Careful. We Don't Want to Learn From This

It’s 6am Wednesday morning, and I’m currently in Kyoto Japan! Which is very cool. This is my first entry from the Land of the Rising Sun.

Ok, arrived on Monday afternoon after a looong plane flight. It was about 12 and a half hours total flying from Calgary, and it wasn’t overly fun. And Tootsie and Aeon Flux are weird movies to have on a plane in my opinion.

Arriving at the airport, I had to get through customs while knowing very little Japanese, which wasn’t too bad. I met Yamada-san at the airport, she helped me with my luggage and then we took the train to my work in Kyoto… which was a 2h trip itself. At Chujoshima Station I met my general manager, Matoba-bucho, and two of my coworkers, and they showed me to my dorm. I also met with David-san, who was here on an internship a while ago, and is back here working on a contract basis. We then went to dinner (Okonomiyaki), where I met the other intern here, Ly-san. After I talked with David and Ly for a while, took a shower, and went to bed.

Sooo… description time! My dorm is about 120 square feet. I have a bed, a desk, and 2 closets. The bed is hard as a rock, but other than that, my room is pretty good. It’s enough space for me at least. Outside my room there’s a kitchen and laundry room (how handy!) and just down the hall is the bathroom. My dorm has a curfew of 11:45. So far it hasn’t been a problem, I don’t know how weekends are. But I can always find a place to stay if I need to. The showers are… interesting. Communal showers will take some getting used to, is all I can say. Pictures of my dorm room:



Yesterday I woke up at 5am (thanks jetlag), hung around, went to work at 8:30. I met with my many co-workers, who showed me a bit of what I will be working on. They’ll explain more about my project(s) tomorrow. Yamada-san also gave me a tour of the factory, which was quite interesting. She showed me all the different things my company makes, including X-ray machines, intra-oral cameras (my project), dental chairs, root canal tools, and dentist drills. I went for lunch at the cafeteria, then Yamada-san said I may go home for the afternoon.

Ly took me to the supermarket in the evening… 4 floors, with basically everything you need… if only I could read what everything actually was… It’s difficult when you know so little of the language. I fell asleep at 8:30 by accident and woke up at 5 this morning again. Today I’m gonna go exploring on my own, probably to Kyoto Station and Toji Temple, so more pictures will be up soon.