Arrival

It's been already almost two weeks since I arrived but I've been postponing this post for a while since I feel like I haven't quite settled in yet. In this article I will explore things that you should know about when arriving to Tokyo for your exchange and how you can prepare for some things.

I'm having a hard time balancing writing about my experiences, sparking interest in people interested in exchange studies, keeping it informative for future exchange students and also informative in general for Tokyo or Japan so please bear with me while I find a comfortable format for the first few posts.

Airport - money, mobile data, trains and accommodation

I hope you will arrive to Narita airport, since if you don't I have almost no advice regarding your airport. When you arrive you will need some yen. Go ahead and exchange some of your currency at any banks exchange booth. If you didn't bring any cash or yen then I hope you know what you are doing. My next article will talk about cash in more detail.

The first time I traveled Japan in 2015 for three weeks I didn't buy a prepaid data plan. I had done a ton of research beforehand where to visit and what routes to take so the remaining small details was easy enough to figure out with accomodation or station wifi. However this time around since I was coordinating with my friend upon my arrival I wanted to be online to be able to connect with him any time and from anywhere. In Narita airport you can buy 7-30 day prepaid sim cards and pocket wifis. In my opinion they seem really expensive and that's why I took only a 7 day 2GB sim card for 3000 yen. After it expired I have not bought a new one. I will still keep an eye out for some deals and ask locals for some advice and I will maybe update here if I find some reasonable plans.

Narita airport is quite far away from Tokyo central and especially Hachioji where Tokyo national college of technology is located. I would recommend two options to go to Tokyo, one expensive and fast the other one cheap and slow. A third unrecommended option and the one I took unfortunately is the JR Narita express, which is both expensive(3000+JPY) AND slow(80 min. to Shinjuku). Skyline is around 2400 yen and will take you around 40 minutes to Nippori station. The cheaper route is a local train by the same company that will cost you around 1000 yen to Nippori but take around 80 minutes. Your choice of train should depend on your schedule and where you will stay the next night. You should first find a ticket machine and purchase an IC card with a few thousand yen charged. IC cards will let you travel carefree without buying tickets just by beeping them by the train gates and having them automatically charge you for your commutes. However some trains, usually longer distance ones, might not allow usage of IC cards. The two faster trains mentioned above are such trains and will need seated tickets to be purchased before entering the train. In some places you can pay with IC cards such as most vending machines at train stations.

If you want to stay at the campus dorm the first night I suggest arriving early in the morning on a regular weekday. In other cases you might need other accommodation for a day or two. For arrivals later than 18:00 I would suggest staying the first night in a hotel in Narita.

The school dormitory

If you have read some student experiences from Tokyo you might have encountered some horror stories about the dormitory rules, and when you receive the rules many of them will have you question your exchange decision. But fear not, I'm here to tell you that the boys dorm is actually contrary to any of my expectations a very nice place.

The boys dorm is located close to the school gates and is 4 floors high. All the rooms I have seen are private rooms for one person but I heard there are shared rooms as well. Every floor has a bathroom area with washing machines and dryers. The shower rooms are on the other side of the building. The dorm has a pretty fast internet connection but many ports seem to be blocked which makes it inconvenient for many things such as ssh, gaming and other things that require ports to be open. If you want wifi you need to have a router.

Most of the people who live in the dorms are Japanese but some were from other Asian countries as well. There are three of us from Metropolia exchanging here and we are the only exchange students right now. We live close to each other in the dorms but research in different departments.

The only two important rules aside from common sense seem to be that there is no alcohol allowed in the dorm, you need to leave the dorm between morning and noon on school days and that you need to be present at 22:00 for the row call unless you let them know beforehand that you will be late. For overnight leaves you need to write the place you stay, a contact number and the duration. I would suggest anyone who is coming for exchange to take advantage of the school dormitory.

The school, the campus and the surrounding area

Tokyo national college of technology is a high school combined with a vocational school. That means that students are between 15 and 20 years old. I think there was some more details about how it worked that I didn't quite grasp but that is the gist of it. Our research projects will be done together with the older students. So far the relatively large age gap between us exchange students and other students has not been troublesome at all. On the contrary it feels like a benefit since it feels like we can befriend both students and the school staff.

The closest station to the school is Hazama station which can be reached by the Keio line from Shinjuku station. The Keio line is very convenient because it has many express trains that make it really fast to get around. From Hazama to Shinjuku it takes about 50 minutes. Hazama station is very small and only has a small mall and some stores a few streets away. The nearest station with things near it is Takao, which is a walking distance or one stop by train to the west from hazama. The closest city to the school is Hachioji which takes 20 minutes to reach by train. Hachioji has all kinds of things you would expect from a city and is a fun place to walk around. Our favorite activities there so far are darts & pool, izakayas(Japanese style bars) and karaoke.

The campus area is quite large by finnish standards, about 5 minutes of walking from end to end. There are two restaurants, the dorm restaurant and the school restaurant. The dorm restaurant is only for people who live in the dorms and has three meals a day. Exchange students sign the meals they eat and pay them by cash later. The school restaurant has rather cheap and good food during lunchtime and is mostly used by the school staff and students who do not live in the dorms. There is also a small convenience store which is useful if you miss the restaurant lunch times. There is a lot of different activities and sports you can participate in such as football, gym, baseball, basketball, table tennis, tennis, judo and more.

The first weeks

When we arrived we were a little bit surprised by how little things were planned for us. For the first two weeks we usually only had one small thing to do per day and some other days nothing at all. We spent the remaining time settling in at our dorms, exploring the area, getting to know people at the campus and having fun. Some future events we were invited for include a welcome party, a campus culture festival, a homestay and a school trip.