arriving at KIT

After I got the nerve to get on a Japanese bus by myself, I had to wait an hour for the next correct one to come. There`s probably about 40-50 buses leaving from that one station, and I was looking for bus 32-35. When the bus came (3 minutes early), I jumped on and followed suite of others who had just gotten on.

The bus has two doors - one in the middle and one in the front. You get on using the one in the middle. Once you get on, you grab a slip of paper that has the number of the stop that you got on. Then you sit and wait while the bus stops at what seems like every block. My ride was about 30 minutes or so to the college. Its most likely actually not that long, but with all the stops, it took forever.

Once the screen in the front of the bus announces that the next stop is yours, you push a button that are located near the seats on the side of the bus. This indicates to the driver that he needs to stop at the next stop. Once you arrive, you move to the front of the bus. You bring the proper amount of money, as indicated by a different screen at the front of the bus. If you don`t have the correct amount of change, never fear! There is a change machine at the front of the bus as well. When you are about to get off, you put your change along with the ticket that you got at the beginning of the ride in what lookds like a trash can receptor. I assume this machine reads your slip and makes sure that you pay the correct amount. Its all very technical.

So once I arrived at KIT, I had no idea where to go. I ended up going into the nearest building. The lady at the reception desk almost looked scared of me. She asked if I was a "ryugakusei" (exchange student) and then she went through a series of numbers to call the correct people with. Of course she had a lot of trouble and couldn`t find anyone at the time, so she asked me to wait. After a little bit, she asked me to come back to the desk. She showed me a map and in broken English, told me to go to the building across the streeet.

Once there, there were two Japanese ladies to meet me with my luggage. They looked like they hadn`t expected to see me, and they said that I was the third person who had arrived. They directed me back outside, loaded me into a car, and took me over to the dorm. The dorm is called Nishikawa Heights and is the international dorm. Its a very old dorm - you can even tell from the outside. We got on a very small elevator and went up to the fourth floor. When we went into the room, it was very interesting.

There was a small genkan (entry area) that is lower than the rest of the apartment.　　You take off your shoes and leave them there. To the right as soon as you come in there is a bathroom - more like a shower room. Its an area with a sink to change in connected to a large standup shower. I`d like to point out that the toilet is not in the room with the sink and the shower as in America. The toilet itself is kind of peculiar. Its mostly normal except that on the top of the tub where the water collects, there is a faucet where water comes out instead of a flat top as in America. When you flush the toilet and the tank refills, the water first comes up out of this spout so that you can wash your hands with the same water that will refill the tub. Its quite funny, but efficient as the Japanese always are.

Past the shower room, there is an open area that serves as a kitchen with a smalll table to eat on. Besides this, there were 3 6-tatami mat bedrooms. One of which is a spare, one of which is mine, and one of which is my roommates who at that time was not there yet. In each of the bedrooms, there is a desk and a wardrobe along with a large closet where the futon and sleeping linens are stored.

The desk was quite peculiar. When closed, it looks like a wardrobe as well, but you pull down the part that becomes the surface of the desk, and one of the "drawers" pulls out to become a chair for the desk. Its quite cute.

Now, I`ll explain what a tatami mat is. Its made of a straw-like material that is weaved into a pattern. If anyone has seen my favorite sandals, its made of that stuff. Its about a yard by 2 yards wide. Dimensions of rooms in Japan are given by the number of tatami matts that cover the floor. Mine is a 6-tatami mat room, meaning that it is about 3 yards by 4 yards wide.

Once I saw myself around the apartment, I started unpacking. I found out that I had brought a lot more clothes than i thought. It was really frustrating though because the wardrobe had an area that you could hang things up in, but I didn`t have any hangers to use. (I was able to buy some a few days later). I tried to set up my computer, but I didn`t see any internet access ports in the room.

After I was unpacked, I didn`t know what to do. No one else was there, so I didn`t have anyone that I could go around Kanazawa with. So I took a nap. Now, I know I shouldn`t since I`m having so much trouble with jetlag anyway, but the boredom and the tiredness toook over.

By the way, Japanese futons are as hard as rocks. And the pillows aren`t much better. I am used to very soft beds and futons kill me. I really don`t know how I`m going to make it through the next 6 weeks. I don`t know if Japanese don`t like comfort or if they just like hard things, but it seems to be a general trend. Couches are basically nonexistant and the chairs that replace them are normally wood or very thinly padded. Its another difference in cultures, I suppose.

After my nap, I woke up and decided to look around the laundry room and lounges. When I tried to get into the laundry room using my key, for some reason I couldn`t get it to work, and I spent quite a bit of time fighting with it. Suddenly, the door came open. This stunned the crap out of me because I wasn`t expecting anyone to be around anywhere. It was one of the Japanese teachers. She introduced herself as Tanaka-sensei. She was speaking Japanese to me, but at that time I was so stunned and tired, that I was having trouble trying to comprehend. She was asking if I needed to do laundry, and I had trouble explaining that I was just roaming around to see something besides my own room.

I then headed over to the lounge to see the supposed internet connection. I thought I found an outlet, so I went and got my computer, but then I realized it was just my imagination, and there was no internet connection in the room. So instead, I sat and wrote in my journal quite a while. After about an hour or so, a few Japanese college students walked in. They introduced themselves as A-chan, E-chan, and Sa-chan. Oky to explain names: Japanese names are always ended by a suffix denoting formality and levels. -chan is used for close friends and family. Their names really aren`t single letters, but they shortened them to make it easier for us.

I had a very successful conversation with them, where we talked about me and them, and the program. They were SGE students - Students for Global Exchange, they would be around during our stay and help us out with getting around campus and such. It was a lot of fun talking to them, and I could relax so I could talk to them much more fluently than normal.

Japanese has multiple levels of formality in conversation. While with my host family, we always spoke in the casual form, as I did with the students. I became much more used to this aspect of the language during my homestay which was awesome, and made talking to the students much easier. The problem was that when trying to talk to the professors, you should use the more formal part, and when trying to talk to Tanaka-sensei, I only could speak in plain form easily, which made that conversation even more difficult.

Around 10 o`clock, we went down to the first floor so that we could welcome the students that came for the free pick-up. About 12 students came for the pick-up, a few of them rose students. I hooked up with one of the Rose students because I felt an immense need to speak English. I helped one of the guys into his room and such.

This happened the last time I went to Japan as well. I get English-sick. After so much Japanese, I feel an immense need to dispel a lot of words on English quickly - to have a nice long conversation in Japanese. It might be my need for speaking so much, but it definitely gets me depressed.

So after talking to him for a while, I went back to my room to head to sleep. Later, Robyn and my roommate arrived so I spent a while talking to each of them. Eventually, I got to bed around 130 in the morning.