At A Glance: The First Week

Let’s take a journey down memory lane together.

I arrived in Osaka, Japan on August 29, 2009, to a humid and rather sticky Saturday evening. After a seventeen and a half hour flight and sleeping for only a few short hours, I was tired and excited to spend the following four months 7,000 miles from home. I traveled from JFK, and New York with six of my fellow classmates.

I can still remember the nervousness I felt towards my insurance company (by this time, they STILL didn’t send the documentation that Kansai required), worrying if I would ever make Japanese friends, and wondering who my host family would be. These of course were silly worries since the insurance company, I was placed into a wonderful host family, and I am meeting people every day on campus.

We did not arrive back to our temporary housing, the Seminar Houses, which is the equivalent to a dormitory until 9PM. Dropping my luggage into the room, it was eerily quiet. A few hours later, I was introduced to my temporary roommate, a French Canadian, studying abroad for a year, and we shared bits of our life stories. Since then, we’ve shared more of our lives and still see each other time to time in class.

The first week is much more of a blur than anything else now. The weather was sticky and hot, but absolutely sunny and beautiful. Every day I walked onto campus, the baseball team diligently practicing for several hours at a time. I discovered the following:

100 Yen Shops are amazing! Though the one nearby the Seminar Houses actually sells items at 105 Yen (Approximately $1.15 USD) you can find pens, slippers, and cheap alarm clocks that will tick…tick…tick…you until you want to scream.

Okonomiyaki is the best! Takoyaki has also become a favorite. Its crunchy crust on the outside with sweet vegetables and meat perfectly fried on the inside is covered with a deliciously mysterious dark sauce. No wonder these fried treats are particular specialties of this area.

Receiving an after-dinner invitation by the Social Butterfly on campus to the nearby park will mean that 300 other people will join you and create a ruckus.

In this first “orientation” week, I ventured off to Kyoto, and Namba, Osaka … posts which will follow this one.

The first round of exams is quickly approaching… I actually have three to study for tomorrow.