Disappointed students

Hello!

Before coming to Japan I didn't really have any expectations for the school, dorm or anything like that. I just felt that whatever it is I'll be fine, because I got this awesome once in a life time chance so I really shouldn't complain. Coming to Japan though and meeting the other students I've realised that far from all people feel this way. Which is totally fine, but probably worth mentioning here.

Some students are disappointed about, well, everything as it seems. They ended up in the wrong city (because you don't get to choose), the next school they will be going to wasn't up to their thought standard (cause we don't get to choose school either) and so on.

When I went to open campus to my school I noticed that a lot of students weren't so good at drawing (and this is a school were almost all subjects have to do with drawing).  There were of course some really awesome that stood out, but so did the bad ones. It's like someone who's never drawn anything their whole life one day wakes up and says "I'm gonna be an illustrator!".
I don't mind though. Atleast I wont be the person with the suckiest drawings at the school! But that's something another person complained about. I guess to them it seems like the school has no "standard" (?), that they just let anyone in without checking if they can actually draw or not.
But I think that's normal for trade schools, because you come there to learn the trade. It's different for university, there you have to show what you can do before they let you in.

Another person complained about the schools equipment, (I think about the pc's and things like that). They also said that things about the scholarship and stuff were not like they had expected read/been told. And they didn't really like that.

Also, if you apply for this scholarship or any other of the monbukagakusho scholarships be prepared that you might have to go to a year of preparatory language education at a language school before you can move on to trade school/uni. Doesn't matter how good you are. There's a person here that have lived in Japan almost their whole life, and they speak it better than their "mother tongue", still, they were not allowed to skip language school.
A person I met in Sweden that applied for a university scholarship and got it (that's 4 years of free education in Japan ppl) but then refused it when they heard that they HAD to go 1 year to a lang. school.  Got it, but then refused it, because they aldready thought they knew enough Japanese, and they probably did, but to throw away that chance for something like that..!

When you apply for a scholarship like the one I'm here on, you'd better not keep any expectations. If just getting to come to Japan isn't enough for you, look somewhere else or be ready to be disappointed. You just cannot get everything =P. (Or maybe you can with another scholarship!)

Arashiyama in Kyoto

Right now it's the season to go look at red leaves. It's a thing in Japan, just like it is to watch the sakura in spring.

My hostfamily invited me and my friends to go to Arashiyama (we we're a part of a big group of foreign students, around 50 people) which is in Kyoto. Arashiyama means "storm mountain".

Me and my friends were all really exited to go, but unfortunately I got a really bad cold that day, I couldn't breathe and could barely keep my eyes open. It really stopped me from enjoying the place to the fullest.

There were A LOT of people at Arashiyama and we had to stand in a really long line just to be able to cross a bridge, lol. With all the people I couldn't take a lot of nice photo's but I'll post what I got that is good enough! =)

This is what we came for:

Really like all these small leaves on the mossy ground:

This is a bamboo grove, it doesn't look so special in my pictures but in real life it was really nice to walk through it!

 At the end of the bamboo grove you walk a little bit more and get to the "top" of the mountain. You can then walk down the other way and walk back to the station along the water.