AmmenitiesMy dorm was a three story building that consisted of three halls, A, B, and C. Most of the students lived in halls B and C, which were separated by male and female. These were single-person rooms that had a bed, desk, wardrobe, balcony, kitchen area with a sink, cabinets, fridge, and bathroom with a bathtub and toilet. From my previous experience with dorms, I thought these rooms were really nice, aside from them being a little old and showing some wear and tear. Each floor had a laundry room with washer and dryer that costed 100 yen per use. This wasn’t too bad of a fee, but I eventually started to hang up my clothes to dry on my balcony, as it was the common way of drying laundry in Japan and it also saved a little bit of money. Each floor also had its own vacuum that students could freely use to clean up their rooms. BillsBills for rent and electricity came by mail monthly while health insurance bills came every three months. We were told a couple of ways for paying them. One of which was to pay them all at the post office, although I heard it would take a while as they would ask for a lot of information. The other involved paying them at any convenience store, excluding rent which had to be paid at the post office. This wasn’t that bad of a situation as the post office was about five minutes away walking distance and a convenience store could be found on pretty much every busy corner. The cost of living for my dorm room was very affordable for my budget at around $200 a month for both rent and electricity. Health insurance was a little weird and confusing, but I think the payments averaged to around $10 a month. Also, on my first day at the dorm, there was a wi-fi provider that offered rentals on routers that costed around $20 for my whole trip and was extremely convenient, as I did not have cell service or any internet connection other than my room for about a week or two. How you can personalize your roomSome basic things that I would recommend for furnishing your dorm would be a good pillow (although one was provided, it was essentially tiny plastic tubes or beads and wasn’t what I was used to), an extra blanket if you’re someone who is frequently cold, a small carpet, and a laundry bin. The policies on personalizing your room were pretty lenient in my opinion. The rooms had specified areas that you were allowed to pin stuff to and they freely allowed adding other furniture to your room, such as a carpet or couch. We were also allowed to rearrange the furniture in our room however we wanted, although I didn’t really change mine throughout the year. Additionally, my dorm held what they called a “Free Market” at the beginning of each semester in which they would put previous students’ belongings that they didn’t take or left behind, such as all kinds of cookware and utensils, appliances, cleaning products, etc.. If you’re comfortable using second-hand goods like me, then I would recommend taking advantage of any opportunity similar to this as they tend to help save some money. Where to buy thingsFor stuff that I wasn’t able to find in the Free Market, I had to do some shopping around. This was fun for me as it encouraged me to start exploring the Gumyouji area, as well as taking the subway to get to various furniture and home goods stores. There are plenty of small furniture stores throughout the Gumyouji area, and not too far away by subway there was an Ikea as well as something like its Japanese counterpart, Nitori. I ended up getting my furniture and the rest of my needed cookware at all of these stores over the course of a couple weeks. Also, if you happen to have military access, the military base in Yokosuka is not that far from Yokohama and I heard that you can get good deals there as well. There was also a Costco somewhere near Yokohama, but only realistically accessible if you had a car. So whatever you may need for your dorm, there are plenty of places that could have exactly what you need, so never give up on looking for something if it is important to you and try to keep an open mind about exploring new shops. LandladiesThe landlords, oyasan in Japanese, were a group of ladies that helped in all sorts of ways with daily life at the dorm. They gave us an orientation upon our arrival about the rules and policies of the dorm. They would also notify us if mail or a parcel arrived and had to be signed for. In my experience, I had also asked them to make phone calls for me since my Japanese wasn’t the greatest and they were helpful in that they made sure they had everything understood and did everything to the best of their ability. I feel like no matter the problem, if you would ask them for help they would put in honest effort to help you out.
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AuthorI am Kyle Sablan and I studied abroad at Yokohama National University (YNU) during the 2016-2017 academic year. This blog was created as one of the requirements for receiving the Gilman Scholarship. The purpose of this blog is to share my personal experience with everybody and encourage interest in studying abroad. Archives
April 2018
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