Six months at the 国立情報学研究所

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About a year ago I came back to Germany after spending one year in Japan. Now I’m going again — for six months. :)

Last time I went as an exchange student. This time I got into an internship program for Ph.D. and Master students at the National Institute of Informatics. — i.e. this time I’m actually doing something related to my studies ^{(my exchange university last time had no computer science courses)}.

Another major difference is that this time I had to organize accommodation by myself. Find a place to live in Tokyo — what a nice ex ante adventure, yay ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ. What I knew from the beginning is that I would search for a room in a share house. I had previously made good experiences with share houses in Japan, knew that it would be cheaper, save me the hassle of having to buy a gazillion every day life items for just half a year and get rid of them afterwards, and knowing that I might end up speaking primarily English at work, a share house with Japanese people would up my chances of having extended conversations in Japanese on a daily basis.
So, I started searching on roomshare.jp and roommate.jp, took a brief glimpse at non-shared flats on グッドマンスリー only to be scared away by the prices, and finally found something at ひつじ不動産. Given what I wanted — something not too far from work, not too expensive, where I could let someone stay at my place for a night or two, where thery’re okay with someone who’s guaranteed to leave after 6 months and on top of all that where a foreigner is able to sign a contract without a Japanese guarantor — I’m super happy with the place I found. :)
Additionally the countless mails back and forth until I found the place, the deal was sealed and all the details were discussed were quite the 敬語 boot camp. orz

Anyway, preparations are as good as done. Journey starts Oct 17^th. Updates will be tagged #NII17. :)