Living and working in Japan was the experience of a lifetime. Although most, if not all, things were different from what I expected, I will be forever grateful for the time I got to spend there. Working at IHI, and learning more about the aerospace industry is something that I will never forget.
Although I had previously lived and worked in a foreign country, I didn't have to previously use the language of that country. When in China, working as a teaching assistant, you worked and lived with people in the program, so knowing Chinese wasn't necessary. In this case, you worked, lived, and moved independently from other people, and knowing at least rudimentary Japanese was necessary to improve your experience there.
Initially, the first day was a bit of a shock, as I found out that I lived far from the center of Tokyo. The city I lived in was Akishima, a suburb on the Ome Line, a train line giving service to the far west of Tokyo. After a few weeks of traveling through Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand before work started with my coworker and friend from UC, and dreaming about the upcoming job in Tokyo, it was a shock to know that exploring Tokyo would be a bigger struggle than simply getting on a short train ride after work. My job also started slowly, with me first learning about acoustic liners, and their physics for a month. Then I progressed to learning how to use Pointwise, a 2D and 3D software, in order to create different acoustic liner geometries.
The first month was pretty lonely, as I was learning my way around Tokyo, and having trouble getting wifi for my apartment. As I didn't have reliable phone service, I wasn't able to use that either. I quickly found the places nearby me with wifi, but it got old quickly. Soon, however, things started slowly coming into place, with the wifi being ordered, and getting involved in an international church near me, called Lifehouse. I also had many people reach out to me via Couchsurfing, and joined a language exchange through it. One of the students that I worked with during my time in Chong Qing was also doing an internship in Tokyo. Furthermore, my boyfriend worked on the other side of Tokyo for his co-op, so we often spent weekends together, and I also hung out with many of his coworkers on various excursions throughout Tokyo.
I also started to occupy my time by studying for the GRE, and starting a travel blog (found here: starryeyestravel.com ). I did so much studying that my overall GRE score was fantastic. My travel blog will be a good way for me to nurture my hobby of writing, while keeping a record of my travels! It was also a good way for me to document this experience and share it with the general public. Living alone, in Tokyo, a country where it's hard to reach out to the locals, forced me to find other ways to occupy my time. It made me reevaluate and truly think about the amount of alone time vs socializing time I really need. It also made me realize that I need to prioritize myself more, a lesson that I've carried back with me to the US.
During my work, I utilized ANSYS Fluent to run fluid mechanics simulations, both to analyze drag and other properties, as well as the overall air flow in the chamber. My work, and its results, will influence future research, and design results at IHI. This work was very difficult for me, and it made me reflect on my future career paths: do I really want to do something that is this difficult for me? Do I really want to pursue a career path that is highly unlikely to reach its goal (astronautical/aerospace engineering graduate school in order to become an astronaut)? After much reflection on my current path in life, as well as the progress I've made already, I decided it was worth it for me to continue.
I was lucky enough to have two different company breaks. The first was during Golden Week, the string of holidays during late April and May that almost all kaishain (aka desk workers), get off in Japan. My boyfriend and I went to Kansai, the prefecture of Japan containing Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe. We saw the bowing deer in Nara, the beautiful nature in Kyoto (including Fushimi Inari and Arashiyama Bamboo Forest), the nightlife in Osaka, and tried the Kobe beef in Chinatown (albeit a less expensive cut). It was a wonderful trip, and we met a few wonderful people through Couchsurfing as well. It was an amazing time, with a great travel partner! I wrote a series of posts about this on my travel blog if you are interested in reading more details of the trip!
My second company break was towards the end of my internship. After returning, I only had one week left of the internship! I went to the island of Hokkaido. While there, I went to Sapporo, Otaru, Hakone, and Hakodate. Sapporo was my home base for most of the trip, and I took a day trip to Otaru, to see the Otaru Canal. I bought a ticket on a tour bus to Hakone, to see many of the lavender and flower fields, and the famous Blue Pond! In Sapporo, I got to climb Mt. Moiwa at night with many couchsurfers, as well as see the Sapporo Clock Tower, have crab donburi, and try many Sapporo beers at the Sapporo Beer Museum. Finally, in Hakodate, I took it easy, going to have some of the best sashimi (and one of the best meals) I had in Japan, as well as seeing the Goryokaku Tower and Park, the morning market, as well as meeting another couchsurfer for the Port Festival Fireworks in the Red Brick Warehouse District! The types of food, and the attitude of the people were so different than in Tokyo, it made me want to travel in Japan even more in the future.
Some other things I didn't expect to have in Japan were a vibrant expat community, as well as the kindness of the locals. There were so many expatriates, both in the international church and the language exchange group I joined, as well as people just finding each other and sticking together. A few of my boyfriend's coworkers were North African, including Tunisians and a Moroccan, and the way that they found other North Africans, as well as other expats was amazing! Towards the end, there was a big beach party in Kamakura (very near Tokyo), and the amount of friends inviting friends was even overwhelming at times.
Just before leaving, I attempted to climb Mt. Fuji..... I say attempted, because our plan was foiled by the typhoon. We started with the four of us (the four in the first picture, to be exact, although that picture was at Mt. Takao), and after taking multiple breaks, eventually got separated about halfway up the mountain. After several more hours of climbing, we were told that we couldn't continue any further, with the typhoon winds being too strong at the top. Considering we were at the 8 1/2 station, and the summit was at the 9 1/2 station, the strength of the winds was already concerning enough that we decided to turn back. The way down was almost worse though. Although the way up was exhausting, using my hands to climb up old dried lava flows at times, the way down, the rain soaked through 5 layers, and the walk was a continuous snaking back and forth. Combined with the lack of scenery, due to the fog and clouds (that we appeared to be inside), it was a rough time. Towards the bottom, the sun rose, and there was a bit of forest, helping a lot with our mental stability. We got at the bottom around 6 am (we had started climbing at 7 pm the previous day.) We weren't able to move our bus tickets earlier, so we had a lot of time to kill, and found the others around noon, and had our bus back to Tokyo at 1 pm. This was also sadly our goodbyes to our friends, and a promise to see them in the future.
My time in Japan was so overwhelming, it's hard to describe it all in one post! If you'd like to learn more about my time in Japan, please visit my travel blog, or follow my travel instagram (@starryeyestravel) to see new posts as I add them. Overall, though, I would recommend Japan to any and every traveler, but the reality of living there can be difficult. If you don't have a community of people there, it's a very lonely country, and you can quickly get sucked into your work. The food was amazing, but takes a little bit of time to get used to. The amount of fandoms and acceptance for different hobbies is fantastic though. It's hard for foreigners to fit in, and you will always stand out a bit, but with practice and perservance for the Japanese language, you get high rewards!
Although I had previously lived and worked in a foreign country, I didn't have to previously use the language of that country. When in China, working as a teaching assistant, you worked and lived with people in the program, so knowing Chinese wasn't necessary. In this case, you worked, lived, and moved independently from other people, and knowing at least rudimentary Japanese was necessary to improve your experience there.
Initially, the first day was a bit of a shock, as I found out that I lived far from the center of Tokyo. The city I lived in was Akishima, a suburb on the Ome Line, a train line giving service to the far west of Tokyo. After a few weeks of traveling through Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand before work started with my coworker and friend from UC, and dreaming about the upcoming job in Tokyo, it was a shock to know that exploring Tokyo would be a bigger struggle than simply getting on a short train ride after work. My job also started slowly, with me first learning about acoustic liners, and their physics for a month. Then I progressed to learning how to use Pointwise, a 2D and 3D software, in order to create different acoustic liner geometries.
The first month was pretty lonely, as I was learning my way around Tokyo, and having trouble getting wifi for my apartment. As I didn't have reliable phone service, I wasn't able to use that either. I quickly found the places nearby me with wifi, but it got old quickly. Soon, however, things started slowly coming into place, with the wifi being ordered, and getting involved in an international church near me, called Lifehouse. I also had many people reach out to me via Couchsurfing, and joined a language exchange through it. One of the students that I worked with during my time in Chong Qing was also doing an internship in Tokyo. Furthermore, my boyfriend worked on the other side of Tokyo for his co-op, so we often spent weekends together, and I also hung out with many of his coworkers on various excursions throughout Tokyo.
I also started to occupy my time by studying for the GRE, and starting a travel blog (found here: starryeyestravel.com ). I did so much studying that my overall GRE score was fantastic. My travel blog will be a good way for me to nurture my hobby of writing, while keeping a record of my travels! It was also a good way for me to document this experience and share it with the general public. Living alone, in Tokyo, a country where it's hard to reach out to the locals, forced me to find other ways to occupy my time. It made me reevaluate and truly think about the amount of alone time vs socializing time I really need. It also made me realize that I need to prioritize myself more, a lesson that I've carried back with me to the US.
During my work, I utilized ANSYS Fluent to run fluid mechanics simulations, both to analyze drag and other properties, as well as the overall air flow in the chamber. My work, and its results, will influence future research, and design results at IHI. This work was very difficult for me, and it made me reflect on my future career paths: do I really want to do something that is this difficult for me? Do I really want to pursue a career path that is highly unlikely to reach its goal (astronautical/aerospace engineering graduate school in order to become an astronaut)? After much reflection on my current path in life, as well as the progress I've made already, I decided it was worth it for me to continue.
I was lucky enough to have two different company breaks. The first was during Golden Week, the string of holidays during late April and May that almost all kaishain (aka desk workers), get off in Japan. My boyfriend and I went to Kansai, the prefecture of Japan containing Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe. We saw the bowing deer in Nara, the beautiful nature in Kyoto (including Fushimi Inari and Arashiyama Bamboo Forest), the nightlife in Osaka, and tried the Kobe beef in Chinatown (albeit a less expensive cut). It was a wonderful trip, and we met a few wonderful people through Couchsurfing as well. It was an amazing time, with a great travel partner! I wrote a series of posts about this on my travel blog if you are interested in reading more details of the trip!
My second company break was towards the end of my internship. After returning, I only had one week left of the internship! I went to the island of Hokkaido. While there, I went to Sapporo, Otaru, Hakone, and Hakodate. Sapporo was my home base for most of the trip, and I took a day trip to Otaru, to see the Otaru Canal. I bought a ticket on a tour bus to Hakone, to see many of the lavender and flower fields, and the famous Blue Pond! In Sapporo, I got to climb Mt. Moiwa at night with many couchsurfers, as well as see the Sapporo Clock Tower, have crab donburi, and try many Sapporo beers at the Sapporo Beer Museum. Finally, in Hakodate, I took it easy, going to have some of the best sashimi (and one of the best meals) I had in Japan, as well as seeing the Goryokaku Tower and Park, the morning market, as well as meeting another couchsurfer for the Port Festival Fireworks in the Red Brick Warehouse District! The types of food, and the attitude of the people were so different than in Tokyo, it made me want to travel in Japan even more in the future.
Some other things I didn't expect to have in Japan were a vibrant expat community, as well as the kindness of the locals. There were so many expatriates, both in the international church and the language exchange group I joined, as well as people just finding each other and sticking together. A few of my boyfriend's coworkers were North African, including Tunisians and a Moroccan, and the way that they found other North Africans, as well as other expats was amazing! Towards the end, there was a big beach party in Kamakura (very near Tokyo), and the amount of friends inviting friends was even overwhelming at times.
Just before leaving, I attempted to climb Mt. Fuji..... I say attempted, because our plan was foiled by the typhoon. We started with the four of us (the four in the first picture, to be exact, although that picture was at Mt. Takao), and after taking multiple breaks, eventually got separated about halfway up the mountain. After several more hours of climbing, we were told that we couldn't continue any further, with the typhoon winds being too strong at the top. Considering we were at the 8 1/2 station, and the summit was at the 9 1/2 station, the strength of the winds was already concerning enough that we decided to turn back. The way down was almost worse though. Although the way up was exhausting, using my hands to climb up old dried lava flows at times, the way down, the rain soaked through 5 layers, and the walk was a continuous snaking back and forth. Combined with the lack of scenery, due to the fog and clouds (that we appeared to be inside), it was a rough time. Towards the bottom, the sun rose, and there was a bit of forest, helping a lot with our mental stability. We got at the bottom around 6 am (we had started climbing at 7 pm the previous day.) We weren't able to move our bus tickets earlier, so we had a lot of time to kill, and found the others around noon, and had our bus back to Tokyo at 1 pm. This was also sadly our goodbyes to our friends, and a promise to see them in the future.
My time in Japan was so overwhelming, it's hard to describe it all in one post! If you'd like to learn more about my time in Japan, please visit my travel blog, or follow my travel instagram (@starryeyestravel) to see new posts as I add them. Overall, though, I would recommend Japan to any and every traveler, but the reality of living there can be difficult. If you don't have a community of people there, it's a very lonely country, and you can quickly get sucked into your work. The food was amazing, but takes a little bit of time to get used to. The amount of fandoms and acceptance for different hobbies is fantastic though. It's hard for foreigners to fit in, and you will always stand out a bit, but with practice and perservance for the Japanese language, you get high rewards!