Hello Gidai Kaikan

After spending 12 hours on a place, 40 minutes on a train and about 20 minutes in a taxi we managed to get to Gifu Daigaku (Gidai) Kaikan (dorms). When we first got there Matsuoka-San, the house keeper managed to find us wondering around as we were looking for the entrance. We then got our room keys and were told to drop off our luggage and come back to the Lobby "Robi" as the Japanese say it, I actually thought they were talking about someone named "Robby" the first couple of times but then I finally knew they meant lobby :P

So after we filled out all the necessary paperwork and got that out of the way we had time to go back to our room and relax for a bit.


This is my room, my home away from home for the next 11 months. Since I was in building B I only had a toilet in my room and not a shower which sucked but after a few days I kind of gotten used to it so it didn't bother me much.


My bed and a pink sleeping bag left behind for me from Henry, thanks man :P


Looking very empty when I first got there, I started feeling really sad and home sick when I saw how empty the room was. Not a good feeling at all...but I knew it was for the best and the sad times would past and the good times would come!


The view from my level 1 balcony, yes I know it looks very depressing. That's actually building A and those vending machines you see towards the bottom right serve warm drinks! Which I thought was amazing when I discovered it on a cold night chatting with other international students. CoffeeBoss Cafe Latte I think it was called, was the best drink and after 2 nights it was sold out. I'm actually still waiting for them to refill it.

After spending some time unpacking and making it feel a bit more like home, I put bed sheets on, stuck up a lot of photos and set u my table. It did feel a bit nicer having photos up but it still wasn't the same and the first couple of nights were really hard, so beer was the answer to getting to sleep










It's been 2 weeks and my room has already gotten messy.




It's always good to have photos of your loved ones up, it adds a bit of character to the room and doesn't make you feel as lonely.


My sink even has photos up, right next to the front door but it's not too bad although it has only cold water and the pressure isn't that great either.


I also managed to hit up Masa, a large department store that had a 100YEN shop where everything is actually 100YEN (105 incl tax) but it's so cheap and they have everything there and luckily I remembered the way after passing it while I was in the taxi so that night Holly and I rode to Masa on our bikes, just under 10min away. 5 minutes now since I've learnt the shortcut. I managed to pick up an alarm clock to wake me up the next morning and a nice air freshener, that doesn't seem to work for some reason.

And that's my first day/night in Japan, very tough to say the least but it's over now and only happy times are ahead, well so far it's been alright, especially since I've gotten internet access in my room.

If future ICS students are reading, you probably wont have internet in your room for about 2 weeks, I arrived on the 5th and didn't get it until the 14th when the large company came to sign everyone in the Kaikan up for internet. In the mean time though you can used the shared one in the lobby.