So I’ve been here just over a week now, and things have been pretty hectic. I’ve spent a lot of time filling out forms, meeting and greeting and trying to get a grip on this tiny corner of Fukuoka which is my new home. The flight across was long and tiring, and coupled with a 5 hour layover in Osaka I arrived in Fukuoka tired and in need of a place to lay my head for a bit.

Thankfully some friends who studied in England last year came to meet us at the airport so getting to iHouse was quick and easy, the place itself is fine. It’s a new building with an interesting layout, but the first ‘culture shock’ was the rules which the night manager set out in no uncertain terms. Firstly, I should say that the Japanese university I’m studying at is a religious one, so I should have guessed it would be a little different, but coming from leading an independent life in Liverpool where I make all of my own decisions, to being in a dormitory which is alcohol free and has a curfew was too much to compute having been awake for 30 hours. Luckily it turns out that it isn’t so bad as long as you are sensible about these things, but I get the impression that some of the American kids here are actually freer than they are back home. The mind boggles.

I suppose the running theme of my first week has been football, or soccer as the US and local inhabitants tend to call it. I’ve seen two Avispa Fukuoka games, found a sweet sports store, played a game of beach football with some of the other gaijin, discovered how to find UK games on Japanese TV, chipped in on a PS2 and the new winning eleven, agreed to play for a five-a-side team, played against (and beat) our uni lacrosse team in a 9 on 9 game on the dusty field near the dorm, and converted some of our American friends to the beautiful game. Yeah, most things I can leave behind. Football is not most things.

I had one strange moment when the president of the university revealed that he had read my previous blog post after it popped up in his google alerts, which had me a little worried for a while, but I guess I should just be happy that at least someone is reading this, right?

I’ve met some cool people who I’m sure will become good friends over the coming weeks and months, and I can see that my Japanese is going to develop quite quickly once classes start tomorrow, this place is not like Tokyo where you can depend on at least one person in a shop to speak English, you really do need to be able to speak Japanese - which is great for me. We had an opening ceremony and a meet and greet with some of the domestic students a couple of days ago, and my Japanese held up okay, which was nice, even if we were discussing the usual, basic introduction stuff. Some of the girls I met were very cool and I even managed to find a few people with contacts in the university football society and also the University Chaplain who said that there is a possibility we might be able to help out with coaching at the attached junior high school with their football teams. Score.

Tonight I’m going for eats with the two girls I met in Liverpool last year in Tenjin, which is the big shopping/entertainment district, so I’m looking forward to that, and then this weekend some of the guys are organising an old fashioned BBQ out on the ‘Spacious Wooden Deck’. American Style. I think there might also be another Avispa Fukuoka game, hopefully this one will end in a win!

My only real concern at the minute is that I haven’t found somewhere to buy a new guitar, which is beginning to bother me quite a lot. I need to play some choons! That and a mobile phone (which I can only get once I’ve jumped through several more beaurocratic hoops) are really the last things I need to buy! Especially since clothes and shoe shopping is off the agenda since I’m like bloody godzilla size in these parts! Note to self: must not buy new iPod!

Anyway, that’s pretty much it for now, I’ll try and write something a little more substantial and thoughtful when I get some time. Needless to say I’m fine, everything is okay and I’ve not keeled over from heat exhaustion. Yet! I’m drinking more fluids than I thought humanly possible until I got here