was very lucky to arrive in Tokyo during the beautiful sakura blooming week in 2000. I still vividly remember the friendly welcome and orientation I received from the Monbusho helpers on my very first day, which eased a lot of my anxiety. However, I must say I was still very overwhelmed by my new life on my very first night in my dormitory room in Soshigaya Ryuugakusei-kaikan, because I missed my boyfriend and family so much. Fortunately that night was the only night of unhappiness I had while being a student in Japan!
From the second day onward, I started to meet a lot of nice people either in my dormitory or in my university (Keio Daigaku Mita Campus), many of them became my life-long friends. For the entire two years of my student time in Tokyo, every day was new, exciting and offering me lots of new experiences. I also really enjoyed the opportunity to study Japanese intensively at the university for the first six months. On top of this, I was able to attend my supervisor’s lectures which gave me a good insight on how the Japanese financial market works.
During school holidays, I travelled a lot in Japan. Since the Monbusho scholarship provided me a good allowance, so I could travel without worrying much about money. For my first summer in Japan, I managed to get an internship in Osaka that subsidized my accommodation there, so I visited lots of places in the Kansai area. Another highlight of my travels in Japan was being a participant for “Japan Tent” in Kanazawa. It was such a wonderful cultural experience that I’ll never forget in my whole life.
Aside from studies, I became friends with people from all over the world and of course with Japanese too. We often went out to have fun and travelled together. I’ve kept in touch with many of these friends even till now.
Towards the end of my 2 year study time, I found a part-time job at a foreign capital company in Tokyo so I decided to stay in Japan for another 1.5 years to work. It was a very valuable working experience but I missed my student time a lot because it was so carefree and fun. As more of my friends left Japan, I finally decided to come back to NZ in the middle of 2003.
Overall, I’m extremely happy that I spent the prime time of my time in Japan. I consider Japan as my second home because that’s where I developed many essential skills to be a responsible young adult and learnt how to be independent. My “Japan” friends and I often bring up memories of our good old times in Japan, because we all miss that “student time” so much and we all think that we were a lucky bunch to be given the opportunity of a life-time by the Japanese government.