{"id":1734,"date":"2023-07-03T19:33:40","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T23:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/?p=1734"},"modified":"2023-07-03T19:33:40","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T23:33:40","slug":"hif-journal-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/summer-2023\/hif-journal-1\/","title":{"rendered":"HIF Journal 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this journal, I’ll discuss the first few weeks of my time in Hakodate. I arrived here a few days before the start of my program, and stayed at a hotel in the Matsukaze-cho area. I had been in Japan for a few weeks at that point, and the little speaking experience I had built up proved to be very valuable at the check-in desk and with the cleaning staff (people speak English in Tokyo but not really in Hakodate). I spent these first few days doing very little, only going out to the konbini\u00a0<\/em>or to order food. On Thursday of that week, all of the program participants gathered at a hotel and began a lengthy orientation that culminated with a placement test. This year the program was downsized from the usual 60 to 20 students out of an abundance of caution. As a result, there were only two classes this year, one at a “300” level and another at a “400” level. Having just finished Japanese 202 at Williams, I joined the ~300 level\u00a0C-gumi<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I also met my host family that weekend. My host father and mother picked me up from the hotel, and we drove to their house in the northeast part of town. I was nervous, and it became clear that the “speaking experience” I had built up to that point was not really useful for full conversations. At home, I met my host brother and moved into my own room with a western-style bed (!). Our dinner that night was massive, and they have continued to be very sizable, as a result of me claiming that I “eat a lot” on my pre-program report. After a long first weekend, I found myself turning off the lights at the early hour of 9PM, and slept my last night before class began.<\/p>\n

Classes that week were a bit of a shock. No matter how prepared you feel, and even if you are only studying one subject, three hours of class and three hours of homework are quite a workload after doing nothing difficult for the three weeks prior. At that point I had the fleeting motivation of starting something new, and tackled my homework as soon as I returned home from class. I took runs after dinner and showered before bed– a change that I somewhat unhappily made from my usual schedule. Though the days felt long, before I knew it that week was past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this journal, I’ll discuss the first few weeks of my time in Hakodate. I arrived here a few days before the start of my program, and stayed at a hotel in the Matsukaze-cho area. I had been in Japan … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2932,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summer-2023"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2932"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}