Gakusei Travels

Today was another eventful day, and today I felt like a true college student in Tokyo. For starters, I spent the whole day running on maybe 5 hours of sleep at most. In Japan, the sun rises extremely early, hence why it’s called The Land of the Rising Sun. Today the sun was up around 5:13 AM, so the light shining through the window made me think it was later than it actually was. So I was up for no reason and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Fun times. At 9 AM, the exchange students had their orientation meeting to go over courses, class expectations, registration, and other important stuff for us to know during our time at Tsuda. Now, to be completely honest, I don’t remember most of what was discussed, because I was so tired. （；＿；）

After the meeting, my roommate, Sohyeon, and I met with two other exchange students from South Korea, Jeongim and Jin Yeong, and left campus to go to the convenience store and get lunch. The weather was beautiful out, so we finally go to see really how pretty the Tsuda’s Kodaira campus is. The blossom trees were starting to bloom, and the students were out and about.

Japanese convenience stores or what I like to say, コンビニ (konbini), are very different than in America. America doesn’t really have stores like this, rather they’re like the typical gas stations. When I was in California, the 7/11 was honestly very sketchy and not some place you want to be walking around by yourself late at night, especially as a young woman. I also probably don’t recommend trusting the food in there unless it’s prepackaged. In Japan, the コンビニ are clean and welcoming, with so many options that it is hard to chose. There were lots of drinks, pastries, bentos, pre-made meals, and cup noodles that I could hardly decide what to get. I ended up getting an onigiri, a dessert, and a pasta bowl. Food is relatively cheap, so in total I spent only $6.85 or 1,040￥. I will definitely go back for the mint chocolate ice cream parfait I was eyeing! ( ^ω^ )

After lunch, we had to meet back on campus with the other exchange students to take our Japanese placement test for our class scheduling. I don’t feel the most confident in my Japanese. I think I understand it well, for the most part. Often times, when I talk with other students, I understand what is said, but I don’t always know how to respond. I didn’t feel the most confident going into the test, and not gonna lie, halfway through it I lowkey gave up. .°(ಗдಗ。)°.There were three parts. The first was a grammar fill in the blank which I did descent at. Then the second was reading, and I guessed on most of the questions. By the time I got to the third test, kanji, I left so many of the questions blank and I guess, I looked so stressed the professor literally said, “Nya-san, it’s okay if you don’t know the answers.” I checked out after that and gave up. Surprisingly, I did well enough to get placed in the semi-intermediate Japanese class that could be considered around level N3 on the JLPT. I ended up meeting my expectations despite my performance on the exam. For the first term, I will take a minimum of 6 classes (4 Japanese language, 1 Japanese culture & 1 elective course). For term 2 it will drop down to three classes instead.

There are 15 of us exchange students coming from the United States, Mexico, France, Taiwan, Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam. After our Japanese class orientation, we created a group chat on Instagram and became the best of friends in the span of a few hours lol. 10 of us were able to meet up and go out to dinner in Kokubunji. It was my first time taking the Japanese train, and it is just as confusing as people have said. The map makes no sense, and I actually lost my ticket. Thankfully, two of my classmates from Mexico knew the way, so the other 8 of us followed them like lost ducklings.

**Just a PSA for anyone traveling, when you purchase your train ticket, you insert it at the gate (or if you have a Suica or Pasmo on your phone, you scan it). If you insert your ticket, it scans through and comes out on the other side of the gate. DO NOT FORGET TO GRAB IT. I did, and once we made it to Kokubunji, I couldn’t leave the subway. I had to go to the security with one of my classmates and say I lost it. I then had to pay for another ticket. While it wasn’t expensive, only 160￥ or $1.05, it still sucked.

You would think that us coming from 7 different countries would make interactions difficult, but we honestly had so much fun. While people would speak maybe to their companion from their home university in their native language, we often spoke to one another in Japanese. Or if the point couldn’t get across, then we spoke English or whatever other language we needed. So often times, the conversation became mixed with Spanish, French, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean etc. We joked around so much and had such a fun time eating out and exploring Kokubunji. We did make it back before curfew! I hope that over the summer, we all continue to become even better friends. ＼(^-^)／