Introduction of an exchange student in Japan

Hello everyone!
I'm Martina and since two weeks I'm an 留学生(=ryugakusei, aka exchange student) at Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku in Osaka.

With this blog, I want to help everyone who also wants to study in Japan. Originally I planned on putting up videos of me and my friend Tea (who I will probably mention a lot on here, since we planned our study abroad together and actually are here together now), but in the end, I figured I would be too lazy and in the end, it's better to have advice as a text anyway...

Let me introduce myself shortly, so that you won't be following a ghost from here on.

Right now, I'm 25 years old, an Austrian female and I've dreamt of coming to Japan since I'm a child. It wasn't until my high-school graduation that I decided that I really want to study Japanese language and culture. Before, I always asked myself what kind of work I could end up doing with that kind of degree and that it would probably be bad... But I threw away all my worries and here I am, trying to reach my dream. I also started to study Korean langauge and culture, but obviously that isn't my destiny, since I lack the Korean skill, somehow... But I won't give up!

To be honest, I'm a fangirl. I love Johnny's, K-POP, J-POP, asian drama... But fear not, I will probably not include too much of my fangirly obsession in my posts, since I can do that elsewhere and it doesn't really have anything to do with my study abroad.

My reason for opening this blog isn't really to keep in touch with friends, but rather to help everyone. While applying for Momoyama Daigaku, I was really frustratet. There were no informations and even though our university (University of Vienna) tried to help us, we weren't helped at all. Even former exchange students weren't that big of an help because there were all like "Oh, I just did it like it was..." or "Ugh, that's so long ago, I don't even remember anymore."
So that I won't forget, here you have a blog with all the things we did before coming here and the things we had to do right after we came and before we left. Practically, all the things we did that are important will be posted here. I hope.

As I mentioned, I'm from Austria, Vienna to be particular. So a lot of the procederes are probably only useful for students from Vienna University. But still, I bet some things are also useful to students from other countries. So if this page helps you, I would be happy to read about it and your stay in Japan. ^_^

With that, enough introduction. I'll tell you about the hell of work we had while trying to apply for Japan in the next post...

With that, またね！(=mata ne, see you!)

9. September 2013