Spring Retreat I just got back from Japan Study’s (the study abroad program I’m in) spring retreat at Minakami Onsen, a five-star ryokan (hotel with onsen, hot outdoor baths, as well as ofuro, hot indoor baths), about a three hour bus ride away from Tokyo. I am pretty exhausted, but in a good way. The spring retreat complements the fall retreat that our program had at Karuizawa, which has ofuro, sports facilities, and great views of Mt. Fuji. I’ve learned…
Well, the spring semester has officially begun, and things are off to a great start! Classes seem like they’re going to be a lot more interesting this time around, mostly because two of my classes, Creative Writing and Contemporary Japanese Literature, are taught by an awesome, laid-back, half-Japanese/half-British writer. I’m excited to start writing again; I haven’t exactly written much fiction since high school, even though I’m part of a creative writing club here at Waseda. I’m also taking a…
So much has happened since I left Kyoto, but in the interest of brevity I’ll keep this post to just the biggest things. From Kyoto, instead of going right back to Tokyo, I took a detour to Fukuoka where I met up with my host parents, who were there on vacation. They had offered to let me stay at the hotel they were staying at, and having missed out on a prior outing with them due to lack of money,…
Ryokan The past few days have been a mix of crazy and relaxing. On Friday, my program, Japan Study, had a final meeting about our upcoming cultural practicum, which, if I haven’t explained it before, is something that everyone in the program has to do. We each go somewhere for a month and volunteer, intern or something similar. There are several options provided by the program, and what I’m doing is working at a café and a day center in…
From September 2013 to August 2014, I’ve studied and will study at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. I’m a junior, double-majoring in Computer Science and Japanese. The program in which I’m enrolled is Japan Study, through Earlham College in Indiana. There are about twenty other students in the program, one of whom is also from Vassar. I’m living with a host family in Shibuya, which is a very wealthy and popular district of Tokyo. My host dad is the president of his company, so the…
“What are you doing for Golden Week?” was the newest addition to the standard small-talk for the weeks leading up to last weekend. In Japan, “Golden Week” is a series of holidays that occur within a close period of time of one another. Many people get the entire week off of school or work, but unfortunately, I only enjoyed a 4-day weekend. I had originally planned to spend the entire weekend in the historic cities of Kyoto and Nara—famous for its Giant Buddha and bowing deer—with friends from my study abroad program, but…
My study abroad program CIEE follows the Japanese school year. This means that we exchange students entered the university at the same time as the freshmen did, which also meant that we were able to share in their orientation week activities, including their club fair, and that I continued to feel a bit like I was a freshman again myself. Joining a club in Japan is a much stricter affair than back in the States. Clubs are divided into two groups—bukatsudō (部活動) and circles…
So far, the most difficult part of my JYA experience has been just trying to get to Tokyo. Flying from New York to Chicago went without a hitch, but the two planes provided for my connecting flight—the second one after an hours-long delay—were both unusable due to mechanical issues. Luckily, I was able to find and band together with three other students, participating in the same CIEE program as me, who were booted off of the same flight to be placed in the same…