Thursday 20 March 2014

back from tokyo & the big mountain!

Aaaand spring is almost there!
Here in Germany since a while and slowly in Japan too. (I get so pissed off when Japanese people talk about weather though haha!)
I meant to update more, right? But somehow everything got so めちゃくちゃ right before I left to Japan, I don't even remember what I was doing. Then once I was in Japan I wanted to do so many things and party everyday but I ended up doing much less than planned and doing very different things.

First of all. I have been accepted to this program at a Japanese (girls) University for 10 days for which I received a scholarship. I won't put up any names here, don't want do get any bad reputation and I really have a lot to rant about haha.
So why am I back from Tokyo and 'the big mountain' you wonder? The station where the dorm was located was called that way in Japanese and it was just this tiny little terribly cold, old lonely place. My first impression was that I, coming from a 10 days stay at a hotel in Ikebukuro (close to the central station), was too spoiled to get used to that kind of dorm where I did not have even an own shower. But I was so tired every damn day and this Japanese schedule and way of making tours just tired me out so damn much and I was so damn angry everyday because they did not give us enough time to sleep or eat, some days I was literally fearing I would hurt someone.
No, seriously though, the dorm was even worse than probably an usual prison room! No internet and no private shower, constant cold and if you go out or inside of the building at 1am to 5am an alarm will go off. Hell yeah, you read that right. Sort of like a prison!


This was my room when I already packed up everything and wanted to leave. They took away my futon and covers at 9am in the morning on the day I was leaving even though I just came home at 6am (TT)

Okay, I have gotten over this experience because the other German girl who I was doing the presentation with was with me and tried to calm me a lot of times. Because of our insanely long schedule (some days from 9:30am till 8:30pm!) we were constantly brain dead. When writing our review and filling in the survey for the scholarship, we were already falling asleep on the keyboard (we had to use the computers in the common area of the dorm, great deal haha /sarcasm).

My friend was filling in the survey thing for me... originally I told herto write 'Because of my financial situation' but she just happened to accidently smash random buttons and it turned to 'mz ¥¥' hahah we were laughing our asses off.
Then we kept being more silly because I had talked about how I wanted a proper shower and wanted to go to a love hotel just to shower (and I was sure nobody would believe me if I make that propose!) so then I was mentioning how Uguisudani had really cheap love hotels. And my friend said she knew and then the conversation went like
Me: 'Why? Have you been there before?' 
Her: 'Yeah... but not for THAT reason.' 
Me: 'Oh yeah, you mean for just sightseeing? As in, dick sightseeing?'
We laughed for hours and she actually wrote it as the reason why I wanted to come to Japan lol. WHICH IS SORT OF CLOSE TO THE REAL REASON haha. But we deleted that again.


I guess the following picutres do not need much explanation though. They are in cronological order. We/I still went out after the University schedule when we had time which left us very little sleep and caused us to be even more brain-dead during class. But at the same time I wanted to get drunk every night because I just wanted to enjoy myself! We had so little time to enjoy ( ; ; )

First of all: 10 days Ikebukuro stay 
(no photoshop or filters)















I somehow did not take too many pictures and did not go out with too many people then! Huh.

following 10 days stay at the University dorm
(mostly no filters or photoshop)








Hibiya Park (3.11. Memorial Day)








You can't imagine how much fun I had at those swings! They were much easier to use than German ones haha. Damn after all the work out we did over there my legs were constantly hurting haha.






Ikebukuro at night











Dorm area at night... look at that hole! 
That is not your usual 'watch your step' hole between the train and the platform.


 Ehem... some crazy stuff! Including a trip to a shrine at midnight.







On the way back home to the mountain after clubbing!
(My friend called it retard-mountain and retard-train line haha ... then she was like 'Take picture of me next to the retard- train line!' and then I wanted to have on like that too hahaha)




 Messy post (TT) But my actual stay was pretty messy so this sums up everything pretty well. When I was in the dorm and in the University I absolutely did not realize I was in Tokyo.

I still cannot say I am disappointed or anything. It was worth the experience and of course life is not just about having fun. But because of this I once again know what I want and what I do not want. I do not want to study at a Japanese University where I come out more brain-dead than before graduation because they do not seem to learn anything.
The classes consisted really just of saying your opinion and asking questions (and if no one had a question, they picked someone random to say something!) but how can you say your opinion if you did not read into the topic at all? Also the students did not seem to learn how to properly gather information, at least none of them seemed like they really knew how to write and present on an academic standard... as a result of a presentation where you describe the current situation/problem in the world just saying your opinion is a NO-GO in Germany! That is not (!) a result.

Ah well. It was worth that experience. I am glad I am studying in Germany and actually have some sort of standard and don't go living my life like a brain-dead zombie. Sorry Japan, but that part of the education you are getting wrong. And even though I knew Japan's education system was messed up, experiencing it in real life was a really big shock the first days. People constanly asked me to say my opinion towards that topic but if I did not have the chance to read anything about it yet, what sort of opinion can I give you?! And yeah, I just thought to myself constantly that loose lips sink ships so I better shut up about everything I wanted to say into their face, about how unprofessional they were and that what they were doing was not going into the direction of proper eduation at all. And I just kept my opinion (about everything) to myself. All I did was sometimes explain the situation in Germany and that is it. I am not going to sink onto an unprofessional level saying my opinion that has nothing to do with the topic.

I could rant about this forever. Nobody seems to knows anything, or at least they cannot give a proof or some proper quotes or anything like that. Probably that is why a lot of people in Japan do not seem to know anything 100% for sure. Everything is so vague. Maybe that is a bit of a new culture shock but oh well. I guess I can live with it. Just thank god I was not brain-washed into this education. Thank god I am studying at a proper University.

So thank you for reading all my rant haha. I think I got to know a different side of Japan (probably the one that should actually be called the dark side!) and I have personally grown with it so I am glad I could gather this kind of experience. I hope everyone else also has the chance to experience different sides of Japan.

2 comments:

  1. It's too bad you had a bad experience with the university :( but at least you experienced it and now you know it's not for you! and you still got to spend some time in Japan ^^ I really love your green coat!! So it's cute and looks so comfortable! Did you buy it in Japan? I think I saw a similar one when I was in Harajuku, is that where you got it? I should have purchased it T__T;;

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    1. Yes exactly haha. Thankfully I do not have to do this sort of thing again but it might still look good in my CV~
      Thank you, I like that green coat a lot too! I bought it in Shibuya at Ghost of Harlem, but they seem to have a store in Harajuku, too, so maybe it is the one you saw? But on the downside, that coat is not as warm as you expect it to be haha (just usual sort of warm... could be warmer, if there's snow!). But hey, I am sure they are going to have pretty cool coats next year again. And I might sell this one before I go to Japan the next time haha.

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