University life in Japan is quite different where students spend more of their focus on joining clubs intead of doing their work in class. Actually, joining a club is really like a class-- you're expected to put a lot of effort in to the club, attend events and more. In a club, everyone's a core member. For people that aren't into the hardcore-ness of a club, there exists "circles" where things are much more loose and people can come and go as they please.
Though most students that join clubs are undergrads (because they have more free time), most grad students don't have the time to come out and join these clubs (these clubs are also mainly located at the undergrad campus of the University). Dispite this, I decided to head down from the Engineering campus (which is only a little ways off from the undergrad campus) to check out the lively undergrad campus.
I caught a jazz band performing on campus which were pretty good. Actually there are plenty of musical groups on campus. From Jazz, rock & punk, classical and more.
Actually what struck me most was a mandolin-banjo club who were quite talented playing the sort of music you'd hear in comical old cowboy-flicks. I hung out and had a pretty good laugh as I'd never expect to see something like this in Japan-- always be prepared to see something unexpected!
Well, I was quite right about seeing the unexpected. Now, during my time at UBC, I've never seen a guy in an old looking suit with a top hat riding through campus. I saw exactly that at the undergrad campus. The people from the horse riding club at Tohoku University brought out a horse and took a little walk around campus drawing much attention. Once thing's for certain, they have very intersting clubs at Tohoku University, probably more interesting than the clubs I've seen back home. I've even seen a gliding club where members actually fly in large gliders. I have no clue how these guys get the money to do things like this.
When I went out to check out the campus on Wedensday and it was particularly warm. What I always used to do when I was studying Japanese at the undergrad campus, was have lunch outside with my friends in front of the International Exchange Building. The secretaries would always go in and out during lunch time. So we'd invite them over to have lunch with us it it used to be a sort of a tradition since the summer. I had since stopped taking the Japanese course so I have rarely seen the secretaries since then and only sporatically over the course of the year. I decided to drop by the office to say hi and invited Hiroko (one of the secretaries) out for lunch.
Left: Me, Right: Hiroko
Hiroko's taken the international students out from time to time to the mountains and more. I had the chance to hop into a trip to a big acquarium a whiles out of Sendai and she'd drop by a few events at the old dorm. To put it short, she's pretty damn awesome and I think that the international students are quite lucky to have her as the Exchange Division secretary because she does a ton load of things to help out the students.
After lunch, I headed out to check out the Sakura blossoming around campus. Unfortunately it was still a little early at the time and most trees on campus were not in full bloom yet. But they will be in a matter of days. At 1:30 pm, I headed back into lab to continue my unfruitful work in trying to do a simple CAD drawing. (I've got no CAD experience!)
No comments:
Post a Comment