okonomiyaki

-          In contrast to buying groceries, eating out in Japan is quite cheap. And as I am still confused from all the unfamiliar food, I welcomed the opportunity to go out tonight with some friends (some of them have been here since the last semester, so they help me make sure there is no meat in my meal).

-          And so I ate okonomiyaki for the first time. There was no meat but also I think nothing else but cabbage. Maybe I still need to work on the food thing here but slowly slowly slowly I am making progress. Tomorrow we´re eating sushi.

-          Seeing how fluent the students became during one semester (some of them had only been studying Japanese for a year before they arrived here) gives me hope.

the typhoon and first week of school

-          Shopping alone. Managed to ask in Japanese if what I am buying is for washing the dishes and the washing machine soup.

-          First time using the washing machine and the dryer. None of my clothes are destroyed.

-          My first typhoon. While I was looking up on the Internet how to survive, a (Taiwanese) friend was trying to convince me to go to karaoke that day. “If it rains too much, we don´t have to go.” I decided that I am not that crazy yet but apparently they had fun… singing in the rain.

-          Also, all the typhoon advices said – just stay inside a building and you´ll be fine, unless the building is next to a sea or a river. Our dorms are literally not even ten meters from the river.

-          (8 mosquito bites just from today. Everyone else is fine.)

-          First week of school over!

-          I wasn’t very happy about my classes at first when I was trying to decide on my schedule but at the end they look quite awesome!

-          Japanese classes, Japanese economy, Hiroshima rediscovery, multicultural project, international development, 10 classes per week. The last too are mostly in English but still a good place to make Japanese friends and practice the language.

-          International development <3 a dream come true. The teacher works for United Nations, has a doctorate in international relations and speaks about six languages. We will visit the Unitar Hiroshima office with her. Her lectures connect the world and the people. What a composed graceful brilliant person.

-          Japanese classes pose the right amount of challenge. There is some frustration from misunderstandings but not a devastating one. Especially the teacher of the conversation class is an angel sent from teaching heaven. She also seems to think I am not completely stupid which is always pleasing.

-          Hiroshima rediscovery might be a little more frustrating challenge. The teacher´s Japanese is painfully fast but bring it on.

-          Multicultural project homework ends up being executed as late night drinking beer and watching old silent movies with Japanese actors.

- First weekend and first trip. We went to Miyajima and swam in the sea (probably the third time in my life). It was awesome and the weather was perfect.

- On Monday we went to the university by ourselves without our Japanese buddies for the first time. It was just me and three other students. Two of them, Germans, don´t speak much Japanese yet and the staff in the international center are really nice but barely speak any English. And so it happened I was translating for them. What a proud and surreal moment.
- We managed to hand in the first draft of our intended schedules and by Friday we´ll know if we actually can take these classes. School starts Thursday.
- I signed up for one class that a friend recommended to me. It was not on the list of classes for the law faculty (to which I belong here, for some unknown reason) and so it created so much confusion I can´t believe the teacher who was checking my schedule remained insanely polite. Also, it looks like I really can take this class about international relations which is really great.
- If someone signs up for my class I will be teaching Czech at the university (!!!!). I am so excited for this.
- Very happy that we managed to hand in our schedules, we went to the bus stop to take the bus back to our dorms only to find out that the first bus in that direction does not come until an hour later. Not before I was made to ask about four different bus drivers if their bus is going to our station though. Since I was the one "speaking" Japanese. What a ridiculous situation.
- It turned out alright though, as I forgot to ask about the after-school clubs and the others were interested in that too. And so we took the walk of shame and humbly walked back to the international center. I gave up trying to explain why we just randomly disappeared for half an hour and then turned up again and just started asking about the clubs. And so Awa is joining the swimming team, the German guys the basketball team and it looks I will try doing karate again.
- No one really knew about the after-school clubs before I went to ask about them at the school and now I am responsible for all of the international students joining. :D
- Back in the dorms kitchen, I became friends with the two Taiwanese students that arrived at the airport with me last week. I was a little scared of them after the awkward hour-long silence but it turns out they are both really sweet. And as they don´t speak English, we spoke in Japanese the whole evening. And now we might be joining a sightseeing club together that meets once a week and plans a trip somewhere in Japan once a month.
- This Japanese thing is slowly getting easier.

- This afternoon we went to an all girls´ joint middle and high school. They prepared a traditional tea ceremony for us. We had to enter the room through a small window so that a katana wouldn´t fit inside. Can you imagine 20 international students trying standing in line trying to get through a tiny window and several Japanese teachers and students instructing everyone... After the tea ceremony, they divided us into groups of four and sent us into different classes to talk with the students about our countries and cultures. The students were SO nice and SO cute. Our class made hundreds of little heart-shaped origami for us. They asked us enthusiastically about everything and then we played a game including chairs and random questions, it was so much fun and such a unique experience.

--- google translate be like: 
活動時間：木 Activity time: tree

Orientation days

-          My room is perfect. Big bed, fridge, bathroom, BALCONY, ton of storage space, air-conditioning. Everything is clean and new and I have the room for myself.

-          9-3 Hirose Kita-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima City, 〒730-0803. If you want to send me a postcard.

Orientation days

-          Placement test went well, I ended up in the second of the three levels. I guess UPOL expected me to do better but when doesn´t it.

-          Signed a ton of paperwork in Japanese, I think we all must have sold our soul to satan.

-          The 国際センター is huge and I love that all the staff and many teachers take the time to introduce themselves and make sure we have all the information we need and all the paperwork done correctly. But oh my goodness it is so exhausting to listen to japanese information from 8am to 4pm almost without a break.

-          Every 留学生　has a Japanese buddy. They basically make sure we understand what´s going on with all the international center staff. They sit with us during the whole day and if we get confused, they translate in a simpler Japanese. So basically there is a teacher talking in front of the whole class and then there are around 15 Japanese students trying to repeat the most important parts in a simple Japanese.

-          I am really really grateful for all of this though. I have no idea how I would do all of this alone.

-          I stopped being nervous about speaking terrible Japanese after several hours in Japan but that does not mean the conversations are easy now. There is this thing about Japanese people trying to make a sentence easier to understand by making it as short as possible. Like, by leaving out subjects and verbs and basically all the context I need to understand the sentence.

-          After 8 hours of information, I was told to go visit two teachers who speak some Czech. And so it happened that Yatabe sensei was trying to ask me something about kimono but I didn’t understand what. But he just repeated the word kimono and since I did not understand this simplification, he thought I don’t know what a kimono is. And since my Japanese is terrible I couldn’t get across that of course I know what a kimono is. And so, I SWEAR, he started drawing a kimono to show me what it is.

-          Then I went to visit the second teacher, Soma sensei. After an embarrassing meeting in Olomouc in February, when I couldn’t answer the most simple questions because I was so nervous from Watanabe sensei hearing all the mistakes I make, I was happy that I´d meet Soma sensei again and show him that I am not completely incompetent. Well never mind. I don’t know why after successfully communicating the whole day in Japanese I did not understand a single question he was asking me. After about three-hour sleep and 8 hour of intense focus, I was SO close to crying from exhaustion at Soma´s office. I only managed not to when I imagined how absurd it would be if he told to Watanabe. After some embarrassing minutes of confusing misunderstandings, Soma sensei took a picture of us together and sent it to Watanabe.

-          The way back to my dorms was better. Charged my bus card in Japanese without any problems and casually walked back to my dorms. I can´t believe I am really here.

Second day

-          When I arrived at the Hiroshima airport, a lady from the international office and two new Taiwanese exchange students awaited me there. A big car with a chauffeur took us to the dorms. There was complete silence on the one-hour drive so that was a little awkward but my tiredness was stronger.

-          When we arrive at the dorms, there are several students who came to greet us and show us around. It´s nearly midnight. This is an international house and so most of the students are also exchange students but all of them speak Japanese now. Then there is one girl who introduces herself “I am the Japanese person of this house.” <3

-          This Japanese girl then takes us outside and shows us the door code. 練習。Now practice. And all of us go and try the code and open the door. <3 Then we all go to the nearest conbini store. I had been waiting for this.

-          Rachel (a lovely girl from Arizona who came to Japan 5 months ago and has learnt to speak fluently already) and a Korean girl Jouhyon (?) show me how the Japanese beddings work and how to recycle. They are super nice and talk slowly to me, I can even understand them! I am very slow to reply though and probably very unintelligible and so Rachel asks if she should speak in English. And so now I cheat and speak in English with Rachel. I do try Japanese with everyone else though.

-          I lost the paperwork I got from the international center about two hours after I got it. And so I ended up going through the trash on the dark kitchen balcony at night, finding nothing. Fortunately, Rachel found them and took them. On the top of the first page it says なくさないでください。Please don´t lose this.

-          Everyone is super nice and helpful. I was worried earlier to live in an international house that everyone would speak English and it would be hard to meet Japanese people. I am so happy now as everyone does speak Japanese and everyone is super friendly and helps with everything.

-          I met my buddy Rina and she showed me how to get to the train station, where to buy the bus card and where hangers and recommended some food in the store. おすすめ。 We talked in Japanese for several hours. Well, she talked and then there were my poor attempts to sound Japanese.

-          No food looks familiar except for some vegetable. I take pictures of the food I eat so that I can find it again in the store later.

-          The international office lent me a functioning adaptor (?) and my buddy Rina helped me order the same one. Maybe I will end up having functional technology after all.

-          After everyone telling me that it is very difficult to find a free Wi-Fi in Japan, several people here have tried to persuade me that I don´t need a Japanese number or sim card with internet data. The lady from the international office tries to measure with a ruler how long my sim card is anyway <3

-           Orientation days start tomorrow. And the placement test.

My life in Bochum in Hiroshima

First day

-          Note: I had 11 hours at the airport in China before my next flight and so I had a lot of time to write every little boring detail, enjoy. Maybe skip this post.

-          The guy next to me on the plane doesn’t respect my personal space. Manspreading. Also, he smells a bit. But other than that, he is quite nice and made the stewards help me with the little (broken) screen on the seat in front of me so that I could watch movies and listen to music.

-          The stewards avoid eye contact and successfully ignore me most of the time to only talk to the Asian passengers.

-          The choice of music varies from Chinese opera to all other extremes. And so I listen randomly to Leonard Cohen, Nothing but Thieves and Warpaint. Then somewhere over Russia at 3am I watch Collateral Beauty.

-       I made it to Shanghai. Couldn’t sleep on the plane and so I sleep at the airport now. I wake up with five mosquito bites. The airport seats are very comfortable though and I figured out the perfect way how to sleep around my backpack so that it doesn´t get stolen.

-          Technology often scares me and so I wanted to be prepared. Already in Prague, I bought the adaptor (is that the name for the thingy you need for different types of power plugs?) so that I could charge my phone and laptop in Japan. I asked the staff for help and once I got home I found out, of course, he had helped me to pick the wrong one. I didn´t get discouraged and went back to return it and buy a new one. This one should work also in China. Well it does fit in the Chinese electric outlet (or socket? What is the difference?) but the Czech cords don’t fit into it.

-          They have a charging point here which works though. So I can use my laptop now and postpone dealing with the problem on later.

-          Seven mosquito bites.

-          They have many free water fountains here at the Shanghai airports. All of them with (intentionally!) warm or hot water??!!

-          If you ever go to the Shanghai airport, there IS Wi-Fi but you need to find a really small information desk somewhere between the gates, scan your passport and get your personal log in data. After a little technological battle, I managed to get the Internet working for about an hour.

-          I forgot Facebook doesn’t work in China. And for some reason Google doesn’t either and so I use Seznam for the first time in about ten years.

-          Oh my goodness those mosquito bites really are annoying.

-          (The stewards in their uniforms, high heels and identical hairstyles, walking around in groups like students from Beauxbatons look like a sect from the future.)

-          Overall it´s very calm and clean here at the airport, after all the bad reviews I heard and looked up, I am pleasantly surprised.