Daniela Schuh -undergraduate student
Internship at Faculty of Engineering at Kagawa University
Counterpart : Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University, GERMANY
Period : 5 months

I study technical journalism at the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg in Sankt Augustin. In my free time I love reading books and playing IGo. I also like to take pictures of the country and its people. My first contact with Japan was because of Anime and Manga. I read Kenshin and Hikaru no Go and I started to play IGo because of this Manga. But I wanted to see more of Japan not only from Manga or Anime. For my studies I had to do an internship and the Kagawa University was our partner university. So I decided to take the chance and do my internship in Japan.

During my internship I had two major working parts: working in the office and helping with PR and talking with students to improve their English talking skills. Both parts of my work were really interesting and I had much fun talking with the students. I think this was a good idea because both sides learned something. I learned more about Japan and Japanese culture and the students improved their talking skills. The PR part of my internship was fun too. I made a brochure and some smaller texts with pictures for the website.

When I arrived in Japan I was a bit nervous because my Japanese is bad and I wasn't sure if I will be able to manage daily life and after all it was also the first time living on my own. After 5 months I can say I was easier than expected. Ok sometimes you can't find something in the supermarket or you get in trouble because you can't explain yourself but I could always ask Nishioka-san or my tutor Hotta-kun and they helped me. I could find many new friends.

The time goes by really fast and before I realised most of my time in Japan was over. It was a good time and I would suggest everyone to life in a foreign country for a couple of months.

Dormitory

The life in the dormitory is really great. I could make many new friends there because we were all international students. The students who live on the same floor with me are really nice. Sometimes we meet in the kitchen to talk and eat. It is an information exchange about the different countries and cultures. The only sad thing is that the kitchen is too small for us and there are only four chairs. From time to time someone cooks something from his or her home country to share with everyone.
We organized many trips for the weekends together and it is always more fun to go somewhere in a big group. So we also invite people from the other floors and sometimes they join our group.

Mt. Yashima

Near the Dormitory is Mount Yashima. With the other international students I went to the top twice. Next to the train station is a bus stop for the bus to Mt. Yashima. It goes every hour and it costs 100 Yen. From the top, you have a really nice view over Takamatsu and surrounding area. The temple and aquarium are also really nice. It is especially nice to see the sunset. But you might have to walk down on foot because the last bus leaves relatively early. The way down on foot goes through the forest so even in summer it isn't that hot but some parts are fairly steep so you have to wear good walking shoes.

Rainy season

The rainy season stars in the middle of June and usually goes until the middle or end of July. During that time it rains more than usual and the weather changes faster. It could be a really nice and sunny day in the morning and in the evening it could rain hard. Even though it rains the temperature won't go down so it is sticky. On rainy days the trains and busses are more crowded than on normal days. Many people switch from bike to car and the streets are filled with cars so the busses are often late.
The rainy season seems to be a perfect time for mosquitoes. Everyone in the dormitory has a problem with them.

Summer

In summer it gets really hot, even in the rainy season. In trains and busses they turn on the air conditioner. That has some good and bad points. If you get on the train or bus it is nice to escape from the heat outside, but it gets very cold after a while. But the worst thing is when you get off the train, you will feel the heat much more than before. Outside, one sweats a lot, which makes it easy to become cold once on board the air-conditioned trains and buses.
Summer is also the season of Festivals and you can find many Festivals all over Japan. For Shikoku there are, for example, Awa Odori in Tokushima, Sanuki Takamatsu festival in Takamatsu, and the summer festival in Matsuyama.

Hairdresser

Going to the hairdresser in Japan is expensive, but if you look at what you get the price is ok. The hairdresser I went to for cutting my hair was really nice. For 3500 Yen, they washed my hair, cut it and washed it again to get rid of loose hair. I got even a short tapping massage at the end. They understood a bit of English so I could tell them that I wanted my hair really short. If you want to do something more specific, you will need Japanese.

Cafeteria

The cafeteria at the University is different from the cafeteria back in Germany. There we can choose between 4 different menus with different prices. Those menus include side dishes and dessert and change daily.
Here I can choose between many different meals and I can also choose the side dishes, but everything is calculated separately and there are no menus. It was a bit strange for me at the beginning, but now I think this is much better, because if you don't like something you can just leave it out.
Eating in the cafeteria in Germany is a little cheaper than in Japan. In Germany, you pay between 250 Yen and 400 Yen for a menu. If I take the same amount of food in Japan it is about 500-650 Yen.

JGK

The JGK is a group of people who are interested in Germany. The people are nice and they always offer help just in case I need it. Every month, they have a meeting called “Stammtisch” where they talk about Germany, Japan, life and more. Sometimes they have a special theme for their meeting. During my stay we had a Westerwald-Evening and I showed them pictures of my hometown and the Westerwald. I also prepared some traditional food. After my presentation we ate the food and talked.
These meetings are always fun. Some of the people speak German and they always want me to talk with them so they can practice.

IGo Club

I have played IGo for 7 or 8 years now, and I wanted to play in Japan, too. So I searched for a place to play and I found a really nice IGo Club. It is in Kawaramachi near the train station. If you leave the Train station downstairs where the Bus stops are, it is only 100m-200m in the same direction the bus to engineering campus takes. They play everyday from 1pm until 5pm but I can only go there on weekends. Most of the players are old men, but they are nice and they always try to explain things and they give me sweets. Unfortunately, they can't speak English and I can't speak Japanese. But they just recreate the situation by saying “ok” if it is good and “dame” if it is bad, so I am still able to learn a lot. I will definitely miss the IGo Club when I'm back in Germany.

Kompira

If you want to see the Kompira shrine you have to climb many stairs. If it is a nice and sunny day it could be very hot on the first part because there is no shadow. The second part is better the way leads through the wood and so it isn’t so hot. For me, the most interesting part was that there is an old story that old people or people who can’t walk up on there own can write their wishes on a letter and the letter will be carried all the way to the top by a dog. So they can make a wish even without being able to walk all the way to the shrine.

Naruto swirls

I went to the Naruto swirls once. Somehow I was a little bit frustrated. In the pictures of the flyers they are nice, big and you can see them really good. I paid about 1700 Yen for the boat trip, but they looked like simple waves and you couldn't see them very well. I missed the time which is said to be the best time for watching the swirls but I thought I would see more. If you want to see them have a look at the time schedule before!

Japanese Food

I don't like seafood. When I came to Japan, I thought Japanese food would be mostly rice and fish and well it IS mostly rice and fish. Nevertheless I found a lot of things without seafood. I really fell in love with Udon, Ramen and Okonomiyaki. I often ate Kake-Udon with a tempura egg and tempura vegetables and I can highly recommend that! When I visited Hiroshima I went to Okonomi Mura, which is a building with many small Okonomiyaki shops. That was fun and because they made your Okonomiyaki right in front of your eyes on a big hotplate.