Hello Kulturschock! (25.-27.03.)

Frankfurt provided perfect starting conditions on the weekend of March 24th and 25th, beautiful weather, a nice hotel stay that my friend and I had planned as a conclusion, and no major delays. After my classmate and I found our gate, we had some time left and chatted until it was time to board.

I had never flown on an A380 before and was pleasantly surprised by the legroom. Soon, the meal was served (noodles, bread rolls, 2 broccoli florets, and a piece of apple pie) and the lights were dimmed. I passed the time with movies, music, and dozing. Asiana's selection of movies was not bad. In the morning, breakfast was served (for me, it was around 2 a.m., but okay, I can always eat). We flew over Seoul and changed to a smaller plane there. To our surprise, there was also a (typical Asian) healthy lunch box with salad, fruit, carrot puree, and a white holey thing that I can't say if it was fruit or vegetable, but it tasted good. This flight only lasted refreshing two and a half hours, and soon we landed in Osaka, where we were greeted by a life-size Super Mario holding a large sign that said 'Welcome to Kansai.' Somehow fitting, but we expected that. We had four more hours to kill before our pick-up service from the university arrived. We passed the time with Harry Potter (we are so grateful for him) and searching for food at the airport, where we encountered plastic food for the first time: all dishes are displayed as plastic replicas in the shop window, so you know exactly what you want and can get it without speaking Japanese, just by pointing. When we were finally picked up, we already met some other exchange students, but we were all pretty exhausted, so it was very quiet on the bus during the one-and-a-half-hour ride to the dormitory.

The student dormitory for international students is the only dormitory at the university where males and females are mixed. Well, if one wants to call it mixed, because the genders are still divided into different floors, and there is actually a line on the floor in the ground floor that separates the genders. Males on the right, females on the left. A bit strict, but well, we knew that. Then our rooms were shown to us. Mine is on the fifth floor and, like most of the 8m2 little huts, has a balcony, which is very pleasant, especially in summer. Finally, we went to sleep ENDLICH. The next day, we met to get breakfast and headed towards the supermarket. The weather at the moment is perfect, and the cherry blossoms started to bloom just as we arrived. The supermarket itself is a classic sensory overload with sounds, helpful salespeople (though they don't help if they don't understand you...), pictures, and cute mascots of radishes (?) or other vegetables. I un-Japanesely got myself some milk and cornflakes to have something practical for breakfast. On the way back to the dormitory, we got lost, but that's part of it, and then we took a lunch break.

Afterwards, we took care of all the paperwork that identifies us as official exchange students. Then we went to the park to relax a bit, and at 6 o'clock, a carillon with a very familiar melody played: Oh Tannenbaum. For whatever reason. After that, we went to the supermarket again to buy dinner and an after-work beer. Even the third time, you still don't get used to butter in a tube, which smiles at you sweetly, and all the plastic. Everything is wrapped in plastic, and I'm still trying to figure out how to tell the lady at the cash register that I don't want a plastic bag for my one item. Because no one felt motivated to cook, we had instant ramen (a type of noodle soup that originally comes from China but has been Japanized). They are slightly better than the German version, and there are countless varieties to choose from. After dinner, we went to the park to have a beer. In the dormitory, you are only allowed to drink in your room, which is very sad because no one from the opposite gender is allowed to visit. So the park across the street is the perfect alternative when the spring temperatures are mild.