Konnichwa from Japan!

Hello everybody!

Here comes my first update from Kyoto, Japan.

I arrived two days ago on Monday, but it´s been really busy and I haven´t had the chance to write anything until now.

So to begin with Monday my plane landed in Japan almost an hour earlier than planned (In Norway it tends to be the opposite: whether it´s busses, trains or anything else you can´t really expect them to be on time..). Though the Japanese seems to like handing out papers for us "gaijin" (foreigners) to fill in so it still took me quite some time before I could leave the airport.

I went by bus straight to Kyoto, which only took about 90 minutes or so.

After waiting a little while my friend Maho came and picked me up at the station, so that made the day quite easy. She showed me around in the Kyoto station, which is really huge!

Well, at least compared to Norway I guess..

I stayed one night at Maho´s place, and then my next destination was the Ritsumeikan University (立命館大学). I went by taxi though, so it was quite easy to get there.

There actually were quite a lot new exchange students this semester. We are only 2 students from Norway though, but still I think that´s quite alright.

Of course we had a lot of information meetings yesterday, plus some placement tests to determine our Japanese levels. I was a bit tired after arriving just one day earlier, so I´m not quite sure if I´m satisfied with it or not.

In the evening we had a welcome dinner where we got a chance to taste a lot of different Japanese food like takoyaki and yakisoba for instance. Afterwards I took a taxi to the dormitory (I still had my luggage with me so it kinda was the easiest way to do it) and I received a warm welcome from the dorm manager and his wife.

Then one of the House Buddies showed me around in the dormitory, and I must say I was happily surprised. It´s really nice here:). They also gave me the opportunity to rent a bike for a year which costed me 3500 yen, or roughly 30 euro. I also have internet in my room:)! Yay!

Before I went to bed I played cards for a while with the other students here and I think everyone seems really nice. So I´m sure my stay here will be good.

Today I woke up early and after an hour or so I went by bike to school with the other students living here. It didn´t take very long to get there actually, perhaps around15-20 minutes..!

We started with another placement-test, and this time it was the oral one. I must say it went pretty easy actually. But then again I haven´t got any results yet so of course it might have been a failure as well...

Rest of the school day was pretty boring though since we got a lot of paperwork we had to fill in and so on. But I guess it has to be done, right.?

I still need to buy a telephone though, foreign phones doesn´t work in Japan, so.. I still have my iPhone here though, it has a lot of practical programs.

Well that´s all for today. I´ll see if I can post some pictures later this week.

Matta ne!