[MUSIC] Maybe you can tell us a little bit more about your student life, the life outside of your classrooms. What do you do? How do you enjoy your student life in Japan? >> From my perspective as a USTEP student, because you start the program with a lot of people from different countries and you're coming at the same time so you attend all the introductory classes and orientation together, so you form some friendships there. So, things you can do in Tokyo is numerous, outside the class. You can get on the train and go to the countryside and go to an onsen with your friends, or you can go to city center, you can go to Shinjuku, and you can go to an izakaya or something like that. And just relax after all the studying. >> Have you done any travelling in Japan? >> Yeah, I took advantage of Golden Week, and I went to Okinawa, and a couple of weeks before that in the winter vacation I went to Fukuoka, I went to Hakone, when was that, that was last year. Went to the onsen (hot spring) there. >> So you kept getting around. Great. What do you do to sort of relax or enjoy outside of your academic work? >> I had been to Hiroshima and then sometimes like last time I went to Sendai to see my friends. So I can tour sometimes in Golden Weeks so weekends I really can't go outside of Tokyo but in the weekends I just go around Tokyo in the city. And to roam around, and then explore the city. But if I have a long vacation, like three or four days, I'm going outside of Tokyo. >> Is it easy to get around in Japan? In Tokyo? And in Japan? >> Yeah, it's quite easier. I really appreciate the transportation system, mainly the train. It's such a nice network. And in the beginning it might be so difficult for you to find the ways, like which train leads to where. But then you have apps, and these apps are pretty cool, they help you a lot, they save you a lot. They find you the shortest route and cheapest route, so they are really cool. >> I am in a figure skating team. >> A figure skating team. >> Yes. So that's really fun for me. But a lot of clubs and teams, I think here, are looking for international students and are welcoming international students. So that's really great. Also, we have weekly international student lunches that are held in a picnic style on campus. If it's raining, we do it indoors. That's always fun to get together with people outside of your program, outside of your classes. And a lot of regular Japanese students also join in. So that's always fun to interact with people on campus and both in international and Japanese. >> And you said you started your own circle, with your friends? >> Yeah. Some of us in the PEAK program, we found that we couldn't find an artistic art circle, so we decided to start one on our own. And we've been doing it for about, I'm a third year- so about three years or maybe two years and a half but we've been having a lot of fun with it. We're doing it every semester and it's great to- It's sort of hard to do it on our own, to schedule these sessions, but it's so much fun. >> How easy or how difficult is it to start your own circle or club? >> If you're not an official club of the university, it's very difficult to get funding. So a lot of the funding sort of has to come out of our own pockets. But I mean, because we're doing it as friends, we keep it to a minimum, and it's really not that hard to just start your own circle. >> Okay. What are the holidays like in Japanese universities? How long are your holidays? >> Quite different form the rest of the world. This was something I also had difficulty adjusting to when coming from an international school where the holiday system is very much western based. But quite obviously our summer holiday is late and much shorter so >> When does it start? >> So currently it starts in late July and ends around late September whereas most of my friends they would begin in early July and finish by early August. And so, because of that sort of lapse, it's very difficult to, what is it? To meet up with or to have colliding holiday schedules with my family and friends from overseas. >> For winter, well I guess most Japanese universities, their break starts in early January and then ends at the end of March. And that's quite different from US, UK schools too, right? [MUSIC] >> You all know that in some measurements, Tokyo is the biggest metropolitan area in the world. And I knew this but when I came here I was still flabbergasted if you count it in the 33 millions, it's actually double the entire amount of people living in my country. So, I was very surprised when I came here that there's so much stuff going on, every weekend there is stuff and during the week as well. And often times you have to actually make choices because there is so much stuff you want to do and it's all at the same Saturday. So, we'll be talking shortly, each one of us by stuff we can do. >> In Tokyo area, there are lots of attractions that you can go. So, maybe the most famous one is Disneyland and Disney Seas, one of the best places, even if you come here as tourists you should visit. And there are some others like Yokohama Sea Paradise, Tokyo Summerland if you come here for summer. So these are the attractions that there are some natural attractions like Hakone, Nikko. So these places, if you'd like to do hiking or Mountain climbing, so, these are the places that you can go. >> So I feel like the good thing is that Tokyo is really convenient so it's very fast if you want to just go to anywhere and I really like how you have different events in different seasons. And Japanese really appreciate the change of seasons. So I would say in spring of course you're going to go for Hanami. Which means you know you'll look at the cherry blossoms and it's just having picnic with friends. And when it comes to summer I would definitely recommend the fireworks show which is Called the Hanabi-taikai. So you wear your yukata and then you have really nice street food and then just enjoy the fireworks with your friends. And it lasts for two months. And then here comes to autumn, you would go hiking with friends. And then winter you would go skiing or just go to Hokkaido or having hot spring like Onsen. They're all really nice events. So just go with the flow of the season and really enjoy all different events in Japan. [MUSIC]
