On January 19 I left Nepal and was on my way to Japan for a semester abroad. It was nice to catch up with family in Nepal after almost two and a half years of being in the States for my education. With mixed feelings in my heart, I had to leave.
On the night of January 20th, I arrived in Japan and I moved into the dorm the very first night. On the bus from the airport, I met a lot of international students from Belgium, Netherlands, France, Spain, United States, Columbia, and Japan, of course. That is when I realized that the semester ahead will bring about a lot of friendships and cultural exchange. It is something I always looked forward to.
The first week of orientation came about to be quite exciting for me and fr everyone else equally I sure. There was a lot of information being given at the orientation from registering for classes, emergency protocols, sexual health, security measures, dorm rules, registering bicycles (yes you have to register your bicycle with the authorities), registering with the immigration, and my most favourite, how to sort your garbage.
Some interesting observations I made was that Japanese people are strict on time. I was late for one of the orientation session and was almost not allowed to enter. Also, starting this semester there were some changes in the school policy – students can only drop classes after initial registration. As unfortunate as it may sound, only one out of five of my classes that i had approved with mu home university was being offered and my list of classes was as random as it could get. The Japanese bureaucracy is, in my opinion, a serious top down power balance that, us students for example, cannot breach. So I had no choice but to comply with the rules.
The friends I made with in the first week became my hang out buddies for the rest of the semester be it drinking, hanging out in the library or cooking.
With a couple of trips to the Ramen shop close by and some nights of drinking spree, the first week was over and the start of classes was here.
Been a crazy first week, as it always is!