Hey, Shanelle here! I\u2019ve been in Japan for a little over a week now, and it has been an amazing experience so far! Last week, we had orientation for school, but whenever I had the time, I wandered around exploring the area. As of now, I have been to the Shin Sekai Market, the Pokemon Center, and Nipponbashi. When I went to the Shin Sekai Market, it was my first time riding a train, and I must say, the rumors did not disappoint. Althou gh I can\u2019t compare it to the trains and subways in America since I have no personal experience with them, I have heard that they are dirty places that people dislike because of their tardiness. However, here is Japan, the trains are very clean and always punctual. So far, I haven\u2019t had to wait more than 2 minutes for a train to arrive! It\u2019s definitely unbelievable for Americans, I\u2019m sure. Going to this location was very interesting because I found out about a god named Billiken – there was merchandise and statues of him everywhere. Honestly, he looks like a baby to me, but apparently, he is the god of happiness, and it is said that if you rub the bottom of his feet your wish will come true. I tried it, so we\u2019ll have to wait and see if it\u2019s true ;).<\/p>\n
This past weekend, I went to the Pokemon Center in Osaka. I\u2019m not a huge fan of Pokemon, but I enjoyed myself. I bought a really soft pillow, and afterwards, we went to a restaurant to eat parfaits \u2013 I had a strawberry one <3. Nipponbashi is an area for people who watch anime, read manga, and the like \u2013 it\u2019s said to be the Akihabara of Osaka, if you know what that it. There was merchandise from so many anime that I didn\u2019t know; however, I did find shows that I know, and I did find merchandise from a show that is difficult to come upon in America, so I was very happy!<\/p>\n
After exploring the Osaka Prefecture for a week, I have come to a realization. Japanese people and their way of life is definitely different from mine; however, it is not a bad thing. From my experience, I find that the average Japanese person is much more helpful than the average American. On multiple occasions, my friends and I got lost while trying to get to these destination via train, so we asked local Japanese individuals for assistance. Although, some of the people could not speak English, they were more than willing to help us find the correct train line through hand gestures and such. For instance, when my friends and I wanted to go to the Kit Kat store in Osaka Station, my friend\u2019s speaking partner and her friend looked it up on their phones, read the map at the place numerous times, and even asked multiple store employees how to get there until we finally found it. I thought it was very sweet that they went through all that trouble to find the store for us. Also, we encountered a woman who went above and beyond what a normal person would do for us. Despite her destination being in the complete opposite direction, when we asked her for directions to the Osaka Loop Line, she walked us over to where we needed to go. I was truly grateful from the bottom of my heart, especially when I realized that she went out of her way to help us and could have even missed her train. This instance really solidified my belief that Japanese people are truly great people. Of course, there will always be bad apples in every batch; however, on the whole, it seems that Japanese people are very helpful.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m very happy that I chose Japan for my study abroad experience! I hope it will continue to be a great experience! I will be going to Kyoto this weekend, so hopefully I\u2019ll have something interesting to talk about next time. Jaa, mata!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Shanelle here! I\u2019ve been in Japan for a little over a week now, and it has been an amazing experience so far! Last week, we had orientation for school, but whenever I had the time, I wandered around exploring the area. As of now, I have been to the Shin Sekai Market, the Pokemon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":510,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kansai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/510"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14775,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9097\/revisions\/14775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}