Dorm Life

As promised, here is my dorm room. The pictures aren't great because I took them with my Mac, and that is really hard to do, but I haven't gotten a camera yet so this will have to do for now. Anyway, the room is really nice. It is quite large, especially for what I was expecting. The rooms are meant to accommodate two students, but for this week of orientation there are three students to a room. This makes the room a bit more crowded and really awkward for the third person (me). Anyhow, there are shoe shelves right as you come in the door. Then the main area which is 8 tatami mats is where students put out their futons to sleep on every night and there is a table which can be set there during the day. Each student has a built in wardrobe and a desk and shelving unit which is built in in a third area of the room. There is ethernet in the room and air conditioning.

The rest of the dorm is fairly standard. There is a communal shower room and a communal restroom. The shower works like so many of those automatic sinks in public places in the US where you push the button and it stays on for so many seconds. It conserves water that way, but it makes showering more annoying, and certainly more business than pleasure.

The dorm also has a lounge area, a laundry room, and a computer lab, as well as a shoe room like so many traditional Japanese homes. The kitchen area is interesting. It is like walking into a locker room at first because for each room (I am in room 4211) there is lockable food pantry built into the wall and a small refrigerator unit located in aisles in the middle of the room. After the rows of refrigerators are rows of sinks which three rooms share. Along the walls at the back of the room there are a good half dozen or more stove tops and ovens which are unassigned. There are two microwaves. Maybe this is normal for some dorms, but for me coming from Mary Foust which had two very normal tiny kitchens this was quite something.

Honestly, after seeing the dorm I wish I was staying in a dorm rather than doing homestay. It is really nice and it seems like the dormmates do things together a good bit and really bond. Also, those living here are lucky to be able to fully settle in. I still have no idea where I will be living and what the commute to school will be like.

Well, that is all for now. I am exhausted from my day of orientation and in desperate need of a nap. Good night!