Moving In

The next morning (Tuesday), I ran out of time packing and being tired, so I ended up heading to the subway station without eating breakfast. I was supposed to meet some students from Kobe University at JR Rokkomichi Station (JR 六甲道駅) at 9am, but it was already 8:30am, and despite Google-mapping the way and writing the directions on a piece of paper, I barely knew the way. To find Sannomiya Station (三ノ宮駅), I had to ask multiple people where the station was. The first person I asked was a Chinese who, flustered, shook his head furiously and pointed at himself, "I'm Chinese! Chinese!" It took me a second to register what he'd said, but as soon as I understood, I nodded, said, "Ah! Sorry," and went to find a Japanese to ask. Just like America, almost half the people had earphones (but theirs are in more colors than just white and black) tucked into their ears, making it more difficult to find someone to ask. Everyone was in a hurry, but the people I asked did stop to help me. Luckily I had practiced directions a lot in Japanese class! Even though I was disoriented and my brain wasn't working too well, I understood most of the directions they gave me and made it into the station. I found a station map, but then I just stood and stared at it blankly, totally at a loss. I glanced around for help from passerbys, but since I didn't say anything, no one stopped. I had just noted the location of a police box when a woman came and joined me at looking confusedly at the map. I asked her for help, and even though she said she didn't really know either, she ended up taking me all the way through the station past lots of stores (stations are like underground malls) to the fare-buying machines, where she found and told me the fare, guided me through the use of the machine, and took me to the ticket gate. At the gate, we asked the men at the window for directions. One of the men stamped my ticket and told me to go up the stairs to number 2. I thanked both him and the woman, and said goodbye, and hurried up the stairs. I spotted a big number 2 and went to stand near it. A voice said over the intercom to form a line, so I awkwardly pulled my suitcase behind someone.

When the train came and the doors opened, I followed the people in front of me in, dodging the people exiting on the right of me at the same time. I found a seat and watched the doors shut. I listened nervously and watched the moving text on the electronic sign above the door. Finally, I heard and spotted, "Tsugi no wa, Rokkomichi desu." I waited till the train started slowing and other people stood up to stand up. I exited when the train stopped and the doors opened. I followed the crowd to an escalator to another set of ticket gates, where my ticket was rejected when I put it in. The instructions told me to bring it to the window, so I did. The man there took my ticket and let me through.

I walked into the exit area and noticed two girls standing near the far wall across from me. I wondered briefly, are they waiting for me? But they didn't react so I wandered across the floor near the door, paused then went back to a column to gather myself. I turned around after reaching the column to see that the girls had approached me after all. After a brief exchange and some poor Japanese on my part, I ended up telling them I hadn't eaten breakfast. There was a bakery right next to us, called Vie de France (I think. In furigana, "ヴィドフランス".) Here are some pictures.

You're supposed to take a tray and use the tongs to pick up the food you want. You have to be careful though; I tilted my tray too much and almost slid my food onto to the floor!

Everything looked good, but this looked filling and more savory than most of the other options, I picked this teriyaki chicken/salad bread thing, which was delicious.

I ended up eating these too. They were small and I could choose one of each flavor, so I couldn't resist. Left to right, the flavors of the "mochi mochi donuts" are green tea (maccha), honey lemon, red bean, and sakura (cherry blossom). The only one I didn't like very much was the red bean one, but red bean redeem themselves in anpan (bread with sugary red bean paste inside), so it's ok.

This is H-san and T-san, two Tutors from Kobe University. They're the girls I met at Rokkomichi Station, and they've been helping me tremendously since. T-san is the leader of the Tutors, although sometimes she makes me wonder, lol.

I don't know why, but I always forget to pay attention to the names of the stores and restaurants I go to. I don't have any pictures of their names....

I also bought an iced latte as part of a set (combo), but since I don't really like coffee and this coffee was really strong, I didn't drink much of it.

Once we finished eating, we left the station and walked though the rain to a nearby government building. I don't remember its name, but I registered as an alien and received papers proving my registration as well as informing me to come back in a month for the actual card.

After that, we walked back to the station, but instead of going inside, we boarded a bus at the stop nearby. We got off at Gomo Tenjin (五毛天神). H-san and T-san took my heavy suitcase and lugged it up the steep slope (it might be steeper than Cardiac Hill). They didn't know where the dorm was either, and were relying on Google map printouts. At one point, we spotted a staircase and assumed it was the place, hauling the suitcase all the way up the stairs in pouring rain only to find that the stairs led to nowhere.

A walk a little further up the street revealed the ramp leading to Kokui Dorm, where I'm living now. We came in through the first floor entrance and took the elevator to the third floor. All the elevators I've encountered speak, saying the floor the elevator is at and announcing when the door is about to close all in the same officious female voice. At the third floor, we went down the hall to a room with several Kokui office people, including a women with fairly good English, about 9 rectangular tables not being used, and an area set aside to table representatives from 3 internet companies.

It turned out that I didn't have enough cash with me to pay the rent, so T-san left to go get money to lend me from the closest convenience store (which I think isn't very close; I don't remember where it is). While she was gone, H-san and I went to go listen to each of the three companies' spiels. We started with the table in the middle, which had no one at it. This company, au, offered 1G internet with a starting price of 840 yen (~$10) with a monthly payment of 4252 yen (~$50). I told them I would listen to the other companies before deciding. So we moved left to the next table, FiberBit. FiberBit's offer almost seemed too good to be true. If you bought internet before April 30, you got 2 months free. If I bought internet that day, I could get internet access by 4pm the next day, whereas if I waited or chose the other company, I'd have to wait 2 weeks. Four months of internet for the price of two, at 100Mb (what I'm used to in the US), at a cheaper rate than the 1G option, with access the next day--wow. But I decided to see what the last company had to offer first. I moved to Sun-net's table, but since the man there was presenting in Japanese first, and would repeat separately in English after for me, I had to wait. While I was waiting, a fellow student offered me the English copy of the sheet, on which I noticed that I would have to get a contract of at least 6 months. Well, that cut out that option. I showed H-san that part on the Japanese copy and returned the English one to the girl who had given it to me. We went back to FiberBit and signed up.

During all of this, I was struggling trying to understand with my limited Japanese. I'm still getting used to finding the words through different sounding voices, accents, and dialects (more on dialects later). My vocabulary is woefully thin, and my kanji knowledge is abysmal, so I could hardly read the papers, and it took multiple repeated explanations before I understood. Thankfully, the English-speaking office worker helped out with the rent explanation, and for the interaction with the internet employees (random note: they all wore suits. Pretty much all business men and women do.), H-san patiently helped me. She's pretty good at gauging the level of Japanese that I will understand. When I ask her to explain words she uses that I don't know, her explanations can be a bit muddled as she tries to estimate how she can say it so I'll understand. They also slip in English words in their attempts to make me understand. In the internet conversation, the alternation between Japanese and English numbers and months got a little confusing for all of us, because they weren't confident in their English and I didn't always recognize it immediately since I was listening for Japanese. They always seemed doubtful when I said I understood, so I summarized it back to them. It was funny to see their faces when I proved that not only I did understand, but I was able to say the same thing with far fewer words and simpler Japanese. When you have difficulty communicating with someone, my advice is to remember that there are always multiple ways to say the same thing. It just might require some creative thinking.

I'm lucky that for most of my big purchases, I've been able to use my debit card. Most transactions here are cash, so I've doing my best to get better at recognizing the different coins and bills to make paying faster.

 

When T-san returned, we paid my rent. The English-speaking office worker took us on a tour of the building. We were glad that we could leave our stuff in the room; my stuff was really heavy. During the tour, she discussed the garbage policies, which are much stricter than in the US. There are multiple colored bags to sort your trash into, depending on whether it's burnable (paper, kitchen waste, plastic (to my surprise)), PET plastic, or プラ plastic. There are other categories as well, but these are the ones that are personally relevant. Japanese items are usually clearly marked if they're plastic. If they're paper, they might say "紙" with two arrows circling the character. I was also given a very thorough sheet describing the categories, so it isn't too hard to understand the divisions.

The office lady (who wasn't wearing a suit, by the way) also told me the trash times, warning me to only put the trash out at those times because there are wild boars in the area that people don't want to attract. If you see one, you're supposed to escape ASAP. I don't remember what the adult ones are called in Japanese, but the babies are called 瓜坊　（うりぼう） (uribou). They look like the Pokemon Swinub.

After the tour, H-san, T-san, and I brought my stuff to the room. I sorted my stuff a little, and then we headed out to go shopping.

The view from the road leading to Kokui Dorm.

Oh, and here are a couple pictures I took in Kansai International Airport while I was waiting for the MK Skygate Shuttle, which I forgot to include before.

This was my first introduction to the trash system.

When the Japanese mother told me that Japanese people brush their teeth in the airplane's bathroom so they'll be freshened up when they arrive, I only believed her because I saw a toothbrush pack tucked into the seatback pocket of the passenger diagonally in front of me. Seeing this, though, made the difference even more striking.

Feel free to leave comments with requests, questions, or suggestions. I'm still getting used to this blog, so if my writing or the formatting could be improved, say so.