Goodbye 2017!
It’s been unbelievably fun here in Japan ever since I arrived in September. At first it was a little difficult to adjust to everything, and I’m still sad that fruit is so expensive to buy… But thanks to everyone living here at Utano International House, my time here has only gotten better! To start December off, I spent a weekend in Tokyo with some friends, while also meeting up with a fellow University of Alabama...
Autumn Foliage Viewing
As the season has changed from summer to fall, there are a lot more tourists in Kyoto. According to my Japanese teacher, they come to visit many of the temples and shrines that Kyoto has to offer. But also to see the ‘紅葉’, or Autumn leaves. At first I was skeptical of just how many people would be here to see the fall foliage, but it turned out to be a lot more than I expected. Every day, the bus has been packed with...
The First Month
After the first week of coming to Japan, everything became a whir of trying to orientate myself here. There was a lot of paperwork we had to do for both the university and for Japan, not to mention I had to buy more groceries and the store near the bottom of the hill! Still, between all of the work, there was a lot of time to go exploring with everyone. One of the places that we went to was “金閣寺,” or...
Getting to Kyoto from Miami
It’s a little difficult to explain what it’s like to leave the country for a year. At first, you can’t be more excited for it, but then the reality starts to sink in. Suddenly, you’re looking at your wallet wondering how you’re going to survive on more than pasta and rice. That’s about how it felt when I was in the airport in Miami. Though, having stayed up all night unable to sleep, I also just...
A Not so Difficult Decision
Since I left Germany after a two week vacation in high school, my goal has always been to go back, but I did not know how. The opportunity presented itself with the Two Steps Ahead program at UA. The expectations were lofty: become a fluent German speaker inside of two years, take some of my hardest electrical engineering courses at a top German university in German, then cap it all off with six months at Daimler. I always wanted to...
Not my plan, but whatever.
Going to a new place always means meeting new people. That probably is the most fluttering, yet terrifying aspect of going to a new place. I did not expect any of this because I did not intend on starting a new relationship. It started with an email I got from my roommate. First, it was my first time living in a dorm so I was not sure if emailing your roommate was a tradition in a dorm-life. Second, it was Korea, my native country. I...