People

Before leaving for Japan I searched for people living in Tsukuba on CouchSurfing so that I would know some people to have a meal with or show me around or to travel with. I ended up talking with several people, mostly students at the university, but many of them were going to return back home for their break which is in March. However, I was able to meet up with some people who stayed in Tsukuba. One person in particular was a French girl, Amelie, who right away invited me to a going away party (with predominantly Spanish-speakers) for her Peruvian friend. I went with two of my coworkers who had never been to a foreigner party before. I am not sure what they thought of it, since it had Spanish music, dancing, and mingling in Spanish. I thought it was fun, but I didn’t meet anybody since I was trying to make sure my coworkers were comfortable.

Later on that first week Amelie invited me to dinner with another Mexican girl, Gracie, who both live in Hanabatake like me. I took a different coworker who lives on my floor to the dinner who speaks English very well (he studied for one year in Canada). It was an interesting dinner full of English, Japanese, and Spanish, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, hopefully my coworker thought so too. One awesome surprise of the evening was that Amelie had brought me her extra bicycle to use during my stay in Tsukuba, which I was not expecting at all. It is not a very good bike, which she warned me, but it is better than no bike, so I was very pleased.

On a different occasion Amelie, Gracie, and I went to this place called Cybex for karaoke, my first time doing karaoke ever. Cybex in itself is an interesting place/concept. It is a huge building with karaoke rooms, pool tables, arcade games, and not sure what else. Basically you pay for a certain amount of time and you can do any of the above, and drinks and ice cream are included in the price. I had to register for a Cybex card and then we initially paid for 4 hours (¥1250 or so, not too shabby). I though 4 hours of karaoke was kind of a stretch but it went by super fast and was really fun. Two more of Amelie’s friends joined us for karaoke a little later, and I was by far the worst singer. After the 4 hours were up we ended up staying for an hour more before parting ways and biking the 20 minutes back home.
As for people from work, I hang out with certain people from my lab, most of whose names I have finally remembered, and some of whose names I still don’t so I have to discretely glance at their nametags if I want to talk with them. They have taken me to several restaurants, izakayas (Japanese bars), tennis practice, shopping centers, and even Tokyo. I have been invited to a BBQ at a coworker’s house (which I think is very rare for Japanese to open up their homes for such events, but I am thinking of making guacamole for them, if I find avocados…) and two day trips with two different coworkers.

At work every morning I am usually tired, since I am not a morning person, but I am usually in a good mood since I like my work and well I usually am anyway. Anyway, every morning as I am walking down the hallways at work and I cross paths with anybody we give each other a small bow and an “ohayou gozaimaaaaasu,” some people heartier than others. Every time I do this, however, I break out into a huge smile, I am not sure why. There is something about that particular exchange that makes me really happy. I can’t explain it, but it definitely brightens my day.
So far my experiences with people in Japan have been positive.