I stayed at Hotel Nikko Kansai (which is the hotel in the airport) overnight because the Kansai Gaidai pickup service wasn't until the next morning. That was fine though, because I really needed the sleep. And en route to Japan I met a fellow KG-er that I'd previously talked to through facebook (we'd decided to share the hotel room and split the cost), which was pretty awesome and made the entire thing a hundred times more fun and less intimidating.
The hotel was fancy, but there is no way I would have been able to sleep on those beds if I wasn't so exhausted. They were very much your typical, granite-like hotel beds.
The next morning, Kristin and I got picked up along with a bunch of other KGers in the airport and had an hour and a half long bus ride to campus.
It was so strange for me to look out over the horizon and see mountains rising up behind all the buildings. I was glad when we got off the highway though and into residental streets, because there was a lot more to look at besides semis. The houses are a lot closer together here, but you can definitely tell where one stops and the other begins because each house has a sort of enclosure around it. We also passed little neighborhood gardens and even what looked like rice fields stuck in the middle of a bunch of buildings. The streets here are also a lot narrower, but they have sidewalks everywhere for people walking and bicycling which I really like. (They don't make their bicyclists bike in the streets!) After taking the 20 minute walk to campus yesterday, I think renting a bike is going to be a must here.
I'm staying in seminar house 4 (one of the four Kansai Gaidai dorms). I almost wish I wasn't doing homestay because sem house 4 is that nice. They have a computer lab, a lounge, laundry room, vending machines and a big kitchen on the first floor. Then a girl's floor and a guy's floor. My room is in a more traditional Japanese style with a futon, low table and tatami mats. I wish I could drag my futon back with me to the US because it's incredibly comfy. And when you're done sleeping on it, you can just fold it up in half to save space.
The dorm bathrooms are also a thousand steps up from the bathrooms at Beloit. Their toilets are really teched out and the seats are even kept warm! The bathrooms are actually in a separate room from the showers. There are also specially designated slippers provided at the entrance to the bathroom that are only supposed to be worn there. (My dorm also has an entrance to the side of the main one for dorm residents to take off and store their shoes before stepping completely inside.) So everybody roams around the dorm in their socks or slippers.
Well, it's time for me to go take my Japanese placement test, so I'm cutting this short. Jaa ne~
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