Yesterday

One of the reasons I love my life here is that I never know where I'm going to end up.

Yesterday morning, I discovered that there was a new series of Never Mind the Buzzcocks just started. I was meeting my Japanese conversation partner for lunch, so I couldn't watch it straight away, but I was going to be back in a couple of hours so I thought I'd watch it then.

Halfway through lunch, I got a call from one of the girls: "We're going to Saijo Town in a couple of minutes, so when you finish lunch, call us and we'll tell you where we are."

Luckily the halls are on the way to Saijo by bike, so I got to outside the halls and phoned. "Oh, we only just left, we're at the bus stop." I cycled to the bus stop at 1pm.

Some very confusing bus timetables and some lunch later, we arrived at Saijo at 3. I decided to go with them on the bus, since we had still been at the halls and I could just put my bike back there.

At 4, one of us got a call from another student. Did we want to come to someone's house for dinner? Meet at 7:30. We decided to go straight there, since we hadn't finished shopping yet and it would take at least an hour to get back.

In the end, it was more than dinner - we left his house at 2am. The others decided to go to karaoke, but by that time I was completely out of energy and dragged myself back to the halls. Then I remembered Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Oh, whatever, it can wait until tomorrow. Which is today.

Super Mario

These two photos are too good not to share.

Evening in a large, multi-storey entertainment store in Saijo City:

And five minutes later...

What were they looking at?

I'm going to be really mean and leave that to the imagination.

Pink

I wanted to share this photograph with all those who have never been to a Japanese department store.

In every one, there is a corner, or in some cases practically a whole floor, which looks like this. Pink, fluffy, cute and generally vomit-inducing. This is Japan at its very Japanese-est. After a while you get used to it. Even I, a staunch advocate of banning the colour pink since I can remember, have succumbed to the Japanese obsession with it, and have added bright pink laces to my new purple shoes.

Oh, yeah, that's another thing. Japanese people, both men and women, love shoes. Girls wear all kinds of heels and flats, even just to normal university lectures, and men seem to love very brightly coloured trainers or expensive looking boots with skinny jeans tucked inside. I should have taken a photo of the store I bought mine from - it was like a shoe palace. I think after this year, English fashion is going to be such a disappointment.

Bikes

This is the place where you leave your bike when going somewhere from Higashi-Hiroshima Train Station. It may not look particularly significant, but if you think that there's 3 rooms of this and most of them are just day trippers, you realise why. Everyone in Japan rides bikes.

As soon as we got there they encouraged us to buy a bike, because it is the main mode of transport. Bikes here don't have gears, but it's completely normal to have a basket on the front, which is useful for transporting stuff while not looking like an old lady, which you would with a basket in England.

I'm just about to hop on my bike for the 10-minute cycle to Saijo Town and the massive department store there (as well as the Muji I noticed last time).

No Explanation Needed

Aaah, Engrish.

Karaoke

Yesterday night was my first experience of that great Japanese tradition, karaoke.

For the record, karaoke is not pronounced as "carry-oakey" in Japanese. It's exactly as it looks: ka-ra-o-keh.

Anyway, this is the only karaoke bar in our little town. It has about 20 rooms, all different sizes, to accommodate different sized groups - ours was a fairly large group, maybe 15, so they put us in one of the biggest rooms. Every room has a table surrounded by squashy benches and a massive television at the front with a space in front of it. Most people don't like to make fools of themselves when they're sober, so they have two options: either you pay 1000 yen (about £7/$10), get one free soft drink and buy your own alcohol to take in, or you pay more for all-you-can-drink alcohol from the bar. The karaoke place happens to be right next door to a huge supermarket, so we chose the first option.

Even though I was one of only two people not drinking, it was actually fun. We got given three microphones, but generally the songs people picked were ones everyone knows so we all ended up singing everything. The song choice is absolutely huge - as well as every Japanese pop song ever written, there was also a massive selection of English and American bands. We did Queen, The Killers, System of a Down, Spice Girls...

Karaoke isn't cheap, but worth it every once in a while. At least if you don't drink, you remember everything.

Lessons

Since this is a blog about studying in Japan, I suppose I should mention studying. I started lessons two days ago, on Monday, and I’ve had all but two of the courses I’m taking. So here’s an overview:

Language Level 3

We did a placement test so they could put us in the classes that were at the right level. Unfortunately, the “right level” is a class where you’ve already learnt everything they teach. I’m not sure whether it makes sense to the Japanese teachers, but none of us students understand it. Anyway, I was put in Level 3 (out of 5), but I think I must have been at the top end of level 3 because the teacher heard me speak and said “This class may be a little simple for you.” It’s not just simple for me. It’s simple for all the people who were put in level 3.

Language Level 4

The upside is, as well as the level you’re placed in, you’re allowed to take the classes for the level above. This class was much more what I’m used to in Sheffield, where the teachers speak and you only understand half of what they’re saying – but it was actually very refreshing to be challenged like that. The work is perhaps the same or of a little lower level than what we were given in Sheffield, but in fact it’s just right for me, because it means I won’t find it so hard I give up hope.

“What is Peace?”

This was quite a bizarre lesson, actually. It’s taught in English, but the lecturer is Japanese, and it’s designed for Japanese students who want the challenge of being taught in English. Unfortunately, the lecturer’s English isn’t completely fluent either. All the foreign students have to take this course, though, because it’s Hiroshima and one of the university’s aims is to teach about peace. We sat through an hour of a weird mix of simple and complicated English; he used some words which I didn’t even understand, let alone the Germans sitting next to me, the Russian in the next row, and the hundred or so Japanese students. I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy this course, although if I sit next to the right people, it could be quite entertaining.

Tomorrow I have the first lesson of a course about linguistics, which compares English and Japanese, and on Friday there is one called “An Introduction to the Theory of Inter-Cultural Communication”, which sounds dull, but might turn out to be interesting. I will update you on that.