Umeda and Orientation

Umeda 「梅田」, one of the city centers of osaka-city. Three of the city’s largest department stores can be found in this area. I visited this part of the city last Sunday afternoon. It’s really big and busy in comparison with cities in Holland. Like the zebra crossings flooded with Japanese people, maybe you’ve seen it on tv. Well I’ve seen it in real life now and even walked with the crowd. Suita is nothing in comparison with centers like Umeda. Arcade halls, pachinko halls, night clubs, karaoke rooms and much more can be found in Umeda. I’ve seen none in Suita yet, at least the part of Suita where I’m living. Umeda is a mixture of big roads and tiny streets, giant department stores and small shops. It’s really cool to walk there. I’ve been here just one afternoon and didn’t really visit any shop. The area is just too large to explore in a few hours.
Of course I’m going to visit Umeda more often and also the other city center of Osaka-city, Namba. Denden-town is located in or near Namba. Denden comes from denki 「電気」, which means electricity. Here are only shops with all kinds of electronic goods and gadgets, a place I really would like to visit.
Pictures of Umeda can be found at Flickr.

阪大 orientation

The last few days at the university were merely orientation lessons to learn about the university, the campuses, how to use the computers, library and so on. We met the organisators of OUSSEP, who are all very kind. Kondo-sensei already called me Mr. 195 because of my length and now he also remembered my name the next few times I met him, so I do get attention with my height :P.
After the campus tour at Toyonaka campus, we had a short “afterparty” with the people from the BSP-program (Brothers and Sisters Program if I remember correctly). They are a group of Japanese students who volunteer helping foreign students.
When everyone left, I and about 4–5 other friends stayed in the room to talk with these students, just to get them to know better. The others who left didn’t pay attention at the tour either, so I guess they just didn’t care.
We talked Japanese/English with these people. Both the Japanese students and we (the foreign students) felt more and more comfortable after awhile, which is really cool because I really want to take all opportunities to communicate with natives to learn more Japanese and about the Japanese culture, this can only improve it

The next few days

Tomorrow there’s a tour at the Suita campus, after that my bank account will finally be opened. I’ll get the first scholarship payment at about October 15th, so I have to survive till then. But I do have a bike now, a very small one, it was just 25 euros or actually 5 euros when I get the deposit money back. It sure does degrees the transportation costs.
Friday is the day I’ll meet my host family. Friday is also the day of the opening ceremony. After that, the real courses will start.

The last thing I want to say is that I’ve an account for the university computers now, so I can finally send emails and browse the internet like it should be. I’ll probably categorize my photos on Flickr next week. I don’t know when I will get an internet connection on the dormitory, it also depends on my neighbours, because it’s much cheaper to share a connection.