Studying Abroad in Tokyo: Hiking, Festivals, Food, and Exploring Japan

Hello, I’m Tobey, an English student, currently studying at Seijo University in Tokyo. I’ve been here for about 3 months so far, and I’m really enjoying it. I love Tokyo a lot at the moment, but I should hopefully go somewhere else outside of Tokyo on my break. I love to hike, so hopefully I can go to some hiking areas around and outside of Tokyo. I recently went to Odawara Castle, which was a lot of fun. A lot of historical places around there, like the castle,, but also a very scenic place to travel to. It’s a smaller town with mountains all around, which was very fun to explore. I also did a festival-type thing with my apartment, which was carrying a shrine around Setagaya, which was a lot of fun but also very tiring. I’ve tried a lot of local dishes. My favorite at the moment is this place called Matsuya, which is a chain where they serve different food in different cities. I love the gyoza they do there near my accommodation. I also like the curry they do a little bit further out. I like where I live at the moment because I’m not too fond of bigger cities. My place is a lot quieter and smaller, but it has very easy access to places around me. 

For example, Shinjuku is very close, 30 minutes by train. This makes it very easy to travel a lot of places because Shinjuku train station is very confusing, but it is very large to the point that I can go basically anywhere with it. It was quite challenging learning about the train station because of how large it is, but after a month or so, it has become a lot easier to figure it out. I’ve made a good number of friends in university. A lot of the people in the university are very friendly and help with Japanese. They also speak relatively good English. I’ve gone out drinking and eating with a friend I’ve made recently in one of my lessons. Some skills I’ve developed are using some of the Japanese I know and reading parts of sentences that have some kanji that I don’t understand. However, combining parts I know and parts I don’t, I can figure out the rest of the sentence. Also asking for help in Japanese from locals. My listening skills are quite bad, but being able to ask for help or where something is, it has improved my listening a lot more. Some local attractions I’ve been to are the festival I mentioned earlier and some local temples, which look very cool. I’ve also been out further, like Odawara Castle. I want to eventually go to some more unique museums, like those in Tokyo and further. There is one i do want to go to, which is a very interesting thing. It’s called the parasite museum, which is a museum about parasites, which sounds interesting. I’ve also been to Tamagawa for the Hanabi festival, which is fireworks, and also Asakusa, which is a very large temple that you should definitely check out. I also can’t wait for the Sakura blossoms.

I enjoy exploring mainly Aswell in parts of Shibuya, Tokyo, and Shinjuku, but also further out in smaller areas. I enjoy looking for things that sell my hobbies, and it’s very cool finding a place by accident on the 8th floor of a building that has different smaller shops on each floor. One huge challenge that is huge for me, which seems quite stupid, is going on the left in everything. Standing on escalators, you need to stand on the left. Walking down the street, you also need to stand on the left. 

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