Oita daigaku 大分大学, weekend trips and more culture shocks

Time is flying! On the one hand I can't believe that I've been away from home for already nearly 2 months now, but on the other hand I have experienced so many things that it's hard to imagine all of that happened in just that little amount of time!

Starting with university, everything is easy: 8 classes in total, mondays off, one vocabulary test per week, one presentation already done, one essay already written but many more to come. The way from my student dormitory Kaikan to Oita daigaku is long (about 1 hour in total from door to door) but I don't really mind. We walk 20 minutes to the station (now we can also ride our recently purchased bikes), go 15 minutes by train and finally "climb" the hill to reach the campus which looks like this:

In the beginning I met my so called "academic supervisor" twice in order to let him confirm my schedule. The exceptionality: he is a huge fan of snoopy! I was honored to shake hands with all of his little cuddly toys :D

Now that the classes were settled, we could concentrate on the really important things: travelling! On the weekends we went to see many different places in the surrounding area but also to visit surrounding countries (like South-Korea last weekend). Here are some impressions of our trips:

1) Day trip with our tutors to a small town called Yufuin and the longest hanging pedestrian bridge in the world (Austria is currently trying to break the record! For more information about that, unfortunately in German, see here)

Kokonoe Yume Otsurihashi Suspension Bridge - 390 meters length, 173 meters height

with some of our tutors

a little windy...

we made it!

Kokonoe Yamanami Farm where we had lunch and could see some animals (horses, donkey, rabbits, pigs,...nothing special)

Lake in Yufuin

2) Weekend in Okinawa - paradise in the Pacific Ocean
Long before we came to Japan we already knew that we want to go there: white sand, clear blue water, palm trees and 28 degrees with sunshine in late October! Okinawa is the southernmost prefecture of Japan and consists of many islands with coral reefs and spectacular marine creatures. We stayed in a hostel near the only beach of Naha city - the capital of the main island. First we decided to go on a day trip to Zamami Island by ferry. It reminded me a lot of Australia besides the number of tourists, which was approximately around 40 on the whole island - thereof 10% German named Alessandra, Laura, Vera and Patricia. The beaches were empty, the weather was perfect (not too hot but a little cloudy) and we enjoyed it very much.

from the airplane we could already see some of the islands

the beach close to our hostel - not so idyllic under the highway bridge

Zamami Island

view from the observation point

The next day we went to the Ocean Expo Park which is located more up north near Nago. We watched an admirable dolphin show, learned a lot about the sea life of Okinawa and visited the world's second biggst Aquarium (Churaumi Aquarium).

whale sharks in the world's second biggest aquarium Kuroshio Sea (7.500 m³ water volume)

And we also had a new experience with food: Japanese Hotpot (Yosenabe)!

 













To round up the Okinawa experience we also visited Shuri Castle - a little bit of culture and history shouldn't be left out :) It's a UNESCO world heritage site although reconstructed after WWII.

And last but not least number 3) Weekend trip to Seoul
Last weekend we went to South Korea where we met the other students from Paderborn participating in the Asia exchange program. Now we were again having a culture shock because (you may believe it or not) the Korean culture is totally different from the Japanese one! The first surprise that we experienced was on the airport: the woman could not only speak english fluently, she also didn't smile and nod her head while she was giving us information on the local transport system. When arriving there directly from Germany it might not seem odd at all, but for us, arriving from Japan (where the airline crew came down to the runway to bow and wave when the plane started - seriously!) we felt a little harshly greeted.

airline crew on the runway to say goodbye

Our hostel was quite modern and centrally located so that we could easily get around by metro. First we met Simon from Paderborn who showed us around the Campus of his university (Ewha women's university) which was really huge and modern in comparison to ours in Japan.

EWHA University by night

There is a big shopping district in the surrounding area so that we were kind of glad not to study there with regard to our money ;) After that we went to Korean BBQ with some other exchange students. We ate a lot of meat (which is rather fatty and has to be cut into slices with scissors) and drank soju - the national drink which is cheaper than water and tastes like light Wodka. The others showed us two more bars in the night district and spontaneously we even went out to a club with them. On the next day we visited the N Seoul Tower and ejoyed a view over the big city followed by a stroll through Namdaemun markets, an outside view on Gyeongbokgung palace and shopping in Insadong.

Food on Namdaemun market

On the next day we went to the Trick-eye museum. See for yourself why it's called like that:

The motto of our last evening was "Oppan Gangnam Style" and I met an old school friend of mine who showed us Korean cuisine and explained a little bit about the cultural differences.

spicy dish Daktoritang which is always shared by several people

they even built a memorial for PSY when Gangnam Style became famous

Nikola has been living in Seoul for one year now

And then again it was time to say goodbye to another great trip!!
Back to life, back to reality...now I have to study some Kanji for tomorrow's Japanese lesson. Good night everybody and sorry for the long entry, I hope it won't happen again :)

P.S.: Tipp for the German-speaking persons: Read the blog of Alessandra (you can find the link here on the right side)! She gives more detailed information about our trips :)