robbieinjapan.com

It’s been a while since I’ve posted in this blog.

I’ve come back to Japan to study for ten months at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies located in Yokohama.

For those of you who don’t know, Yokohama is Japan’s fourth largest city located right next to Tokyo. I can actually get to Shibuya (a popular spot in Tokyo) which was two stops from where I lived two years ago within 25 minutes from my station here in Yokohama.

Thanks to my parents, the apartment I’m living in this time is nicer than the dorm room I was in last time in Tokyo. I’ll take some pictures and put them up later. The apartment is a 20 minute walk from the school which is nice because it means I won’t have to deal with rush hour train crowds anymore.

As for food, there are a lot of restaurants around the train station near my apartment which is about 10 minutes away. So, I’ve been eating a lot of my old favorites including ramen, gyoza, katsudon, katsukare, tonkatsu, etc.

This area is actually pretty popular for tourists and I think for that reason there are a lot of American restaurants around here, as well. There is a Friday’s, Denny’s, Hard Rock Cafe and some others. So, if I ever feel like getting a hamburger, I don’t have to go very far.

I’ll have to take some pictures of the surrounding area because it is really nice. There is a giant ferris wheel, as well as an amusement park and a huge shopping area. My school is right next to the water.

Today was the first day of school and all we did was orientation and a class picture. In the afternoon, I had an oral test where they filmed me as I was being interviewed. Tomorrow I have a placement test and then real classes will begin next week.

Another nice thing about my apartment is that it came with a TV, so I’ve been leaving the TV on as I use the computer in order to get used to hearing Japanese again. Interestingly, quite a few thigns on America are reported. Right now, they’ve been showing pieces on the upcoming election and also on hurricane Gustav which is supposed to land soon.

For now, I’ve got to study a little for the test tomorrow and then get to sleep but I’ll be sure to write more later and hopefully get some pictures up!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 8:24 am and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.