Long time no blog

Hi people, Sorry I`ve not been posting lately but I moved into my new halls here and instead of finding a neon drenched technological marvel I am now living in something that looks distinctly like it was salvaged from the old East Germany... So much for that stereotype of Japan. Anyway, the bottom line is that there is no internet access there and we only just got our university internet accounts.

So, the a brief summary of the last 2 weeks.

The faculty orientation! They started this out in Japanese, then ran off and found an english translator to repeat everything in English. Then, about half way through the Japanese speaker, who also spoke English, apparently decided she couldn`t be bothered with the Japanese anymore and just switched completely to English ( a bit unfair on the Koreans/Vietnamese/Chinese I thought). The weird thing was the original English translator didn`t seem to bother with this and just kept repeating what had already been said in English again... Oh, and despite being a physicist I`m now in the 国際文化学部 or Faculty of Intercultural Studies...

We then had another orientation for the International Student Center a few days later where we got our cups for our urine samples which we hand in on Friday (not a joke), as well as a long spiel about drug use in Japan ("Don`t do it kids!"), or as the English translation said: "If you do MDMA you will rob your friends and then suicide"... Other words of wisdom included "Since you`re all from tropical countries you may find the Japanese weather a bit cold". The Japanese have also been complaining about it getting colder now. Let me explain what they mean by this. It has gotten cooler in the past week or so compared to when I got here. It`s gone from about 35C down to a decidedly frosty 24C...

Oh, and the Kobe University vice chancellor made a nicely slurred speech at the end of our welcome party... love to see that in the UK.

I met my supervisor as well. I`d had a rather terrifying experience with Japanese teachers the day before, when I decided I`d ease myself into Japanese education with a "German Seminar", which unfortunately for me involved 50 mins of solid Japanese chatting by the lecturer who now and again waved the Frankfurter Allgemeine and said "Journalismus" once or twice. Given I was both the only foreign student and the only boy in the class of 7 he also wanted to chat to me loads, so I just had to sit there quivering and sqeeking back in the politest Japanese I could think of (I may have slighly overdone it given some of the giggles from the other students). Anyway, I was expecting the same sort of thing when I went to Hiroki sensei`s office. Instead, I walk in and see a massive picture of Henrik Larsson from his Celtic days and he shouts (In English) "Hey, how are you? sit down! have some beer!" This is followed by Hiroki-Sensei calling pretty much everyone left in the building into his office for beer and later vodka (I got a wine glass of straight vodka, and It`s rude to refuse a drink in Japan...) and then we all randomly go out to an Izakaya (a sort of Japanese Tapas bar I suppose) for food and Sake which my supervisor pays for... Not quite what I was expecting...

Oh, and we had a typhoon, which was heading straight for us but at the last minute missed the Kobe/Osaka area entirely and trashed Nagoya instead. Sux to be them.