On monday we had the opening ceremony for Keio exchange students at Mita Campus in (more or less) central Tokyo.
There were a few speakers, who all spoke in japanese only, so it was kinda hard to understand. Most of the people I could follow as much as to get the gust of what they were saying.
After the opening speeches, the language teachers were introduced, and the way the studies are going to be was explained. We then split up into classes (according to our language proficiency level) and went to classrooms for the first time, on the way there we also went to the student/campus foods/books/goods store to get our books (for free!). At the classroom the people from KOSMIC (stands for Keio Organisation of Student Members of the International Center) told us about welcoming parties, bowling events, language partners and so on... Then our Teacher/Professor gave us an overview of the books we're going to use handed us a huge book of kanji learning copies and gave us homework! for the first time.
Real class is going to start thursday, so i better get that homework done while I have the time.
This morning i got up at 7.00 and went to meet a member of the Keio Judo Team. He took me to the practice hall where he introduced me to the team. After doing the usual judo starting ceremony I had to stand in front and give an introductory speech (naturally in japanese). Actually I think it went quite well, I hope the teammembers thought the same!
The Team as a whole was very nice and welcoming to me and I had a lot of fun.
Training was structured into warming up/stretching, groundwork exercises and randori, and then standing exercise and randori, afterwards was throwing practice and then again stretching. The whole thing went on for about 2.5hours. I hope my stamina will go up soon as I'm now going to do this daily. Today I was way to tired already when standing randori started and was thus thrown around quite a bit.
Looking forward to training tomorrow!
Facts, facts, facts:
i went to the ward office, twice! i'll have to go a third time to get my alien registration card!
we had a welcome party in our dorm, i now know a lot more people than a few days ago
there was an orientation at the mita campus of keio university, 180 people attended
i have a student id and a student commuter pass, the commuter pass gives a discount of like 700yen on a price of 29'500yen it costs for half a year...
there has been a lot more train riding involved
we had a language placement test. to relax afterwards we went to ginza to check out the new h&m store that opened there, it's the first in japan as far as i'm informed. the waiting time to enter the shop was a few hours, people were handing out water and umbrellas to the customers standing in the crazy heat outside! we went to uniqlo instead.
i've bin to yokohama for the first time in my live and rode the big wheel that stands in the port area
i've been introduced to the keio judo team, if everything works out i'm going to start training with them next week, as there's vacation just now.
30 minutes ago i brewed real coffee on my own for the first time on my new coffeemaker thingy!
it tasted not all that bad
for some reason i'm kinda busy most of the time, limiting my motivation to write this...
going to do other things now!
Now I'm in Tokyo for somewhat over a week. Well technically I'm not even in Tokyo anymore but in Kawasaki. But in my mind this is still Tokyo, as I never really get out of the city whenever I take the train to here.
I arrived in my flat at one of the Keio student residences yesterday and am now somewhat settled in. The flat is smallish, on some accounts maybe even minimalistic, but it'll have do.
The staff (well it's not staff, but I don't now any better word) consists of the landlord, his wife, and japanese coresidents who look after us, as they speak english farely well. So far they seem very nice and helped me getting settled in and readying my documents to go get my foreign resident card at the local administrational office (which I'll do as soon as i'm finished writing this).
To recap:
Last week was spent mainly training judo! I trained every day (except sunday) from 17.30 to 20.00 at the Kodokan. In the future this is going to be a bit more difficult, as it now takes me about an hour to get there, also it's not as cheap as it could be. As a result of the practice I think I put on a bit of mussle already, but on the downside my feet are a real mess now.
Apart from practice I was exploring Tokyo by foot with other judo players and shopping for some necessities and relaxing, mostly relaxing, as the heat, humidity and the overall busyness of this city still take a lot out of me.
At Kodokan theres's the people who are a bit like me, just doing there own judo/language/vacation thing, and then there's a group of foreigners and japanese people going through a seminar of judoteaching, studying to be judoteachers all over the world. There's 2 japanese guys and 2 girls, going to places like Honduras, Syria and so on. Then there's 2 guys from Jordan, 1 from Palestine and 2 from Tanzania. I'm having tea with them every evening recently, which is great fun even though we are having a few language issues.
Early today I landed in Tokyo Narita Airport. The journey to Japan was the shortest yet, as it was the first time for me to fly direct from Zurich (up until know I went via some other european city). On the other hand it felt alot longer than the other times, because it was earlier in the afternoon and that didn't help with getting any sleep.
Now I checked in at Kodokan, showered and am at the nearest internet place to type these words. Later today I'll join the Judo practice and probably fall asleep right thereafter!
Just so you know: