Doug Land Spent the Fall of 2010 in Japan

Doug Land is currently a Junior on the men's squad here at Coe. Through Coe, Doug had the opportunity to spend the Fall of 2010 in Japan. Below is an essay written by Doug about his time spent overseas. Doug has also promised me pictures which I'll add to the post when received. Enjoy....

Trip to Japan

My trip to Japan was a very interesting experience. I left from the Eastern Iowa Airport on September 9^th, and arrived in Nagoya, Japan on September 10^th. The actual flight itself was 16 hours with a layover in Detroit for about 3 hours. The city of Nagoya is roughly 8 hours south of Tokyo by car. The exchange that I took part in was with Coe’s sister school, Nagoya Gakuin Daigaku. (名古屋学院大学) The credit that I received went towards my Asian Studies major.

I stayed in an international dormitory that was on campus. It housed roughly 30 students, with about 20 of them being from America. Each day, we had roughly 3 hours of Japanese language study. This was usually followed by an elective class. I had karate, and Japanese economy. Both courses were very interesting, although karate was much more exciting than the latter.

I tried to play tennis at least 3 times a week. I was not a fan of the courts, but recognize the fact that I am spoiled given the courts I have access to at Coe! The courts in Japan were made of green turf, and had sand on them. It was a cross between grass and clay because you could slide. My disdain for these courts would actually border on loathing, simply because my serve speed was drastically reduced. Also, I can’t slide for the life of me. But I worked a lot on my volleys because the tennis club would mostly play doubles. It really helped improve my volleys. There is no intercollegiate sports league like the NCAA in Japan. Thus, students would play simply to play, or for the sheer enjoyment, which was very neat. I also tried to run in the mornings, and lift before I would hit.

I did a bit of traveling in Japan. I think the most interesting place that I went was to a mountain village. It was having a festival the day we visited. We also took a gondola up to the summit, but unfortunately, there was strong fog that day. The most exciting place definitely had to be the weekend trip that I made to Tokyo（東京）. It was probably the craziest 3 days of my entire trip. The city itself is broken up into many smaller sections. We stayed mostly in Akihabara（秋葉原）, Shibuya（渋谷） and Roppongi （六本木）.

I also did a homestay with an old woman in the Tajimishi (多治見). It was really nice to experience life in Japan, in a more rural setting. She was the nicest person that I met on my entire trip, and I try to stay in contact with her.

A lot of time was spent trying to assimilate myself with the culture. Walking places was always an experience in and of itself. I admittedly had my fair share of wanderings attributed to being lost. In general, most people were kind and quite friendly. On the weekends, we would normally try to eat out, and go to a club or just the arcade. Nagoya is similar to the size of Chicago, and I think that I probably only saw a third of the city.

The food that I had was amazing. Even if a person doesn’t like to eat fish, there is still a lot of other delicious things to eat. I would have to say that my new favorite dish is ramen. It is absolutely nothing like American ramen (in the cups that are 85 cents). Every weekend, we would try and go to at least one new ramen shop. Each one has a different recipe for the sauce, and I never left any ramen shop without my mind being blown away.

I do miss everyone that I met over there. I think that there are two people that I miss the most - Shoji and Naoya. All in all, I would say that it was a great experience that I would not give up for anything. Actually, I plan on going back some time and possibly obtaining a job!