The first days

Yes I should have giving this title more thought, because eventhough it sums up the coming content very well, is it very poor. Excuse me I am still experiencing jetlag.
It could have been worse, last time going to Japan and leaving from Japan I was experiencing heavy migraines and was feeling sick to the bone.

This time around I had a very funny, slightly crazy british guy living in Kyoto next to me on the plane who amused me greatly.
We talked and talked and talked even to the point we were laughing at the stupidest things just because we were sooo tired.
We said our goodbye at the passport entry part of the airport, where he could just walk on and I had to get my so called 'aliencard'. Yes that is really the name of the thing and it is a bit what I feel like. Last time Japan I truly felt like a tourist but now being a semi-resident with my aliencard and all I have to interact and get things arranged, it is very different.
Luckily for me the thing I didn't have to do was to arrange my transportation to the dorm I will be living in the coming 4 months. Seika University (from now on Seika) arrange a shuttle bus for me who, after a looong drive, dropped my right off infront of the dorm. There I was greeted by Otoo-san and Okaa-san, which basically means Dad and Mom. Otoo-san(father) and Okaa-san(mother) are the supervisors of the dorm and it's exchange students. They are two feisty 60-something people with big hearts. I was so jet lagged I couldn't speak a word Japanese anymore, but as I found out later on I am one of the few people there who speak it the less anyway so it doesn't matter haha.
Most people who are studying here have lived here for a few years or have been taking Japanese lessons for a long time.
Sitting there among them made me feel lost. I can perfectly follow their conversation, I know alot of Japanese words, but putting them in usable sentences is something I am terribly bad at, still! Because as of next week I will be getting one on one Japanese classes in which the teacher will work on the aspect of Japanese you lack, which for me in building grammatical good sentences.

Infront of the dorm.

The surrounding of the dorm.

After arriving, getting fresh up a bit and walking around to explore for a bit and get some food I went back, still in my jetlag state and took a 2 hour nap. When I woke up I didn't feel well mentally. I felt like I made a mistake coming here not being efficient enough in the Japanese language, with a jetlag and not feeling like I wanted to socialize with all the people downstairs.
Don't worry, I am totally fine now, it is just the jetag that got me down.
With stones in my shoes I went down any way only to find out how absolutely friendly and kind everyone is. They made different kinds of chinese, korean and Japanese dishes which they shared with my. This made me feel alot better. I drank a beer, eventhough I am not a drinker, to help me sleep... or so I thought.
I feel asleep at 11 pm and was wide awake at.... 3am! ugh. Luckly I had bought my favorite Japanese snack during the day, Hokkaido cheesecake. A very soft, sweet and fluffy cheesecake with the shape of the island of Hokkaido on the top.

Hokkaido cheesecake in bed. Yum!

When I finally dozed off again after the delicious treat I woke up at 10:45!! eventhough I had set the alarm I think I must have turned it off in my sleep.

I showered in the very clean and spacious shared bathrooms and got downstairs it was deserted. Everyone was out and I was eating breakfast alone, very peaceful.

But I had things I wanted to do like buy my own Japanese style slippers, which you change into when you come in the house so the floors won't get dirty from the shoes you wear outside.
I hopped one the train, which takes about 15 min to get to a side part of the city. I crossed the Kamo river, famous and loved for being a great spot of cherry blossom viewing and cooling off during the hot summers.

kamo river, the hills in the back is where my dorm is.

I wandered randomly in the direction of a temple. Very pretty but I can't get excited for the most temples you come across in Kyoto. It must sound spoiled but once you have seen some you have seen most. Only the extraordinary ones I find worth visiting and being thoroughly impressed by.
When I painstakingly got into the center of the city (my little toe got a blister on it) I made sure to do everything I had to do and buy everything I had to before I left again.
I remembered from 4 years ago where there was a 100 Yen shop, a shop where everything is, well, 100 yen. Which is basically 0.80 euro cents or so. I bought things like a big desk mirror, cute pink slippers, plates and bowls for food and an internet connection cable and EVERY item was 100 yen and the quality of the items are like you would buy something in a more expensive shop like the dutch Hema.

When I got back to the dorm new people had arrived. One of which is a Swedish girl who actually lives in The Netherlands aswell. She has been living in Amsterdam for 2 years now and that formed a connection. She just came to Japan on impulse and speaks zero Japanese, which made me... happy because now I was not alone in being the underdog :) Later more people arrived with my level of language skill, so it's no big issue after all. There is also a Dutch guy who is also from the HKU but he is from the location in Hilversum, it's actually nice to speak some Dutch inbetween the English and Japanese.

Today I had a tour around the university and went into the city with all the other exchange students and tomorrow I will have my Japanese language skill test. Exciting! But I will be writing about that tomorrow or during the weekend.
I'm suuuper tired right now from all the walking, so time for my nightly nap.

If you have any comment, questions or want me to take pictures of certain things, you can leave them in the comments below. Looking forward to reading them!

Mata ne!