Socialising

Once again, it's been a while since the last update, but I think that this is potentially going to be the rate of updates for the foreseeable future. I never really intended this to be a diary of day to day things, more a record of impressions from certain days, in which case things are going quite smoothly.

Yesterday marked the day I finally finished off my health checks. Back in Sheffield, I had to do a preliminary one of these, which wasn't anything particularly special, just a blood test, checking blood pressure and that kind of thing. The only thing I didn't receive was a lung x-ray, which is apparently something required of me if I'm to stay in Japan to study abroad. Nobody has ever explained why. What struck me about this though, was that my memory of the health service in Sheffield consisted of my first appointment being cancelled halfway through because the person conducting it realised they weren't qualified, which meant waiting a week to have a doctor do it, who then proceeded to complain about all the things he was having to do. To top that off, I was charged for the whole procedure, which I'm told I shouldn't have been. However, in Japan, the x-ray, which presumably takes a lot more time an effort than a blood test that the doctor in Sheffield was complaining about, was over and done with in little to no time, and with a doctor who quite happily chuckled the whole time, quite possibly due to a large number of bemused looking transfer students. The difference between the two really stood out to me.

Following that, while I've been to a couple of small shrines in the vicinity of my campus, yesterday we were taken on a class field trip to Yasukuni Shrine. Previously, I only knew of this because of the political unrest it causes whenever a politician visits the shrine, as there are a number of war criminals interred there. Obviously, considering I only knew that, I was surprised by just how grand the shrine turned out to me. The benefit of knowing a small amount of information, you could say. The main thing that caught me by surprise, having only been to small shrines in city, was just how big the Tori gates were. I attempted to get a few photos, but the sheer size of them meant I could never fit the whole gate into shot unless I was some distance away. I was told that there will be some form of festival next week, so I shall be making a return visit.

And then again, yesterday, I went with some friends to an izakaya for a fair few drinks. Thankfully the vast majority of people there were Japanese, and assisted by some Dutch courage, I felt relatively confident with speaking Japanese. It's maybe a bit silly, but I'm consciously aware of how much time I spend with other English speaking students and native Japanese people. I always have the fact that my year abroad is supposed to be to improve my Japanese rather than have a holiday, and events such as this help make me feel it's all worth it if I have fun at the same time.

Finally, having spoken to a very nice teacher at my university, I was asked which sort of clubs I was thinking of joining. At the moment, it's calligraphy, kendo and Ouendan, and she was quite surprised to learn of both of those interests. What surprised me though, was that several hours later in the same day, she found out which class I would be taking so that she could speak to me afterwards, to say that she had spoken to a few people to find out how I could join each of them. Definitely not something I was expecting, but it seems like it would be silly to pass up the oppurtunity to try at least one of them!