❀ It’s Orientation Day ❀

And now, allow Xin Xin to bring you: the first post about Tokyo.

8th September 2017, it’s Orientation Day (aka the day all exchange students have to show up at school).

With the session starting at 12:30pm, I left my house at Machiya around 10:45am so I can slowly make my way to school or in case I get lost through transiting trains and getting from one line to another line.

Despite getting confused with which line to switch on the way, I managed to make it to Mita station; the station where the university is located. It was at the ticket gates that I saw some foreign looking people who look similar of age as me. Fighting my introvert attitude, I went up to them and asked if they were heading to the orientation as well; and since they were, I followed them. That was when I started meeting people who are in the exchange program.

With someone’s help at the station, we came to a road with Tokyo Tower right in front of us at the end of the busy street. 🗼

Tokyo Tower at the end of the lane~

Then on our left, stands an old-looking building wedged between two modern office buildings. And that dear readers, is Keio University; the place that I’ll be spending my 5 months of exchange at. 📖

Keio’s East Building *O*

Since we’re seated based on which university we came from, the people next to me also come from my home university back in Rotterdam. Most of them were doing economics, business or social sciences; but asking around people from other home universities later, majority of them are doing business studies.

For the next 2 hours, it was filling in a registration form, giving us our student IDs, introduction round for staff and later, all of us exchange students. It was during the introduction round that I realised there’s like 10 or 12 of us who come from Erasmus University Rotterdam, and even we ourselves were surprised as someone from the front row turned around and said WHOA HOW MANY OF YOU ARE THERE???

And so, Part 1 of the orientation ends; and will only continue on Monday. So… what now?

Seems to be a waste to just call it a day and head home, so meeting up with the people I met at the train station just now; and since some of them still need to come back for another session, we decided to head nearby to Tokyo Tower.

Passing by Akabanebanshi station and Shibakoen Park, it struck me…

I was here 2 years ago to catch the Tokyo Marathon. :O

It’s already surreal enough that our university is literally next to Tokyo Tower, what makes it even more surreal was that I was around here 2 years ago getting a good spot to watch the marathon around 9 in the morning.

With some of our group who went back for another session, us remaining few decided to hunt for something to eat.

And now, FIRST RAMEN (Not counting cup noodle) IN JAPAN. 🍜

First Ramen in Japan~ 👍

Apart from definitely being a few euros cheaper than Rotterdam (From 10+ euros to around 7 to 8 euros), it was still amazing. The soup is thick, the noodles delicious, there’s decent amount of sides (roast pork, seaweed, bamboo shoots) and I could help myself to as much spring onion or spicy side vegetables whenever I wish. Plus after just one bowl, it became clear that dinner won’t come soon for me. 😀

(from left to right) Sierano, Steven, Madeleine & Isabel

Then 4:30pm came, and meeting up with the others again; we headed for the park near Tokyo Tower again.

We also came across the Zojo-ji temple in the park, which is pretty big and for a temple complex dating from 1622, it’s pretty amazing that it still holds up to this day.

And after seeing Tokyo Tower at sundown; we went our seperate ways, since I live way up north and they all live in the same dorm down south in Yokohama.

So that’s how Part 1 of my Orientation Day went, and I met up with them again the next day for another adventure. Having stepped into the campus for once I’m pretty excited on coming here frequently despite a 45-minute commute to university. Can’t wait for things to start during end of this month.

Tokyo Tower at Night~ 🌃