[Japan 2015] A day in my life in Sendai

Yeah so this blog post is way overdue, but better late than never right? If you watched (or most likely didn’t watch) the video it’s “A day in the life” video of me in Sendai, but more like two days. I'll spare you the nausea that comes from shaky phone camera footage and cover the places that I frequented most often.

Monday/Thursdays:

On Mondays and Thursday I had Japanese classes in the morning, I think class started around 8:30am so I needed to leave from my dorm at 8am to get to Kawauchi Campus on time.

The aforementioned Kawauchi Campus.

On the left if you zoom in with your eyes you’ll see building C which was attached by a walkway to building B which is where we had our bi-weekly Japanese lessons. I’m pretty sure that this class went twice the pace as my class at Wellesley did. We covered an entire textbook in a semester rather than the two it took at Wellesley.

Fallen bikes on the Kawauchi Campus.

Japan’s pretty big on bikes, whether it’s the human powered kind or the motor powered kind. I remember one particularly windy day when I was walking back to my bike, all the bikes in this particular parking lot were toppled like dominos.

My study away program was the “Junior Year Program in Engineering” which basically meant that we got to do engineering in English while in Japan. Part of the program was to pair you up with a research lab so you can do “research”. I ended up picking an architectural lab (even though I have no background at all in architecture) since their work on earthquake and tsunami reconstruction interested me.

The expectation was that you would go to the lab every single day. So what would happen is after Japanese class I would go get cheap cafeteria ramen (~500 yen) with my friends and then rush to catch the bus up to Aobayama Campus. Aobayama in Japanese means something to the degree of the mountain with green foliage, really poetic I know, but the first time I went there I had no clue that it was actually on a mountain, so what was suppose to be a 15 minute bike ride was a torcherous fight with gravity that ended up with me arriving to the lab meeting late and introducing myself to my lab members  completely drenched in sweat. Needless to say I no longer tried to bike up Aobayama anymore.

Afterwards I would take the campus shuttle to get to the architecture building.

The Department of Architecture and Building Science

It’s a pretty funky looking building, I was told it was designed by a famous architect. It was quite a beautiful building with large windows and cool concrete structures. Unfortunately said famous architect didn’t take in account of the stingy nature of it’s inhabitants. We weren’t allowed to turn on heating for our lab, so in the dead of winter I would put on gloves, wrap my blanket around my jacket, and shiver as I typed on my laptop.

The road to Aobayama from Kawauchi Campus (we’re going the opposite way)

So after working in the lab, usually for about three hours, I would start heading home. If I missed the campus shuttle back down, it usually meant I had to walk down the mountain, which is so much better than walking up the mountain, it doesn't really warrant that much complaining. I would pick my bike up at Kawauchi Campus and then bike back home.

My humble abode.

This is my room, I wasn't really expecting such a bombastic place when I was applying to housing here. I had a balcony and a bathroom that had it's own bathtub. Unfortunately when winter hit I had to keep the curtains closed most of the time since it would get freezing otherwise. On the lower right hand side you'll see a book (which is actually 101 folktales) which currently I'm making an effort to read every night before I go to sleep.

Tuesdays/Fridays:

On tuesdays and fridays I didn't have Japanese class first thing in the morning so I would go to lab first thing in the morning instead. Luckily the University had a shuttle from the dorms to Aobayama Campus (which they were canceling the semester after I left). There would be a long line starting from 20 minutes before the busses came of people trying to get luck and grab a seat.

The campus bus pulling in to take all the international students to school!

I would usually try to get there early so I could grab one of the few seats and get an extra thirty minutes of sleep on the bus. The rest of the bus was standing room only but it was crazy how many people these busses could fit. There was no such thing as "the bus is full" people kept squishing in one after another until personal space was definitely not a thing.

After getting to Aobayama Campus I would go to the campus bookstore/convenience store to go buy myself lunch for later. I would usually try a different flavor of onigiri each time, but I think I eventually settled on salmon flavor as my favorite.

An artsy exterior shot of the Architecture Building.

I was looking through my photos when I realized that I really didn’t take any pictures of the interior of the lab (luckily I videotaped everything so all is not lost). I knew it was normal in Asia to take off your shoes before entering someone’s house but what I didn’t know was that also extended itself to places like your lab. So before going in you would have to remove your shoes and leave it outside the door. As a result you could pretty much tell who was in the lab at any given time based on what shoes were left out.

At around noon I would hop on another campus bus which would take me to the botanical gardens. I had always meant to actually go and check it out but in the end never did, I suppose that's just the dangers of putting things off. From the botanical gardens I would make my way to the Sendai International Center, where a bunch of volunteers from Nihongo No Mori volunteered their time to talk to clumsy awkward foreigners like me.

Their super adorable sign post.

I really had a blast there, and it was really quite amazing how much progress I made from the first week I went to the very last week. I remember the very first week I was paired with this really chill looking old man who pointed at pictures of sushi with me as I tried to vocalize my deep intense feelings on raw fish. As I went more frequently the regular volunteers would start to recognize me and they would ask me about my week as I would attempt to tell them stories about my victories getting lucky bags from the New Year's Sales. Of the places in Sendai I miss the most, it's this classroom full of wonderful people who would spend their spare time talking to people like me.

After class it would be around 3pm in the afternoon and I would head back home. This particular day I had missed the campus shuttle that would drop me off closer to the dorms, so I had something closer to an hour long walk.

The Sendai International Center Station.

During my time in Sendai, there was actually a new subway station that opened up. It was kind of expensive in that going a single station would cost you about 200 yen and the fare would only go up as you went further along the line. I walked through it a lot on the way home.

There's a river along the way home. I don't think I ever learned the name but it was a really scenic place. It was here where we had an "imonikai" which is a seasonal party that people have in Sendai during the fall.

The river where we had the imonikai.

At the imonikai we would eat this realy awesome soup with imoni (some kind of potato) in it. I made a few friends at here.

Just chillin' and eating imoni.

Anyway back to walking home. The area I lived in, Sanjomachi, had a lot of buddhist temples. And in Japan buddhist temples usually had graveyards attached, so as a result there were also a lot of graveyard in my neighborhood. In one of the graveyards there was a particularly beautiful persimmon tree that I would always walk past. The bright orange always stuck out in stark contrast against the gray in both the concrete and the sky. 

The persimmon tree near my house.

I was also struck by the number of flower shops in Japan. There would be three flower shops on the same side of the road just meters away from each other. I always wondered how they managed to get enough business to stay afloat, then one day my friend explained, it's because there are a lot of graveyards here. Ohhhhhhhhh.

A little ways after this and we're back home at my dorm. That was pretty much how most of my weekdays would go.

Side Story: leaving Japan

This winter while I was in Japan was an unusually warm winter, snow would unfailingly melt within a few hours. This was a good thing since I didn't bring a winter coat and also biking was a super important method of transportation.

On the day I was leaving I was going to wake up at 6am and then the taxi driver would pick me up at 7am to take me to the airport. So I woke up at 6am, groggily went into my bathroom, and while I was sitting on the toilet I hear this sound. 

*beep* *beep* *beep*

I was honestly kind of afraid, I've never ever heard this sound before. I got up.

*beep* *beep* *beep*

The phone intercom system that I had never ever used before was ringing. I picked it up.

It turns out it was the taxi driver. He explained really quickly that it was blizzarding outside and that if I wanted to have a chance at getting to the airport on time he was going to pick me up in 20 minutes...

I threw open the windows!!!! And oh my god it was snowing. All the last minute packing that I was suppose to have way more time to do...uh oh. I rushed down the staircase with all of my luggage, basically my life, everything I would take back to the U.S., along with the router I rented during the time and said goodbye to the security guard for the very last time.

The view from inside my taxi looking up at my dorm.

I hopped into the taxi, there wasn't enough time to be sentimental. We then took off at a slow crawl towards the Sendai Airport.