Kansai Gaidai University

My host family is really great and we get along perfectly. My host mom is a single mom with 2 kids and I basically have all the freedom or space I want. Judging from my other friends' comments, however, many ended up being rather irritated by the homestay situations though. The school is often less than helpful and extremely inflexible when dealing with host family issues, and if you ever want to visit friends in the dorms there are ridiculous rules that just apply to visitors. So I guess staying with a host family is a hit-or-miss and it so happened that mine was a hit.

The dormatory rules are rather strict- even a friend in the dormatory next door must vacate by 10 PM! Still, it was clean and quieter than expected.

Undertaking a home stay was a great experience. My host family and I got along together really well, and we did many different things together. They also took a strong personal interest in me, and my experiences in Japan. I was really fortunate to get to know them. Living with a family also helped to improve my Japanese rapidly. In addition, my host family's home was comfortable and conveniently located near my campus, the station, a few shops, restaurants and bars.

Like I mentioned before, get yourself an apartment as soon as possible, just way better.

The only problem I had with the residences was that the number of Japanese students that were allowed to live there was restricted, so it was mostly housing full of foreigners and exchange students. This made it hard to learn and pick up Japanese faster. The rooms were also mostly shared with another room mate, and there were very few single rooms altogether.

When I was there, there were 2 dorms at Gaidai. I was in the older -- and preferable -- one. It was very roomy, a/c, unlimited hot water, kitchen lockers with pots, pans and dishes for each person, and very comfy futons.