My new home, birthday and first experience with Karaoke

I am sitting at my desk in my new "home". So much has happened since I arrived, it's hard to describe and even impossible to tell everything in detail. I will give my best to sum it up and give you an overview on how life in Japan is different from life in the rest of the world...

First of all, my room in the student dormitory called "Kaikan" was furnished but that's it. No kitchen equipment, no shower curtain, no toilet paper. So the first task was to buy everything which is needed to feel comfortable in my new home. Therefore we went to the 100 Yen shop called "Daiso" which consists of 5 floors. Here you can find everything from food over kitchen and bathroom articles, decoration, office equipement, gardening and and and. Most products don't have a price tag which means they cost 100Yen (about 0,75€). Some articles like big garbage bins cost a little more (210 Yen = 1,60€) but still very cheap. So we had to go to Daiso for about three days in a row because we couldn't carry all the bags at once! :) Now I feel quite comfortable in my room and although the furniture are rather old, with the aircondition and my own washing machine on the balcony it even awakes a small feeling of luxury :P

View from my balcony

I don't understand why they put electronic devices outside...

No, on top of the fridge is not a deep fryer! It's a rice cooker ;)

Then I needed something to eat...fill my fridge...grocery shopping! It's so difficult to distinguish dishwashing liquid from body lotion! Or even find something to eat at all. If you can't read the Kanji then you're basically lost (and I was!). So I bought milk, toast, butter, instant noodles and yoghurt happily keeping in mind that I brought muesli from Germany for breakfast. When I checked the receipt, I was surprised that the most expensive article was the butter with nearly 2€ for 10g! Fish is the cheapest you can get and it's always fresh. Milk is like water if you take the wrong one and the smallest rice package you can get is a 2kg bag.

I think I will need some time to get used to that and also to find out what I can actually cook with the products they offer. Definitely not Bratwurst with Sauerkraut^^


On the 24th was my birthday and I was a little worried because Alessandra (a friend from Paderborn) hadn't arrived yet and my plan was to spend a nice day with her. Her flight was delayed due to a typhoon in Hong Kong. So I started the day sitting lonely in my room, unpacking bags and thinking about the upcoming time here in Japan. In the afternoon I skyped with my parents who had a birthday cake with candles prepared for me! So cute! This actually felt like birthday! After that I was picked up by my tutor who should help me organizing the first days and all the official documents. My tutor, Saki-san even brought me a birthday present!! Cake, a card and a nice bag! I was so surprised and happy because my table was quite empty except for a card my parents sent me, a present from my best friend from home and some ohashi (chopsticks) that Junko (my friend from Fukuoka) had given to me. Now it felt like a real birthday :) Saki is 18 years old, new to Oita University as well and can unfortunately speak only a little better english than I speak japanese (yes, it's very difficult to communicate!). But she is very well organized and helped me a lot! She took me to the city center where I got my name stamp. This is used to sign documents additionally to the hand signature. It shows my first name in Katakana (pa-to-ri-shi-a).

In the evening, Alessandra arrived and we surprised her by picking her up from the train station!

After she brought her things to her room, we went to dinner with some other exchange students and their tutors and had a little private party in a friend's apartment with Sake and fake-beer (they call it like that but it actually doesn't taste that bad!). All in all I was happy that my birthday wasn't boring at all as I first thought it would be and I already found many new Japanese friends hihi.

The following night more exchange students arrived (from Holland and Finland) so we decided to go to Karaoke all together. This was a unique experience that you can only have in Japan! If you have already played "singstar" you might think you know what it's all about...you don't! ;) We were about 15 persons who rented a cabin. It was a room furnished with seats and tables and of course a big tv in the front. Via portable touchscreens (like iPad) you could subscribe for a song you would like to sing, and then you grab one of the microphones and start. Standing, sitting, no matter what. We had some good singers in our group but generally in Japan it's not important if you sing good or bad; karaoke is a group building instrument and people would do it after work to discuss matters in a more casual way. Of course alcohol plays also a big role to break the ice and make people more confident. We had a "flatrate-tariff" for 2600 Yen 10pm until 10am and orders were made via phone. Lucky us that we had some Japanese guys with us who could order the drinks (and who sang Japanese songs to make the experience even more authentic - video will follow soon). Crazy thing was that we didn't notice how fast the time was going by...when we finally left the place it was already light outside and when I looked at my watch I couldn't believe what I saw: 7 o'clock in the morning!! After a disgusting breakfast burger at Mc Donald's (they don't have anything even close to European breackfast) we went home. After 30 minutes walk (usually 15) we had earned our sleep.

Next steps were organisation of official documents and getting to know the area. My tutor gave me a guided tour through the university and the city center. I had to apply for a residence card in the city hall which was the first situation where I actually faced my personal boundaries. I had to concentrate to not freak out! I'm a very patient and uncomplicated person but after half an hour of explanations what we are actually doing (concerning a particular form that I had to fill in) I gave up because I just didn't understand what my tutor Saki wanted to tell me. I nearly screamed: "Just do whatever needs to be done and don't try to explain to me because I don't understand you!" I tried to keep calm. Even when I said to her "please, just do what they say I don't care" and she answered "care? care?" and looked it up in her portable electronic dictionary I clenched my fists and bit on my tongue to remain calm. This was probably the worst situation I had so far concerning language barriers.


Maybe there are a few more things to mention about life here in Japan: the traffic lights play music when they are green (although they are not green but rather blue but you know what I mean), Japanese people always say "sorry" about 3 times, although there is nothing to apologize for (for ex. when you buy something in a shop), the separation of garbage makes me go crazy (they have 6 different bins for burnable, non-burnable, plastics, PET bottles, cans, paper), vending machines are EVERYWHERE - even in the remotest area that you can imagine - so you never have to be thirsty, and there are rules for everything (no group gathering, no guests allowed in the rooms, no noise after 10pm, no smoking on the streets etc.). Guess I have to get used to that.

My next post will be about life in university because classes started this week and this is or should be the reason I'm here for! Bye for now :)