30DWC Day 20: How I Started Socializing In Japan.

Time passes so quickly! It’s already the second month of the year and for the past month I was looking back of all the things I did and realized I did nothing special, aside from my Japanese lesson of course, but to summarize, it’s the same old routine, meh. But come to think of it, I did the same thing las year. I only started going out when I joined a language exchange group and I could say I had lots of fun.

Way back forty years ago nah just kidding, it was September last year when a student of mine recommended an application if ever I was interested of having friends in japan. This student is very outgoing, she’s also new in town and she would always invite me for a drink or going somewhere but I couldn’t because teacher-student relationship yah know. And as I was starting to feel homesick those times, I gave it a try, I downloaded the app MEETUP. It was easy to use and you could choose the activities you’re interested in.

You can download the app for free, and btw it’s not like Tinder, but you can meet a lot of people when you join the group.

I was looking for a pet group but there weren’t any in my city, there were lots of pet groups in another city but Japan transpo is quite expensive for me so I wanted to join a group I could go and join anytime they’ll have an activity.

I only found two groups that matched my interest and location in the app, the first one was a Book Club, they meet once a month and you are required to read atleast one book and share it in the group during the meetup, they also have free drinks in a coffee shop. The second one I found was this weekly language exchange group and it is just 10 minutes walk away from home so I was really happy. You can see the group schedule and what to expect kind of information. They also have faceboook page and you could see their pictures and activities there.

It also happens that the meetup is every Thursday (it’s my weekly off from work) at 9:00 o’clock onwards, so those people coming from work can still join. It took me a month of procrastinating before I finally decided to try the meetup. I was so nervous because they have 15-minute Japanese rule and 15-minute English rule, and I CAN’T even make sentences (until now). But they were so nice and encouraged me to start studying (which didn’t happen apparently).

And that’s how I started socializing in Japan, I met a lot of people from different country, I met new Japanese friends and asking help anytime I need is no longer a problem (mostly translation problems that even google fails to do lol). I also got chances to attend different events until I already rejected most of the invitations and travel without worrying of getting lost because I am with locals lol.

If you’re new in Japan or in another country and want to meet new friends (not just a date from Tinder or any dating app) or local you want to hang out it for the next few days or months, try to download some socializing app and explore. I spent eight months alone in this country, literally home-school-eat out a bit-home-school with only one Filipina friend (an officemate). I can actually go out and start talking to random people like foreign people usually do here BUT that ISN’T me lol, that’s prolly an introvert problem.

I hope this helps you 🙂

 

Bored Sensei.

 

P.S The feature image was taken last October during our Sport Twerk Fest, yeah you read that right, TWERK FEST. And your imagination is right, there was a lot of twerking that day. HA HA HA.

 

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