Frano Marinelliさん（リエカ大学 第5学年次）

I was on my 2nd year of study when I saw that our Medical faculty in Rijeka had signed a contract with Hyogo college of Medicine in Japan. Already then I knew I wanted to apply for this program and to spend one month in this amazing country learning about a different health system and in general, a different style of life. In 2019. my wish came true and I was able to come to Hyogo for an exchange. This was my third exchange and what I like most about exchanges is that instead of just looking at a country through a tourist lens I actually get to see how people live, what their usual days look like, what they do for fun, how much do they work and are they happy with their life in general. I came to Japan a few days earlier and I landed in Tokyo where I spent a few days. Almost immediately I saw, that although the greater Tokyo area has almost 40 million inhabitants which makes it the largest city in the world I didn't feel crowded. Everything was so well organized, the trains and busses arrived on time and all the streets were very clean and the people were very polite.

After spending a few days alone in Tokyo, Valentina and Domagoj arrived as well so for my last day in this city I had some company. We hopped on an overnight bus to Osaka where we were met by a very nice driver who took all our belongings and drove us to Hyogo to our little house which was our home for the next month. Kyoko was also there to meet us and to show us around. The location of our house was perfect; it was basically inside the hospital complex, 1 minute from the supermarket and 3 minutes away from the train station from where we were very soon in Osaka, Kobe, Nara and Kyoto. We also each had our own room and we also had a kitchen so we could cook by ourselves to save some money.

On Monday we started our practice in the hospital and I was to spend a month on the Department of Otorhinolarynogology. The head of this department was professor Sakagami who was also the head of hospital. Although he was very busy he always had time to answer my questions and he also was able to take us to a very nice dinner. People on my department were very nice and helpful and they tried very hard to answer all of my questions and to show me as many different procedures as they could. My favorite surgical team were Kenzo, Kengo and Ken who were all subspecialists for nose and sinus surgery and with whom I spent most of my days. The team on the department was so great that they also took us to a baseball game (which is the most popular sport in Japan) and we had special VIP seats and an amazing view of the stadium.

During the week we spent most of our time in the hospital but still managed to get to Osaka to sightsee. During the weekends we usually traveled around Japan. We visited Kyoto, Kobe, Hiroshima, Nara and Himeji and it is hard to say which city left the strongest impression on me; Kyoto with its beautiful Golden temple, Kobe with the delicious Kobe beef that we just had to try, Nara with all the deer freely roaming around the city, Himeji and its huge castle and Hiroshima, a city destroyed in World war 2 but now a vibrant, recovered city that has a lot to offer. What I also liked in Japan was the food; we tried almost everything – Takoyaki, Okonomiyaki, Sushi, different types of beef, ramen and eel which I was told was very rare and expensive. I have to thank also the Japanese medical students – especially Miyu, Kanon and Takuya who hanged out a lot with us although their schedules were usually packed but they still found time to go to a few dinners with us and to introduce us to their culture.

All in all, I have to say that the month I spent in Japan was one of the best ones in my life and that it is my favorite country that I have visited and I will definitely come back one day, hopefully as soon as possible.