Student Blogger: Nate

It's a normal morning. I walk out the door of my host family's narrow, three story house - no shower to start my day off, Japanese shower in the evening. My breakfast consisted of tons of bread, a yogurt cup, and some leftover salad from last night's dinner. It's 8am, so I walk amongst the elementary school students with their red and blue backpacks.

I cross the highway, passing the mother with her disabled son who she walks to school everyday. Pass the cake shop. At the entrance to the train station there's a man with a megaphone; he uses big words I can't understand, but I bet I'd agree with whatever he's protesting. My train rumbles below; arriving.  I run down the steps and slide into a car - the doors shut behind me.

Two high school girls giggle next to me. They whisper something weird in english. I stand - my stop's only three stations away. Trains passes the amusement park. I leave the train at my stop, and force myself up the tall hill towards school. Pass the candy shop. Finally, I remember to say good morning to the traffic guard who give candy to the female students before arriving at Kansai Gaidai, ready for learnin'.

Like at Guilford, I had a choice when it came to housing. Here, the options are to either stay in a Seminar House or with a Japanese host family. As I've mentioned, I chose to stay with a host family. However, now that I've been here for a while, I see that both arrangements have their pros and cons.

If you live in the seminar house, you are placed into one of four buildings near the campus. It's about a half-an-hour walk. The trip isn't too bad honestly, and you can pay for a bus if necessary. Assuming everything works out right, you'll have yourself a roommate. Room's pretty big though, Ac/heater's better than any others I've seen here, and you get to sleep on a futon. There is a kitchen with plenty of equipment for cooking meals. You can come and go as you please, and there are no real restrictions.

If you choose to go for the home stay option, you are paired with a Japanese family and stay in their house for the semester. The family size vary greatly. One of my friends just has a hostmom. While another friend has six siblings to deal with. Additionally, travel times can be upwards of two hours. Also, many families have a evening curfew. However, your hostfamily takes care of both breakfast and dinner. You'll be able to practive Japanese on your family too.

Both options are great, you just need to know what you want. The Seminar House allows for more freedom, but you're on your own concerning food and other misc. The homestay program is great if you want to experience culture directly and really improve your Japanese communication.

On Spring Break, I got to spend the day with a very good Japanese friend of mine. It has been a long time since we last saw each other; my (American) family hosted him for a summer nearly three years ago. It's amazing how he's changed it such a short amount of time. He's taller than before, wears contacts, and is more confident in his English. But, he still got the same old electronic dictionary.

Tonight, my (host) family has one of their former home stay students returning for a visit. Of course, I've never met him: to me, he's a new person – a first page. But, for my host family, I can tell they're reminiscing; remembering how it was, seeing how he's changed. The same exact procedure I went through when my friend visited.

Come June, I'll be returning home to my family. My family who I haven't physically been around for four whole months - Ditto, for my friends back at Guilford. At first I thought I was missing out on their lives – becoming distanced. Instead, I now believe that the separation only strengthens our bonds, as it allows us to compare and reflect on our individual stories.

Come Saturday, I'll be off to ice skate with some of Japanese friends I've made since I got here. For them, their (two month!) spring break is coming to a close and scarier still, many of them graduated last on Saturday. I've got my own break in a week. So while they prepare for their return, or departure, to/from school, I get I nice breather ^_^. But, we're just going ice skating because one of the girls has a birthday to celebrate.

The other students, both Japanese and foreign, really are the best part of life here. And that goes for Guilford too. One of the first things I did when I arrived here was start pumping out letters to send back to my Guilfordian friends. You don't really realize how much you rely on them, until they're not there.

My host family provided me with a really nice bedroom to stay in while I'm here. It's actually one of the larger rooms in the house. The room has a mix of western and eastern elements: instead of a Japanese Futon, I have a twin, one mattress bed with tons of covers. Additionally, the room does have traditional Tatami mats, but so I don't have to worry about hurting them, they're covered by a carpet.

Other furniture includes one dresser and one desk. It was a bit surprising when the tiny dresser ate up all my luggage with room to spare. The desk is an all-in-one unit that closes up to conserve space. There's no unnecessary or inefficient furnishing in this room!

All and all, the bedroom reminds me of dorm life back at Guilford. Back home, my dorm room was small, durable, cozy, and efficient. Parts could be moved, furniture could be rotated, and it held all that was necessary sleeping and studying. Here in Japan, the only thing that's missing is some student knocking on my door, shouting for a late night Teeter run!

Another tourist spot I managed to visit was the great castle of Osaka! This time, it was my host family that guided me around. The program here also has a seminar house option. However, I chose to stay with a host family because I felt I would learn the language faster, and experience more of the culture. They're great! While they do their best to make me feel at home, they also expose me to various parts of the Japanese lifestyle.

For example, before we visited the castle, my host mom and sister took me to what I can only call a food fair. There were fifty or so booths setup by farms and factories from up and down Japan. Each one was offering free samples to anybody and everybody. They let me try apples, milk, raw fish (sashimi), Naato, fried chicken, squid, rice burger (!), yogurt, and much more. From what I could glean from my host mom, the companies run these events to advertise their products that later you can purchase at a special market. I would never have gone to one of these back in America.

Once we were full, we took the walk to the castle. It's hard to explain the size of the fortress; while the building itself only stands maybe ten stories, the grounds around it were made with defense in mind. Our walk was made tougher by the steps and steps we had to climb to get to the tower. On the way, we passed two large moats – and inner and an outer one, my host mom told me. It wasn't until we took the (totally ancient) elevator to get to the top that I noticed that the skyscrapers of Osaka barely passed the peak of the castle. Osaka is the second largest city in Japan!

Before leaving, I was guided through the museum portion of the castle, learning about its somewhat short history, and bloody fall because of an inept heir. These sort of field trips happen everyday in any country, where they become almost dull. But, living in another country, learning their history, changes my focus. Why wouldn't I want to learn about this stuff?

As I mentioned in my previous post, during my first week here I had the opportunity to go on a tour in Kyoto. It was my first adventure outside of the school, and happened to be a great "cultural" icebreaker to get my feet wet. I was put into a group with five other international students like me, and eight freshman English-majors from Kansai Gaidai.

After a long train ride, my group arrived at the last station on the Keihan line. We had to make a short walk before we got to any of the temples we were there to see. During the trek, we all exchanged names and tried to make smalltalk. Between everybody's meager second language skills, the group communicated pretty well (except for the Latvian, who seems to be godly in every language).

The temples were amazing! At the entrance was an odd fountain-like apparatus, where incoming people cleansed their hands before entering the grounds. My group joined in, even with it being 40 degrees out! We all munched on local snacks and took loads of pictures.

The main temple complex has many famous sightseeing spots. I got to try my luck out on the Lover's Rocks, where anybody who can make a blind journey from one rock to its partner, 15 feet away, will have their love realized. I, uhhh, didn't quite make it. Near the rocks is a giant stage which, for whatever reason, coined a phrase in Japan "to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu". It's similar in meaning to "taking a great risk". Apparently, many people actually jumped off the stage and survived the 40 ft drop. But nobody's allowed to anymore.

The sun had set by the time we made our way back to campus, but all and all, I had a great time on the trip. I can't wait to experience more of what Japan has to offer. Thanks for reading! See ya'll in the next post.

Greetings, and welcome to my blog!
My name is Nate, and I'm a Sophomore Guilfordian currently abroad in Osaka, Japan. We're in the second week of classes here at Kansai Gaidai University, and I'm loving it!

I had my mind made up to study abroad long before I came to Guilford. Japanese culture was a huge interest of mine growing up in Northern Virginia. From Origami and Shinto, to Manga and Anime, I loved it all. Thus, when it came time to go to college, every single application was headed for schools with programs in Japan. Guilford actually has two.

Since I wanted to experience the hustle and bustle of modern Japan, I decided to come to KGU because the school was a bit larger than ICU, the other option. Additionally, KGU is in a very historical location; it's smack-dab between Kyoto, Japan's old capital, and Osaka, the "Venice of the East".

Of those two, I already got to visit Kyoto. KGU organized a huge tour where small groups of students - half international, half English major Japanese students - could explore the city on their own. My group went to a very famous Buddhist temple called Kiyomizu. But more on that later! Hope you've enjoyed reading, see ya in my next post.