Six years ago today, I flew to Japan for the third time (the first time being for study abroad in Kanagawa in 2008 and the second when I visited some friends and traveled for a few weeks in 2009). This time, I was moving to Matsudo in Chiba prefecture for 5 months to be in an internship through my university at a Japanese Junior High School (which oddly enough happens to be sister schools with my middle school). I had applied to go during the fall semester before which I really wanted to and thus did not do well in the interview, but I was not selected, however applying the second time I got through probably because I didn’t care as much anymore (funny how that stuff works).
There were a few large differences with my first long stay in Japan. This time I had plenty of Japanese friends, both whom I had met in Japan during previous times as well as new friends that I had made during the year that had passed while I was in Nebraska through Japanese events such as the Japanese conversation table and the Global Friends of Japan group. Another big difference is this is the first time that I had lived on my own for an extended period of time (not including my freshman year when I had a roommate who used our room as a locker and barely stopped by and not including my month in Spain). This is also the first time in my life that I didn’t have parental cooking or a cafeteria to rely on for food. Because of this, I started a lot of new things that I never tried before such as my first aquarium, the first Post-It blog, and a lot of exploration by bike. My first trip to Japan made me a traveler, this trip to Japan reinforced me as an explorer.
My apartment was a LeoPalace, which may not mean much to someone living outside of Japan, but many people who have lived in Japan are very familiar with these. LeoPalace are all near identical apartments that are suited with small bathroom/shower room, a kitchen/washroom hallway, and a compact bedroom/living room. It wasn’t much, but it was home and it was all I needed. It was about a five minute bike ride to my school, and a twenty-thirty minute walk to the two nearest train stations. It was also a nice ten minute bike ride to Mister Donut which I frequented a lot more than I should have.
I arrived in Japan on a Saturday with the other intern, we were picked up by two teachers from the school’s English department, one from Nebraska (like myself) and one native Japanese. We were taken out to dinner and I ordered some Tonkatsu (豚カツ/literally: breaded pork), one of my favorite Japanese dishes. We were then given a brief tour of the school before shopping a little bit for groceries and then dropped off back at our LeoPalaces for the night. On Sunday we were left to our own devices, so I explored the nearby neighborhood a bit in the morning. In the evening I went to Shinjuku to meet my friend and roommate from the fall semester, and a Korean friend who studied abroad in Nebraska as well (who was now studying abroad in Japan). We ate some Nagasaki Chanpon noodles for dinner, went to an arcade for some purikura (Japanese sticker picture machines), got some new shoes for me (it was difficult to find my size (31 cm), but a shop attendant ran out of the shop to another shop to get them for me which was nice), and ended the night being hipsters at a Starbucks until it was time for me to go home. And the next morning it was off to my first day on the internship.
