Sunday, February 21, 2010

Neighborhood Hirakata
















Where to begin... I have been in Japan for 6 months now, and everywhere I go in Hirakatashi, seems like being at home. But the road that I take everyday is the one from my seminar house to school. Thus, I choose to talk about this part specifically.
When I first came to Japan, and tried to learn my way to school, it was a little bit difficult. As the majority of the students bike, we take the a small road between houses because the school's housing buildings are in a living neighborhood. As all the houses there are small, it was difficult to remember where to turn, so I kept on losing my way. This rises a conflict between the fact that the houses near by are really small and the University's housings are very big.
I have been living in the same seminar houses since lat semester and I like it. The students there are not allowed to make a lot of noise because of the neighboors who used to complain a lot to the school about the international students. As a result, that gives a very bad reputation about foreigners. At first i found it odd that the neighbors knew which school to complain to then I got told that Kansai Gaidai is the only foreign language school in Hirakata, and so Japanese people are really familiar with the international students and their problems.
Near the Seminar Houses(SH) is also a park where we enjoy the sunny days; find Japanese families playing games, and sports with their children during the weekends, people drawing, playing guitar and walking their doggs everynight. As for international students, they meanly use it to get drunk and be loud at nights.
What I like also is the fact that next to my SH there is the University's Gym where we go to play games with Japanese students. And that too, contrasts with the fact that everything is located in a small, quiet,typical Japanese neighborhood.
The neighborhood is surrounded by not only the park, the gym, the houses and the SHs but also by a lot of shopping places where it makes it easier for us students to find our way to the near by shops to shop for food, clothes,liquor... There is also a bus stop right accross the park and a near by Nepolese restaurant. All this is making the lives of the students, as myself, easier.

1 comment:

  1. You define your neighborhood in terms of your own university life here. I would like to read more about interactions with your Japanese neighbors.

    I wonder if you might want to mix your text and pictures, so that the pictures are close to the text that corresponds to them. Some (many?) readers of your blog might not be familiar with the Gaidai area and might wonder what they pictures are of...

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