Bye Bye
After months of anticipation, moments of sheer panic, and more stress than I’d like to admit, the time had finally come—time to say goodbye. My last three weeks in Belgium were a whirlwind of activity. Between hitting the books for some serious studying and crisscrossing the country to bid farewell to friends and family.
Lift-off & Hello Fukuoka
Departureday has finally arrived. Timely departure to the airport with ははとちちとあね, a long journey awaits! After the last goodbyes, the walk through security (why is that always somewhat stressfull?) and away I am!!
A short 26 hours later I arrive at Fukuoka, slightly tired and hoping to get some sleep.
First issue arrises: my driver is nowhere to be seen, I have no reception on my phone and even at the airport the facts remain the same: english is far from common knowledge among the Japanese population and my Japanese… well let’s just say that there is a reason why I came to Japan to study it.
So, after about an hour I manage to find a payphone (the only one at the airport) and use the coins I saved from my last trip to call the mobile number of the taxi-company.
First call, no answer. Second call, better luck, at least for the answering part. The person at the other end of the line does not understand english. In my broken Japanese I try to make it clear who I am, that I am a student at GenkiJACS and there was supposed to be a driver waiting for me, alas, my Japanese is clearly just as bad as their english. But lucky for me, I do understand enough japanese to understand that he’s giving me an alternative number to call. I thank him and call the new number (lets call this one PN2, just for giggles). So I call PN2 and unfortunately PN2 does not understand english either. Again, I understand enough that PN2 is giving me a new number, third time is the charm right?! So PN2 gives me PN3 and I make the call.
I call PN3, start explaining but double check before going to far: “sumimasen, eiga o wakarimasuka?” The silence at the other end of the call told me enough, third time is not the charm. But the man at the other end is, like the others willing to help by offering me a number in Japanese. PN4 you would say right? Wrong! I got back to square one, PN1 the original number I called to begin with. This was mute anyway since by now, I had run out of coins.
So Sit Rep: No driver, no active SIM-card yet, 2 heavy luggages, a backpack that is overweight of about 2 kg of the allowed 8, and I would guess that in a radius of about 300m I would more easily find a lost winning lottery ticket than a person who could understand me (even with the help of a translation App, which by the way do not work if not connected to the internet…) . どうしよかな。
Considering just taking the airport bus or train and then walk, my tired brain finally showed some activity:
There is free WiFi and I do have to Japanese friends who DO speak english.
Why don’t I call THEM, explain the situation in detail (where I’m at, what happend, my exact location and what I look like) and ask them to call to the Taxi service to pass on the message. I connect to the WiFi (takes a while), call ユウsan, start explaining and midway through my explanation, the driver shows up… typical. This after about 3 hours since I landed!
Standing before me now is my driver. A man with a very kind smile and a dignified appearance, but oh so brittle, looking more near his 80’s than his 70’s, ready to bring me to my hotel. I decline his offer to lift one of my suitcases, I could already hear both of his knees, a femur and a collarbone snap by imagining him carrying the lighter of the two. A New Hope (No Star Wars infringement intented) for a bed gives me new energy so away we go!
….
He did park quite far from the airport to be honest…
Introduction and first classes
My first days here were used to get my keys, unpack and buy the things I was unable to bring with me. After that; explore the city and most importantly: find the best way to the school. FYI: there is none…. I live 5 minutes from the school and that’s on a slow day. 10 if I make a detour to get my favourite coffee.
So now: First class.
Difficult to go into detail of the curriculum, but to keep it short: I absolutely love it here!! All of the せんせい are so kind, energetic and helpful. The staff of Genki is always ready to help you with everything and they prepare so much of the paperwork we need to get done here, they really deserve to be mentioned here explicitly!
I have the advantage that I’ve studied before coming to Japan, so I already knew some of the most basic of basic thing of Japanese.
Although we are going at quite a slow pace, I’m sure that at one point I will be caught up by new grammar, vocabulary and KANJI and will have to work twice as hard as I am now. We get しゅくだい every day (homework), to be handed in by the next morning.
So, being a いいがくせい (good student), I make it as soon as possible, and then study either the curriculum or try to keep my head start by studying new vocabulary and Kanji. べんきょうしましょう!
ともだち and studybuddies
There has been time to get to know some people ofcourse and find ともだち (friends) and studybuddies (or combined).
Among others I found a studybuddy, ともだち and coffeebuddy all in one!
So: コーヒーをのみましょうそして、日本後をべんきょうしましょう。
Other things
Although I do study quite a lot, I also do get out. I have not ventured very far yet and have not done enough cultural things to my liking, I have been socially invested.
I attend most of the evening organised by either Genki or Journeys (a english language school in the same building), in order to improve my japanese and help other improve their english. For Journeys I already attended a class where I was “special guest” and they interviewed me in order to practice their english. It was great fun and I gave my name up for other classes of assistance if needed.
Yet, there is one regret…
Yes, I do have a regret. Sorry to end this in a downer dear reader (If you’ve made it this far, thank you!). I regret not signing up for the 18 months course from the start. I’m having so much fun learning Japanese, I’m eager to learn more, but I’m also afraid. The days and weeks are flying and I’m already fearing the goodbye. I might have a chance to prolong my stay here, but that is uncertain, so please: all fingers crossed, candles burning and any other superstitious things you can think of! Because now, more than ever, I’m hoping on making this a more permanent home for me and my future. Here, I do really feel … Happy…
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