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aoibaratraveler · 5 years ago

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A Look Back At My Time in Japan! Chapter 2

Welllllll it looks like it’s been a while since I last posted again...but I have an excuse! I was preparing for a pretty big interview and getting ready to make a trip back to Canada. Maybe you’ve heard of the JET programme and maybe you haven’t but I had an interview for that earlier this month and so it took up a lot of my headspace, I’ll be posting more about it once I hear my results in a month or so but I hope to not have too much of a gap anymore in between posts! Also, a mutual friend of both mine and the bf is coming to stay this weekend from Germany so I’m very excited about that and will hopefully have chapter 3 up afterward.

I said before that this will probably be a 4 part blog but you know I really just have so much to say on my experience and can hopefully provide some insight to any people looking to go on exchange to Japan in the future! Or go on exchange in general since my UK exchange story will be coming after this one! So much happened though that this may just end up being a 6 parter xD, ahh it really would have been great if I wrote what happened at the time. Well, I hope you enjoy reading about Japan through my eyes! I’ve also decided to go with naming these chapters since unlike my UK road trip blog, I’m writing this 4 years after the fact so it feels more like I’m telling a story than giving a week by week account on what I experienced. Anyway, last change to my blog! Promise!

Without further ado!

First Month on Exchange: April

I forgot to mention! At the end of chapter 1 was when I arrived in Nagasaki for the first time and earlier in the day before my homestay mother arrived to pick me up, all of the exchange students were made to sit a placement exam to determine their level of Japanese and which class they were to be placed into. Since I had barely slept the night prior and wasn’t really reviewing my textbooks until the last minute, I was only placed in Japanese 3 (they work up from 1) which was good enough for the level that I was at, at the time but if I had reviewed like I had wanted to instead of being lazy then I might have made it to Japanese level 4...but well, we’ll never know and I’m really just giving myself a hard time since I take learning languages, especially Japanese, and being a linguist super seriously. I’m a major procrastinator so of course, I put off reviewing until the last moment but I should be proud of myself for getting there and I made some really good friends that I’m still in touch with from being placed in Japanese 3.

The day after arriving was a whirlwind! I felt like I could tackle anything and was so full of energy! I took my homestay mother up on her offer to drive me to the opening ceremony that was the day after I arrived in Nagasaki which was meant to welcome all the new exchange students and the first-year Japanese students. It was a rainy day but I was full of anticipation. I wore my best outfit that I had brought along with me and had high hopes. It was a really interesting experience as we never do opening ceremonies or anything of the sort for new university students in Canada. There are normally just fairs and maybe freebies up for grabs. My homestay mother only stayed for a small part of it and then left but it was short enough anyway so I didn’t mind. We were then shipped off to the university campus as the ceremony wasn’t actually at the school and then made to attend a sort of self-introduction and general information class where we each said a little something about ourselves and were able to ask any questions about what our life was going to be like for the next four months. I quickly seemed to grab the attention of a small Vietnamese-American who we’ll call TC. She was very bright and friendly and immediately asked if we could be friends because I said that I love to travel in my self-introduction and I seemed interesting whereas no one else did (probably should have taken this as a slight red flag but I felt flattered so whatever). We pretty quickly buddied up and spent a lot of time together thereafter.

The next day was a Saturday and from the looks of my Google timeline, I mostly just walked around and explored my new neighbourhood the whole time and got to know my homestay family. Although Saturday morning was special because my homestay family took me up to Tateyama to go have a picnic next to the cherry blossoms since they were still in season. Tateyama has a “mountain” in the name but it’s really just a hill that was situated behind my homestay family’s apartment and it took about 30 minutes to walk up. I tried some kakigori (shaved ice) and played with the coolest little Shiba Inu. It was a lovely little morning and I got to experience the happy atmosphere of my neighborhood while we all took in the cherry blossoms.

I was lucky enough to be placed in the centre of Nagasaki city while most other homestays were in the countryside, closer to the school. I wouldn’t have minded that since I adore the countryside of Japan and being placed in the city meant that I was an hour away from the university. My first official week in Nagasaki was jam-packed even though I hadn’t actually started my classes yet! Even though we had already attended our opening ceremony for the semester and the school year the previous Friday, classes, for the exchange students at least, weren’t scheduled to start until the second week of April and our first week was just for us to mostly do whatever we wanted! TC and I decided to spend our Monday making a day trip to the next prefecture which was Saga. We didn’t really have any idea what we wanted to do there exactly but I had recently purchased a JR Youth 18 ticket which is somewhat similar to a JR pass and anyone can buy it, not just tourists, and you can only go on local JR trains, so no bullet trains or high-speed trains. It costs about the equivalent of $120 and is good for any 5 non-consecutive days with unlimited trips on those days. We had looked up a bunch of cool things that were in Saga prefecture but would take a really long time to get to and weren’t anywhere near the actual city so we decided just to spend a day in Saga city...although we didn’t really have any choice. You see, I’m speaking to you in hindsight knowing full well how a lot of things work now...especially the JR Youth 18 ticket. I only briefly had an idea of it when I purchased it because L’s sister told me about it when I was living in Tokyo. So when TC and I embarked on our journey to explore Saga, we boarded a bullet train from Nagasaki station. We were about an hour into our trip when a conductor came by to check our ticket and notified us that we were very mistaken but he was super kind and understood that we didn’t know we had done something wrong and let us know what our next step should be. We told him where we wanted to go so he wrote out a detailed guide with all the stations we’d need to get on and get off at (after getting off the bullet train at the next stop) with all of the times. It was really helpful and I really appreciated it but what was supposed to be only an hour-long trip to the next prefecture turned into 4 and a half hours...I felt really bad because TC had left it to me since she couldn’t speak Japanese and voiced her displeasure at it all. It wasn’t a great start to the week but I think if I were on my own and the same thing was to happen then I honestly wouldn’t have minded. When we got off the bullet train we were in a really small town in the middle of nowhere that was super quiet with nothing around, it was actually really cool. We explored that area for about an hour while we waited for the next local train. There was a big river flowing through the city, an old shrine on top of a hill, and a bunch of little, colourful wind turbines lined up one after the other leading from the station to the river. It was lovely. That stop had the longest wait for a train, the next few stops had trains coming one after the other, but we had just missed one by being on the bullet train. After a long journey, we finally made it to Saga city but it was super quiet and no one was around, maybe because it was a Monday? It was really nice though, there was something really serene about being in a city with one main street and no one around except for a few elderly people walking about. We didn’t end up staying for long but I knew from living in Tokyo for a month that government buildings of any Japanese city are usually free for people to go up to, to the top floor and get a view of the entire city so that’s what we did and it was really nice because again, no one else was there and it was just us. Afterward, we took some photos with the cherry blossoms and headed back to Nagasaki.

The next day I decided to use my JR Youth 18 ticket again to go to Sasebo which is in Nagasaki prefecture so it wouldn’t be that long of a trip but TC didn’t want to have any more long train rides for a while so I went on my own. Sasebo is well known in the prefecture by people and is a recommended spot from locals because it’s where the American naval base is and has a different vibe to it compared to other prefectures. It is also famous for the “Sasebo burger” which is essentially just a normal-sized burger to us Westerners but was designed for the surge in marines that were living in Sasebo after World War II and became a hit to all visitors thereafter. I really just spent an afternoon walking around and admiring the area because, yes, it didn’t quite feel like the rest of Japan, but not exactly like America either. You’d have to see for yourself. I mostly wanted to visit Sasebo because there was meant to be an abandoned theme park nearby and I love that sort of stuff but unfortunately I would have needed a car to get there. The train ride in and out is what made it really special. It was absolutely gorgeous because the trip went along the coast and it was such a beautiful day, I honestly wish I had videotaped it.

The following couple of days I visited my university and more thoroughly explored the inner and outer parts of Nagasaki city, especially the biggest shrine in the area and what made that part of the city so popular, Suwajinja/ Suwa Shrine. “It is located in the northern part of the city, on the slopes of Mount Tamazono-san, and features a 277-step stone staircase leading up the mountain to the various buildings that comprise the shrine. Suwa shrine was established as a way of stopping and reversing the conversion to Christianity that was taking place in Nagasaki. In modern times it remains an important and successful center of the community.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwa_Shrine_(Nagasaki)

I also got a job! It was the funniest thing actually. A day or so prior, I was walking with my homestay mother through town to help her go grocery shopping and I saw a little building that had an English school in it and was intrigued. Later, that night I looked the school up and decided to send them an email expressing my interest in working there part-time and if they had any open spots. I immediately got a response from the owner and he said I could come by the next day for a chat. I did just that and apparently, as I arrived, little did I know, a guy that the owner had just spent two weeks training and getting ready for the after spring break rush of students decided to quit at the last minute and do a runner. So to sum it up, after a pleasant but short conversation, I was hired on the spot. I was told to come by the next day for some quick training prep, as I had never taught English before, so that I could start the following week. He clearly needed someone after the other guy had bailed out though.

Finally, on Friday and the end of my first week in Nagasaki, all of the exchange students were taken for an overnight trip to the mountain and hot springs town of Unzen! It took us about 7 and a half hours to get there but we left early in the morning and arrived mid-afternoon so there was still plenty of time for us to do stuff. We were to stay in a traditional hotel next to a natural hot springs and several geysers. It was such a cool and mysterious area to explore with my exchange mates and TC, especially at night after soaking in the hot springs (which let me tell you was awkward considering it was my first time being naked in front of other people, other girls, but still). The air was misty because of the sulfur, smelled like rotten eggs, but that didn’t stop us from walking around in our hotel yukatas. We stayed up for a large portion of the night, took in the atmosphere and just basically partied. The next day we hiked Mount Unzen and it was awesome, the view was glorious. It was also just a really nice bonding experience and a better way for us all to get to know each other. After our hike, we were taken to the small town of Obama which wasn’t named after the former U.S. president but did have a statue of him. It was also a seaside town and was popular for its free public hot spring foot baths which we indulged in after having a delicious nabe lunch. It was an unforgettable overnight trip and did its job of helping all the exchange students get to know each other better (more detail here and below).

The following week consisted of more city exploration, settling in, my first shifts at the English school, some administrative university stuff like signing up for classes the old school way with pen and paper - gotta love Japan - and actually attending classes. It may seem a bit mundane but I enjoyed every minute of it. Oh I forgot to mention, another reason why Nagasaki is so cool to explore and why I never get tired of it is there is a big Portuguese and Dutch influence mixed in with the Japanese aesthetic because those were the first countries that Japan opened up trade to on the port of Nagasaki between the 16th and 19th centuries. To add to that, there are also several hidden Christian sites that are also UNESCO World Heritage sites around the area because when Christianity first appeared with the Dutch and the Portuguese, it was outlawed and forbidden.

In the next couple of weeks, I went strawberry picking with my homestay family which was spectacular! They had a family friend who owned a strawberry farm and we were allowed to pick an unlimited number of delicious, fresh strawberries. I’m telling you we picked enough strawberries to last us for the next few weeks and I got a strawberry coma from the amount that I ate. It was great. After strawberry picking, my homestay family took me to a restaurant nearby the farm where all the ingredients were locally sourced. A few days after that, I spent the day with a few of my new friends as well as TC and we went to the Nagasaki Penguin Aquarium and, boy, was that cool. We saw so many species of Penguin with all sorts of personalities. There was something that put a bit of a hamper in our day and that had to do with a guy who my friend so eloquently nicknamed as “kimoi” (Japanese for gross). I suppose it all started a day or so before my friends and I decided to meet up for the aquarium. I was sitting in the lounge at uni waiting for some people when a Japanese guy approached me and wanted to chat and obviously that was no problem so I obliged because I’m always down to make new friends. He seemed nice and friendly enough but we slowly moved from small talk to him mentioning a girl that I am now friends with but at the time didn’t know so well even though we were in the same class. He began talking shit about her and how mean she was to him and….how he wanted to kill her...I was like whoa ok no need for that, I’m sure it was a misunderstanding and I tried to cheer him up and his mood did end up getting better and then he just started complimenting me and saying how nice I was and I honestly didn’t know how to take what was happening. I honestly should have taken it more seriously but it was really just a passing conversation that I had with him since we were the only ones in the lounge and he seemed to be friends with a few other people that I had befriended. It was very strange though especially since Japanese people aren’t known to speak ill of others. Anyway, someone from the group of people I met had invited him to hang out with us at the aquarium and I was ok with it at first but...it turns out that he took our small talk that happened by chance as a sign that I liked him??? And wanted to date him?? He assumed that this whole day at the aquarium was our date and I somehow turned into his girlfriend and the other people that were there were just...third, fourth, fifth, and sixth wheels….It was bizarre and I was thoroughly creeped out. He was clearly unstable. The whole time at the aquarium he was trying to find a chance to be alone with me and get the other guys to leave but I kept making sure we were always with everyone and finally one of my guy friends took one for the team and said he’ll distract him by insisting he wants to hang out with him somewhere else while the rest of us headed back to the city. We ended the day by having a much needed calming visit to the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture and spent a couple of hours learning about our new home.

Then, on the 27th of April, my birthday, I was pleasantly surprised by a home celebration planned by my homestay mother. She got me a little Sailor Moon figure since I mentioned how much I love the character Sailor Moon, ordered chiraishi bowls for all of us which is essentially sashimi over rice, and some cake. I was absolutely delighted. It was a fantastic day if I do say so myself especially since earlier in the day when I was in class my new friends had all bought me snacks and wished me happy birthday. I was further spoiled after work the next day by my boss taking me and my coworkers out for an izakaya dinner, obviously I don’t drink but the food at izakayas are always sooooo good. It was definitely one of my more favourite birthdays, I was 22 and having the time of my life.

I decided to end off April and spend Golden Week, which is a week at the end of April and beginning of May filled with national holidays and is thus called “Golden Week” by making a trip to Busan, South Korea with TC. She found a deal for us to take a 3-hour ferry from Fukuoka to Busan and stay in a Couchsurfing place (which was to be my first of many). I soon learned from this trip that even though TC claimed to be travel savvy, she doesn’t really do her research very well. But I’ll get to that in a bit. We embarked on our journey from Nagasaki station by highway bus (which was the cheapest option) to Fukuoka to take our ferry. When we arrived, we quickly got lost. South Korea, well Busan, isn’t quite as easy to figure out as Japan but that’s mostly because neither of us spoke Korean. We spent a while trying to find wifi and our host’s place. We were excited to be able to explore the city of Busan at any rate and spoke to a few locals along our way who could speak a little English. When we finally found and arrived at our host’s place. We found out that our host didn’t have a bed or a blanket or anything for us to sleep on, just literally the hardwood floor of his kitchen in a small one-bedroom apartment. I mean I was grateful to have shelter, I was, but damn. TC complained that the couple of other times that she used Couchsurfing she always had her own room and bed and didn’t know why this happened but being that I now have lots of experience in Couchsurfing, I can tell you that TC was either lying or that she must have had luck of the draw with her previous Couchsurfing trips and just requested to stay with the first person that popped up in Busan. Normally, when you look on Couchsurfing you can tell what the host is offering, where you get your own room or a shared room, how much privacy you get and pictures of the place but this guy must have had nothing up on his profile otherwise I don’t see how TC would have requested to stay with him...actually I still don’t see why she requested to stay with him. I never stay with someone if they have no references, pictures, or if it’s a shared space. It was such an uncomfortable 6 days because I really was not prepared to be sleeping on a hardwood floor with no cover but the clothes from my bag. The host was really nice though and he could speak English well so that was a plus. I mostly blame TC for most likely not actually reading his profile because then I could have prepared myself.

We spent our first full day in Busan and the last day of April at the Gamcheon Culture Village which is considered the “Asian Santorini” for its colourful landscape. TC had arranged for us to meet up with another couchsurfing host and his guest. One of whom was a Vietnamese ex-pat and an American from Connecticut that had been spending the past few months traveling around Asia. He was really cool and open-minded, we both connected with the two guys really quickly and had a blast exploring the village, trying street food and heading to downtown Busan. The American guy, Z, reminded me that travel shouldn’t be about seeing as much as possible but just absorbing where you are and taking in everything as opposed to getting so much done but never actually experiencing it. We walked for ages and thoroughly investigated every nook and cranny of this intriguing village. We also hiked up to the top and took an amazing view of all of the colourful buildings and artwork. I ate a loooot of street food that day and honestly each thing was under a dollar, it was great! Two things stood out to me from my street food adventure and that was Beondegi which is silkworm pupae; bitter but not overly gross and hotteok; my absolute favourite thing that I tried even though I’m not really much of a sweet tooth. It was a deliciously sweet, caramelly thick pancake with peanuts. One of the reasons why I love Busan so much is that the food is so cheap and delicious so I really did eat a lot of it….Since we hit it off with these two other couch surfers, we decided to meet up with them a few more times before leaving Busan. Later that night when we got back to our host’s apartment, we were invited to have fried chicken with him and his friend--an absolute must-have if you’re ever in Korea.

#Japan #japantravel #japantrip #studyabroad #studentexchange #homestay #japanexplore #Travelblog #gettinglost #busan #food #livelovetravel #travel #shoestringtravel

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