Shaylynn went Kansai

Blog 1/ September 17th 2011 – First Impressions of Japan

Coming back to Japan is a heart wrenching event for me, as it has been nearly six years since I last studied in Japan.  Japan hasn’t changed too much from what I can tell.  People still speak to me in such a quick and colloquial manner that I can’t quite follow every single word they say.  Sometimes, if I listen really hard, I might be able to follow the idea.  The whole place still feels like Japan with the way signs filled with kanji characters and the okurigana that follow them are littered around the area, making it impossible for me to understand where to go just to pick up my luggage after coming off the terminal.  I’ve come to know so much about this place, yet I still have no idea how to function here regularly.

Not that I entirely want to.  Sure this place is interesting, but I’m more interested in the people.  The idea about their culture from my perspective, and the ability to compare and contrast as such.  I’m not here to become them, I’m here to study them.

Still, being back made me nervous at first.  This was going to be my home for nearly four months.  It’s the longest trip away from my own country I have ever taken, and I was doing it by myself.  I already knew it would be so long until I would become totally settled that, by the time I would finally get comfortable, I would probably be close to packing it back up again and heading back to my real home.  It’s been quite an effort so far.

Some of the essentials I knew before coming and some I simply wasn’t expecting at all.  I knew my cell wouldn’t work, and I would need a new one here in Japan.  The school made it easy to get set-up with one.  However, I was pleasantly suprised to find that we could use our phones to email our texts anywhere…. Even America.  Since the Japanese use an email address to send texts to one another, it was easy to have your friends back home text your email address so you can save their information.  It’s a simple enough concept.  Wonder why the folks back home don’t use it.

Ontop of that I knew I would need a bicycle, one of the most common forms of transportation here.  Since I live so close to the school, it’s the most conveniant and possibly the cheapest way to get around.

Exploring was the first thing on my list of things to do.  Since there was little help from the RAs on visual presentation of Hirakata, we had to mostly take this upon ourselves to locate where most things were.  In fact, one of the only things they showed us of their own volition was the grocery store.  Well at least now I know they want us to eat.  However, getting to school was up to you to uncover.  I guess they figured you probably won’t even be there half the time since your foreign and out exploring.  Well… Maybe.  But I still want to get credit for being here, and I am here to learn.  The evasive route they took with us on showing us a path to school caused quite a commotion for myself and my roommate the first day of orientation week.  We ended up getting an RA to tell us which bus to take and where to get off.  From then on it got a lot easier to find school and, once you get a bike, the area becomes easy to remember.  You just go out a little further everyday.

The train station near our school.

However, the first actual day we got here, we didn’t even spend exploring Hirakata-shi.  We met a guy who had been here the previous semester, hopped a train with a group of people, and headed into the heart of Osaka.  Shinsaibashi was the place we took the subway to once we got in the area.  We walked the Shinsaibashi-suji street market, visited Big Step in Ame-mura (America Town), and had some Takoyaki on the popular food-filled street just beyond the famous “Glico” man bridge, for lack of better knowledge of it’s name.  To be honest, Shinsaibashi is one of the only places in Osaka I came to on my last trip to Japan, but the place had changed so much in six years that it felt like an entirely new experience.  Stores I had known had been replaced more or less, but some famous markers of the area had remained the same.  Still, it was a very nice first step back into Japanese modern culture.  With it came a sence that I had indeed returned.

Takoyaki stop on the food-filled street near Shinsaibashi-suji

The orientation week that followed our trip was very informative and got us all set-up for living and going to school here at Kansai Gaidai University.  In fact, I’ve done so much already I can’t completely describe it in good detail without going into a lengthy detailed post.  But what I will say is… There’s no shortage of interesting things to do in Osaka.  Maybe some of my thoughts about this place have changed, but I’m still on route to see where it’ll take me and what new ideas I will form about the place, as well as the people who live in it.  As I meet more people everyday who live in Japan, I learn more about what it’s like for them from their perspective.  I hope I can write more about it sometime soon.

Sayaka talked with us about the dreaded College Placement Test

~ by Shaylynn on .