Sakigake

By this point, everyone must've noticed that I'm terrible at regularly writing on a blog. But without letting that be a hindrance, I'll finally talk about the dormitory I live in!

Kanazawa University has several dormitories. The one I live in is called Sakigake, located at the edge of the campus. Instead of the regular apartment houses, Sakigake consists of five separate two-story houses, three for women and two for men. Each of these houses has two or three units, and each unit consists of eight rooms. Three of the rooms are downstairs, five are upstairs. Both floors have their own WC and bathroom, whereas the kitchen and the laundry machine are downstairs. As far as I know, there are two types of unit layouts. The biggest difference seems to be the size of the kitchen. The unit I live is one of the ones with a larger kitchen.

先魁, Sakigake. Entrance of the exchange hall, the common space of the dormitory.

Each unit has two Japanese students acting as resident advisors (RA). The other people in my unit come from Ireland, Belarus, Indonesia, China, and Taiwan. My Belorussian roommate has already moved out, and my Indonesian roommate is moving this weekend. One of the two RAs will also be leaving soon due to graduating. I'm looking forward to seeing where our roommates come from!

My room. Laundry is hung in front of the window. There's a closet to the right, accommodating e.g. my clothes, suitcases, and whatever food doesn't need to be in the fridge.

In general, all of my roommates are very nice people. I've heard that some units have people who don't really clean up or take the trash out when they're supposed to but in our unit, that only occasionally happens simply because someone forgets it was their turn. The only actual problem I've had here is soundproofing. To put it simply, the soundproofing is terrible. I live downstairs right next to the kitchen table, which means I can basically hear everything from the kitchen. Coming from a very quiet apartment house, it took a while to get used to people simply talking in the kitchen. By now, I'm capable of mostly ignoring the sounds of daily life. However, we did have some problems with keeping quiet between 23 o'clock and 7 o'clock... But luckily, they became pretty rare after I was annoyed enough to let everyone know how I feel about not being able to sleep properly.

Preparing hot pot for a quadruple birthday.

I considered moving upstairs for the spring semester to reduce noise but in the end, I decided not to do so. The process would've been a bother, and I didn't quite fancy the thought of moving because others have occasional trouble with keeping quiet. This room does also have its good points. Hearing everything can definitely be an unnecessary annoyance, but it's also pretty convenient to be able to tell whether anyone's using a certain domestic appliance without even leaving my room. I also consider this a good experience in the sense that I'm forced to learn to tolerate different kinds of things, such as people having friends over way more often than I ever would. I'm also positive that I'll appreciate going back to living alone in Finland quite a bit more after living in a unit for ten months.

Dishes prepared by my Chinese and Taiwanese roommates for a Chinese cuisine evening!

Despite me loving to complain about differing sounds habits, I do want to emphasise that my roommates are, all in all, easy to get along with. Whenever I've requested anyone to be quiet, usually after they've forgotten what time it is, they've done so. I heard that some of the people previously living in this unit didn't listen to such requests at all, so I'm definitely happy that my roommates are considerate enough to listen! I'm also aware that rather than just some of them being more social than others, I'm probably used to a more quiet environment. As I said, my apartment in Finland is very quiet, and I've also noted some smaller habits which make some people louder than others. The way you walk and close doors can make all the difference when it's night-time!

A morning view from my window.

Garbage disposal in Japan is a world of its own. Certain types of trash are taken out on certain days, apparently even in certain types of bags. Here in Sakigake, the pattern goes like this: combustible & compostable trash on Mondays and Thursdays, glass on Wednesdays, and non-combustible & recyclable (practically PET bottles and tins) on Fridays. The list for different types of waste is longer, but I'm not too knowledgeable on the rest since I haven't needed those rules for now. Though I do know that if you're throwing away something especially large, whatever the size limit is, you need to separately arrange a pick-up and pay for it. The trash here is taken out in the morning between 8:00 and 8:30 o'clock; in practice, before 10 o'clock seems to be enough. The garbage station is located behind the exchange hall, the common space at the gate of the dormitory, and is locked whenever it's not trash time.

Watching a film outside the exchange hall.

As a Finn, I'm not used to taking out certain types of trash on certain days, but it works quite nicely once you get used to it. Separating combustible and non-combustible trash was news to me, whereas it initially felt strange to throw cardboard and paper in with the combustible waste instead of recycling them. We'll see whether I'll have the opposite problem when returning to Finland!

A flock of crows on the dormitory yard.

For a couple of more details, I'll finish with the fridge and the utility fees. First, the fridge. It's a pretty normal fridge, smaller than the one I have in Finland but still quite a regular size. But. It's for eight people. Apparently many of the other units have purchased a second fridge, or even have three, but we only have one. We also have no TV. I don't mind us not buying either of those things since I'd rather not pay for them, but the size of the fridge does get rather annoying from time to time. However, we should be getting a new fridge soon-ish. I'm not certain if we can keep them both but if I heard a kitchen conversation correctly, we can. That would be pretty convenient!

A small guest!

Second, the utility fees. Everyone pays for the electricity in their own room, and the electricity in the common areas along with water and gas fees are divided between the residents. Makes sense. What I somewhat dislike is that the common utility fees seem to usually be more than what we pay along rent each month, so I might prefer the monthly utility fee being raised a bit rather than paying the extra every few months. I don't know what the fees are like for other units, though, but I'd assume that few – if any – spend less than they pay.

A winter view from my window.

Well then, that's about it for now! I still ought to catch up with my travel logs here, so it's likely that the next entries will revolve around Tokyo, Hokkaido, and Okinawa. None of them will be up right away, but let's say I won't take a sudden four-month break from blogging this time!