Visiting Atami

The last university related task of the year was a two day trip to the Asahi Kanagawa Brewery (located in Ashigara) and Atami, where we spent a night and enjoyed the relaxing onsen that the hotel had to offer.  The visit to the brewery was what one might expect from a factory that is used to handling large groups of people, well organized and highly controlled. We were able to see some amazing automation used in bottling and packaging, as well as impressive fermentation tanks and the laboratory where at least some quality control is done.

The view from my hotel room.

The visit to Atami started with a workshop, where two previous YSEP students gave brief presentations on what it is like to apply for and work in a Japanese company. They really managed to explain what is required for us to be able to work in Japan and what can be expected from working in a Japanese company. Their experiences were very valuable, because they too started with being YSEP students. In addition to these presentations, we also considered what preparation is required to enter a Japanese company and what are the advantages and disadvantages of working for a Japanese company. Each group presented their ideas at the end of the workshop.

The mayor of Atami

After enjoying the hot springs at the hotel and having a good night’s sleep, we headed off to listen to a lecture by the Mayor of Atami. His lecture gave an insight to the history of Atami, but more importantly the challenges that the city of Atami faces now. The mayor himself was an interesting personality with a sense of humour.

The Ohyu geyser (above) and the 2000 year old tree
at the Kinomiya shrine (right). The geyser
 goes off every 4 minutes.

After the lecture we were divided into groups and strolled around the city for about three hours, which gave us plenty of time to see some of the sights that the town had to offer. We were guided by students studying international tourism, although most of them spoke little or no English. Of course, since Atami is most famous for its hot springs, other sightseeing spots were somewhat few and far between. However, on the Kinomiya shrine grounds there was a 2000 year old tree, which is very impressive.  We were told a story that if one walks around the tree once, their lifespan will be extended by one year.  Atami is also famous for its hot springs, and apparently there was a functioning geyser that spouted water at regular intervals until the Great Kantou Earthquake in 1923. It was restored to spout water in order to entertain tourists. There is also a really nice beach in Atami, so I would not be surprised if it was completely crowded during the hot summer months.  

Trains are literally always on time

Turns out this isn't quite true. Sure, trains are almost always on time but it's not uncommon for them to be a minute or two late. Especially in the morning there is a train around 8.30 departing from Aobadai which seems to always be slightly behind schedule, the worst so far has been 5 minutes. Of course, this is nothing compared to what one can experience in other countries and I'm basing this comment on my very limited knowledge of only two train (not metro) lines.

Still, I had always had the impression that trains run according to the schedule and my highly idealised view has been somewhat shattered.

Getting a phone in Japan - easy right?

The image I had of Japan was one of technological excellence, a pioneer in all things gadgets. How hard can getting a phone be? They must be bleeding smartphones and sim cards on almost every street corner and it must be harder to not be within range of free wifi than to be. Well, it turns out that getting a reasonably priced mobile phone is in fact quite difficult if not impossible and  free wifi only exists in starbucks (and there you have to buy a drink, which one could argue is a positive thing). Any foreigner who comes to Japan basically has four options:

1) Don't get a phone. Depending on how long you spend here you might survive with your own phone, text messages cost about 30 cents for me on my Finnish phone so it's not the end of the world if you send a few every now and then.

2) Get a data sim. One cannot get only a sim card in Japan, they are always sold with a phone. However, one can buy a data only sim online. It costs 15,000 yen for 6 months, so about 20 eur per month. This actually seems like a decent option, but of course it means that all the people you want to communicate with have to have something like skype or whatsapp.

3) Get prepaid. According to everyone I've asked the cheapest carrier in Japan is Softbank, and as it happens Softbank also has the most comprehensive English website. On this website, it says that something called a prepaid phone exists (note that this is a prepaid phone, so you cannot buy a prepaid sim card). The way prepaid works is that you charge either 3000 or 5000 yen on to the sim, which validates the sim card for 2 months. After the 2 months, you have to charge 3000 or 5000 yen regardless of whether you need it or not. The beauty of this deal is that by paying 300 yen a month you get free messages, so assuming you don't make any calls this can be quite cheap (around 12 eur per month not including the phone and charger you have to buy).

But there is a twist, there are no prepaid phones anywhere to be found. The big Softbank stores with English speaking staff, Shibuya, Omotesando and Shinjuku, get three (yes, three) prepaid phones a day. These get sold out in the morning, so if you work during the day like any normal person, you will never be able to buy one. Furthermore, the smaller stores, which are absolutely everywhere but only have staff who speak Japanese, don't have any prepaid phones. As it turns out I got my phone at one of these Japanese only stores, and the whole process went pretty painlessly with my not so fluent Japanese skills coupled with creative use of a dictionary. 

4) Join a two year we're-going-to-rip-you-off contract. These are the contracts that all Japanese people join, they can be cheaper or more expensive depending on the type of phone you choose to have and whether you want internet or not. The cheapest contract is something called the White plan, which costs 980 yen per month + 300 yen per month for free messages. So far it doesn't seem to cost more than the prepaid, but what increases the cost is the 10 000 yen you have to pay to be able to cancel it after one year. If you want unlimited internet the monthly few is somewhere above 4000 yen a month. 

A useful thing to know is that you do not need a Japanese bank account to get one of these contracts, all you need is a credit card, you National Health Insurance card (someone want to explain this to me?) and your foreigner card.

There's no correct answer to which option one should pick, since it depends on what you are going to be using the phone for. Personally I picked the White plan, because I got the mobile phone for free and calling to other Softbank phones is free from 1 am to 9 pm (messages are free for the whole day). Besides, who wouldn't want to own a traditional water proof Japanese keitai which has free tv! For most people who already have a smartphone, I think the data sim is the way to go.

EDIT: Having talked with other people and researched this a bit further, it turns out it is possible to get data+calls sim card from a company called b-mobile. However, their website is all in Japanese which makes finding the correct plan a bit more difficult. 

はじめまして

I'm a Finnish university student at Aalto University School of Chemical Technology and this blog is about my year in the YSEP Focused on Research exchange program offered by Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech for short). In Tokyo Tech I will be working in a organic chemistry laboratory and hopefully at the end I will have produced some tangible research results! 

The dormitory me and the other YSEP students are living in is about one hour from the university, so I will be using the Japanese railway system a lot. Lets hope the stereotype of trains always being crowded is not true. 

I've been in Japan for about two weeks now and I feel that there is already too much to tell. I'll try to post some of the more interesting and useful pieces of information at some point!