Ryukoku University

Because Japan is an expensive country, and the Australian exchange rate is not so healthy at the moment. If you are paid in yen (as I am, being an exchange student) it's not bad at all, as long as you resist the temptation to calculate everything back into your own currency.

OK - the two dorms here for exchange students aren't as nice as the ones for fee-paying students. I had a little cash and someone to assist me in navigating the Japanese rental system, so i chose to go independant, although I was initially placed in one of these dorm apartment blocks.

Things are pretty much made very easy here - don't always accept what you are told (as the Japanese often do), and don't always feel that that you have to act like a Japanese. Sometimes it is better to be a rude gaijin to make life a little easier. The Japanese are very approachable on a surface level (asking directions, help, etc), but are very hard to get to know on a deeper level. They are generally curious about foreign culture, and on campus it is not unusual to be aproached by strangers curious about your country or wishing conversation practice in another language.

Ryukoku is a great place to come if you are unfamiliar with Japan - the International Center here helps you with everything, and the JCLP programme is great for beginners/intermediates. Also, as it is a Buddhist university, the Buddhist studies and Japanese literature studies are excellent. You get to speak a lot of Japanese during your time here, and the atmosphere is generally friendly and relaxed.

The Japanese Culture and Language program is excellent for beginning and intermediate students of the language - although taught in Japanese, the classes are graded, and absolute beginners are catered for, and the pace is excellent. I would recommend learning the hiragana and katakana syllabaries before you come (it's not so hard to learn on your own, and well worth the effort once you get here). If you don't speak Japanese and you come here on exchange, this is the course you will be doing. If you already speak Japanese, mainstream courses here are a little more academically lax than most Western countries, or so I hear. The common wisdom in Japan seems to be that most real learning takes place in the workforce.

Not really - the pace is good and there were no classic japanese sensei figures making me do push-ups on my knuckles etc when i failed anything.