My alarm went off at 7am & I woke up with a slight hangover headache as I anticipated. 1Litre of plum wine was gone and I drank most of it because of the silly guessing game we played while we were watching some Jap reality show. It was really good to be able to catch up with my old old friend. TzeChau was part of the fencing family. We went to KL for competitions, in fact more excited to travel around after competitions. I hadn't seen him for 5 years since he left home. He graduated last year and started to work full time in March this year.
I took a morning shower and get myself prepared for the first day of the program. My lightheadedness did not improve after a hot shower. Not doing good for the first day I thought. All the exchange students were expected to be at the foyer at 8am and two Kobe university students (we called them our supporters who will be helping us throughout the program) guided us to the university. It took about 15mins to walk from our hotel to Sannomiya station, then local train to Rokko station. From there, we had to walk up hill for about 20mins to reach our destination. The weather was hot at least 32deg and we were sweaty and breathless when we finally got to the university. After all that hard work, the beautiful scenery from Kobe university made it all worthwhile. I was also told that Kobe university is the most well-known and top university.......
A breathtaking view of the city of Kobe, in front of the international student building. Truly amazing!
The opening ceremony started at 10am.
There were 40 students that participated in this program. I was sitting on the most left hand side with all the western students from US, England, Poland, Austria and Australia. The rest of the exchange students came from Korea, China and Taiwan separately. Being multilingual made it easier for me to make friends with most of the groups, except Korean. They hardly speak English and my Jap was too poor to communicate with them properly. It seriously took me a lot of effort to express myself and understand them. Haha.
While we were taking group photo. I am standing in the middle. Hehe.
After the opening ceremony, we had to sit for a test and an oral exam which the results were then used to divide us into 5 different level of groups: Research, Debate, Journals, Drama and Survey Report (from the hardest to easiest). I basically gave up on the second page of the paper because it was really difficult. I got really stressed because everyone seemed to be so confident. During the oral exam, I couldn't understand the first question and I saw many ticks on the last boxes. I was screwed I thought.
Learning Japanese tea ceremony (茶道) in the afternoon. It was quite fun except having to kneel like Japanese and only understood 20% of what the old lady was saying.
Kobe University: Traditional Japanese house purely made of wood and paper.
Sen-sei taught us the proper way of making green tea and many strict rules that must be followed. We basically bow and bow and bow.....
Pure, very concentrated original green tea (抹茶) which can be bitter, hence traditionally served with some sweets.
::Welcome Dinner Party::
We were served with loads of nice Jap food. I forgot to bring my dad's international adapter and I couldn't charge my camera. So I didn't take many photos during the welcome party. The party was really good because there were lots of alcohol. I prefer Japanese beer than Sake but I didn't dare to drink much that night...
The only picture I took with Olivia-san (also from Curtin) and our very helpful supporter, Sumida-san whose face turned red very easily with alcohol.
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