Red Girl

Finally at long last I get to meet friends I made in Victoria. You'd think that with Japan being an island 1/3 the size of British Columbia I'd be able to meet them more often but reality is not so simple.


Last Saturday on the 22nd, Chisato came from Tokyo for a visit! I took her around Kyoto and showed her the sights, sounds and obnoxious crowds which she claimed were larger in size than Tokyo's. Well, right now is the prime time to see the Momiji (The leaves that turn color during the autumn season) and Kyomizu Temple on the mountain's side is lit up at night to commerate the season. And it looks absolutely gorgeous, visible from even 10km away. If that weren't enough, it was a long weekend. Add in all the mixtures and you have so many outsiders and Kyoto tourists that the city's population probably triples. For kilometers along the streets it was push and shove, similiar to Shinjuku at 5pm, yet you couldn't simply walk out of one of the exits to escape. I also met Chisato's friend from Osaka, Chie, who rather reminds me a lot of my sister. Silly questions that beg silly answers. Example, as we walk down a street she says "Wow, right now I feel like I'm in Kyoto!" I just had to reply with a snarky answer "I can tell you why, see, you ARE in Kyoto."


The next day I met Chisato again and we walked around many places taking in the vibe of the city but once again it was so packed with people that getting anywhere took substantially longer. In the evening I saw her off as she moved on to Osaka and then made my way to Kyoto Station to meet Sayuri!! "Let's meet at the GIANT christmas tree inside Kyoto station" I said. Easier said than done though. Sayuri picked the tiniest tree around outside the station so it took us sometime to actually find each other. It was really nice seeing her, and she brought my favorite potato chips to boot!


The next day I had classes, oddly enough, before the week long vacation actually began. Right after, Sayuri and I troded through the rainy weather and made our way to Kobe to visit friends we havn't seen in a while. Included were Masa, Megumi, Ayumi and a possibility of Asami as well. Of course, Kobe being a harbour city, it was a cold arrival as we met Megumi at the station. Walking through the miniature streets leading to Konan, I couldn't help but feel like I was in Europe. The rain was still coming down and the winds picked up, unfortunately claiming my 260yen umbrella purchased at Doshisha the same day.


At Konan we sat and had a little bit of cake to commemorate Sayuri's birthday. This university feels like a really nice high-tech facility of sorts and bears a different feel than Doshisha. I'd gotten so used to buildings that probably date back to the day the Leaning Tower of Pisa became famous for not falling. Needless to say, it was a welcome and refreshing change. Then to our surprise, Chisato was in Himeji that day and on her way back to Osaka so she decided to sidetrack and visit Kobe to see us one last time before going home to Tokyo. Along with her came 3 jolly Kansai guys; barrels of fun and jokes.


The next day I went again to Konan with Masa and met some of his friends. He appears to be quite socially connected. Later on, we were able to meet Asami and Ayumi whom we sat and waited with for the late arrivals Megumi and Sayuri. The three of the Konan cadets had to go to classes/part-time jobs so that was that and Sayuri and I left to explore a little bit on our own. That was when we decided to eat and picked the pizza cafe we went to the day before with Chisato and her friends. At the cafe we saw "Red Girl" and had a nice meal and good time before we said goodbye. Sayuri then hopped on the train and went back home to Tokyo.


The next morning I too went back to Kyoto and enjoyed the tail of Doshisha's lively Eve Festival. Often when you use the word "lively" to describe some sort of event in Japan, it really means overcrowded and lots of shoulder pushing. Not to mention noisy. Eve Festival was all the above, but definately interesting for as long as one is willing to put up with the mass of bodies.


That concludes the extra-long weekend and various visits to/from friends. It was energizing to finally have met old Japanese friends. Below are two pictures. The first being a little view of what momiji does to the surrounding landscapes (the view is on the street I pass by everyday on my way to school) and the second shot is Kobe as seen from Konan University.

"Completely" Settled

I'm now "completely" settled. Why the quotations you ask? With a lifestyle as fast paced as the Japanese spur, its no surprise that everyday something new hits you like an old brick falling off of Doshisha's ancient buildings.

Lots to say since my last post. And finally...pictures!

Doshisha Imadegawa is a beautiful campus, I'm not sure exactly how "high-level" the university is, but definately attractive. At least for the 5 minutes it takes to walk across from one end of the campus to another. I'm still used to the enormous campus that is UVic, and let's not even talk about UBC City. It's not like there's less here, its just cramped closer together. Buildings are practically brushing up against each other as if to huddle from the cold winter to come. And yes, it gets damn cold here during the wee hours, easily matching Vancouver. I havn't yet had a chance to pay a visit to the much larger and apparently more active Kyotanabe Campus. And for good reason, its about an hour away by train and costly. Soon though...

Nearby the Imadegawa campus are Shinmachi Campus (literally translated to "new city" campus) and Kanbaikan which isn't really a campus as much as it is a hangout spot with some conference/party rooms. Entering Shinmachi or Kanbaikan truly feels like walking into an advanced research facility or a high-tech operation of sorts. Walking into Imadegawa (literally means "the now exiting river") campus is more of a "whoops, when did I accidently stumble into England?" sort of feeling.

In Japan, if you ever see a really fancy looking shrine, next door might be a convenience store or a parking lot. Things often seem out of place here and you are left wondering who the heck designs the cities here. Zoning rules seem to be thrown out the window, and the idea of 'fit what you can where you can' seems to play a large role. So walking down one street, you may see a residential expensive apartment tower, a convenience store, a bread shop, a liqour factor, a university, a zoo, an internet cafe, some old lady's house which is older than Japan itself, and probably a lot of convenience stores. Yes I mentioned convenience store twice. Theres just that many.

I've stopped using the subway since it costs an arm, a leg, and a bit more. That meant walking, since the bus happens to cost more than the train and takes about 8 times longer. No joke. As good a feeling as it is walking around Kyoto, it totals 3 hours of commuting on foot per day. Remember how our parents always say "In my day, I used to walk 10km to school uphill both ways...", well I actually was doing that. So when I tell my not so tall tales to my kids they have to believe me. I must say though, Kyoto is absolutely a gorgeous place to be walking around.

In a week I have classes Monday to Friday from 9am to 12:15pm. These are the basis language classes which are really the core of the program. For those of you familiar with UVic's ELPI program, its really the same thing with Japanese being the focus. Each day, the lessons are taught by a different instructor to give students as wide an exposure to Japanese speakers as possible. Which is a rather perfect situation, since its nearly impossible to tire of the professors themselves. Afternoon classes are dependant on the students. Some are registered in Japanese Law, some in Culture, Ikebana (flower arrangement), Japanese Society, and so on. The selection isn't exactly gripping but its enough to keep students relatively busy for the two semesters here.

Following the morning classes, the international students pour into the Cafeteria commons and build their little ant hills in the lounge. The Japanese students occupy most of the main seating area leaving the lounge for the outsiders. Its not really so great since as an international student you pretty much sit with only others like you. Meeting Japanese students is rather difficult since the situations rarely lend themselves. I have yet to join up with any clubs or circles and despite lugging my rackets here with me, no tennis yet. The clubs usually congregate down at Kyotanabe Campus I'm told, so the commute will become avoidable.

Down below are some pictures of Doshisha University's Imadegawa Campus, so have a look!

One Person`s Junk is another Gaijin`s Treasure

I have moved to my new apartment, if it can be called that. Just about everything except my own room is shared. Well I`m paying around 150$ CND for an apartment, if anything it feels like renting a place back home in Victoria. Regardless it is comfortable, although slightly cold since its a traditional style Japanese place with tatami mats and no central heating. Sorry I still don`t have pictures, soon!

Students do the some very strange things to surive no matter where or how. It could be bringing an empty water bottle to school (or two) and filling it with iced tea in the cafeteria when staff aren`t looking. Or it could be biking around the city on large garbage removal day for goodies to pick up and use in your own house. A Japanese person`s junk is treasure to a gaijin student scraping by in an expensive place like Kyoto. An abundance of flee markets and "recycled shops" (which is just another name for a thrift store) is not at all surprising since 10% of Kyoto`s population are students.

Grocery shopping is not at all like hopping off the bus on your way home at Safeway or Thrifty Food`s for supplies lasting a week. Japanese people love their supermarkets and convience stores, there`s almost always one around the corner. Grocery shopping is done everyday here. Meats, breads and most perishables last a day or two at the most. Cook that meat right away or it`ll turn as green as sewer sludge! Suitably, bread comes in bundles of 4-5 slices and meat in 100g packages usually. What? Where is the package of 8 chicken breasts? Where can I find the 3-loaf set of bread? Sorry, no Cosco shopping here.

Adapting to lifestyle here is one of the most intriguing things about international student life. In the process you discover many things uncomparable to home and perhaps that is the draw for adventurers looking to always grow. There is a certain lure and charm to the society and lifestyle here. It is what has drawn me back here once more and something I hope to understand a little better on my way home some time from now.

Becoming a Local

This isn`t my first time in Japan. I`ve backpacked nearly half way accross the country and also spent time living with a Japanese family. The logical thing to do next was...become a local. You never fully understand what a country is like until you go through the pain of becoming a local. Yes, I said "pain".

For a long time I`ve always thought Canada was a relatively simple place to live, both in the financial regard as well as social. Here in Japan, I`m beginning to find out just how true that is. Of course, wanting to study here requires more time than the alotted days on a Temporary Visitor Pass, a visa is necessary. And as expected, the fun stuff begins when you actually manage to get here.

First and foremost is to register as a foreigner. Not to anyone`s surprise, the forms all say "Foreigner Registration" in Japanese but the English translation is slightly different..."Alien Registration". "Alien?", I ask my friend. He says "Yeah, doesn`t that mean foreigner?" I gave him a small explanation on what exactly an "alien" is and boy was he unable to stop laughing. In Japan, either you are Japanese, or you`re from another planet. I am obviously from another planet.

Next came the mandatory National Health Insurance. Why can`t everything be this easy? I filled in only 3 forms and had to wait a good 10 minutes before I was enrolled in medical care. Yay, now I can safely get into accidents.

I also needed a bank account here for, well, banking needs. This happened to be the few hours of my life where I wanted to scream continuously despite me being a relatively calm person. When filling out a form, you have to write everything yourself. Not even the friend standing next to you whom you give full athority to can do it for you. Yet if you make a mistake, you can`t cross it out and pretend life is all dandy. No sir, you have to fill out a fresh form. Given that everything had to be written in Japanese, especially the address, I guess I couldn`t do it perfectly the first time. I won`t mention how many tries...

Everyone of course knows that Japanese cellphones are years ahead in technolgy of their western counterparts. Well, does everyone know that they cost an arm and a leg to buy? If you don`t sign any sort of contract, you are going to be paying out of the arse. I`m talking 50,000￥ or more for an average phone with Softbank. This particular company happens to have cheaper plans for students and gives good discounts if you sign up for a two year contract however. Docomo has the coolest phones around with the coolest and most useless features. I like cool and useless features, so I opted for this company. The plan was slightly more expensive then with the other companies as they don`t have a student discount but the phone itself ended up being realtively cheap and spectacular. What can I say, I`m a geek for technology in Japan. I`ll upload a picture soon.

"Alien Registration", medical, bank, and cellphone were a bit difficult but somehow managable with the help of my dear friend Shinchi who has saved me more headaches than I could count. That`s all right? Nothing left? What about school? Good question.

I never thought much about registering for classes. I mean, they take my test and decide my level and then throw me in a class, right? Not quite. There were several manuals explaning how to register for classes, including deadlines, procedures and whatnot. I thought this was supposed to be the easy part. To my dismay it took me a few days to figure out but in the end I signed up for absolutely everything I could. They said you could drop classes but not add any later, and tuition doesn`t change so why not! Let`s see how it goes.

Next step is to move into the apartment my friend helped me find. Then maybe I can inch closer to becoming a local.

The Restaurant Process

It never really is easy to say goodbye, but we all somehow experience this dilemma at one point or another. Last Friday, my Korean friend Julie, who was to return home the following morning, and I decided to have commemorational party. Now Victoria is a small city, so there's not much selection when it comes to throwing a party. You can take your bunch down to Red Robin, a family restaurant, or you can vie for a more mature option and go with Boston Pizza. The latter was open late, and gave us the option for a reservation at 9:30pm so we went with it.

Come nightfall, we headed there in our various groups of people. Now when you go to a restaurant, there is sort of a process. You go inside the doors, check your reservation, head over to your seats, greet each other and then the most important part...you sit down in preparation of the meal to come. Well you see, we never got past the greeting process and a good portion of our group, about 25 people, decided they were going to stand and continue to converse. This was a mockery of the great restaurant process! How could someone go to a restaurant and not sit down for their meal. Complete blasphemy. Anyway, when you have 25 adults standing around their tables, the area tends to become slightly overcrowded. I noticed as our waiter brought food to a few, he looked as if he wanted to hurl the Thai Chili Pizza he was carrying at our faces. Or at the very least, scream.

Several hours later, as we are all still standing, the last of our group has trickled in to say their goodbyes to Julie and I. We snapped some pictures and shared some hugs and words. All in all, we had a good time as we butchered the sacred restaurant process.

The group outside Boston Pizza:

Introduction

Hey, my name is Muhammad. I'm a University of Victoria student in Engineering going on a year long trip as an international student to Doshisha University in auspicious Kyoto, Japan. I began this blog as a means of sharing the more interesting moments of my excursion.

Welcome to my blog, and I hope you enjoy my stories!