It has been about three and a half year since I first came to Ritsumeikan as an exchange student back in 2010. Back then I had planned to stay at the school for a year through the Study in Kyoto Program, but ended up enrolling in Ritsumeikan's Graduate School of International Relations.

This week I went back to Ritsumeikan for the oral defense of my thesis, which I turned in last month. The defense marks the ending of my life as a student in Japan, and after I start working in Tokyo in April I think it will take many years until I possibly decide to go back to university again.

Anyway, I have decided that I'll still keep on posting updates about my life in Japan along with my travels, but as I will no longer be a student I have made a small change to the blog's title. Stay in tuned for more adventures in the future!

These days I'm pretty much stuck in my room preparing for my comprehensive exam (only 3 weeks to go now!! ><). So I haven't really had that much time to do anything besides studying lately..

Instead I've decided to share some questions I received about the DMDP (Double Master Degree Program) program from a possible future participator of the program:)

As some of you might now, Ritsumeikan is giving the opportunity for students to take two master degrees in two years through the exchange programs they have with other schools. The countries you can choose from are Korea, Spain, America, England and the Netherlands.
My choice eventually fell upon the Korean school Kyunghee, and I'm now in my second (and last) semester here.

Anyway, here are the questions about Kyunghee and the DMDP program:

1. As a DMDP student you have to do two theses. What is the work load like? What is the expected length of one thesis? (It seems this always varies from school to school I've seen from 10,000-40,000 words)

• The thesis for Ritsumeikan is up to 20,000 words. It is possible to make it a little bit longer too, but then you need to apply for it. For KyungHee the requirement is around 65 pages.

2. Do you have access to the academic materials you need or do you find it lacking?

• For KyungHee you get the books used in the classes you have registered for (including auditing) for free. They have a library here, but for a wider selection of books you better utilize the main campus library instead, as the number of books here isn't that great.

3. Is there readily available internet access in your room, or is it limited to public areas? (I like to use Skype in private with my family and friends)

• We have internet here, both in the rooms and on campus in general. In the rooms we use normal cables, but you can get free wifi for the rest of the campus through registering online with your student id.

4. I heard the accommodation fee is 3,000,000 won. What other additional fees did you have to pay?

• There is a minor student body council fee of 30.000 won which covers student activities, but that is it. (Unless you miss more than 3 morning meditations, that is..)

5.Are you satisfied with the quality of the instruction?

• I'm generally quite satisfied. We had some problems with one of the classes last semester due to some problems with the professor, but a lot of the students complained about it so hopefully the administration will improve the situation for the upcoming fall semester. Besides that I think the school offer interesting classes, and in general I think the standard of the classes is good as well.

6.Do you have any advice about the program?

• Start preparing early! In order to graduate Kyunghee's program you'll have to pass a comprehensive exam which is supposed to be quite hard (I'll be taking it in April). Normally students take this exam during their second semester, but as a DMDP student you have to take it during the second semester. There are two exams spanding over two days; one for required courses and one for major courses. You have to take 3 major classes to be eligible for the exam, but only two of the subjects actually are included in the test.. 
• Also, you should be aware that Kyunghee is a bit conservative regarding rules; as I mentioned in my blog you have to pay a punishment fee if you fail to participate in 3 morning meditations.

Just got informed that there is a strong typhoon heading for Kyoto right now.. Pretty scary stuff, I guess it's best to hurry home now:p..


Update: It turned out not to be such a big typhoon after all. Judging by the warnings at school I would at least have expected a little bit more wind, but it was almost like a normal autumn day in my hometown Bergen (which is infamous for bad weather).

The wind was however strong enough to destroy my umbrella on the way home.. ><

My umbrella got destroyed by the Typhoon ><

So.. It seems that I'm going to have a one-year break from Japan, because I got accepted into Kyung Hee University's Graduate Institute of Peace Studies through Ritsumeikan University's Double Master Degree Program! (Not to mention that I'm apparently the first Ritsumeikan-student ever going to the Korean school through this program^^)
Here I'm going to follow their program in International Political Science (Peace and Global Governance Studies), and thus when I graduate from Ritsumeikan next year I'll have two master degrees (if everything goes as planned).

Yay, me so happy :3

Stay in tuned for my year in Korea! xD

Kyung Hee University in Korea

So far this semester (which equals approximately one month) I have been living in a small village called Haradani in the northern part of Kyoto. It is a little bit far from school, about thirty minutes of walking, and to be honest I didn't like it too much. Considering both the location and the distance to school I found that the price for the apartment was a bit high. And walking home in the dark wasn't too fun either (except one night when I actually saw a big boar with two piglets on the way home from school.. It wouldn't have been that fun if it weren't for the fence though.. Haha)..

Haradani is situated in a valley north of Kyoto, and it gets really cold there during winter. I would wake up in the middle of the night freezing, even with three layers of clothing on. As a result me and my new neighbor Jamilah ended up using a lot of electricity and gas to keep us warm, and we ended up with a really expensive utility bill despite both of us feeling like we were freezing to death. Long story short: I wouldn't recommend living in Haradani that easily..

Picture of the entrance to Interco, taken from their web-page

I have to admit that it was quite rash, but there are many apartment stores close to school, so I just went to check one of them out last week. The company I went to called Interco, and it is situated really close to Ritsumeikan's east gate (just walk towards the post office and you'll see it on your left side). The staff was really helpful, and found me an apartment nearby school which was even closer and cheaper than I'd expected. The landlord turned out to be a really nice person too, so over the weekend I had found myself a new place to live. I feel the staff at Interco really went out of their way to help both me and Jamilah in search for a new place to live, despite some misunderstandings from our parts on the way. Because of this I decided to give the company my best recommendations through this blog. Thanks to them I'll no longer have to walk 30 minutes to get to my home in the middel of nowhere. v(^.^)


The necessary documents you need for an apartment are:
-Passport
-Alien registration card
-Student card
-Payment in cash for the first month, + other fees depending on the apartment
-Contract fees
-Housing insurance

-For some apartments they require the ability to speak Japanese. Either way, you can contact Interco directly and they'll help you find a company that suits your needs.
For more information, check out their web page.

PS! If you introduce a friend then both you and your friend will get a discount on the apartment contract.! (Introducer gets 10% off, and the introduced person gets 5%)

Map to Interco, where you can get help finding an apartment

"Golden week" might not make any sense to you unless you somehow are familiar with Japan or Japanese holidays. For that is exactly what it is, unbelievable as it seems, a whole week of Japanese holiday.
As a Norwegian I must admit that I'm used to long holidays, both during summer, winter and a couple of weeks in between. In Japan, as you might already know, this is however not the case. Especially for people who have started working there are not to many times during the year where they actually have enough days in a row to take what you could call a real holiday. Supposedly that is why the Golden Week is such a "golden" thing: give them a week off and they are basically in the seventh sky. Along with the prices for hotels, transportation tickets and number of people in that temple you wanted to visit, because they seem to skyrock too.
I would also have liked to have a nice and long Golden Week without any school at all, as is the practice for most Japanese schools. But Ritsumeikan is known as a university where you get few holidays, and for good reasons. This year our "golden week" gives us a total of two days vacation from school, and in return we have to make up for the lost classes by coming to school a couple of Saturdays in May. I don't know about you, but I do not find that all too golden to be honest..
But there is still one aspect of Golden Week that makes it live up to its name. The fact that one gets the chance to spend time with their loved ones. Tomorrow my boyfriend, who has been working in Ibaraki since the beginning of April, will come to spend his GW in Kyoto. There is absolutely nothing that could have made my Golden Week more Golden then that. <3

Have a super Golden Week!

Golden sunset in Japan..!

Getting ready for kimono!

Larissa gets help with her kimono

Both of us all dressed up! Yay!

Almost done!

Photo time!

Some of the kimonos you might end up wearing if you join the kimono-club

It was really nice to try out the kimono-club, and the members were friendly too. We did feel welcome, and I would have liked to continuing going to the club if it weren't for my shoulder. I haven't really decided what to do yet, but I do think that I'll have problems putting the kimono on because the movement of my arm still is quite limited x(
Anyway, it seems like a good club! If you become able to put on the kimono by yourself they might even let you lend the kimono some time! Would be nice for instance if you want to walk around in Kyoto in kimono, wear kimono at a hanami or something like that^^..


Some more facts about the kimono-club:
Membership: 6000 yen for a year
Meetings: Every Wednesday
Contact information can be found on Ritsumeikan's home page!

A Christmas tree at campus during orientation week in April..? Well, I guess it's Japan, after all..

A dancing club having performances on the main scene

A circle where the members give strangers foot-massages. Oh yeah.. xP

One of the theater-clubs at school

A guy in a banana-costume!

Some Japanese girls in traditional outfits

 After a couple of weeks in Kobe where Yuma`s family has helped me recovering from my surfing accident in Bali I am now back in Kyoto again ready for another semester at Ritsumeikan.
However, while some of us are going back to school there are a lot of my Japanese friends who are graduating, and will start their working-life as so-called 社会人s in April. My boyfriend Yuma is one of them; he is moving to Tokyo in a couple of weeks to start working for Hitachi. Life in Kyoto will not be the same without him, but at least Tokyo is not too far away so we can still visit each other from time to time..

卒業おめでとー♥

Today was the big graduation day at Ritsumeikan, and although I got to school a bit late I still got the chance to congratulate most of my graduating friends. The Japanese job system seems pretty rough, especially compared to what I am used to from my home country.. I really hope that their working-days won't be as hard as I imagine it might be..

Yuma got some flowers, so we used them to cover my arm.. haha..

Anyway, today is going to be a day for celebration, and tonight we are having a big party! So this blog-post turned out quite short, since I'm leaving for the party soon and I have to get ready.
Party, party! ...Well, truth is, since I went through a surgery just a couple of weeks ago I will have to take it a bit easy.. No dancing tonight I suppose.

For those of you who are considering taking a master degree at Ritsumeikan University it might be interesting to know that this university actually offers a so-called Double Master Degree Program for anyone looking for an extra challenge.
Normally it takes two years at Ritsumeikan to achieve a master degree, but with this program you can get two master degrees instead by studying a year at Ritsumeikan and a year abroad.
Currently there are 7 universities in 5 different countries where you have the chance to go to with the DMDP. These include:

• American University (USA)
• Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands)
• University of Granada (Spain)
• Lancaster University (UK)
• Royal Holloway University of London (UK)
• University of York (UK)
• Kyung Hee University (Korea)

In addition to the chance to studying abroad in yet another country, this program will also make your education cheaper since Ritsumeikan offers a Kyotei-ryugaku scholarship for participants of this program, which means that half of your tuition fees for the year abroad will be covered by Ritsumeikan. And considering tuition fees being high, combined with the fact that it is more expensive to live in Japan than any of the countries listed above, it is quite a good deal if you have what it takes to go through with the program. Besides, it is also possible to do the program in 2 1/2 year if you feel you need more time to finish.

For more information about the program, check out this page.

Chris points the route of the day

On the way up to Hieizan you pass a couple of smaller shrines

Genki!

A sign that has almost been consumed by a tree

A torii in the middle of the forest

A Japanese guy enjoying the view of Kyoto

There were also quite a lot of Japanese people walking in the mountains, and it seems like a popular route also for joggers..!
It did not take us more than two-three hours or so to reach the top of Hieizan. And it was not really that hard a climb either, but that might be because my last mountain trip was a 3-day long trekking trip through the mountains in Bolivia.. Anyway, only a few parts of the path are steep; most of it is relatively flat.

Group picture more or less at the top of the mountain.

Some previous Japanese visitors had left wooden plates with messages in one of the trees.

At the top of Hieizan there used to be a ski resort. Now the once so nice resort is quite dilapidated, since no one has used the buildings for years.

Snowy trees at the top of Hieizan

Nice view!

Japanese stone sculptures

Hieizan also has a temple area called Enryaku-ji (延暦寺), which dates back to the earlier years of the Heian period. There are a lot of temples in this area, but we only stopped by a couple of them on the way to the funicular going down from on the other side of the mountain. Anyway, here are some of the pictures I snapped on the way:

The ordination hall, called Kaidan-in (戒壇院)

Close-up of the entrance to the ordination hall.

The Amida Hall (阿弥陀堂)

A small dragon fountain in the temple area

A map of the Enryaku-ji temple area. As you can see there are quite a lot of interesting buildings here.

View from Hieizan towards lake Biwako

The funicular of the Sakamoto-line

福, the sign for "luck".

 This weekend it was time for another school festival at Ritsumeikan University, more specifically at Kinugasa Campus, where I am studying. The campus had been nicely decorated for the occasion, and the whole place was filled with people. And not just students; there was a lot of kids, and what seemed to be parents or grandparents too. Clearly the festival was popular among all generations.

Ritsumeikan's east school gate decorated for the festival

Some more decorations on campus

Me, Yuki, Asami and Yuji at the school festival

Stands where members of the different activity clubs and circles are selling food

Traditional Japanese music being performed

Dancers having a show at the main stage

Live wrestling show

..with quite some action..

Those interested could try a quick game of Mahjong

Or just have a relaxing foot massage.