After a long summer of anxious waiting, I’ve finally arrived in Tokyo and am glad to be able to begin this blog! I arrived yesterday evening after a long flight from LHR via Istanbul. I flew with one of my friends from Cambridge and we managed to pass the time by talking about all the awesome things we were going to do in Tokyo! (Karaoke, karaoke, karaoke…) My friend had several “unfortunate incidents” throughout but I won’t embarrass her and will let you read about it in her own blog! She doesn’t eat fish (and by extension, most types of sushi) but I think I will try to fix that by the end of the course… I’m not a fan of Turkish Airways — both of our flights were delayed by about an hour each, most of the films were not in English, and I was only able to eat the food in the interest of not starving. (If I ever recommend Turkish Airways to you, it means I secretly hate you.)
We were met at Narita Airport in Tokyo by this young Japanese woman holding a sign with our names on. In hindsight, this would have been an amazing photo opportunity but I think I just too overwhelmed to remember to take one. She helped us purchase tickets for the Narita Express to Shinjuku and even sat with us in Starbucks for a while. We found out she just works at the airport and didn’t know anything about our course — she was extremely surprised to hear that I couldn’t speak Japanese at all! Conversely her English was amazing and apparently she had only been studying it for three years. She managed to have a conversation about nail polish and shoes with my friend and so I guess some things are just universal!
When we got to Shinjuku station, we met a woman from Nihon University and she took a cab with us to our accommodation in Shimotokaido. She gave us a brief tour and explained how to use the various gadgets/machines that we were given. Most importantly, she explained the air conditioning system without which I’d probably melt. There is a particularly complicated garbage collection system — we have to separate our stuff into burnable, unburnable, and recyclable objects and each type is collected on a different day each week. The ‘collection point’ outside our house is the same for all of them and so it will probably be very easy to get mixed up! We are staying in ensuite rooms (with an individual kitchen in each), and so this is much nicer than any room I stayed in/saw at Cambridge (or at home, for that matter). I will probably take full photos of the room in a later post.
We were given a quick tour of the area around our accommodation and we were left to our own devices. Even though the train station is only 10 minutes away, we managed to get lost on our way back and only found our way home by trying several random routes. (My friend is in fact a Geography graduate, but claims they didn’t teach anything about actual navigation!) We ate in a nearby restaurant/cafe, which was probably strangely serving food close Chinese cuisine rather than Japanese, but I was glad to finally have a proper meal. It only cost 650 yen (~5 GBP) for several dishes and so was relatively good value for money.
I’ve just realised it will take me a ridiculously long amount of time if I keep writing in this much detail, so I’m going to start skimming! When we got home we met another girl on our course who had just arrived. We also met some German students who were living above us and who had been there a bit longer. One of them had been there since January and so he offered to give us all (another) quick tour. He pointed out various ‘essentials’ such as where to find cheap food and drink, and where to run to if you ever ‘get attacked or raped’ [his words!].
We got back home and met some more students. We drank tea in the room of one of the guys from Cambridge, and briefly introduced ourselves. Most of us seem have to been to Japan before, but again, can hardly speak a word of Japanese… There are 15 of us on the course in total, and 6 of us from Cambridge (dominating force!). We are going to be split up into classes according to Japanese level, but it seems most of us will be in the beginners class! One of the Cambridge guys had lived in Japan for a year and so we will probably be turning to him for on-the-spot translations (until he gets annoyed!).
Today we walked around Asakusa and Ueno, and I managed to see the Sensoji temple once again. This time it had less construction around it and so was certainly a more pleasant sight! When we were in the market, I caught this Japanese girl unabashedly staring at us with her mouth open whilst we were talking. I say ‘caught’, but she didn’t actually stop when I looked at her and gave her a sarcastic smile. She came up to us and asked about where we were from, and what we were doing in Tokyo. She had ridiculous amounts of enthusiasm when talking and seemed to be impressed at every word we were saying! We were an extremely diverse group (in terms of race) and so it was probably a strange sight for her to see. Her boyfriend beckoned her to leave us alone, and we gave her a bow on departing.
We rented cycle-boats and rowing boats and went on the small lake in Ueno. This was probably the first time I tried rowing, and I definitely lacked the grace and skill that I usually see associated with boaties in Cambridge. We bumped into a few other boats several times but luckily ‘sorry’ is one of the few words I know in Japanese! We walked around Tokyo University afterwards because one of the girls had attended a short course there, and the architecture reminded me of a traditional Roman town (nothing like other buildings in Tokyo!). My camera ran out of batteries half-way through today and so I didn’t manage to get as many photos as I wanted. No-one else brought a camera and so they probably couldn’t have had a worse ‘designated photographer’… It’s about 9PM now and I have a quick moment to rest in my room, but I think we will probably go out again soon. I promise to post pictures when I can! Stay tuned for the next post.