I knew I wanted to go on exchange somewhere outside of Europe, to really experience a completely new culture. To me Japan seemed like the perfect option, with a totally different way of living, but also a country known for great research. To be honest I didn't know that much about Japan prior to going there, bit I ended up knowing a lot after just 6 months!

Straight away after I was nominated, I was given a contact person at Osaka University who helped me throughout the planning and the actual exchange semester. She helped with administration, financing and housing. The contact person will also help with the application to the course that is necessary to accredit the whole semester 3. I applied for a course called Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences.

To be able to go to Japan as a student you need to obtain a student visa. The contact person at Osaka University will help you with this. Documents with information will be sent to you. However, you need to apply for the visa yourself. This process turned out to take quite some time. The letter of acceptance from the university was sent around midsummer, not leaving too much time for waiting. I would advise to apply for the visa as soon as possible. 

First there is a web-survey. When this is filled out, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan will check your application (this may take up to one month) and will then send you a Certificate of Eligibility. You need to bring this certificate to the Japanese embassy in Stockholm together with your passport. And then it will take about one more week until you have the visa in your passport. To the best of my memory the Visa application was free and I did not have to pay any fees. 

If you are a Swedish citizen there is one more thing you should think about before you leave, it's that you need to apply for CSN for foreign studies. This takes much more time than for studies in Sweden so make sure to apply in time! The average waiting time is about 1 month, it is also important to attach papers proving that you will take courses etc during the semester. 

I bought a round-ticket to Osaka for about 6000-7000kr and had a stop-over in Istanbul.

I arrived to Japan about 1,5 weeks before I was supposed to start the semester. I did some travelling, and tried to get to know the new country. Also I moved in and bought some furniture for my room. Luckily IKEA exist in Osaka too, but for smaller stuff like lunch boxes, hangers for clothes etc going to a 100Yen shop would be recommended. They are small shops where everything is 8kr, just use google maps to find the closest one. I encourage going a bit earlier than the semester start, it was a good time for travelling and it was nice to have an easy start.

When you arrive in Japan and present all the papers and the Visa you will receive a residence card. This card is like an ID card and should be kept with you at all times. When you have moved in to your residence you are required to go to the closest city hall and register you adress on the residence card. Also all people living in Japan is required to have a Japanese Health insurance (even though you will be insured through KI). You need to sign up for this insurance at the city hall as well. Then you will receive an invoice every month of about 70-80kr. The invoice can easily (even though it is in Japanese) be paid at 7/11. Just give the invoice to the staff and pay the amount. When your stay is about to finish you need to go back to the city hall and cancel the insurance. The contact with the city hall was a little difficult because the staff did not speak english very well. This will of course vary with each city hall. 

I started the semester the same day the semester started in Sweden. I went to the university and met my contact person that brought me to the lab I was going to stay in. The lab had prepared for my arrival and made me feel very welcome. Since the semester in Japan starts later than in Sweden, the course I was taking didn't start until October. Prior to the course start I was invited to talk to one of the administration staff about the layout of the course and other extracurricular activities.

There were no introductory days at the university, as the Medical Frontier program is more a research program. However, there are student organizations for foreign exchange students that held welcome parties and so on. One of these organizations Osaka University International Student Association, OUISA (Website: http://ouisa.info, also available on Facebook) I can warmly recommend. 

I paid about 5000kr/month for the room that I rented. It was a little bit expensive, but I was happy with the location of the house and also the room itself. Eating and drinking is very cheap compared to Sweden. Going out for dinner in a restaurant is not a big cost and many restaurants have all-you-can-eat/drink kind of arrangement which can be very price worthy. Also, as a side note, the food is great!!! Everything I ate was so delicious! 

One thing that surprised me was the cost of commuter traffic. My hosue was located in the middle of the university and Osaka city. The commuter pass (wich was only valid between the station of my house and the university) was about 1000kr/month. A train ride from the house to the city was about 18kr for me. There is not a monthly pass like SL because many of the different train lines are operated by different companies. However, I would recommend getting an ICOCA card, (which is like SL’s reskassa, except it’s the same price as buying individual tickets), just because it’s much easier. Another tip about commuter traffic is to use http://www.hyperdia.com to plan your trips as most other sites are only available in Japanese, because the train system can be a little complicated at first!

Generally it is recommended to have cash, since many stores etc do not accept international cards. Also when it comes to ATM's you have to go to the right ones to be able to withdraw money. 7/11 has ATMs that accept foreign cards, also Citibank has ATMs for foreign cards. As it goes for cards, having an ICA-banken card is great because there are absolutely no extra fees for using the cards abroad. 

I would also recommend applying for scholarships. I received two scholarships for my exchange semester. 

First there is a scholarship you can apply for at Osaka university called JASSO scholarship. The amount is ¥ 80.000 (about 6700kr)/month for the entire stay. This scholarship was really good and made my stay in Japan much more delightful. There is a grade requirement to receive this scholarship, which is a GPA of more than 2.3. To convert your grades, you can provide the JASSO administrator with an explanation of the Swedish grading system and they will convert the grades. You apply for this scholarship by ticking a box in the Medical Frontier application document. 

The other scholarship I applied to was the Sweden-Japan foundation. A link to their website http://swedenjapan.se/scholarship-application-form-guideline/. Note that deadline every year is 1^st of March! You can apply without the letter of acceptance, just send some sort of document showing you have been nominated for exchange studies.  

My contact person at Osaka University was trying to help me to get a room in one of the university dorms. However, this year they were all full. My contact person kindly provided me with other options recommended by Osaka University. 

I ended up living in a so called sharehouse, which is a common living arrangement in Japan. Basically it is like a dorm but not connected to a school and hence not only student live there. In the sharehouse I stayed in, Wagokoro House operated by Entrance Japan Inc., were most people living there Japanese. The room I rented was classical Japanese with tatami floor but with a real bed. It was a really nice experience to not live with only exchange students, as it is then easy to jus hang out with other exchange students instead of Japanese people. The house was located, as I said previously, in the middle between the universe and the city center. To me this was very good, as it only took me 15min to get to the city from my house, and if you live at campus it will take at least 45min. 

One benefit of living in the campus student dorms is of course the price. I had to pay a little extra for my room, but in the end I was very happy with how it turned out.

I did the exchange during semester 3 of the master’s program. During my exchange semester I did the research project throughout the whole semester and October – January I also did a course every Friday. These two activities I later accredited for the 16 credit Research Project and the 9 credit elective course.

The research project was really exciting! First of all, the lab group that I was in was amazing! I had some fears prior to arriving about working hours and so on. But I was pleasantly surprised. Everybody was really friendly and helpful. In the end of my stay they even referred to themselves as my Japanese family, and they truly made my stay in Japan perfect.

About once every month the whole lab group went out for dinner together, and some other activities as a weekend excursion was also arranged. The lab work itself was really stimulating as I had my own project and learnt many new methods. Every week we had a lab meeting where one of the members of the group presented latest results and this was followed by a discussion. 

One of the more complicating aspects was sometimes communication, as not everybody was very good at English. Most people at the university in general knew some english, but the level varied a lot. I was lucky and my Professor had spent some years doing research overseas so his english was perfect. This helped a lot when planning and discussing my project. Even the people that were not great in english really made an effort and tried to speak as much english as possible! 

The language barrier was a little bit of shock when I arrived. I knew that probably the general public would not be as good as Swedish people when it comes to English, but I found that many people didn’t speak English at all. I found that writing things down on a paper was easier sometimes when trying to ask for locations etc. Many Japanese people are much better at reading and writing English instead of talking. 

I did not learn any Japanese prior to going to there, which I afterwards kind of wished I would have. It is very hard to find the time to learn Japanese alongside studies, lab work and leisure time. I learnt a few useful words, but it might have been a little easier if I learnt a few phrases beforehand. I believe that there are language courses at the university but I did not attend any.

The google translate app did really come in handy many times! With the app you can take photos and translate text, which was very convenient for example in the food store, when you are trying to figure out what is what. Also you can translate words and make the app say them loud in Japanese, this saved many confused moments at lunch time in my lab. 

The Japanese culture is very different from Swedish culture. Japanese people are extremely polite but also humble! All the Japanese people I got to know were always profoundly helpful and kind. I found that Japanese people really like when you embrace their culture and give a try to for example say some Japanese words, eat with chopsticks or try some of their food specialities. They are very proud of their country and will gladly, if they speak english of course, share their knowledge about the country and its culture. 

Some situations were a little strange at first. One example is riding an elevator, it's a lot different in Japan compared to Sweden (Explained here: https://unravelingmysteriesoflife.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/the-art-of-riding-an-elevator-in-japan ). Another example are the toilets, with features such as music, fake flush sounds and different washing options. And don't get surprised about sounds when eating, slurping is a gesture of kindness. Also there is an excessive amount of bowing and "excuse me" going on at all times. However its really fun to get to know these differences in culture! 

Of course the end of my stay I found myself making small bows and saying sumimasen (excuse me) all the time! ;) 

As previously stated, activities were arranged by student organizations. However most other members of the organization are in another general exchange program and have classes together, but anybody can join their activities. Since I went on exchange myself I was looking for other ways to meeting new people and found a website called https://www.meetup.com . This website exists in many different cities and is very active in Osaka. Basically anybody can make a group and invite people to events with different themes/genres, like restaurant groups, pub crawl groups, language exchange groups etc. I made many friends through these events, both Japanese and foreign people!

Another thing I would really recommend is to travel, even if it’s just for the weekends during the semester! Japan has many national holidays so there were many opportunities for small vacations. However, all flights/trains etc are of course much busier these holidays so you need to buy tickets a little bit in advance. Close to Osaka I would definitely recommend to go to Kyoto and Nara. Both can be reached with trains from e.g. Osaka central station (ca 30min to Kyoto and 1h to Nara). Again Hyperdia.com can be used to plan these smaller trips. 

I also went some weekends to cities a little further away, like Sapporo in the north and Kagoshima in the south. Then I used http://www.flypeach.com/pc/en which is a very cheap and good Japanese airline. I spent new year in Tokyo and it was certainly an experience! Taking the bullet train, Shinkansen, is also a great experience. I went for a day trip to Hiroshima which was really interesting and insightful. The Shinkansen tickets can be a little bit expensive, but you will escape the hustle of going to the airport and the waiting time etc so sometimes it's worth it. Shinkansen tickets can be bought at ticket offices at main stations such as Shin-Osaka and Osaka.