APU (Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University)

Main Characters
I: Solveig, an exchange student from University of Iceland to APU in Japan
Nika: My classmate and also an exchange student to the same university


As soon as I stepped out of the plane...
No no no. That beginning has become a cliché. Not that pointing out the clichés hasn't become a cliché. But here is something real, no matter what you think.
When Nika and I stepped out of the plane, someone was waiting to help us get on the right bus to Beppu and APU. It was already completely dark, shortly after nine o'clock in the evening and the heat and humidity was stifling. 32 degrees Celsius. As we sat in the bus, we asked the man how hot it must be during daytime, if it was this high so late in the night, well after sunset. We were quite relieved, if not surprised, when he told us that it was just the same, the degrees did not alter that much.
Then the two hours trans-island drive from Fukuoka Airport to Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University began.
We could see nothing out of the windows. There were no lights anywhere, once we were out of Fukuoka City. No lights except inside the bus, where all the lights were turned on, and so was the television screen in the front, airing a Japanese comedy, it seemed, without sound. I could just as well watch it's reflection in the window, such was the darkness outside. Half asleep, half awake, we sailed through the night, without any idea of our surroundings.
It was not until at our destination, where a few students greeted us with flashlights to guide us to our new homes, that we could see anything. Our bags were put in a car, but we were made to walk towards a sight-seeing spot, where we were to descend some very steep stairs. As we came to the spot, the crickets singing loudly, the earth suddenly seemed to drop down from our feet and the overview of the school campus in a valley and the dark-blue mountains around, hidden half-way in a misty fog, disappearing into the darkness, made all of us stop and stare.
It was indescribable, but I humbly try. (see, Japan is already having its effect on me)

Ok. Here goes.
I did not have many expectations for the school, because I was fine with whatever it would be like. What I wanted was simple:
1. To live somewhere hot, for once. To live somewhere where I can just go out for a walk without having to think too hard about what I have to wear or take with me. To live somewhere where I can sit down in a park, and read a book in peace. Somewhere where I can study outside (to sit underneath a tree, reading for class).
2. To go to Japan and live among Japanese people and learn more about the culture and to get better at Japanese.
3. To live in a city, bigger than Reykjavik, so that I don't have to worry about meeting people that know me if I leave the house to scandalize.
Now, how hard can that be coming from Iceland, going to South Japan?

Here's what I got.
1. APU is on the island called Kyushu. It is the southernmost island of Japan (out of the four main ones, that is). It is 32 degrees Celsius now, and it might possibly snow in Jan/Feb, if we're (un)lucky.
Then why did the man at the orientation talk to us about so much snow that they have to close the school sometimes??
2. The first friends I made were American. The next were Norwegian. The only Japanese person I have been introduced to speaks perfect English.
I don't feel like I'm in Japan here. There is nothing here that reminds me of the Japan that I know and love. The university is so new, everything is in such good condition, and modern. None of that old Japanese building style. And the store is Co-op! Papa, maman, vous vous souvenez de la Coop, non? (yes, I meant to say the store) No ramen shops, no sushi shops, no combinis (convenience stores), no nothing that I recognize.
3. Foreigners that I have met in Iceland make fun of Reykjavik, and call it a town, not a city. I try do defend my beloved hometown... I mean city ! by saying that it's not the number of people that make a city a city, but the number of cultural thingies. Theaters, universities, museums... And Reykjavik has a LOT of those. In 2005 I stayed in Fujinomiya, a town of 121 thousand. That was a town where they had chickens in their backyard, and no movie theater in sight. (They only had one run-down bowling hall where the machine that kept the score kept making mistakes over and over again).
Now I live in Beppu, a city of a 126 thousand. That is a city with two universities, museums, etc.
Reykjavik is a city of a 112, or a 180 if you take the greater area into account.
I was a little disappointed when I found out how small Beppu is, but soon got over it, because it is a city and not a town. It has (at least) two universities, Beppu University and APU, and it has museums, movie theaters, and such cultural stuff.
Now, as you can see on this map here, Beppu City is a city by the sea. That's nice, there is even a beach there. When we go down town, we are advised to take the bus to Beppu Station, and from there walk around or take another bus.
In the upper right corner of the map, there is a search function. Type in 'Beppu Station' and place your cursor over the appropriate choice, and arrows should appear on the map to show you where the station is stationed in the northern part of the city. See?
Oh, Þórunn, you are so going to laugh at me now. Type 'APU' in the search function and place your cursor over 'Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University'.
I live up in the mountains. It takes forty minutes by bus to go down town. And when I say down town, I really mean it. I have to pop my ears every time I go down the mountain, or up the snakelike road. I am not exaggerating!
Þórunn, mamma. I feel your pain.
I feel like I am in Bifröst University you know. Far away from the real world. (I have no Idea how far Bifröst is from Reykjavik.)
Good thing that this unreal world I live in, high up in the mountains, has a very good population. Everyone is so polite that they greet you wholeheartedly when you meet them on the hallways. Of another building that you've never entered before, and you are certain that you have never seen that person before. It's nice. Everyone starts from the point that the other person is a good person and interesting and fun to talk to.
And all of us new people, exchange students and international students as well, we get along really well, and always start with the same questions: 'What was your name again?' 'And where did you say that you're from?'

How come I'm always learning from an institution that is new? First there was IB, in Hamrahlid College. It had only been running for four years when I enrolled, and none of the teachers or office people knew how it worked, and they could never answer any questions. Then there was Japanese at the University of Iceland. That had also only been running for about four years, am I right? And now I'm in a University with only seven years of history. Imagine, the founder of the school is still working here. Kinda cool.

Allright, it's almost midnight now, and I have to wake up early tomorrow morning to go to the health examination. They are going to measure my height, my weight, my blood pressure... they're going to take a blood sample, a urine sample and and ex-ray...
I'm looking forwards to it, its got to be interesting.