9/23~9/29

These segments were written after the fact, as I was busy with too many things relating to settling in.

9/23

This was the day I went to Ehime!

I woke up in the morning and almost immediately went to go do laundry so I could be ready to leave. I had absolutely no idea how to use the apartment's machines, so I asked a man who was working how to and he helped me. After all was done, I put them in the dryer which actually didn't dry my clothes completely. We were in a rush so I went and put them in a bag and into my suitcase. 

I had to quickly eat some of my bento before we went to Haneda International Airport, which was further than I expected. We got to the terminal about 20 minutes before my flight and had issues checking my bags because Japan Airlines has a lower weight limit than ZIPAIR. About 7 minutes before my flight the attendant said that we were running out of time and we quickly ran through security and everything and got to my flight just in the nick of time. I almost missed my flight!

It was a very easy one hour and 15 minutes flight to Matsuyama. When I arrived my professor Tokuoka, and my tutor Rin picked me up and drove me to my hotel. They are so nice!

9/24

I woke up early this morning and called my family. It was a beautiful day in Matsuyama. Tokuoka-sensei came to pick me up at 10:00 AM, as I had to check out. Unfortunately, the Miyuki dorm move in was not until 2:00 PM, so I had to wait.

He drove me to the university, showed me around the campus, and introduced me to professors. School had not yet started, so many things were not yet working, like AC or professors. It was only around 80 degrees but very humid, and felt worse than a peak heat Sacramento summer day.

I met some of the professors who I had previously emailed when I was going through the study abroad application process. One was Hidding-sensei of the international center, who is from the Netherlands and helped me along the entire process to get to Ehime University. Others are professors she introduced me to, including Dr. Ruprecht of my department from Germany, and Imaizumi from the English department who said I could join her class. 

I gave Hidding-sensei some things as thanks for helping me get there, a tote from Acadia National Park, some California-grown snacks from Trader Joe's, and some California State Park stickers for her son Yoji.

After all the fraternizing Tokuoka took me to the school cafeteria, where we had some great cheap food and talked. You either go into the left line (the noodles line) or the right line (everything else). I went over, don't know what I got. But all the sides are in sections, so I first went to the rice section and asked the lady for a small bowl (essu de), then went and got a soy sauce bowl, and potato salad. After that we turn around and go to the cashier, where my professor paid for me. We went down to sit and talk more, and my tutor was actually there so she came over to say hi!

We still had time, so we walked down the street to the Ehime Prefecture Gokoku Shrine. Basically the prefectural shrine dedicated to protecting Japan. I guess there isn't really a separation of religion and state. But before entering he said "this shrine is kind of dedicated to victims and soldiers of the war, but I don't have any personal feelings. I just want to show you." Up at the front, there was an old, warped propeller from a Mitsubishi Zero, with a sign next to it that I didn't quite feel like taking my phone out to translate. We put some money in the front box and went and sat down.

He asked me questions and we talked about things relating to nature/environmental conservation, field studying in Ehime prefecture, and even the lack of participation from students in classes.

After looking up the shrine while writing this, it seems it may have a similar purpose to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. That place is incredibly controversial as it enshrines war criminals and is the focus of much international tension between Japan and other asian nations like China and Korea.

Anyway, I think we were both enjoying talking. He took me to back to his car and we drove to the dorm. Did I mention that he told me the Toyota Prius is considered a fancy, expensive car in Japan? He was stating that his tiny car was too cheap. 

I took everything to the dorm and moved in and had no problems because I was already here in January. But, I did go to Daiso to buy things I knew I would need.

I met the first other western student this night: Tijs Van Laer from Belgium. We ate curry at the dorm dining hall and talked about various things. Mainly both us being surprised that the only westerners weren't just us.

Sometime this night we met two Romanian students, Manu and Stephanie. They are very nice and friendly.

9/25

I once again woke up super early in the morning. It wouldn't be an issue as I had to be up for the university orientation later in the day. However, my tutor took me to the university to get a lot of paperwork done. I met a Taiwanese student there who was really nice.

My tutor took me to the school cafeteria where we asked each other basic questions like "where do you work" and "what are you studying?" She works at a hotel in Dogo, the traditional part of town that is a tourist spot for Japanese people all over the country. She gets free traditional Japanese meals with sashimi every shift!

I met a student there who is from France.

Not much else that day.

9/26

I had absolutely nothing today but the international student orientation. When I went to the Aidai Muse building I was incredible early, so I went and checked out the small university museum. The university seems to be proud of things like archaelogy and insects. I went upstairs to the orientation room about 30 minutes early because I was bored. 

I attended the orientation meeting where Tijs (Tayce) and I met two more exchange students, one was the girl from France, named Noa, and the other is named Åshild from Norway. Her name is hard to pronounce so we call her by her middle name, Marie.

The orientation was around two hours and everything can be found in our handbook. Things like insurance, paperwork, deadlines, local cults, and the school co-op. After that there was one more student who I wanted to talk to. He was wearing a brown hat like Indiana Jones, which had googly eyes on the front. His name is Pablo and he is from Columbia. He also lived in Florida for several years! 

I created a group chat for everyone aptly named "Gaijin Chat." The word "gaijin" means foreigner and to Japanese people has a more hostile tone to it that they don't like to use anymore. But for westerners it is kind of like an inside joke as we don't mind.

Later we all went to a traditional udon restaurant nearby (which I went to in January), which has student discounts.

9/27

Once again not much going on. But we had the Japanese language placement test.

I had nothing else planned and nothing else I really wanted to do so I headed to the building where the test would be held, the Aidai Muse (short for Ehime University Museum) which namesake is for the school museum on the first floor. I went upstairs and into the room and was the first one there. Eventually a student came in who is from South Korea. I was friendly and talked to him, but we could only converse in Japanese. His name is Kim Yugeon. After that the Norwegian student dropped by and we chatted before everybody else came in and the session came to a start.

The teacher, Takahashi-sensei, was explaining the rules of the test in Japanese, not any other language. I could make out things like "don't put anything if you don't understand the question," "when you are done raise your hand," "the test is short but for gets harder as you go through," and "do not open the test before it starts." Unfortunately, one student opened the test before it started as he likely didn't understand what she was saying. This led to him absolutely getting berated by Takahashi-sensei in front of the whole room. It was quite a culture shock.

For one of the questions we had to describe a nostalgic smell and I put "tobacco smoke." I honestly haven't really smelled it in years. After completing the test, Takahashi-sensei came over and saw which university I came from to which she asked if I was Masuyama-sensei's student. She apparently knows my Japanese professor at Sac State.

Later I headed to the Matsuyama International Center so I could meet Mrs. Chiaki. She helped out with the Japanese middle schoolers who visited Sacramento in July. When I met her I gave her some things I brought from California, which she was very grateful for. She recommended me sightseeing places, where do buy a bike, and other things.

9/28

I was very busy today.

In the morning we went to dorm living orientation which went over basic things INCLUDING the difficult to comprehend Japanese culture of trash-sorting. In Japan they care very much about the environment and instead of just having trash and recycling, they have burnable, plastic, hard-paper product (cardboard), metal/glass, cumbersome trash, and mercury products. So, you need to go through all of your trash and sort them into these bags before you take them out to the trash dump area.

Afterward I met some other exchange students from Taiwan, China, Nigeria, and Thailand. Later though, we went and climbed up to the top of the hill where Matsuyama Castle is but did not go inside. I had to leave early because I had band practice!

Band in Japan is different. It's student run as opposed to school run. Every single one of the members is a student including the club leaders. The band director is my underclassman. Actually, I'm the most senior student in the band because I'm a fourth year. Also, one culture shock was how everybody leaves their instrument in the "instrument room" and nobody takes it home. I think it's because house walls are very thin, practicing could be heard around a neighborhood. Also, I learned that it's a 吹奏楽団 (suisougakudan) instead of a 吹奏楽部 (suisougakubu) which means that their practice is less rigorous. They said a ~bu would have 3-4 days of practice a week. I think the Sac State marching band would definitely qualify as a suisougakubu. We got two pieces, both of which were very hard. But it was very fun being there. I met a flute player named Kenta, a clarinet player named Kaho, and a trumpet player who I can't remember. They were very excited to have me there.

One problem I'll have to figure out is when to eat dinner as since practice is twice a week from 18:00-21:00, the dining halls are closed.

9/29

Very little to do today!

I met up with one of the middle schoolers who visited Sacramento in July. His name is Keishin and he absolutely loves baseball. The shirt he's wearing is one of those that he got at Oracle Park! He took me to a udon restaurant called Daikokudo, where I ate more of Matsuyama's specialty food: tai-meshi.

After that he took me Dogo Park, where we climbed to the top of a hill to get this view.

I don't remember anything else for that day.