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Bikes in Azabu; August 2008 (c) Oriana K. Riley

Rackii (that’s Lucky, for you non Japanese speakers) me, Chicago has an pretty great public transportation system that just so happens to be color coded. When I need to get home, I take the Red Line southbound train to, let’s say, the Harrison stop and bam! I’m at my dorm. It’s sort of the same idea in Tokyo, but entirely more sophisticated and when I say sophisticated, I mean confusing (if you’ve never had to use a metro system before). My wonderful host mother drew out a totally kawaii map for me with perfect directions on how to get to Azubu (where Temple University Japan is located) from Koshigaya and back.

My host mother drove me to Kita-Koshigaya station to meet another home stay student, Hayley, who I’d spoken to for sometime thanks to the genius of Facebook networking. At any rate, we were very surprised at how easily we got from point A to point B. I hear it’s super easy to get lost on a train and end up in the middle of nowhere, but we actually had the pleasure of ending up in the City so my train riding confidence has gone up through the roof. However, I’m still not used to the idea of being so packed in a train I can barely breath. The second train we hopped onto was just that packed. Riding the trains here takes a certain amount of mental fortitude I had absolutely no idea I even had.

Also, everyone is ridiculously helpful even when they know (or assume) you cannot speak a lick of Japanese. The attendants at the metro station were so helpful! It was the first time in my life I’d asked someone for help, and they seemed excited to be doing their job! Things like this rarely ever happen in the States. At the most, I’d get some side eye or a very annoyed tone. This time, however, I got a big smile. Hayley and I were supremely impressed. Orientation was actually fun, but I was amazingly tired the entire time. I failed to mention, I arrived at the train station at 7:20am because my commute is a hour long and in order to get to Temple 10am Japanese time, I had to wake up SUPAA EARLY. Of course, none of my (three) alarms go off and I wake up at 6:56am, hence, the barely being awake during orientation.

They scared us with all sorts of horrible things that could happen to a gaijin in the city, as told by TUJ’s (hilarious) legal dude of legality, Matt Wilson:

1. Go out for a night of drinking in Roppongi, meet two hot Eastern European girls, wake up hours later after having been drugged and a bank account $2500 bucks lighter. Happened to a TUJ student a few years ago.
2. If you get caught smoking pot or with any related paraphernalia, expect about 5 years in jail with labor; and that’s getting off easy. Matt recommends all TUJ students leave their “gardening” hobby on hold for the next five months. I think that’s a good idea.
3. Earthquakes happen a lot here and bad things can happen because of them, such as Tokyo burning down to the ground, again. In event of such an event, it’s a good idea to have an Earthquake Kit. It’s also a good idea to contact the US Embassy and let them know you’re an American national in Japan for however long you’ll be in Japan, just in case something goes down.
4. You can be arrested for looking “different”, i.e. not Japanese. If you’re found without identification (passport or your alien registration card), you can be held for 23 days for something as minor as riding a bike at night with your light off, or just looking different. Keep identification on you and don’t bring any unnecessary attention your way.
5. Don’t sexually harass anyone. Keep your hands to yourself on the train so no one can falsely accuse you for feeling them up while your packed in a train car. If you feel something crawling up your leg, you have the right to scream obnoxiously and act a fool to embarrass the pervert who is attempting to molest you. Incidentally, there are women-only cars during late night hours to avoid such things from happening.

So while all of this is going on, I’m also supposed to be studying and doing well in class. That’s the easy part. So far, I am deeply in love with Suntory Vitamin Water and 100 YEN stores (like the dollar store in America but infinitely cooler with much more useful stuff). Vending machines are my kryptonite, though. I mean how can you pass up a 1 dollar drink around here?! The machines glow a pretty color and make a cute noise after you choose your drink. And they are EVERYWHERE. You never have to be thirsty in the city, or without beer, or cigarettes, or energy drinks, or your daily dose of fiber, or panties, if for whatever reason you forgot to put someone before leaving the house.

First impressions of Tokyo:

• Tokyo is so big, it might as well be it’s own country
• What am I doing here?!
• Riding the trains and being stuffed in them with 817,675,354 people and baggage during rush hour is NOT FUN
• Why is it so intimidating to convert USD into YEN in my brainsz? Why? It took me three tries to get eighty dollars out of the atm.
• Speaking of ATMS, why are they so amazing? And easy to use?
• Vending machines are EVERYWHERE
• Although Tokyo is known for having incredibly stylish citizens, there are some hot messes walking around the city.
• Attempting to speak Japanese is not as hard as it seems. The Japanese are very accommodating and willing to help you get your point across if you just try.

I have a serious case of homesickness though. It only really hit me after I landed, and it’s making me physically ill. Although, I have a feeling the airline food probably has more to do with it than anything. After a fourteen hour plane ride and a horrific albeit very interested hour long commute with my host family to their abode in Saitama, I am worn out. I have orientation tomorrow at ten am, Japanese time. Mataku…

There is word I hear often when I watch anime: 懐かしい (natsukashii), an adjective describing a feeling of nostalgia or a fond memory. For whatever reason, many anime characters are filled to the brim with feelings of 懐かしい. I believe I am suffering from this issue of nastukashii. I’m leaving tomorrow to go a million miles away from home!

Although I’ve been in college for three years now, I have family in Chicago, so I always have someone I know well. I usually have some form of familial support so now I’m really going to be “on my own” and, to be completely honest, it’s sort of scary. I think about how I will miss hearing my father’s laugh or how I took for granted be able to call him three times a day just to talk about whatever is on my mind. Or hugging my mom just because. I’ll even miss my brother bugging the crap out of me for no reason.

Adventures, I suppose, have to begin like this. A little bit of hesitation and a lot of excitement with a tinge of nostalgia for good measure.

I’ll be reporting from Tokyo tomorrow! Yatta!

Fifteen Thirteen days until departure and now I’m nervous. The first thing people ask when I finally fess up and tell them I’m moving to Tokyo for five months, some nine thousand miles away from “home”, is “are you nervous?”. And I wasn’t, oh, five months ago. I was nervous about other things: applying to Temple, waiting to be accepted (or denied), attempting to finish up my junior year of college, working on my language skills; things like that made me nervous.

Now that I’ve acquired my passport and my visa, now that I’ve exchanged a few emails with my host family, now that I only have fifteen days left in the United States of America for the next five months, I am very, completely, totally nervous. Studying in Tokyo is single handedly the most ambitious thing I’ve done ever. I’ve only just reach the age of majority in Japan (that would be twenty) and the farthest abroad I’ve been by myself (i.e. without my parents) was when I went to Quebec that one time almost thirteen years ago. I’ve been dreaming about life in Tokyo for so many years and now that it’s only a few weeks away, I not only find myself nervous but in utter disbelief that it has actually happened.

That’s the coolest thing about dreaming because when that dream becomes reality it still feels like a dream, only you are very much awake during the entire episode. My nerves, however, are not just a result of going so far away from home because that’s very appealing and well needed at the moment, but I still have so much to do! I didn’t take into consideration that it may be difficult finding shoes that fit me (I wear an eight and a half) or jeans that fit my shape correctly or just having a few comforts from home like peanut butter, my favorite movie theater candies, and Doritios Blazing Buffalo and Ranch. These are the things you don’t think about when applying for a study abroad program but when you start to feeling Tokyo knocking on your door, it’s rather hard to to think about all the things you’ll be leaving, if only temporarily. At the same time, I’m really anxious to get to Tokyo and be in thick of it.

Although I haven’t left yet, I have a few tidbits of advice for anyone planning on studying abroad in Tokyo.

1. Practice the language! And do it in anyway you can. I have a habit of keeping textbooks and drills from my Japanese courses. I even have my kanji books from high school which will serve as a kanji dictionary and a way to practice reading and writing kanji. My textbooks allow me to practice basic greetings, learn important vocabulary, and studying grammar so I feel more confident that I can have simple conversations in Japanese so I am not completely lost and not entirely annoying to those I meet.
2. Talk to other study abroad students: This should be a bit of a no brainer. Get to know other people who have studied abroad as they will have a wealth of information to give you. Good, insider information. And if at all possible, get to know your current classmates. You’ll feel a lot less shy and nervous if you get to know a few people before leaving.
3. Make copies of all important documents: This includes state and student IDs, your ISIC, passport, visa, health insurance card, other health related documents and identification documents. Keep one with your parents and keep a copy with you just in case something happens. I’m copying everything this week and I’m also planning on leaving some copies with my study abroad office at my home institution…just in case.
4. Keep a copy of your academic record: Make sure you know what classes you’re taking and pick fun stuff! There’s no point in taking classes abroad that you can take a home, so use this time to explore some facet of your education you can’t explore at your home institution, or delve deep into an interest of yours. I’m taking more anthropology related classes because I’m working on anthropologically based project and because I have a long standing interest in it. I’m also taking a break from photography classes and allow myself to shoot freely without the impending doom of critiques and six prints due on Monday or else.
5. Be excited! I’m so excited, I talk to myself in Japanese. A bit extreme but hey, at least I’m practicing. I’m even planning little photo trips and shopping trips I’ll be taking. I look forward to getting to know the neighborhood I’ll be living in and I’ve begun to correspond with my host family so we’re all excited to see each other. Tokyo is a big adventure for me and it starts before I land in Japan.