Sticky: A Note For Visitors

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To you, the reader who’s found this blog and reading this post, greetings! My name’s Mattie, and this is my old blog chronicling my time abroad studying at Yokohama National University during the 2012-2013 school year. Just a couple of bullet points before you dive deep in:

  • This blog is hella old! Although I do hear about things I need to update from time to time, don’t expect the most timely of info! If you do have any tips/updates for me, let me know (comment on this post OR email me at mattie @ this domain), and I’ll gladly update the site to reflect the new information.
  • If you’re here to take a look at an experience in studying abroad in Japan, go right ahead and take a look at some of the posts! It’s not particularly comprehensive or anything — I definitely do that blog thing where I’m all gung-ho about updating it at first and then slowly fall off the face of the earth — but I like to think I have a couple of good anecdotes.
  • If you’re here because you’re going to YNU to study abroad, I recommend my Couple of Notes for Incoming Students series! If you have any questions, comment away, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!
  • Lastly, if you, yourself, have a study abroad blog, let me know about it — I’d love to read it, and I might link it in the sidebar too!

Thanks a lot for visiting, and I hope you find my writing informational, insightful, funny, or of worth otherwise. 😉 ◆

Endgame: On Returning Back

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Hey, everyone: it’s been a while. Just like every other blog I’d checked out before coming here, I ended up becoming a bit too busy to update my own journal. Funny how that works, right?

But yeah, just like that, I’m back in California. The reverse homesickness hasn’t hit me fully yet, but reverse cultural shock has reared its head several times:

  • At most pedestrian crosswalks, you have to push the button to let it know you’re there
    (In Japan, they’re automatic; buttons are provided, but presumably to lengthen the amount of time needed for the disabled and the elderly.)
  • Food portions are bigger here
    Japanese sizes, I’m sorry for giving you grief. Please come back. (Though having more than 6oz a time for a drink is most welcome.)
  • Dang, our streets are huge!
    As in, the suburbs have plenty of room to breathe (and parallel park). In Japan — not so much. Heck, some of the roads around YNU are practically one-way.

I’m sure there are a couple more examples, but no more come to mind right now.

Classes have already started up in earnest here, leaving me with not that big of a summer vacation; just a week to recover from jet lag. Part of me still hasn’t: I’m writing this post at 4 in the morning with a class coming up in about six hours, which totally can’t be good for my body. Still, the beginning means less work than later on, so I hope to get that very overdue part 3 of the guide to living in the dorms up as soon as I can for people who might be beginning their next year at YNU.

To those of you who will: you’re gonna have one hell of a good time. Relax, soak in the culture, learn the language, make yourself at home. Japan ain’t a bad place to live, and it’s most certainly a fun place to explore.