Kansai Gaidai University

The seminarhouse is only 5 minutes away by bicycle. The location is not Osaka, but Hitakatacity which is on hour away from the city, so its like countryside! But the good thing is that its between Osaka and Kyoto which is only one hour away as well. The seminarhouse is great! The rooms are pretty small, but enough space for two desk and two bed and you share a room with a roommate. The facilities are great! There is a big shared kitchen on the first floor and seconds floor with all the necessairy things you need. There are many seperate toilets and showers and you never have to wait. Although the toilets of the guys can be very smelly!! There are two floors. The first floor is the one of the maleresidents and the second of the female residents. On the first floor there is a big loung with a comfortable couch and a big TV and a videorecorder. There is also a nice garden where people can smoke. There are vendingmachines in case you are thirsty. The best of all is the computerroom in the secondfloor which has one printer and 10 fast computers where people can email etc. The good point is that we can bring our own laptops and hook it up to their connections and the speed is fast!!! but the bad thing is that you can not let your friends sleeping over in your room and all visitors have to get out after 10.00 pm!!

Every living situation at Kansai Gaidai is a winning scenario. To live in the Dorms means trapping yourself in an English bubble, but you will meet great friends from all around the world. There are three dormatories. The newest and nicest, "Seminar House III" has suites, or apartments with four rooms each. Very nice, the compartmentalization means people there usually have fewer but stronger friends. The oldest dorm is the most social, mostly because it has the kindest manager of the three dorms and it has one common lounge. If want to learn Japanese, this is a losing scenario unless you are strong willed. Homestay, is usually the best choice for learning the language even if you get a bad family, But if you want to stay out late, better opt for the dorm.

Please note that the seminar houses are a good 20 minute walk or 10 minute bike ride. So you need to get a bike. Seminar house one is the place to be. Everyone gets to know everyone else because it's so small. The rooms are fairly large and the beds are really comfortable. I haven't heard anyone complain about them. You have to share a room with another person and a fridge with 2 other rooms. Lots of pots and pans, but no ice trays in some. The bathrooms are good. lots of tables in the kitchens. I nice big commons room with a TV and VRC. Living in seminar house has salvaged my stay here....barely.

The 2 main choices are host family or the dorms (a few people had apartments on their own). If you want to hang out with the other foreigners and party a lot and have a fun time the dorm is probably better cause there's always something going on and people to do stuff with. If you want a more intimate Japanese experience and don't want to go back to dorm life then the host family is better. The vast majority of people I know were happy with their host families.

Seminar House 1 is just crazy. The Oto-san that runs the building never does anything to enforce the rules, so there are always parties and people drinking and sneaking in guests. SH1 is the recipient of a lot of complaints from the surrounding neighbors (the Seminar Houses are located in a residential neighborhood). 3 can be pretty bad, too, but it's a little harder to sneak people into. 2 is really nice, and there's not nearly as much of the juvenile party stuff that goes on all the time at 1. That means no one drinking beer on the roof and blasting their stereo at 2am. But SH2 was really nice, and the Oto-san there is a really cool guy.

I had 2 sets of excellent host families for the 2 semesters there. I requested families with little English knowledge because I wanted to improve my Japanese more quickly. I really felt like I was part of the family because of the time that we spent almost daily at the dinner table and the places that they took me to.