I have arrived in Nagoya, Japan in one piece ilhamdulillah although I must admit the 16 hour haul from Bahrain>Dubai>HongKong>Taipei>Nagoya knocked the stuffing out of me, not including the endless train rides to my dorm with over 45 kilos worth of luggage on my shoulders!
Nagoya is a much larger city than I expected. The university campus is huge and even has its own subway station!
To be honest, the culture shock has hit me very hard! Hardly anyone I’ve met so far had the slightest knowledge of the English language. I feel like a 21st century caveman, trying to communicate with the most primitive of ways, hand waving and speaking English in a very slow and loud way. I do pepper some of the very few Japanese words I know but they rarely help me other than Konichiwa and Denwa (hello and telephone)
My dorm room is quite Japanese, extremely tiny and everything is earthquake proof so its like living in an aluminium sardine can. Many of the things I have around the room seem to have instructions on it, but all in Japanese so I have no idea how they work so far!
I had a few problems when I first arrived, it seems that the culture shock hit my Zain ’shain!’ SIM card very badly and it just frizzled for some reason so I basically lost contact with the outer world (Bahrain) and my family especially my fiancee got extremely worried but that ordeal finished once I got my free wireless access at my dorm!
After finally talking with my family I started to live a little and I’ve gotten used to hopping on the subway and going around Nagoya (mainly because I can buy the tickets in English plus all the areas are spelt in English too!)
The subway is quite reminiscent to the London Tube except that it’s much cleaner and a person like me sticks out like a sore thumb (as if a tall fat sweaty hairy Arab wouldn’t stick out anywhere. I do get a lot of looks on the subway from the ‘you’re interesting’, ‘what the hell are you doing here’,'Hey! you’re a foreigner’ and ‘Damn, you’re sexy!’ (the last one is not true but the way!)
The people of Nagoya seem to have never met a Bahraini before, at least that’s what the people at my dorm office say, although I am surprised that they know where it is (maybe of the many hard fought battles on the football pitch over the last few years) and when I chatted with one of my Chinese neighbours ‘Andy’ he said “aah , you are from West Asia!”
I guess I am.. especially when I’m in the Far East
7mdlla 3la alslama yaggy,
sounds like your up to some interesting adventures there.
tc & keep blogging!
Wow, what are you doing/studying in Japan exactly? Sounds like the start of an amazing experience.
And yeah, Japan, cultural shock fo sho, duh! Ha-ha.
i though it was ‘middle east’?
and ur lucky.. not only am I the only Bahraini alot of people have met over here in the land down under, I also get the privilege to explain to them all where Bahrain is, which depending on my mood can either be ‘near dubai’ or ‘between Iran and Saudia Arabia’.. the latter includes a dark look..
enjoy the far east, ur in for a ride
west asia !
i envy you!
have fun beside what ur doing ! its Nippon!
@mo3ath: allah eesalmik ya ba3ad chabdi.. oo 3ash ilBoxon!
@ally: I’ll be studying my Masters in Media Environments after I get through my Japanese course!
@naz: I sure am..
@lizardo: inshalla 7aboob
Keep us posted! Pics Pics Pics please!
You can check my facebook for touristy videos and stuff, I don’t want to turn my blog into a dear diary thingie-majig