Week 1 and a Turning 35!

Sorry for the delay in posting, but it’s been a busy few days.  Last time, I promised to talk about the first week here in Nagoya and at Nanzan University.  So, here goes!

The first week here flew by.  It’s actually still flying by.  The first few days was just getting settled into the dorm since I got here a bit early.  I did a lot of exploring the local area and played a lot of Pokemon Go.  You may laugh, but I’ll say a few things about that later.  The first full week was just orientation into the school and taking care of a lot of government bureaucratic processes.  It was a very busy week, and some days felt like they would just never end.

First, there’s the area around my dorm.  Since I’m off on the edge of the world compared to Nanzan University’s actual dorms, I spent a little of the first weekend feeling isolated and bored.  Sara was getting to know her new dormmates and I hadn’t really met anyone here yet.  So I went for a lot of walks and played a lot of Pokemon go while I wasn’t doing anything else.  While some of you will think Pokemon is a joke, it really is helpful.  Walking from one stop to the next and finding new gyms to poke around at helped me learn major landmarks in my area and get to know the streets around my dorm.  I don’t take the game seriously at all, but as a foreigner that is learning to navigate in a strange land, it is proving invaluable.  It has also helped me meet new people in my dorm once more people started arriving.  I’ve made a few new friends and got to hang out and talk to them when I otherwise might not have.  All because they saw me sitting at the corner by the park that’s near the dorm trying to take the gym there.

  

Playing Pokemon Go is a great way to get out of your dorm room and see new things!
Using it to navigate the unfamiliar streets and finding new interesting places is
one of the better choices I've made since I've been here.  I've found a cool school,
a Buddhist cemetery, a temple, and even a Christian church.

Once orientation got started, I started meeting more people.  I’ve met a few new Japanese friends when they gave us tours of the campus.  I also got to meet a few people from various places back home, including a few students from Indiana University, which feels really close to home, all things considered.  The orientation was pretty much what you’d expect.  The folks on campus talked about the campus itself, including classes and various rules.  They also talked about some of the stuff around Nagoya and we had to jump through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops.  That being said, I now have Japanese health insurance and it is very affordable.  Includes dental too, which I didn’t expect.  Overall, it was just like most other orientations to a new place or institution; lots of paperwork, lots of downtime, and lots of new people!

  

These are some of my new friends, both fellow exchange students and native Japanese
students as well.  In the first pic is Conner and I.  The middle one was taken during our
orientation party, and is Hirona, myself, An, Sara, Chiaki, and Kanade.  Kanade was my tour
guide, and spoke better English than she let on during the tour!  At the right is Benedict and I
waiting to get our bank accounts opened for our dorm reimbursements.

During Orientation, we also picked our classes.  I’m going to be taking Japanese Reading and Writing 300, Japanese for Communication 300, Sumie (Chinese black ink painting), Japanese Culture and Art 1, Hanga (Woodblock printing), and Japanese Religions.  I haven’t sat through all of the classes even once, since my first class for Sumie will be tomorrow.  So far, my favorite class is Religions.  It’s a much more open class than the other ones I’ve sat in so far, and the instructor or sensei (せんせい) seems laid back.  He’s also the only sensei I have that isn’t Japanese.  I’m looking forward to getting into the woodblock printing more though.  So far all we’ve done is a test sketch that was just our names.  I did mine in Katakana since it seemed a lot easier (and shorter) than doing it in English and having to fight around all the curved lines in the “C”s, “S”, and “e”s.  It also has the added effect of looking more interesting to me.  Expect pictures in future updates!

Because Monday was my birthday in addition to being my first week of class, Friday night I made plans to go out with some of the new friends I've made, as well as Sara.  I want to share it because it was a great time.  Sara and I had talked about what I wanted to do and it seemed like things were kind of falling through.  I invited more people than it seemed like were going to show up, and I was missing home because I usually spend my birthdays with my family or with Mandi at a music festival.  So this year, being so far away and not having any real plans was kind of bumming me out.  A group of us went out for dinner, then to the izakaya (いざかいあ), which is kind of like a pub, but with private booths.  After that, we went on an adventure to find another bar to drink at and ended up wondering into a place that was focused around darts.  On the way, we bumped into a work friend of David's and invited him to join us.  It was a lot different from home, but was a lot of fun!  When the bartender overheard it was my birthday, he even gave me a piece of cake!  I'm thankful that I managed to find some new friends to celebrate my birthday with me and make what could've been a very lonely and depressing day into a really good time.  

  

These are from the second bar we went to.  The right side one is me, David, and Hirata.
David is British and here for work, and Hirata is a friend of his from work.
The middle pic is of me, Sara, Christy, and Conner.  They're all fellow exchange students
studying at Nanzan with me this semester! And of course, the pic on the right
is of the bartender and I after he gave me birthday cake!

That pretty well sums up the first week!  I’ve unpacked and settled in, and now that classes have started, things are getting even more interesting!  I’m signed up for a field trip to Nagoya Castle, and I hear tell that two of the most important Shinto shrines in the country are within easy travel distance, including one here in the city itself.  I’m really excited about going to explore them as soon as I get a chance!  This weekend, my new friends and I are still deciding what we’re going to do, but on the list of possibilities is a maid café, a karaoke bar, and a local even that’s dedicated to artisans!  I’m sure whatever it is, I’ll be writing about it on here!