Let’s take this week to talk about how the dorms are here in Japan, as well as my lab!
First off, the dorms. They’re pretty small in comparison to the ones at my school (UCSC), however they each have their own little shower room, which is really nice. Opening the door, you can see a bed on one side with a large dress on the other. The shower room is right at the entrance of the door, which you will be able to see later.
Walking in further you can see my desk, a mini fridge, and a book case. Overall, its a nice and cozy place. Each room also has a personal air conditioner and router so all the necessary things are there, minus an actual toilet. The toilets are in a shared bathroom and is super duper clean.
Looking back at the door from the inside, you can see the shower is right in front of where the floor mat is. The inside of the shower is extremely clean and even has shelf space for your shower things.
Overall, the place is nice and clean, albeit a bit old. The overseer of the whole dorm is an extremely nice lady who greets you whenever she sees you. The overall feel of the place is very homey.
The biggest issues I have with this place is that it is way too far from the campus and how loud the cicadas are. The cicadas seem to sing 24/7 with this loud, constant buzzing noise which peaks in the mornings and evenings, causing me to wake up super early every morning. I really hope I can get used to this noise soon, but it may also be due to my jet lag that I am waking up so early everyday. Also, it takes $8-11 USD round trip if using public transportation, and still takes about 30 minutes to get to campus. What’s funny is that biking takes roughly the same amount of time, except it’s a lot of uphill. It’s free and a good exercise so I’m sticking with that as my mode of transport. I just have to bring an extra shirt to change into since I become a drenched mess whenever I arrive.
The lab is super chill. Everyone there is like one big happy family. It seems like the lab members spend a majority of their time in there and many resort to taking naps on the beanbag chairs (or on the ground in the picture below). There is even a futon in the back for people who want to stay over (due to missing the last train or pulling an all nighter). Like I said in the previous post, there is a large fridge filled with drinks and snacks, and they are all available to anyone for a very cheap price. I thought that the work environment here would be very stressful, but so far all the people I’ve met have been very laid back and sociable. My project itself has been coming along well, and I will post some videos below of what I have done so far.
One thing I’ve noticed is that this school lacks a well-equipped gym. The only gym on this campus (Suita Campus) is this tiny, tiny corner inside the large gymnasium. The equipment is extremely worn out and many of the things are even broken. It’s quite sad since I enjoy lifting weights and it seems that it will be hard for me to do so during my stay here. I’ve heard that there are things called public gyms here where you pay a small fee to use, so maybe I will look into those.
(Insert gym video here)
Michael Tang 