As a result, we both paid 2000 yen (about $20) each for a taxi instead of riding together. I got into my room and learned that inserting my room key into a plastic container on the wall would turn on the lights and the AC—but I couldn’t get it to work. I was incredibly jet lagged and I just wanted to sleep, but it took me fifteen minutes of turning the card this way and that before it worked. All I could think was. “If today was so hard, how can I survive a year of this?”
I went down to breakfast in the morning despite having no idea how to eat anything or what it was. I was the only one in the room, which should have made be feel better, but I had no one to look to or imitate. Why was the egg yolk pink? How do I eat fish with the skin on it and the spine still there?
But the next morning, there were other international students at breakfast and I made my first friends. The number one helpful hint to integrating into a new community is to make friends, even if they aren't native to the country. It is easier to go out and challenge yourself to do new things and interact with the community if you have someone to do it with you--and maybe even laugh with later about your mistakes. Luckily, there were 200 international students there, so I was able to talk with many of them by the end of our orientation.
I attended the AIU festival held on campus with my friends and tried new food, bought handmade items from a flea market, and watched kanto (pole lantern) and yatose (Akita dance) performances. I explored the forest around the campus with them in my new knitted hat a friend insisted I get.
