Scott Boden

The University of Adelaide, Australia
Exchange to Kyoto University, Japan

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, as the Captain of Japan Airline flight 778 I wish to welcome you to Japan, and hope that you enjoy your stay.”

The months leading up to my departure for Kyoto, Japan, seemed to fly by faster then the flight from Sydney to Osaka, mainly due to need to complete experiments and projects before my departure date. This hectic schedule left me with little time to think of what I actually thought about going to Japan, and what would be the things to do while in the land of the rising sun. Little did I know at the time, this was probably the best state to be in upon arriving in Japan, because the rush of new experiences has been amazing, and I feel I’ve taken them on board not knowing what to have expected.

My first experience involved catching a train to the town where my sensei lived, called Nara. Once the capital of Japan many years ago, I had to decipher how to actually get there, and fortunately my 6 week crash course in Japanese provided just enough phrases to do so. I was then greeted with a very warm welcome, as comes to be expected in Japan, but is never taken for granted. The warm welcomes delivered by people everywhere, even in little corner shops, is a common example of how the Japanese culture is still very evident, despite the influence of the western world. My first day in Japan was spent sight-seeing, being very kindly guided around ancient Nara by my sensei’s son. The great wooden temples with their distinct Japanese architecture are an amazing site, but probably the thing I noticed most was that although the people here are not extremely religious, they have a strong respect for those that have come before them, and this is demonstrated as reverence when visiting historic sites such as those in Nara.

Since that day I have now spent two weeks in Kyoto and its surrounding areas. Kyoto has a wonderful feeling about it. Despite it being one of the oldest cities in Japan, and being steeped in Japanese heritage and more world heritage sites than you can imagine, the people have a real warmth towards foreigners. This was experienced on one particular night when walking through some of the more popular streets of Kyoto, called Sanjo-dori and Shijo-dori (simply third and fourth avenues, respectively).

While discussing new experiences, it would be remiss of me not to mention the food. My only fear about Japan was that I would have to eat raw fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and be devoid of such things as good coffee. However, the food has honestly been amazingly delicious, and while I still resort to eating a western style breakfast, I will be definitely looking for a good ramen or soba noodle restaurant upon my return to Australia. The food tastes great, and while I have tried things like dipping meat in raw egg which I would never have eaten in Australia, I haven’t yet ordered something I haven’t liked. Admittedly, I have often had a Japanese person guiding me through the menu, but I’ve still been adventurous at times by going to restaurants by myself.

My final experience of Japan is the serenity that I have experienced. It is true the trains get full of busy people who looked constantly rushed, and that concrete buildings merge one city into another. However, in the grounds of temples such as Nanzen-ji and Kiyomizu-dera, where water flows quietly down water falls and little temples are surrounded by cherry blossom trees, I have experienced a feeling of peacefulness that I didn’t expect to exist within the city walls.

My last message regards the great friendships I have developed over the last 3 weeks. I cannot express enough how grateful I am to the people of Kyoto University who have welcomed me into the laboratory, and more importantly life in Kyoto. That have made things very easy, and helped entirely out of free will. I have also had the opportunity to meet and become friends with people from other countries, which has been very rewarding. I have only spent 2 weeks in Japan, but already I can’t wait for the 3 and a half months to follow!

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