Orientation

So, orientation began in the evening, when pretty much everyone had arrived and we all met in the lobby with Professor Macdougall. Not much happened that first night. We got restaurant recommendations for the area around the hotel and a schedule for the next day. Our plan was to wander until we found a place that smelled good, as we'd done the previous day and for lunch. We headed towards Nishiki market, but it was closed and with the arrival of more planners, we ended up going to one of the restaurants on the list. Still tasty, though. I had my first Japanese-style pizza, complete with shrimp, asparagus, and mayonnaise, and my first beer in Japan. Believe it or not, Japanese beer tastes like beer, too. It might well have been my last beer in Japan as well. Not totally sure. At any rate, we went back to the hotel after dinner and after playing with the shiny in-room internet a little, I pretty much just passed out in my comfy hotel bed for the first of many times.

The next day we got what seemed at the time like an early start. At 9am, we met in the lobby and by 9:15 headed out for some exploration on our way to the university. We passed a women's study center with a gym, the Kyoto Museum, and one other building of some significance that escapes my memory at the moment, then headed down into the subway to get out first look at the university.

Like many places in Kyoto, Doshisha's Imadegawa campus is green, beautiful, and a sharp contrast to any normal cityscape. Like most of such places around the city, the illusion is preserved by a wall. When we came out of the subway, we were on a fairly standard-looking city block. Once we walked through the gate of Doshisha, we were on a broad pedestrian street lined with trees on either side. One feature that escaped my attention at first, but was later pointed out to me was the church prominently featured. To an American or European, this is unremarkable, of course, but in Japan it's quite unusual. Since first noticing it, I've walked by a couple wedding ceremonies taking place outside. I'm told that the church is popular for weddings, being one of the more scenic Christian churches in the area.

At any rate, after a quick walk across campus, we went into Kofukukan(?), a building we've only ever used that one time, and began our orientation meetings. First, we were introduced to the (amazing) center staff, who are employed all year, as far as we know, to make our 3-6 months in Japan go smoothly, and are incredibly good at it. Next, we all went around and gave short introductions of ourselves. We were warned, perhaps not entirely truthfully, that this would be the last time we were permitted to give our introductions in English. Next, we were given information packets and speeches on various logistical things that were interesting and relevant at the time, but would be painfully boring to go into here.

After that, we were released to "find lunch on our own," but all went to the cafeteria in the basement of Meitokukan, where all of our classes and meetings would take place starting the following day. Unable to resist, I tried the school's katsu-don and found it almost as good as the first one. Definitely a dish to return to many times. Afterwards, we did a little wandering around campus and then headed back for more meetings, this time on the various expeditions available around Kyoto. Again, I won't go into the details -- saving that for posts on the particular adventures I get out on.

Finally, we mobbed up at subway'ed it to Higashi-yama, where we had our first of many field trips, this one interspersed with very brief, jetlag-sensitive lectures from Professor Langner-Teramoto, who teaches the architecture class. We took a break-neck tour through Nanzenji, one of the famous temples in the area, spent half an hour at the traditional craft museum down the road, briefly visited the Heian Shrine across from that, and were released.

Professors Macdougall and Langner led the way back to the center of the city, but wanting to do some more wandering, I broke off with a group of like-minded people to the Philosopher's Path. Of all the places I'd heard of in Kyoto before arriving, the Philosopher's Path had been recommended by the most people. While the path is beautiful in any season, it's also a prime location for hanami (cherry-blossom viewing), and we were fortunate enough to arrive while the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. We enjoyed a leisurely walk along the path, not only for the flowers and scenery, but because we got the chance to see Japanese people doing the same. Tea houses and snack bars were open, and there was even a woman selling sakura ice cream from the back of a bicycle. Incidentally, sakura ice cream is delicious. Also tried takoyaki (squid balls) for the first time. Tasty, but not as good as the ice cream.

At the end of the path, we arrived at Ginkaku-ji. Unfortunately, we'd spend too long enjoying the cherry blossoms and the temple closed before we got there. So we headed down, looking for dinner. Ended up breaking into two groups because of the apparent sketchiness of the restaurant we'd chosen. Dinner was yakiniku, basically meat on sticks, and nigiri, or rice balls. More firsts -- chicken heart and chicken skin were on the menu, so of course we tried them. Also got more conventional things like thigh and beef. Everything was good, and afterwards we hopped on a bus, though not with quite such ease as that implies, and crashed again back at the hotel.

The second day of orientation had less exploration and more logistics. We got information on extracurriculars, academics, and computers. The first two, you'll hear about later. The last one... if you're actually interested, feel free to ask, but apart from assorted complaints there's not much to say. At any rate, after the computer orientation, I went with a pair of volunteers from Doshisha Exchange Student Association and one other Stanford student to the Ukyo-ku ward office to apply for my alien registration card. This process seems to be a common source of complaint among gaijin (foreigners), but it actually went really smoothly. The line for residents was much longer -- they have to register, too, by the way, so it's not entirely a form of discrimination. Also, works much better than the equivalent system in Ukraine/Russia, which is powered by bribery, rather than paperwork.

Because the line was so short, we got back early. We spent some time talking with the student volunteers who took us in the hybrid Japanese-English speech that I'm much more used to now than I was at the time. After waiting around for a while, there was a welcome party for us, with all of the DESA members and the Japanese auditors who would be in our classes. It was fun -- got to know a few of the people, though between noise and limited language skills, our conversations stayed in pretty simple territory. By that point, though, I was exhausted, so when people started heading out for karaoke, I had the wonderful excuse of wanting to go to bed. Which I did. Promptly.

The last day of orientation started early, with baggage drop-off in the hotel lobby. I'd repacked the previous night so that both of my (non-rolling) suitcases could get sent ahead and I'd just have to lug around my backpack. Brought them both down to the lobby, where they were labeled and handed over to the takyubin people again. After breakfast, we all headed over to Doshisha one last time before the end of orientation. The day began with our homestay orientation, partly consisting of the staff going over some ground rules and asking us to come to them with any problems we might have, but mostly of a mini-lesson from the Japanese teachers. In addition to reminding one last time of the new politeness rituals we were going to need -- ittekimasu/itterasshai, tadaima/okaeri, itadakimasu/gochisoosama, and osaki ni shitsurei/omatatase -- we got a quick introduction to Kansai-ben, the local accent that many of our host families speak. Apparently associated heavily with comedians, due to Osaka's abundance, thereof, the only parts of the lecture that I really understood were the non-standard negative (wakarahen for wakaranai) and a few words like "nikaisei" for "ninensei" and I think "umai" for "oishii," though that might just be a standard word that I've only learned from Kansai-ben speakers.

After the last meeting, we went for a quick tour around campus with another set of DESA students. By this point, we'd seen a lot of the locations on the tour, but we did get shown the way to Shinmachi campus, a few blocks away, where a lot of the student clubs seem to meet and where there is a second cafeteria. Afterwards, we all gathered in a classroom, were given a quick statement of encouragement from the staff, and then were pulled out one by one to be introduced to and leave with our host families.