13 november 2013
After about 1 ½ month living in Japan, routines are starting to form. I could actually say that I really have the feeling of living here for real now. Even though my friends and I are doing different things, each weekend, my weekdays are looking kind of the same each day.
So today, I’m going to tell you about the typical day routine for me during the weekdays!
Monday 10:00 o’clock.Since I’m taking the evening classes my first lesson begins at 13:00. It’s really comfortable to begin by that time, because then I can sleep. やった！(= yay)
Well, since I’m really lazy, even though my alarm rings at 10:00 o’clock, I’m always snoozing to 10:30 (If I’m not taking a shower, to 11:00). In the house, all guys are sharing one shower, so you are kind of lucky if the shower is not occupied. (The girls share 3 showers…) But I found out that, if I’m up at 10:30, the shower is never occupied, so usually it’s free.
After my shower, it’s time for breakfast or rather lunch. To this date, I’m actually eating the same type of breakfast each day, 2 pieces of bread, 2 bowls of Choco pops with milk and 1 cup of express coffee which taste like crap, but I haven’t found any good Japanese good coffee yet, so the easiest way is just to take hot water from a water boiler, that always have hot water in it, and it’ll be finished in seconds. 笑.
At 12 o’clock,
Fredrik and I take our path to school. Fredrik is another Swedish guy who lives in the guest house and is also attending to ISI language school but not in the same class as me. We walk the road to the Nishi Kawaguchi station, which lies about a 10 minute walk from our house. At the station we are taking our first train that’s taking us towards our school.
Fredrik and I take our path to school. Fredrik is another Swedish guy who lives in the guest house and is also attending to ISI language school but not in the same class as me. We walk the road to the Nishi Kawaguchi station, which lies about a 10 minute walk from our house. At the station we are taking our first train that’s taking us towards our school.
As a little side note about Japanese trains, (I’m not going deeply in to this, but I will have a post later where I’m talking more about the Japanese train life) but during our way to school even though there aren’t many people that has things to do, the trains are always full and you are lucky if you can have seat.To get to the school we change trains 2 times, in a place called “Akabane (赤羽) and Ikebukuro (池袋)”, and after a trip of about 45 minutes from door to door, we finally arrive at our school!
13:00 rings the school bell,
and class begins. Each morning, our first class, begins with Kanji training. Kanji is the Chinese alphabet that Japanese people also use. It’s not 100 accurate with the Chinese syllabary but to be able to read a Japanese newspaper they say that you’ll need to learn about 1000, compared to the Chinese newspaper where you need around 3 000 signs.
and class begins. Each morning, our first class, begins with Kanji training. Kanji is the Chinese alphabet that Japanese people also use. It’s not 100 accurate with the Chinese syllabary but to be able to read a Japanese newspaper they say that you’ll need to learn about 1000, compared to the Chinese newspaper where you need around 3 000 signs.
The Chinese characters are really beautiful and I really like writing them, but I’m quite certain that I will change my mind about that in the soon future. We are going to learn about 500 kanji’s this year, and Fredrik have told me that he really hates kanji studies because they are really difficult to remember. Each kanji has different type of pronunciation, and they change their pronunciation depending on what’s coming up after them. (Ex: 人 can be pronounced hito, jin and nin)After the kanji training we are working in our Japanese education book, which is really outdated and the sentences are really boring. But hey, what to do! Usually we laugh about them in class, so they’ll become funny anyway. My favorite to date is “そのスプーンはすてきですね”, sono supu-n ha suteki desune, which roughly translates into: ”That spoon is wonderful, isn’t it?”.
Of course we are not only working in the text book, but we are also doing a lot of speaking exercises and different types of games. The teachers are really good, so it’s seldom boring! :)
My time in school finishes at 16:50
each day. I’m meeting up with Fredrik outside school, and we are walking towards the station. By this time, it’s not really super nice to be at the train station, it’s always plenty of people, and the trains are always full. You have to squeeze, to be able to fit. I really mean it. Squeezing is what you are doing.
each day. I’m meeting up with Fredrik outside school, and we are walking towards the station. By this time, it’s not really super nice to be at the train station, it’s always plenty of people, and the trains are always full. You have to squeeze, to be able to fit. I really mean it. Squeezing is what you are doing.
Arriving at Nishi Kawaguchi after the 2 train changes, we are always taking a drive by at 7-eleven to buy a snack. Since we are not eating any type of food in school, we are always really hungry by this time, so a karagebo (fried chicken) (からあげぼ) or a pizzaman (small calzone-likey thingy) (ピザまん) for 100Y ~ 6kr, 1$ or 0,75€ is a quite reasonable price! 18:00 かえります！
At ~18:00 we arrive home. After a day in a language school, I’m always so exhausted of all the thinking you need to do. So I’m usually sitting down in the living room complaining つかれった, ねむい or はなれった. (Tsukaretta, nemui or hanaretta), Meaning, exhausted, tired and hungry. Afterwards I’m preparing food, which almost every time consists of rice.
At ~18:00 we arrive home. After a day in a language school, I’m always so exhausted of all the thinking you need to do. So I’m usually sitting down in the living room complaining つかれった, ねむい or はなれった. (Tsukaretta, nemui or hanaretta), Meaning, exhausted, tired and hungry. Afterwards I’m preparing food, which almost every time consists of rice.
This is a typical Japanese easy-to-prepare dish called “カーレ” (Ka-re). You place the rice in the rice bowler, and then this vacuum folded bag in boiling water. It’s fast, easy and taste good! The rest of the time I have left, I’m usually studying, preparing for next day in school, so I will understand the lesson better. And after the studying I’m usually taking my time with my beloved computer, either watching Anime or a film, playing games. If my food stock is empty, my housemates and I, usually go to the supermarket. (The japanese supermarket is also something that is really funny about japan, that I will write about in the future)
午後二時, (= 02:00 am)
At 02:00 my day ends and I go to bed. Usually, I read a book but sometimes I’m too tired to do anything, so I just fall asleep.
Tuseday 10:00 my alarm clock rings.
Just a little note, in the future I think I'll be writing in a more like "Diary form", or at least have those posts. I will be naming them "Diary - x/x", then you know what you'll get.
Untill next time!
