Ok some people have asked me to keep them updated about my adventures in Japan. I'm keeping a blog but it's in Dutch so I'll make a thread for those who are interested. I'll just post a link on the first post when I make a new post here, so you don't have to look through the thread to find new posts.
UPDATES:
09/09/27: Photo TR: Dry Bowser in Japan
09/10/1: Black Wii
09/11/1: Umeda and Pokémon center.
09/11/3 Quest for the Tower of the Sun.
09/11/7 Osaka castle, golden pavillion and Kobe
09/11/16 Loads of temples
So basically what's going on is that I'm currently studying in Japan from september 6th 2009 ~ july 25th 2010. The university is called 関西大学 (Kansai University) and it's one of the largest universities in Japan. It's located just outside of Osaka, Japan's most important city after Tokyo of course. I'm majoring in Japanology so that's why I'm in Japan btw.
So in the morning of sunday september 6th I got up and was kind of depressed because this would be the last day I would see my family and neighborhood for a looong time. Despite of that the prospect of going to Japan was exciting enough to keep me going. My parents drove me to Brussels, where I took the high speed train to the airport of Paris. There I boarded a plane that flew directly to Osaka, so without no stops. It was a 11,5 hour flight and I didn't get any sleep at all. Luckily there were games, music, movies and such in the airplane so I could fill my time. It was still pretty long though and the seat was small so I was really glad to leave the airplane. It was 8:25am in Japan though so I still have another day to get through without sleep.
We spent 2 days at a youth hostel in downtown Osaka, because we couldn't enter the university dorm before september 9th. My first impressions of Japan was that they need some city planning. The buildings are just randomly put in, elevated highways and train lines just randomly cross the city, etc. Not a nice sight tbh.
We went to the Umeda Sky Building, which is a skyscraper in the business district of Japan. There's an observatory at 173m high which offered a stunning view of Osaka by night. I have it all taped on my video camera but I don't have any pictures. I'll go there again some times because the view is worth it. Awesome!
Osaka by night:
Then on september 9th we packed up at the youth hostel and went to the dormitory of Kansai University. Every exchange student is put in a room with a japanese student "to acquire each other's language and culture". I was kinda worried about having to sleep with a roommate but it's actually not that annoying. He just gets up at 9am and wakes me too with his noise but that's about it. A cool guy ^^
After a crapload of orientations at the dorm and university campus, we had to do 3 placement tests (listening, reading and interview) to determine of level of japanese. The levels range from 1 to 6. I got put in level 5, which is really good compared to the other western students here, who only made it to 2 and 3 lol. Of course the chinese and koreans all made it into 5, 6, or above (above = they have to take regular classes instead of the classes for international students). I'm also taking 2 business Japanese classes, a Contemporary Japanese class, Japanese society, Japanese economics, and a class for regular japanese students about japanese population. Classes start tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.
One thing I need to mention is a shop that's called Yodobashi. It's a 13 story building and the first 5 are filled with all electronics. And when I say filled, I really mean packed! It's insane there. You can buy practically anything electronic, ranging from washing machines to piano's, tv's, games and a crapload more. This place is so huge that I already went there 6 times lol. It's awesome ^^
Of course on september 12th I went there to hopefully get a copy of Pokemon Soulsilver. It's was pretty funny on the 5th floor (the games floor). Everyone was rushing to this stand that had pokémon Heartgold trying to get a copy. Luckily there was a crapload of copies available so I got one too. I didn't see any Soulsilver copies though, so they were probably already solded out. The games itself is cool and everything I expected of it, and I can practice my japanese whilst playing pokémon lol.
Yodobashi
So far I bough a electronic dictionary, a photocamera, a cellphone, 3 DS adaptars, a router, a usb cable, pokémon heartgold and a standalone GH3 guitar (which only costed 2000 yen!! In Belgium you pay 10,000yen for that thing). I don't plan on going back there or I'll just end up buying something again >__<
Oh and they have black Wii's here. I was surprised because it's looks odd at first after being used to seeing white Wii's everywhere.
Ok that's enough for now.
Simon Champion!
Very interesting post.
Blue Shells Dodged: 11
Linear Mode
