so i have now been in Japan for well over a month, having landed in Kansai Airport on the 17th of September. after spending the next two weeks in front of a japanese telly and eating, courtesy of my grandparents, i finally moved into the international residence on port island in Kobe on the 1st of october.
id actually visited port island before in april when my dear fatherly figure friend odin (hi dad!) began his first semester of study at kobe uni. aaaand to be honest, i felt a little depressed looking at the building as it looked so grim and slightly beaten up. but nevertheless it was a building where one could sleep and that was good enough for me. (and did i tell you how cheap the rent was?)
i was warned that the bathrooms were going to be communal (an idea which i didnt like the sound of too much) so when i finally found my room i was stoked to find my own ensuite (a luxury most other residence buddies do without). considering i only pay a mere 5,900 yen a month (plus utilities), i felt like i won the dorm room lottery. oh wait there's more.
i also have my own desk, chair, bed (phew), bookshelf, closet, shoe closet (what's the word for this? i can only think of the japanese word) and a big set of drawers. my desk is yet to be used for study. i also always have food on it. or tea, or both. sometimes wine. actually, often wine.
to top it off, i have my own balcony where i can get exclusive views of... a bloody primary school. needless to say, i am yet to get used to the sound of the school bells going off every hour from about 7.30am. if im home in the afternoon, i am soothed by the sounds of school children bashing the crap out of a poor defenceless piano.
my balcony is also currently decorated with about a month and a half's worth of rubbish, courtesy of japan's ridiculous (but ecofriendly) rubbish disposal system. is plastic burnable or non-burnable? what can i actually put in burnable? could someone please advise???
anyway, we also have a lobby with a couple of seats and a tv and a pingpong table (yes we have played beer pong already). we also have a little office where people apparently work (i think all they do is issue us bills). we did have a residence orientation sometime back but i dont remember too well as it was too early in the morning. the main gist was: watch out for the aggressive sparrows and please dispose rubbish properly. there's also a guy that lives in the residence who is kind of like the dorm supervisor. anyway, his name is Shantypants (for he says "you shan't" A LOT) and no one really knows what he does or what his actual name is.
oh and we have to make our own meals so each section on a floor have their own little kitchen. i think some friends of mine would find it hard to imagine me cooking but i am starting to become quite the Master Chef (if by that you mean I know how to put rice in the rice cooker and pour hot water onto instant miso soup). thankfully i have friends who are nice enough to offer me proper food. thanks guys!
my dorm colleagues are all pretty cool. there's a high ratio of girls in this dorm this semester which im sure the guys aren't complaining about. there's people from all over the world as you would expect but most people come from the Asian continent (which is also not very surprising).
i dont really have that much more to say about the residence. it's only about fifteen minutes away from Sannomiya (the city centre) and it's pretty peaceful. there's a no-nonresidence-visitors-in-rooms policy but i dont think many people are abiding by this rule and Shantypants doesn't seem to strongly enforce it. Hey Erika and Jaimie, maybe you COULD stay in my room. But you probably wouldn't want to. It's starting to smell funny.
And for now, I leave you with this:
Could someone please tell me when rubbish day is? I think some things are starting to go off...
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