What time is it?

A recurring question I get lately is "What time is it there?"... well, Japan in comparison to switzerland, is +7 hours during summer and +8 hours during winter (Japan doesn't have dailight saving). You can take a look to the image above that shows "Greenwich Mean time" times differences.

Switzerland is Greenwich + 1 and Japan is Currently Greenwich +8 which results in 7 hours difference. If still in doubt, or you interested in other time zones, you can check this website that shows all world times in one page!

Did you know? : Pedestrian Traffic Light

This is a pedestrian Traffic light. Japanese call the Red "Akai" which means Red, but they call the Green "Ao" which is translated in to "Blue". Normally the Color Green is called "Midori" but not for the traffic light.

Therefore, is always a little confusing at first, when you are told to cross the street when the traffic light is Blue.

The reason behind it, is that until the 1185 D.C. only the word "Ao" (blue) was used. There was no word for "Green". Still today, the same concept is applied to some Vegetables and Fruit, like Apples...the same doesn't happen on the other hand for other stuff like Cars and T-shirts, for which the word Midori "Green" is then used.

I don't know exactly how this happened to be applied to traffic light, since are quite modern, but foreigners still often jokes about it...

By the way, you might wonder what the Scale next to the traffic light is...that one indicates how long you need to wait, before the traffic light turns Green..*ups*...Blue....

Enrollment and Placement Test...

This is the School building. Besides hosting the Language school, it hosts a medical School as well.

The appointment for all students was at 9.30 at the 9th Floor. There we had to register our name, and we were give a tag with a letter and white paper to write our name. I got Letter "B". Firstly puzzled on the meaning and why people were assigned either "A", "B" or "C", it became clear later.

After signing in we were introduced to the school Manager, Staff and students. We took the entrance picture and we got a tour of the facilities.

Here we found out what the assigned letters meant. "A" was for chinese speaking and "B" for English and other languages speaking people. No idea about the "C" one, but i guess it was chinese, too.

The total new students were about 40 people. 80% was from either China or Taiwan. 4 people from Thailand, 1 from Iran and me and another guy that probably comes from either europe or USA.

During the tour we were shown where to park bycicles, were to get lunch (Students get a 50% off discount on the building restaurant on the ground floor, apparently you can get as much rice and bread as you want with your meal.

Then we got down to real business. The placement test (!) ... Written and Spoken Japanese. Even i passed my JPLT Level 4 test in 2007 (thanks to Shoko-Sensei) i merely practiced for taking the test. I can recognize Hiragana and Katakana and some Kanji, but that's about it. I can tell you what i had for breakfast or that is nice weather. The Test was quite difficult, so i must say it was turned in almost blank.

I just hope i can be placed not in the real beginner class, but at least in a upper beginner not to go thru again with all the basic alphabet...

Tomorrow at 9.50 AM we will know the class assignement...

Laundry Day: Ups...

As today is my last day before school start, i've decided to do the laundry...

Woah...i didn't think it would be that difficult... I'll better get busy and start translating all those buttons...

Where am I ? Google map !

The dormitory is located about 40 minutes by walk from the school. You can see them from the google map here.

There is a subway station about 5 minutes away from the dormitory. The cost for one stop, two ways, is 400 Yen (CHF 5.--) which is not really cheap. Calculated on twice per day would be about 10.-- Swiss francs. I'm considering buying a monthly ticket that it would pay out after 19 return tickets.

Trains in japan are quite expensive. Interesting is that the train cost for employees is usually paid by the company, so that the employee doesn't have to bear the cost himself.

You might object that 5.-- for a return ticket is not that bad, but if you consider that a Bento (a Lunch Box) is sold for about the same price, compared to switzerland the result is that a one subway stop's cost is nearly CHF 10.--...

Students get rebates, but apparently Language Students are not considered "real Students" therefore, no discount... Since i didn't have a lot of luck with bycicles in the past (two arms broken at the same time) ...i might consider walking or get a monthly ticket ;)...

Shots from The Street: April 7th, 2009

The following are few shots with a brief comment taken on the street...

You might not have noticed at first, but there is a man there...

This is (apparently) the first mobile phone with LCD screen in 3D. Looking at 2D images is not really comfortable as the image appear a little bit strange, and unfortunately i could not see any 3D images demo, but it should be quite impressive ;) The pictures need to be taken by a camera with two lenses. More on this topic here

This is a Chocolate Boutique. In Japan, if you want to make a nice chocolate gift, you go to the chocolate Boutique. It looks like a Nespresso store, but for chocolate. I didn't check the prices...but i guess they might be quite high...

This is the inside of a Shopping Center at Kobe Station. Looking from below, it looks like a sky full of stars...

An italian old style bed, sold for over 1 million yen (about 12'000.-- Swiss Francs)

This is a convenience store, in japanese called "Conbini". Is like a 7-eleven or small stores open 24 hours. The guy is not reading an encyclopedia....is a comic book! They might even spend hours ...just reading it there... Now i've noticed that in some book stores, the comics are wrapped with plastic paper to avoid people reading it in the shop, but at some stores they are still available unwrapped. At the moment i took the pictures, there were about 3 guys reading ;)

They Took it Serious: Cleaning Day!

Today the school sent a specialized cleaning company to clean up the shower room. The Cleaning Guy spent more than 4 hours to deep clean it.

The result is really good. He cleaned everything and even the filters, so now it is possible to take bath too!

The Korean student told me that in the past they never took the bath, as it didn't look well, but he said he didn't mind it.

Late afternoon i went out for a long walk and by the time i was back, i found one of the School staff directing further cleaning work. All students were busy cleaning and i joined too.

I hope the will not find out who's fault was that they had to clean ...

Anyway, you can see by yourself from the images below that now it looks quite different, just don't look at the trash bags that need to be taken out. In japan, normal trash can be taken out every week on Monday and Thursday between 5 AM and 8 AM. So we will need to wait thursday to get rid of them.

I was surprised that they don't have Trash Containers as in Switzerland, the trash is "abandoned" on the street at specific places of collection...

What you cannot see from the picture is the inside of each closet that was thoroughly cleaned and each student got a space assigned.