Short Intro: An Exchange Student in Japan

Hello and greetings for you, readers! So yeah basically I am going to start writing in English from time to time especially when writing about my story here in Japan as a YSEP Student. I was putting off this blogging in English thing for weeks now because I feel most comfortable writing in ‘informal’ Indonesian language (which I always use when I write previous posts in this blog), but for the sake for my blog to be read by non-Indonesian, I’ll try my best.

If you are reading my blog for the first time (or you don’t understand the previous posts which are in Indonesian), let me introduce myself for a bit.

My name is Enreina Annisa Rizkiasri, but people usually calls me Enreina or Reina (either is fine). I am currently a fourth year bachelor student in Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Indonesia and also right now an exchange student at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech or Tokodai). I am participating the Young Scientist Exchange Program Focused On Research and belongs to Murata Laboratory, Department of Computer Science in Tokodai. The program will last for a year so I have many things to blog about life as an exchange student in Japan.

So it has been like almost 50 days that I have been living in Yokohama-shi (it’s actually 48 days, I know, I have been counting it with my phone’s lock screen widget). I came to Japan on the 12th of September (and if you understand Indonesian and would like to know my first three days in the country, you should read my previous blog post) which is the day I arrived at Haneda Airport. I arrive there with three other YSEP students from Indonesia (Bima, Baim, and Antya) and was met by my Lab Tutor, Hosokane Aiko-san. There were actually two more YSEP students from Indonesia which are Dyah and Vidya. The first one, Dyah, is my roommate in the dorm and she had arrived a day earlier, while the later, Vidya, is Antya’s roommate and arrived two weeks later.

In Yokohama-shi, I live in Umegaoka Dormitory (a dormitory for foreign Tokyo Tech students) which is located near Fujigaoka station (15 minutes walk from there actually if you walk moderately fast over hills, because yeah the road consists of up-hills and down-hills). It was tiring at first going back and forth between dorm and the station, but I got used to it right now and it’s actually a nice habit. I kinda enjoy morning walks right now from the dorm to the station.

I got a double room in the dormitory (which I shared with Dyah), and the room is really nice and neat. There are also a microwave, a washing machine, a kitchen already in the room. So yeah, basically I already feel comfortable living in the dormitory.

From dormitory to Tokyo Tech O-okayama campus (intermezzo: the o in O-okayama （大岡山）is actually three Os so it’s pronounced really long like “o-o-o” haha) is around 1 hour by train. I had to take the Tokyu Den-en-toshi Line and change to the Tokyu Oimachi Line to reach O-okayama station from Fujigaoka station. It’s not too far once I got used to commute here and there. And again I enjoy the time that I spend for my everyday’s commute.

I actually have so many things to tell about living in Japan from my lab, shopping, eating, sightseeing, home stay, and much more! But I think it won’t fit into this one post, so I’ll just keep this one short (for introduction only).

See you!