Living in Kanazawa

Kanazawa was a nice place to live and the apartment is in a very convenient location. There are multiple stores in walking distance. The SGE students made a map for us when we arrived so that all nearby places can easily be found.

FOOD


A typical display case of the menu in front of a restaurant.
Sharing some home cooked dinner in someone's apartment room.

There were many options of how to get food. The cheapest of these was to buy noodles and other ingredients at the 100 yen store and cook for yourself. Eating out was a bit easier at small resaurants nearby such as the Curry House, Itadakimas, or the ramen shop. All these places charge about five dollars a meal. Lastly, the most common option was the school cafeterias, were food is about the same price, but it was somethimes hard to tell what you were getting.

MONEY

There was no problem with money since the post office is two minutes from the apartment. The post office took traveler's checks and also had an ATM machine. The only thing one has to watch out for is when the post office had opening hours. For information about the relative amount of money you will need, visit the budget page.

GETTING AROUND


Getting ready for a trip on bike. 		Most places could be reached by foot around town. For trips downtown to Katamachi(the main shopping district) bikes or the city bus could be used. The bikes were organized for free by the SGE students, but they often broke. The bus cost 330 yen for a one way trip. These basically could get you anywhere. It is possible to bike to the beach or into the mountains.

COMMUNICATION

Computers and Email-
KIT provides every visiting sudent with a laptop computer. These computers are very effective in completing the simple tasks required by the classes, including email and wordprocessing. They are not the best at anything else, which bothered those more advanced with computers. The campus has multiple study rooms with internet connections, including some which are open 24 hours everyday. The visiting student apartment building (Nishikawa Heights) don't have internet access though, which is also a setback.

Telephones-
There are no phones in the individual apartment rooms. The TV lounge though, has a phone for everyone to use. When making international calls it is easiest to buy a phone card at a local convenience store such as Circle K. This card can be used at the local pay phone which is in front of the apartment building. Some students decided to buy a cell phone, but these only work in Japan so it is limited for students who only stay there for a short time.

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