A long way from home

It took two hours from Logan airport in Boston to reach Newark, New Jersey.

From Newark, New Jersey, I caught a 14 hour flight to Tokyo.

From Tokyo, I met up with two students from Sophia University (one that was actually on my flight and lives in the apartment next door to me right now, and the other a Japanese student to help us), where we rode the train for about an hour and a half to reach Saitama ward, or more specifically, Nishi-Kawaguchi station. It was the cleanest train I have ever been in.

From Nishi-Kawaguchi, we walked about twenty minutes in the rain to the guest house (with our carry ons, mind you; I was unintelligent and neglected to bring one with wheels).

Of course, the moment I got there, I was so fried that I forgot every bit of Japanese I knew and stared blankly at the building manager for awhile. Fortunately, he spoke English, and reminded me politely to remove my shoes. Oops. We were shown to little cubbies in the lobby where we could place our shoes, and then to our rooms. I have a small, but comfortable, apartment on the second floor. I fell asleep about ten minutes after I got my bed set up (around six pm) and woke up at two in the morning.

—

The city itself, Warabimachi, is a lovely mix of urban and nature; the Japanese make economical use of the small amount of land. Everyone rides bikes, or walks everywhere and the buildings are very close together. Though the city is very much urbanized, there is culture everywhere.

I’ll have more for you when I venture into the heart of the city for orientation on Tuesday.

Ja matta,

Sara

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 18th, 2010 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “A long way from home”

1. Roxann Osoria says:

   November 24, 2010 at 2:33 pm

   Hello, can anybody answer me if the university will accept foreign students? My apologies for questioning here however I am unable to find out this info on the site. Thank you very much!

2. smmerc12 says:

   November 25, 2010 at 11:35 pm

   The university accepts foreign students! This is the Sophia University website 🙂 http://www.sophia.ac.jp/eng/e_top

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