Belated First Entry
The dorm area I live in, the Global Village - the buildings all look like this
As you may know, I've been in Akita for a week. I'm really sorry that I haven't posted until now.
This has been my first time leaving the West Coast (and the US) and my first time flying in a commercial jet. I had a 10-hour flight from Portland to Tokyo with the other student from Oregon who's doing the summer program with me, my friend Mara, so we pretty much are and have been travel/study abroad companions this summer. After flying in on Thursday (going over the international dateline and jumping 17 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time), we both stayed about 5 days in Tokyo with my friend Takami and Monday morning took the bullet train (shinkansen) to Akita.
Mara and I first met at orientation - I met a bunch of other students (there's 10 or fewer total), all of them won't be coming until Fall semester. This program is really new and none of us students in Oregon know anything about it, so the two of us are the very first to take the plunge. ;) There is a bit of risk involved with this program due to various factors that make the AIU Program unique from others...
- the school was only founded in 2004
- it's situated in a sort of "rural" region of Japan (from my experiences of talking with both Japanese friends and American friends who've visited Japan, it's pretty rare to find someone who's even visited Akita)
- Akita is a long ways from Tokyo (4 hours via bullet train and something like 12 hours by bus, and it's expensive)
- I've heard Akita, or maybe Tohoku region in general, is one of the snowiest places on earth
I'm studying standard Japanese, but Akita has its own dialect - though this is spoken, I'm told communication with locals shouldn't be that hard. So far it hasn't been, but I've hardly ventured from campus.
Also, the campus is located in a wooded area, and getting to any shops requires a 15-minute bus ride, and the bus doesn't run very often. As a result, it's really boring here. But the upside of this is that it allows me to get a lot of needed studying done for my intensive Japanese class (it's really tough). This situation has been working out well in my favor so far...
Don't know what this blog will be like - the point is to keep connected to all of you in the US. I'll upload photos, and update you on my experience, though it's hard to say how frequent and detailed these postings will be.
My sleeping schedule has been a little weird and last week I kept feeling really sleepy at random times, but after about a week and a half in Japan I think everything's normal again.
Today I bought a yukata (Japanese traditional wear similar to a kimono, it's made of cotton), and we have a kimono workshop tomorrow in which we'll learn to wear them!! I'm so excited.
Sorry this was sort of a boring entry. I promise better content later. I'll close with a photo of me, since maybe loved ones would like to see I still exist and am still in one piece, haha.
Mara and I showing off our claw game prizes at a game center in Tokyo