Japan During-Trip

I have been in Japan for about five days now and am absolutely loving every minute of it. Everyday we have been up at around 8ish and have been on our feet till about 5pm. I knew that we would be doing a ton of walking every day but did not expect how much my feet would hurt. As the days go on more I get more and more used to constantly being on my feet. I think my education at BW has defiantly positively impacted my ability to navigate my experience in Japan. Baldwin Wallace provides students with a liberal arts education which I think helps to make students a more well rounded person. The university also requires us to have a experiential credit in order to graduate and that is very important. Most schools do not do this and anyone I have talked to who has not studied abroad regrets it and wishes they did it. I am grateful to BW for making this a requirement for all students and helping me to get out of my comfort zone. By taking classes like ethics, world history, sign language, and international studies it has greatly helped me to navigate in Japan. These classes have opened my mind to how other cultures are and that there is so much more out there. I really did not know what to expect about Japanese culture before coming. Everyone kept telling me that it was going to be a big culture shock which made me nervous. After arriving here I was surprised to realize that it really was not that much of a culture shock. Kyoto reminds me a lot of New York with the busy hours and the amount of people on the street. I expected there to be a lot of McDonald’s but not as many Starbucks and Wendy’s. I was also was really nervous about the language barrier but was shocked to see how many spoke English or at least somewhat some English. Jessica and I went to a sushi place for the first time and could not figure out how to order. It was super small and cute but the server spoke no English. We tried to look up words to say but failed. Then, we asked another server and she spoke some English, she helped us right away. The history absolutely amazes me every chance it gets. No matter where we are or what we are doing I am so interested to know what the history is/background information. Especially after doing the presentations on each of the places we went/are going to. Discovering and learning about the history makes the places so much more meaningful. My ability to adapt to Japanese norms for verbal and non-verbal interaction has been a struggle. The only words I know are thank you and hello which is the bear minimum. I also need to work on not eating or drinking when I walk which is difficult for me to remember. I intend to as I am going forward to improve on both non-verbal and verbal interaction.