University of Tsukuba

Except for the MBA course, you really need to speak good Japanese. There are a few foreign teachers that teach in English, but mostly it's in Japanese.

The best time to travel is March and April . And there are some useful web-sites which help to find cheap connection withing the entire country.

The dorm that I stayed at was at a good location. It was close enough to classes that only a 5 minutet bike ride was required. Other than that though it all goes downhill. The dorms were never cleaned. I dont just mean messy, but unsanitary. I had friends that didnt even want to come over because of how dirty it was. Also there is no shower in the dorm. That is fine, but at least provide one in the same building. We were forced to go to other buildings in order to shower. And we were charged for our showers at that. Furthermore, during the holdiay season the showers and heat were shutoff for 5 days. I understand that many students go home during the holiday season but for an exchange student, going home isnt always an affordable option. Overall I was very dissapointed with the living spaces provided to us.

Close to Tokyo (60km) but whithout train station (until 2004) it may take more than 3 hours to get by bus.

Most of the Japanese do not speak English so all the exchange students are forced to use Japanese, which I consider to be the best method of learning foreign languages. And as my major at university are japanese studies this 1 year in Japan was very useful for me.

La Clave has a latin party once a month; otherwise there is no dancing scene. Frontier is a very popular place for foreign guys cause that's were Japanese girls go to find a foreign boyfriend. There are some bars that are nice (no specific recommendation) but they never seem to get a lot of visitors.