Wednesday, October 7, 2015

First couple weeks abroad

After the long flight and traveling halfway across the world, I was pretty tired. One of the first things I noticed when I stepped off the flight was the humidity and heat. I knew Kofu, Yamanashi was hot in the summer, but nothing would have prepared me for this. I landed at the Narita Airport in Tokyo, so it was still a two hour drive to Kofu, where I'll be living in a dorm with other international students for ten months.

My first week in Japan was a lot of running errands and getting things set up, like my insurance. There was a welcome party held at the dorm for me and a few other residents who arrived a couple weeks before me. That was a lot of fun because all of the dorm residents made food from their native countries. I met a lot of other residents and made some friends too.

That night, the dorm residents and I went out for a night of karaoke. I've always wanted to do Japanese karaoke and it was as much fun as I imagined. Japanese karaoke is a bit different than what I'm used to, instead of standing up in front of a huge crowd at a bar, you have your own room with just your friends. It's a lot less nerve wracking that way!



At the welcome party, residents of the dorm and their friends

Picture of me taken by the dorm manager on my second day in Japan
Karaoke