A semester in Japan

A couple of month ago, I left our dear Warsaw to move to an amazing country: Japan.

Kozminski University gave me this incredible opportunity to go for a bilateral exchange program with the Nagoya University of Commerce and Business located in Nagoya city. One of the best university in Asia, well known for its MBA program.

At the end of March, I flew to Nagoya in order to start the semester on April 1st. The school took care of our accommodation: our supervisor welcome us and gave us our room keys and a tour of the residence: the Global Center of Higashiyama. Everything here is modern and automatic, but still in Japanese style. The residence for undergraduate students is also super modern but in western style.

After this strong impression from the residence, we were invited to visit the campuses and assists to the Inauguration ceremony of the year (yes, the school year starts here in April). It was a model of organization, strict placement and rigor, followed by a very cheerfull lunch buffet with the English staff of NUCB.

Then classes started. Given by Japanese and foreign teachers, they follow a different model of education than the one we are used to. It’s a very international dimension as my class is international: we are around 30 people from more than 12 countries in graduate studies. The atmosphere is also super nice and we do many things together.

The travel part is incredible. Even if we have quite some work for school, we manage to travel almost every weekend. Japan is so amazing in terms of landscape, history and architecture. I visited many amazing places and I still a lot to go to in my agenda!  My semester here is only 4 months, so I want to enjoy it as much as possible.

I have hundreds of pictures so I put here few of my last trip in Hiroshima, don’t hesitate to ask me for more, follow me on Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat.

Garden in Japanese Style

A Bomb Dom

Hiroshima Castle

OTori

Splendid view

Kayak in open sea

Festival in Hiroshima

Fun facts:

1. People stand to the left in elevator and in the street. The also drive on the left side, like british.
2. A suit does not prohibit running or biking
3. You have to wait in lines for the subway
4. Everything is automatic but the driver of subways goes out of his chair to check the doors and close them (no camera)
5. Washing machines use only cold water
6. They don’t wear sunglasses
7. Some clubs are forbidden for foreigners
8. It is forbidden to make calls in train and subways.
9. Smoking outside is almost forbidden everywhere, but allowed in bars, restaurants and clubs.
10. Recycling is very strict, you have 5 different dustbin and there is very rare garbage in public places: you have to keep your used stuff with you and bring it back home