About Life in Kyoto & at Ritsumeikan!!

Ayup! 

So thought I'd do a post aimed at people back home at UEA (or wherever) studying and preparing to come to Japan on their big adventure!! To whoever wants to know what it's like living in Kyoto, Japan, and studying at Ritsumeikan - I should imagine (hope) this will be a good read for you! Of course, everyone else, feel free to have a read too ;) I'm going to write about some of my experiences so far and what to expect, both in study and outside of study!

Culture Shock

Soooooo, this phrase gets thrown about a lot, but to be honest before I came to Japan I was all "Eh, we'll be totally fine!". Ehhhhhhh.......Now, I'm not saying it's all doom and gloom (cus it's bloody awesome) but as you've heard probs loooads of times already, you will get some degree of culture shock - whether that's the fact that dorms here seem to be much stricter than at home, or even "What the fudge, Japan, where on earth is all the gravy?" :/ 

But worry not, my lovelies. You'll be just fine! You'll have down days and better days and fantabby-dosey days. It's all part and parcel. 

Wow, it's October and I'm still going out in strap tops..

Yep, it's STILL warm here (well, to me). It does not take much to impress me in the warm weather department. In the past few weeks, all I've heard is ナタリー、寒くないの？寒くないの？ "Aren't you cold Natalie??" "Natalie, you not cold??"

Guys, I'm from the UK, just assume that unless it's snowing, I am not really cold! It has gotten A LOT cooler than what the weather was like when I first arrived. Now bearing in mind, it's still quite warm now, gives you an idea of just how hot it was back then. Well, this is all subjective but.....I'm not used to hot hot weather!

Having said all this, there has recently been a typhoon and there is now another one on the way....when the one last week was here, its was ridiculously windy (like I've never experienced before), so clearly that was cold..but aside from that..yes, warm. OH, speaking of, us here in Kyoto experienced a brief earthquake the other week - the first while we've been at Ritsumeikan University. I've only experienced one or two extremely small ones back home, so despite this being an event most Japanese were quite blasé about, for me it was quite scary..

Class at Ritsumeikan

Some people thinking of applying to Ritsumeiiiiiiiiiiiii? Love it here, I posted a picture on my previous post of the campus, which is so pretty. When you arrive, you have a placement test including reading/writing, speaking and listening (but they disguise the speaking test as an 'interview'....). You will probably be nervous before like we all were, but honestly nothing to worry about - the teachers are super nice and approachable. I'm in one of the intermediate classes, and we have four teachers, making up one writing class a week, two listening/speaking classes a week, and five comprehensive classes a week (each class lasting 90 mins). As I said, they are all lovely (I only know of female teachers btw, not seen any men yet) and easy to speak to!! You quickly become friends with people in your class and feel more and more comfortable speaking in Japanese in front of everyone with each class, as everything is in Japanese :D

Note: Ritsumeikan offers many outside-of-language-class classes :) BUT, I have to warn you about this as I have had a bit of an ordeal. I was, to my delight, chosen to take part in the traditional arts class of Tea Ceremony. However, due to my timetable of language classes, I had to drop out as it clashed. This then happened for Calligraphy class...and also clashes meant I couldn't take the Society or Culture classes I had my eye on (taught in English). I then applied for the one I could do and did not get picked (it's a lottery..), so as you can imagine I was quite deflated by the whole thing! I now only have my language classes, and am hoping to get the chance to do extra classes next semester. FINGERS CROSSED. (Please cross everything for me. Please?) So yeah, just be aware of this as I did not expect it..

Outside of class.....

I've been here just over a month, and I love love love Kyoto. I've already experienced so much with friends, and there's much more. I'm going to Osaka soon to meet up with a friend, and one of my house-mates has recently visited Kobe, as well - I love how easy and cheap it is to get to these kinds of places (although Tokyo is a bit of a trek I think). 

Aside from sight-seeing and so on, there are also various places to hang out with friends. One of my favourites is the river, Kamogawa, where Japanese and international students both gather to hang out and chat. There is an Izakaya (Japanese-style drinking/eating...place haha!) very close, and going there for the first time was a brill experience! Japanese shops/konbini etc are open quite late (compared to home, aside from 24 hour Tesco..). BUSES, however, unlike at home, do not run very late. So be prepared for Taxis - make sure to go in a group or it may well be quite a big sum of dosh you have to fork out!  

The next thing is...KARAOKE. SO. FUN. There are Karaoke places with comfy rooms to go in with friends and sing the night away (no joke until like 6am sometimes..) with all-you-can-drink of what they have on offer there. The name? JANKARA. There are also Karaoke bars, where the Karaoke is free. Make sure when in Japan, you get yourself to one ;)

SO

I hope this has been somewhat helpful and informative, and not a complete ramble of jibberish about Karaoke and Typhoons haha. Hopefully, you can read some of the other blogs and they can give you an idea about where you would like to go! If anyone has any questions about Kyoto/Ritsumeikan, let me know! Just been made some Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki (YUM) so gonna go grab some! (Thanks guys hehe, ありがとううう、めっちゃおいしかった！）

Have fun studying Japanese guys, 頑張ってね！

Here is a picture of all us SKP students at Ritsumeikan for you!　またね！

Getting used to life in Japan: Say whuttt

DAAAAAY SIXTEEEN IN THE BIG BROTHER INTERNATIONAL HOUSE II

..and the housemates are gettin iraaate playing unooooooo.

So just been playing Uno, and (typically) I have won... a big fat ZERO times. (Guys, if you're reading get lost.)

Anyways, 2 years ago today (well technically yesterday as in Japan its now early morning) I started at UEA! Can't believe time's gone so fast and I'm already on my year abroad..I've been here for just over 2 weeks and had my ups and downs but loving getting used to life in Japan. The University I'm at here is called Ritsumeikan (or just Ritsumei for all us that find it so much effort to add the extra little 'kan' on the end...) and although I've not started classes, I've been on campus to look around and it's beaut. Here is a picture:

pwettyy!!

Japan is SO. COOL. Guys if you haven't been, go. (And to you lucky people visiting - you know who you are - it's gonna be siiiick.) 

BUT Japan can also be kinda crazy. In a good way (well mostly!). Here are some examples of different things I've come across!

• So...they drive on the same side of the road as we do in the UK. Good. Well I do NOT understand the rules of the road in Japan. Green man on crossing = cars stop, people walk. Right? Wrong. In Japan, while you're crossing, cars from certain directions can still go. What is that, man? Does that not defeat the point of the little green man?? (mmm I could go for a Little Green Man at Mambos right now) 
• Fashion over here is quite different sometimes, it's so cool seeing all the different things people wear (I wanna go Tokyo now THAT will be something)
• Bikes are so cute, they pretty much all have little baskets on the front (this isn't 'crazy' but something I like about it here.)
• Something I've found difficult to grasp is the general rule of no eating while walking - I do this all the time at home and admit I did it today when eating a brownie and I did actually notice some people looking at me (oops, sorry) 
• Also no eating on buses, which is easier to understand/abide by.
• You have to take off your shoes before you enter a house in Japan. At first it was hard to remember that I'd left my shoes in the little box by the front door..."where are my black pumps...??"
• Also, I'm sure most of you have heard about my Mukade incident....if not, good, Japan has some scary bugs!! 

So, hopefully.. things will become second nature, but for now it's good getting to understand what it's like here and trying my best! 頑張りまーす！People are sooooo nice here anyway. For example, the other day my friend knocked over loads of bikes when parking his, and a guy parked his car, got out and helped us pick them all up. I did not expect it at all.. I think back home, bikes are more likely to get nicked to be honest!

There's a lot I could write about but I'm just gonna leave you with a picture of me and my friend Beth from home (UEA RULES) when we got together and did some sightseeing. This day was awesome, Japan is so beautiful. 

Kinkakuji :)

IM HERE!

So...I'm here! After a loooong time flying, I've managed to get myself to a hostel for two nights and then moved in to my dorm (which you may already know about...funny story I'll get to it).

The flight to Doha was pretty awesome - made a friend and spent the hours chatting, drinking free alcohol and watching movies. YEY. (Divergent was a good watch...as was The Other Woman). So by the time I had to change, I was feeling pretty good. Then came the second flight,  the longer one...9 hours sat on my todd unable to get to sleep, and eventually putting on The Fault in Our Stars...bloody hell bad choice for my state of mind (though the film was really good)! Eventually the time came and we landed at Kansai International! Phew.

As soon as I was off that plane and making my way to the hostel, I was buzzing to use my Japanese and see Japan. Got a little chat in with the taxi driver which was cool (I was just happy I was being understood). Having never been to a hostel before, at first it was a bit daunting but I met another friend there in my room and managed to Skype a few people from home! Jet lag has not been as big of an issue as I thought it would. From other people's stories, I was expecting to be randomly falling asleep during the day and have a complete lack of energy - which would have made sense considering just how little I slept on the plane. BUT, it was not too bad at all.

However, that does now mean that I cannot blame jet lag for my stupidity and goofiness. Damn.

Which brings me onto my taxi incident, going back to before - basically I moved into my hostel during the night, therefore did not manage to take in my surroundings whilst in the taxi....bear this in mind before judging me haha! So I get there and at one point I try to ring a taxi for the next day to my Uni dorm (the only thing I hadn't sorted beforehand). ..Turns out the dorm is literally opposite the youth hostel I was at. Imagine if I had been successful with the taxi and it turned up...there's me asking to go to my dorm and he would have driven out the hostel's drive, across the road and onto another drive. The embarrassment. Luckily, I got nowhere with the taxi over the phone as you had to book it on the day (which took me a while to work out that's actually what the lady was trying to tell me...). In my defence, she didn't explain in the clearest way. "Call me once more."  I'm thinking....You want me to call you back? But she was lovely and helpful and..we got there in the end.

So here I am! First night in my dorm and already met lots of cool people. みんなはやさしいーー！
More to follow :)

I'll leave you with this picture I took in the youth hostel, just chillin in the lobby.

またね！

Welcome to Nat Stan in Japan!!

Alllllrighty then! So never done this blog malarky before so bear with me (talking especially to my uni buddies who've created awesome blogs that I can't match in the slightest. You guysssss I miss you all my lovelies) - but giving it a shot for my year abroad! 

So I'm a third year language student at the University of East Anglia (oh UEA) studying Japanese and currently waiting to jet off on my year abroad in Kyoto, to study at Ritsumeikan Univeristy! There are quite a few of us going to Japan, dotted about all over the place - hoping to visit people once we're settled - such as Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo, and more that my tired brain can't remember right now. Mega excited for all my Japanese class buddies and hoping to meet up. Definitely paying a visit to Tokyo to go to Disneyland (well..it's Tokyo so I want to go generally but...Disneyland). Yeah, people who know me know that I love all things Disney and this is something I will be doing at some point during my year abroad - my year abroad friends in Japan (Tokyo especially), will hopefully be up for that! 

Anyway, it's been a lot of organising, with more to come but it's all going to be so worth it - and it's sooo close! As you can imagine there are the usual stresses surrounding travel abroad (not that I've done a lot..), but a few added ones considering this is a study abroad trip and we are the first at UEA to go to Japan in particular, eek.

However, seeing as I've started this blog fairly far into my year abroad prep, there isn't much left for me do to at this point! YAY. My list currently stands as follows:

• Apply for Visa
• Pick up Visa
• Say my goodbyes and cry a bit ...a lot.

At least that's how I can see it going ha! So yeah, introduction to my year abroad blog which I hope will be a good read for those interested. :)

Hakuna Matata, people. (Two of my fave things: Sunset Orange and...well you know)