After a very long  flight I finally arrived at my new home for one year. I have to say , after I met Japanese people I  had the same cultural shock I had when I first came to England from Romania. It was hard to believe how friendly people were and how they generally maintained a positive attitude. While in England people were very nice , I can say that here they are even nicer.

At the airport , about 20 students and my house coordinator awaited for me. Of course the first thing I thought to myself was that they do need to make a good impression and so they were instructed..be as many as they can and look as positive as possible. To my surprise , the girls(not boys) offered to carry my bag as I was too tired after such a long flight. Obviously I refused. The students instructed me on how to buy a ticket and get the train to Tokyo. I had to go there by myself but there was someone else waiting for me at the end of the line.

So once I arrived in Shinju-ku, two students were waiting for me and led me to my new home : Nishi Waseda International Student House. There were two girls and again both of them offered to carry my luggage and again I refused. As I was walking towards my accommodation , I really felt surprised by how warm people looked like. I had imagined that Japanese would be particularly cold when seeing a ‘gaijin’ just arriving and carrying a big suitcase but that wasn’t the case. They were looking at me as they were greeting me. They weren’t saying say anything but I could just read a warm ‘Welcome’ on their faces.

So I finally arrived in the international student house and I was surprised I had to take my shoes off and put on slippers. Everyone had to do it every time they entered the building. Even the mail man. So once I entered the manager showed me around, explained me the rules and then led me to my room. I was curios to meet my new roommate but I guess I’m just a really lucky guy.

My roommate had just cancelled the accomodation and apparently I have a double room to myself.
I just met some of the people I will be sharing the kitchen with and they are really cool. In the previous post I listed some of my stereotypes and a particular one came to my mind today. I was wrong when I believed that Japanese people can’t really speak English. In fact , most people here can’t. Most students are students who came to study in Japanese and their Japanese is actually better than their English.

But in the end I can not complain. This is a perfect opportunity to improve my Japanese.