. Theme cafes are expensive enough to consider eating elsewhere unless you want that themed experience. Both times were totally worth it by the way (especially the Kawaii Monster Cafe). 

Green tea was served with almost every meal I had in a restaurant, and although it took some time to get used to, it became delicious. 

Especially the ice cream.

Other delicious sweets include the strawberry mochi, a sticky, sweet rice cake. It had red bean paste inside, which I also grew to like a lot. Very very sweet and soft, doesn’t taste like beans at all.

Packets of soy and red bean paste covered mochi, and red bean paste-filled cakes shaped like maple leafs.  My mouth is watering.

To end this post, I’ll add some pictures of sushi I ate in a conveyor belt restaurant. Each plate was about 100 yen!!!

Thank you for reading!

-V

[v-japanissa]

Studying

Studying in KUIS was an interesting and educating experience. Compared to my home university back in Jyväskylä and the studies of my faculty in IT, I had to come up with new methods to study language in order to adapt to the classes in KUIS. The grammar, reading and writing, kanji, and interaction were taught completely in Japanese from day one and took some time to get used to. But after a couple of days I for used to it, and although I might not have understood everything, it did not bother me enough to get me too frustrated and having to run every single word through google translate. Pretty soon I started to understand what the teachers were talking about as my vocabulary expanded and I got more used to their talking speed (although they were talking really slow already). 

Studying itself was more structured than what it is for me in University of Jyväskylä, and kind of reminded me of my days back in elementary school. Usually the days would start at nine o’clock with grammar on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, and continue with interaction until lunch at 12:10. The lunchbreak would last one hour until 13:10, when the electives classes started. The classes always took 90 minutes, and I can’t recall any classes cutting short from this time. We had courses from Monday to Friday, with Wednesday off from the mandatory Bekka courses unless you had elective classes on that day (which I didn’t, and Wednesday was a day off for me). On Thursdays I didn’t have grammar or interaction, instead I had reading and writing class and kanji class. With that in mind, this is what my schedule looked like: Monday: Grammar 2, Interaction 2, lunch, Japanese Religions, Premodern Japanese History. The longest day right on Monday. Tuesday: Grammar 2, Interaction 2.  Wednesday: No classes. Thursday: Reading and writing 2, Kanji, lunch, skip period (dedicated for homework), Culture of Young Japanese People. Friday: Grammar 2, Interaction 2.

The way the studying reminded me of the elementary school was probably the way we handled schoolwork during class and the assignments for homework. We would study certain areas from our coursebooks or handouts, and proceed with speaking exercises or writing tasks, although these assignments given during the lectures were very varied. We would also do peer practices and small games. Compared to how I usually only need to remain seated and take down notes from the lecturer, this was a really nice experience. We were also assigned actual homework for each lesson, such as memorising a list of vocabulary, write one page assignment in Japanese, or fill in worksheet for example. In Jyväskylä most of the “homework” I had consisted of smaller or bigger projects that would proceed with the class, or weekly demonstrations. Unless the course was a language class, I had no daily homework. Luckily it didn’t take long for me to get used to doing homework for my classes and I found a good routine for them.  Besides homework we would usually have small quizzes to see how much we had learned from the previous lesson almost weekly for almost every class. In kanji we did have weekly tests on the kanji and vocabulary since there was only one class per week, but for grammar for example, the quizzes usually took place every other week. We also had mid-term exams and final exams for each language class (except interaction, we had various projects during this class) that did give a little bit more stress that the average quizzes. The mid-term exams covered the areas of study we had completed until that point, and the final exams covered the entire area of the course. I did pretty well on my mid-term exams all around, usually scoring between 82-86 points.  The grading system worked on scale from 0 to 100 points, with failing score being as high as 59 points. If you apply the A-F (Japanese version, not American) grading to the scoring, 0-59 would be F, 60-69 C, 70-79 B, 80-89 A, and 90-100 A+.  I did even better with my final exams and scored A+ for all the classes, except reading and writing which was an A with 86 points.  My elective classes, religions, premodern history and youth culture, didn’t have any homework, except youth culture but reviewing the coming article for the next lesson wasn’t mandatory and gave good support for the assigned discussion questions for the weekly lecture. I had two writing homework assignments for religions and history, but that was it for the homework. Of course, the mid-terms and final papers for religions and history had more pages, but writing in English on interesting topics was pretty fun. Youth culture also had a final paper based on the notes made during the class discussions and articles, and this assignment reminded me the most of my studies back in Jyväskylä, although instead of information or project management I got to write on the culture of the Japanese people, and its many forms. 

Although the grading was pretty steep and sometimes the homework felt like the elementary school type of homework, having assignments after almost every class for the next lesson, it never felt quite as stressful as it has sometimes felt like with my classes back in Jyväskylä. Some classes have no other assignments besides lectures (attendance not usually mandatory), and it’s up to you to come up with methods on studying the material if you cannot memorise it in one sitting or if the topics are challenging. Some classes on the other hand have plenty of assignments, with various small projects or weekly demonstrations, and final projects, along with the final exam. I kind of prefer these classes, because it usually means that I don’t have to revise on my own completely and I can have more material to support my studying, but if there are several classes like these going on at once, it can get pretty tiring. 

That was a lot of text! Thank you for reading! - V

[v-japanissa]

The Dorm

I have never lived in a dormitory, and at first, living in one seemed absolutely horrific since I’ve only shared an apartment with friends and then had my own student apartment, besides living with my family of course. The rules and shared kitchens, toilets and bathrooms seemed intimidating but turned out to be a slight nuisance at worst.

My dormitory, which we call Makuharihongo Ryo, is about two kilometers from school, or twenty minutes by foot. I’m very happy I don’t have to take a train or bus everyday like some students who have an apartment or dormitory further away. The dormitory is a little old, some closets get stuck, beds creak and I’ve had my doorknob fall off (but it just got unscrewed from the door itself, a feature I haven’t seen before but it was an easy fix), but overall, it’s kept clean and works well for a dormitory. The Makuharihongo train station is very close, about ten minute walk away, so the location is very handy.

The monthly rent is paid by the end of the previous month at the Kanda university. For my dorm, it’s currently 55,000 yen, or about 407 euros, which is similar to my student apartment back in Finland. We made a contract with an internet company after we had arrived, so we can use the ethernet cables or the wireless routers, and the speed is alright. 

On the first floor, there are computers available in the main hall next to the shoe cupboards. There’s also an area for meetings with tables and chairs and a big TV, a big shared kitchen and room of shower stalls. The showers have doors that can be locked from the inside so you don’t have to worry about your privacy. Also, like all the floors, the first floor has toilets and two washing machines. The toilets themselves remind me of public toilets and they have shared sinks and mirror on each floor. We had to provide our own utensils and cookware but luckily the 100 yen shops have all kinds of plates, pans, cups and ladles and so on.

The fifth floor, where my room is, is a little different. We have a small kitchen and two shower stall with bathtubs! Yay! But since the bathtubs are shared it’s a good idea to take a shower before going in, so the tub doesn’t become as gross.

Japan has a lot of bins to sort trash, and so do our kitchens. We have a bin for burnable trash (general stuff), cans, plastic bottles and cardboard. Unlike in Finland, the biodegradable material is put in with the burnable trash. 

The biggest mystery at the start were the washing machines. So many buttons, all in Japanese. Luckily somebody had written down how to use the machine with the basic program in English, and the machines have worked well and even spin out the excess water! We can finish drying the laundry in our rooms on the pole in front of the air conditioner.

Sorry this entry had no pictures, I think I must ask the landlord if it’s okay to publish images of the shared dormitory spaces on the internet or not.

Thank you for reading! - V

[v-japanissa]

KUIS

Or Kanda University of International Studies. I also call it just Kanda. 

This university of about 3600 students is located in northwestern part of Chiba, and it’s about 35 km from central Tokyo.  One of the reasons why I chose Kanda back when I applied for the exchange program is the close proximity to Tokyo, but it was not my main reason. Kanda offered interesting elective courses for the semester my exchange period besides the Japanese Language and Culture Program, which is called Bekka for short. The Bekka courses and the elective courses that ended up being Premodern Japanese History, Religions of Japan, and Culture of Young Japanese People, are a good selection for my minor in Japanese Language and Culture in my university.

My first contact with the university came the day after arriving to Japan, when my buddy offered to give me a tour of the premises. I felt a little hazy from the jetlag and exhaustion but I remember being positively surprised. Some buildings seemed older, being built in the 80′s, but there was also a just finished building among the newer buildings that still had the smell of brand new construction. 

The first “official” day we went to the university was arranged just for us exchange students, few weeks before the classes would start. We had many orientation lectures about the university itself, its facilities and services, program and course information, what to do during earthquakes, and so on. All relevant information concerning studying in a Japanese university. The biggest surprise to me was a mandatory health checkup that involved urine sample and lung x-ray. Luckily blood sample testing was optional. My results had no surprises, except my blood pressure was perfect which I did not expect.

Before the classes could begin, we had to be sorted into our classes depending on the level of our skills in Japanese. We had exams on reading, writing, grammar and kanji that was shared between all exchange students. The exams started off simple and became more difficult the further you answered. After the exams, we had an interview with the teachers. The interview was the worst part for me since it was in Japanese and I completely freeze during all kinds of interviews, but it went better than I thought and I was put on level 2 for grammar, kanji, reading and writing and interaction courses, that are the Bekka program courses. I felt this was the perfect level for me after studying two classes of Japanese back in Jyväskylä. When the Bekka courses started, we started to consider what elective courses we could take so we would have the required amount of credits. The first lectures of the elective courses had a sorting, in case there were too many students who wanted to take the course. I heard some lecturers just drew names from random but in my case, since I was a Bekka student, I only had to make a motivational letter for the course of Culture of Young Japanese People, and I made it to all three courses I wanted to take.

We can transfer these credits to our own universities, so although I cannot study anything related to Information System Sciences, I can complete my minor here. 

That’s it for this entry, thank you for reading!  -V

[v-japanissa]

Bunch of updates

Well hello! It has been a while since I’ve made any entries, but studies have been busy and living in Japan has taken all the remaining focus from publishing to this blog, but now it’s going to change.

I’ve made snippets of interesting things and written down my thoughts on private entries so I can gather them into comprehensive posts, but some of them just need proofreading. 

That’s about it, I’ll hope you’ll enjoy reading them! - V

[v-japanissa]

From Helsinki to Narita Airport

A trip of 9 hours and 20 minutes overnight, from August 30th in Finland to August 31st in Japan!

Sunrise somewhere above northern Russia? I think? 3 hours until landing

This post might be more text heavy, it was a busy day and I forgot to take pictures.

I went to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport with my dear sister, who helped me carry my second suitcase. When we arrived to the airport, I met with Anniina, my friend from the same major and Japanese classes. Me and my sister exchanged big hugs and I proceeded to the security check with Anniina. In hindsight, I’m very happy that I didn’t have to travel to the airport alone, and that I had a friend with me during the whole flight. I’ve travelled alone before but this is the first time when I’ve travelled almost across the globe!

We had a few hours to kill before we could board our flight so we did some final souvenir and just-in-case-homesickness-strikes candy shopping. I got a good stash of salmiakki and xylitol chewing gum. Most of my salmiakki is already eaten at this point. Also, since we were told that Japanese painkillers might be different from the ones we’re used to in Finland, I got some emergency ones to be on the safe side. 

The flight went well: there were a lot of in-flight movies and episodes of several series, the food was very good (choice between Finnish macaroni casserole or chicken with rice and soba noodles) and the flying was smooth despite a couple of cases of turbulence.  The chicken with rice was delicious, and as a dessert we received a cup of fancy Jymy vanilla ice cream.  I watched Hidden Figures, and I want to watch it again now that there’s no background hum from the engines. It was very good! 

I didn’t sleep even though I started to feel very tired by the end of the flight, maybe I was just too excited, or the hum was too loud, or maybe I had too much coffee. Next time, I’ll bring earplugs.  Dad had tried to give me some earlier but No! No thanks dad, I’m going to be so tired I’ll conk out as soon as I close my eyes in the plane! Hubris.. Otherwise the flight went very well!

My ears started to tell me that the plane was preparing to land once we had arrived over Hokkaido. I’m one of those flyers whose ears start to hurt a lot during descending, but this time it wasn’t too bad since I started to chew on a huge piece of gum just in time. 

The weather was very windy and rainy when we started to land over Narita Airport, but we made a safe yet bumpy landing.  Once we got out of the plane, we headed towards the immigration line to present our visas and Certificates of Eligibility. It took a while to wait, but we received our Residence Cards and headed off to claim our luggage.  At the airport, we were meeting our buddies, students from Kanda University, who would take us to our dormitory in Makuharihongo. We agreed to meet in terminal 1, but since the flight was a little behind on the schedule, me and Anniina had arrived to terminal 2. After a quick visit to the info desk we took a free bus that travels between the terminals to terminal 1, and met our buddies!  Soon we were headed towards the airport’s train station and bought our Pasmo cards, which are similar to the Finnish public transportation cards, or Oyster cards in UK. You can use it on a train or bus when you stamp it on the reader, and it takes the proper fare off your card. 

After the train ride we arrived to the Makuharihongo train station and continued for our dormitory, which is only a 5-10 minute walk away, depends how fast you go. When we arrived, we received our keys from the landlady and decided to drop our luggage in our rooms before grabbing the bedding. To our horror me and my buddy had to drag the luggage up to the fifth floor by foot, since this dorm has no elevator, and walk back down and up again with the bedding. The bedding isn’t exactly like western bedding, although it has the blanket, pillow and mattress with the sheets. The pillow is small and filled with tiny beads, which is surprisingly very comfy in my opinion! Anniina hates it though. The bedding is actually futon. It has a mattress, which covers the harder base mattress over the bed, called shikibuton. The blanket, which is heavier and fluffier than what I’m used to, is called kakebuton. Those, and the pillow, are the futon bedding that my dormitory is renting me for the duration of my stay. The price also includes sheets that we can exchange once a month, fortunately.

That’s my bed, with the futon. The blanket is really hot but once the weather starts to cool off I’m sure I’ll miss it when I return.

The room is pretty small, but the available space it used smartly. My bed is on top of a drawer and a small shelf, and my writing desk and chair don’t take up much space.  We share the kitchen, toilets, and bathrooms, but the cleaning lady does amazing work and it’s not gross at all as I had previously expected. The first floor has a row of shower stalls and a large kitchen, but luckily the fifth floor has a kitchen and two bathrooms too so we don’t have to race up and down everyday. Every floor has at least two toilet stalls and two washing machines. 

In the fifth floor kitchen there’s only one stove top with two stoves, so I’ve made a habit to cook dinner pretty early or later in the evening when the dinner rush is over.

Anyway, more pictures of my room on the day of my arrival:

The shelf and drawer.

My desk, already full! And my first meal in Japan, soba noodles!

The fridge and freezer. We also have TVs but I’ve put mine in the closet to make space for my dry foods. We also have air conditioner in our rooms, and after figuring out the best setting, it feels really good.  

During this first day I went to bed right after 8 PM, I had decided that I wouldn’t go to sleep earlier because I wanted to adjust to the time difference as fast as possible. Instead of jet lag, I got a flu from the plane ride, so in a way it might have worked out.

I think this is it for this entry. Thank you for reading!

- V

[v-japanissa]

Introduction

Hello! 

I arrived to Japan on 31st of August, 2017, but this is my first post to this blog. I’m sorry to have updated this late but the last few weeks have been so busy it just slipped my mind!  My schedule is starting to get more steady and structured so I will make a valiant attempt to post here at least twice a month, preferably once a week, from now on. 

But let me introduce myself properly before I continue any further. 

My name is Vilma, I’m a Finnish student from University of Jyväskylä, Finland. My major is Information System Sciences and I started my third year of bachelor degree this September, hopefully I will graduate in 2018!

Jyväskylä in February, 2017 (sorry it’s not very sharp)

My minor is the reason behind my study exchange to Kanda University of International Studies, or KUIS for short, in Japan. My minor is Japanese Language and Culture which is a nice balance to my very technical and computer-centred major. I’ve studied and made games so I’m very game-industry oriented, and since a lot of the content is heavily inspired or originated from Japanese culture and/or game-industry, I think it’s very beneficial to study the Japanese language and culture on academical level in order to understand the field better. Before my arrival I took two courses of Japanese language, which gave me a solid foundation of the very basics of Japanese language and culture.  My hobbies include drawing, painting, photography and playing all kinds of games. I didn’t bring my good camera equipment with me because I tried to keep my luggage under 20 kilograms, but maybe my phone and tablet pics will suffice. In general, I love everything Halloween-themed and I can’t wait to see if/how it’s expressed by the Japanese contemporary culture.

With my current skills, I can survive the basic, simple, daily life scenarios but I’m very much looking forward to learn more! I will stay for only one semester in KUIS but I will make an effort to get the most of my time in here. I’m very excited to study at Kanda University of International Studies and meet new people from different countries! I was also told that studying in a Japanese university is very different from studying in a Finnish university, so I try to keep an eye out to spot these differences. This applies to the everyday life in Japan too, so far the culture shock has been very small but on the other hand my mind has been focused on settling into the university and completing the occasional paperwork, like the National Health Insurance.  I’m staying in a multicultural dormitory which is a new experience for me. I have met people from Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Sweden, United Kingdom, Vietnam and South Korea to name a few countries, so this is a great opportunity for me to learn more about different cultures. Everyone has been very kind and super helpful, and I’m very grateful for their assistance and friendship.  My dormitory has a landlady, “Mama”, who has spoken only Japanese to us but she is very patient with our different levels of skill in Japanese. It’s amazing how much you can communicate with body language and gestures when you just don’t know how to express yourself in Japanese. Also since this is a small dormitory we have a curfew at 11 PM, but I don’t think it’s going to be a problem since we can still stay out even several nights if we tell about it beforehand. And besides, I’m very boring and like to go to bed early when I have a lot of things to do the next day.

Even though my first language is Finnish, I will update this blog in English unless there are things that are more convenient to express in Finnish (such as maybe the differences in healthcare or social security topics).

As a disclaimer I think it’s good to remind that all the opinions and thoughts expressed here are mine only and don’t reflect the opinions of any third party, like the universities. The pictures in this blog are taken by me unless I clearly state otherwise, and I don’t appreciate their redistribution without my clear consent. 

I think this introduction will suffice for now, I’m not very good at these but I’m sure you get to know more of me in my future posts! 

Sunset from my dorm room, yesterday

More posts soon!  - V