Maranna Nwozo
UMBC Exchange: Nanzan University
Major: Visual Arts
Minor: Entrepreneurship
Certificate: Japanese Language
Pre-Departure Post
Hello UMBC!
My name is Maranna Nwozo, and I am a current sophomore majoring in Cinema and Photography, minoring in Entrepreneurship, and getting a Certificate in Japanese Language!! This Spring Semester, I will be studying abroad at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, through one of UMBC’s Exchange programs.
Over the course of getting ready for the departure, I have been going through many stages of emotions. At first, I felt a bit apprehensive as the date was closing in, which is normal, seeing as this will be a big life change. However, over time, I started to feel excitement when researching all the things I would like to do and adding it to my bucket list. Some events that I am most looking forward to trying out are visiting Universal Studios Japan, going to a hot spring bath house, visiting a maid cafe, butler cafe, and a macho cafe, buying items at a Japanese convenience store, and hopefully going to a J-Rock Concert in Japan, which is the event I long to see the most.
Listening to Vocaloid and Japanese rock is actually what initially got me to start learning Japanese as a freshman in high school. I am also interested in Japanese animation, and my ultimate career goal is to start an independent animation and film studio, so I took my Japanese Language studies quite seriously. However, after 6 years of trying to learn the language, I began to lose a bit of motivation from doing it for such a long time without ever actually having been to Japan. So, to gain some motivation for finishing the rest of the courses in my Japanese Language Certificate, I decided to study abroad in Japan for an entire semester!
Before leaving, one of the main priorities that I wanted to accomplish in preparation for going to Japan was intentionally spending time with all my friends and family members, including my friends from high school, whom I don’t see as often since they go to different universities. This meant scheduling different hangouts, playing games with my suitemates in my dorm, and baking cookies with my baby cousins. My roommate and friend, Victoria, is actually going to be studying abroad this semester as well in Newcastle, England! We both decided to become study abroad ambassadors, so please look out for her blog posts! Another event that really touched my heart is that my family and extended family plan to host a going-away party for me a couple of days before I depart! I was so touched when I heard what they wanted to do for me, and it made me feel very cared for by my loved ones.
As for packing… I have made my list and ordered things I would need, but I have yet to physically put my items in a suitcase. I’m not sure if it’s procrastination (which I actually don’t do very often at all) or if it’s because I have not been home very often due to Christmas parties and visiting family and friends, but I will definitely get it done soon!
That concludes this installment of the blog! Thank you for reading!
In-Country Post #1
Hello UMBC!
It’s Maranna again, and I officially completed my first week of study abroad in Japan! However, before that, I would like to share a story about how I arrived here on my flight. First, I had to take a 4-hour flight to Denver, Colorado’s airport, and it was very interesting being able to see a different side of America. Since America is so big, but still one country, I sometimes forget that the landscape can be very diverse. The airport wasn’t actually in Denver city, so the plane took me to a place with a low, brown, dusty landscape and a line that almost formed a wall of mountains surrounding one side of the airport. After arriving at Denver, I had a one-hour layover, but it quickly turned into two hours as my next flight to Tokyo was delayed. This caused me to have a slight tinge of panic once I realized that the third and final flight that would have taken me to Nagoya would now inevitably be missed because the 12-hour flight to Tokyo would overlap it. However, since sitting through the 12-hour flight was a big enough hurdle in of itself, I decided to worry about getting through one problem at a time, and I had faith that things would work out in the end.
Once I landed in Tokyo, I was able to join back on wifi and see that my third plane had been rescheduled to the next day, as I had assumed. But then, the question became where I was going to sleep at night between now and the time of my next flight in the morning. Thankfully, United Airlines had me covered, and I ended up being granted a wonderful hotel with free dinner and breakfast buffet vouchers for free! So I spent my first night in Japan in Tokyo, enjoying an exciting stay at Hotel Nikko Narita, which had a vibrant Winter 
Wonderland light show right outside and an absolutely delicious buffet. It was then that I was able to experience firsthand that situations that seem bad at first can end up working for your good in ways that you would never expect. Once it was morning time, I had packed up all my belongings and made my way back to the airport. In Tokyo, many service workers speak a good amount of English, so I hadn’t had to use much Japanese until I got to Nagoya, where I had to brush off my skillset to help me take the taxi from the airport to the dorm (since my flight was delayed, I missed the shuttle bus that would’ve taken me the day before). Since my arrival at my dorm, I have met many of the other international students. There are around 70-80 in total and classes start one week from now, but despite that, through there being many group chats and conscious efforts from other students to get to know each other, I have been able to hangout at karaoke, travel to Nagoya castle, visit a shrine, Yagoto Aeon Mall, Sakae City, and take pictures at a photobooth in an arcade within the couple of days that I’ve been here!
In-Country Post #2
Hello UMBC!
It’s Maranna once again, and I can’t believe I can announce that I am currently in my 3rd week of being in Japan!! It has been very interesting since I’ve come here, and I feel like I’m finally starting to get the hang of things! Classes started, but before they did we had to take a couple of placement tests to determine our level. My goal was to get into Intensive Japanese 3 so I studied very hard, but unfortunately was only able to get into Intensive Japanese 2. But I don’t mind it so much, since I realized that it was a win-win situation given that it might be better to be in an intensive class that’s mostly review versus an intensive class that teaches all new things, so that I’d have less to worry about while studying in a foreign country.
Getting around in Nagoya also hasn’t been very difficult at all because of the convenient subway system in Japan, and because many things are also within walking distance. Upon coming here, I also wanted to try visiting churches in person, so I visited a catholic church nearby called Nanzan Catholic Church. It was named after the Private University I’m going to because I’m assuming the same missionary that started the school also started the church. When I went, I got a bit lost, but a nice lady helped me find my way to the English Mass. During the latter half of the Mass, the person doing the church announcements announced that they were going to be pounding mochi in the courtyard that day for those who wanted to stick around! So I decided to conveniently linger in that area until some of the nice church regulars noticed I was new, introduced themselves to me, and showed me the large, immaculately decorated stone building that the Japanese language Mass was held in.
Afterwards, it began time to start pounding Mochi! They let me get the first swing using the giant hammer that was more than half the length of my body. Every couple of times that I pounded it into the round dough, the man who was helping prepare and set up the mochi station would flip it and yell “Hai!” signalling me to start pounding again! Once the mochi was prepared, other church members would prepare toppings to go with it such as savory powdered daikon and sweet red bean paste. Apparently that day they were celebrating New Year’s with traditional snacks so I also got to try Roasted Japanese sweet potato, Japanese sausage and Bread, Toasted Marshmallows, Miso soup, and barley tea! I was very happy and grateful that everyone at the church was so nice and welcoming! I was especially nervous since I stand out quite a bit due to my hair and skin tone, but seeing how that caused them to work even harder to make me feel loved and comfortable really touched my heart.
In-Country Post #3
Hello UMBC!
My name is Maranna and I believe I am officially on my 5th or 6th week of living in Japan here! During the Spring Semester, Nanzan University has a 2 week winter break for international students that coincides with the 2 month winter break that Japanese students get from University. What’s interesting is that in Japan, their summer break that separates rising from one grade the other, actually happens in the winter, from around February to Late March when the Cherry Blossoms bloom. I think this is done since Cherry Blossoms signify new beginnings, so their entrance ceremonies usually line up within the 2 weeks that they bloom.
However, during my winter break, I had a whole list of activities planned for where I was going to go, see, and do! Over the course of 4-5 years, I had accumulated 7 pen pals from Japan that I had always dreamed of (safely) visiting one day! I met 6 of them during a virtual online high school program called Kizuna Across Cultures, and one of them on the language exchanging app called Hello Talk. I had been chatting with the one I met on the language learning app for 5 years, and she’s the pen pal I knew for the longest, so I was less worried about safety concerns when it came to meeting up with her and the rest of them.
After I had messaged them about my arrival to Japan and the 2 week break I was allotted, 3 of them said they were able to meet! The first two pen pals lived in Kyoto, and the last one lived in Tokyo, so my plan was to base the places I would go on my trip around that. Once the day to leave finally came, I took a taxi to the bus station, but unfortunately could not find my bus and it left without me. Fortunately, the bus station was at the same place as the Bullet Train Terminal, so I was able to catch a 30 minute ride to Kyoto and then take the subway all the way to my hotel!
The one week I stayed in Kyoto was absolutely lovely! I ended up visiting the Macho Bar, a Pig Cafe, Nishiki Outdoor Street Market, The Sacred Deer Park and Giant Buddha in Nara Prefecture (which ended up being my absolute favorite place in Japan), climbed Fushimi Inari Mountain all the way to the top with my pen pal and witnessed its hundreds of beautiful shrines, did hours of Karaoke and visited Yasaka Pagoda Shrine with the first pen pal I ever made! My trip to Kyoto and Nara Prefecture definitely contained some of my most exciting moments in Japan!
But after it was done, it was time to start my one week trip to Tokyo, where I’m currently typing this entry from! So far, I was able to visit Tokyo Sky Tree, a Capybara Cafe, and Akihabara Electric town with my pen pal that lives here! Having the locals show you around to places they’d recommend and explain the intricate politics and viewpoints of Japan that you would only know by living here was definitely educational and rewarding! I am eternally grateful!
In-Country Post #4
Hello UMBC!
My name is Maranna and I am officially back from my 2 week winter break! Interestingly enough, there happens to coincidentally be a break every month during the Spring Semester of Nanzan University, but not as long as the initial 2 week break of course. In the meantime, what I’ve been doing is getting readjusted to school life again! After coming back from the break, the classes in each Japanese language level got split and reshuffled between people who scored higher and lower on the final test we had before break. So there were a couple new faces in my class along with a couple old ones! It also became around time to take out my braids. Luckily, I visited a shop called African Palace that was in Tokyo which had all sorts of African skin care, cooking ingredients, and hair products that I could add to the collection on top of the ones I already had.
Another thing I had to grow to get used to was cooking! Up until now I had been eating convenience store food since I was a bit nervous to try and make a whole dish, in case I ended up not liking it and wasting my money. The convenience stores in Japan also work very differently from American ones and they are EVERYWHERE. Their type of convenience stores have many healthy meal options and readymade curries, noodles, eggs, chicken, and meats. It’s also quite cheap! So surviving off of it wasn’t too bad at all!
But after my refund check finally came, I decided to finally attempt cooking regularly. I wanted to be able to eat Nigerian dishes, and since there aren’t many restaurants that serve it in Japan, or even in America, the only option was to cook. In terms of the ingredients, West African specific ingredients, such as Maggi cubes (chicken and shrimp bouillon), egusi seed powder, and cray fish. However, conveniently, right next to my dorm is an international store called Silk Road Market! It sells Halal meat, seasonings (which surprisingly is very hard to access in Japan), frozen wings and fries, and a whole bunch of super helpful international ingredients from primarily South Asia.
To my surprise, there’s actually quite a bit of these small international markets in Japan because I think there is a sizable Nepalese community of immigrants here.
As for the dish I ended up making, I decided that my first attempt should be to make “Rice and Stew”, which is a staple Nigerian/West African dish that every household eats all the time. Despite eating it all the time, since African food is hard to make I actually have never attempted to make it by myself. My friend who’s also studying abroad and cooks often, (Shout out to Victoria, make sure to check out her Newcastle blog!), also made the stew for the first time the following day! It took me about 3 hours and 30 minutes to make mine and about 4 hours for her to make hers. But I didn’t have a blender so I had to hand mince most of the vegetables into very small pieces. All in all, the stew tasted very delicious and I ended up being super crazy proud!
In-Country Post #5
I can’t believe I can say that I have already been in Japan for around 2 months! I have definitely gotten used to life living here and the workload that the Nanzan CJS program gives! Since I have settled in quite well in Nagoya, I started knocking down tasks on my Nagoya bucket list with my friends, which has made me very happy because usually when I go on trips during break I go solo. My favorite activity of all time in Nagoya, or just Japan in general is Karaoke!! People often say that I’m the best person to go to Karaoke with because I eat down! I do full performances in that Karaoke booth, it doesn’t matter if it’s a rock song, a musical song, full screaming and dancing will be had with a tambourine in my hand! The karaoke booths are in every nook and cranny of Japan so it’s very accessible!
The next favorite thing that I’ve been able to do in Nagoya is go to restaurants that serve a style of food called Shabu Shabu, which is a type of Japanese all you can eat kind of hot pot. One of my penpals in Kyoto first took me to a restaurant named Syabuyo and it had cat robots bring the food to the table! It was so fun that I wanted to go again when I returned to Nagoya! Another event that actually only happens to be in Nagoya is the Ghibli Park, which I went to this weekend, and I loved it so much! When I was in high school, my Japanese teacher didn’t teach much of the language and instead only played Ghibli movies for us, so I’ve watched what feels like around 20. That’s why I really wanted to make sure that I was able to go to Ghibli Park. Usually tickets for this particular attraction have to be reserved 1-2 months in advance, but I was able to quickly get a ticket 2 weeks in advance, and the general cost is around $28. The park had 3 main areas, the Ghibli Warehouse which had various museum exhibits and livelike models, the Valley of Witches, which had a life scale model of Howl’s Moving Castle and the bakery house where Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service (my favorite Ghibli movie) moved to and started her business. And finally, they had Mononoke Village which was filled with lifelike remodels of the buildings in the old fashioned village and a Crystal statue of the Boar King and transformed Deer God Monster. The Ghibli Park even has a beautifully decorated movie theatre within the Ghibli warehouse, where you can watch a 12-14 minute short that is not released for distribution and only played in-person in the movie theatre itself. All in all, I definitely recommend trying out the local things next to wherever you study abroad because there can definitely be some amazing hidden gems!
In Country Post #6
Hello UMBC!
My name is Maranna Nwozo and I’m back again with another study abroad ambassador post! Last week we had a mini spring break, so months in advance I planned to meet my pen pal in Osaka! I was very excited to be able to go since it would be my first time there and everyone has been saying that it is their favorite place in Japan! I ended up reserving a non-motel style hotel (since all my previous hotels have been motel-style) and took the Bullet Train along with a couple other trains to get there! Nanzan University offers a 20% off discount for students who get Shinkansen Tickets so it makes it much easier to rely on for transport. However, taking the train to the main station with the Shinkansen, buying the tickets in person (because that’s the only way to use the discount), and then taking the Shinkansen, only to take more trains to get to the hotel, can be quite overwhelming. What was meant to be a 2 hour-ish trip ended up taking me 4 hours, all just to get to the wrong hotel, (same brand name different location), and ubering back to the hotel I was supposed to be at! But despite that, I still had energy that day to try out the Onsen in the Hotel in the evening, which was something on my bucket list for a long time.
The next day was my solo-day to explore all around Osaka Castle, America Village, the Ninja Cafe, and then finish my day off at Dotonburi! It was honestly a super amazing experience! Osaka castle looks a bit larger and more gilded with gold than Nagoya Castle, and you can actually enter inside! Inside was a museum, which surprised me, and when you reach the top of the building, you can visit the balcony and see all of Osaka below! After that I took a taxi to American Village and visited a beautiful mall with green foliage and only 3 out of 4 walls so you can see the entire inside from the outside! There was a scary clown experience on the bottom floor that I decided to try, and it was definitely interesting and succeeded in scaring me a ton (although I am well known as a scared cat). After that I visited Dotonbori for a bit and was initially overwhelmed by how crowded it could be!
Finally, I took a visit to the Ninja Cafe where I was able to dress up in Ninja clothes and train to be a ninja by finding hidden doors, throwing shurikens and poison darts at a wooden target, and learning how to use a Katana! I definitely recommend this experience if you also plan to go to Osaka! There was still a bit of daylight left after I finished my reservation time there, so I decided to go on a Dotonburi river cruise! Dotonburi is basically a popping, bustling, beautiful city by a body of river water, so it was a very magical experience! The next day I was able to meet my fourth pen pal, Kana, who is from an Island in Ehime. She bussed for 5 hours there and
back just to be there to meet with me, but she says she does it all the time to meet with friends that live in Osaka. We had a very amazing time together doing karaoke, eating Osaka’s famous takoyaki, visiting Kuromon Market, and going to a restaurant where you can catch your own fish and eat it! 楽しかったですよ！
In Country Post #7
Hello UMBC!
My name is Maranna Nwozo and I hope you were able to check out my recent Instagram Takeover on @UMBClife ‘s instagram page! If you already saw it, then you would know that this break I was fortunate enough to visit the southern island, Okinawa! On Okinawa there is a large US military base, so there was a lot of western influence in the types of food, local specialities and seasonings! One of my favorite local specialties in particular was the Taco Roll which they sold in convenience stores! It was essentially seasoned taco meat (but a taste closer to mapo tofu), cheese sauce, and lettuce all wrapped in a sushi-style roll of seaweed! I ate it every morning on the way to the excursions! Closer to the American base on the island is an interesting manufactured wonderland-esque splash of giant figures, holiday decorations, euphoric building designs, and every extreme that Japan associates American consumerism with, also known as American Village in Okinawa. 
When I came to this place, I was shook to my core at the immense amount of color and wacky building designs in the area. I know Dressrosa was based off of Spain, but it reminded me of Dressrosa Island from One Piece because of its toy-land quality. Almost every building had giant toys, T-rexes, teddy bears, jack-o-lanterns, etc sticking out from the side or placed around the base.
Another great place near the Okinawa Base is a restaurant named Cafe Orleans! My friends and I had the amazing opportunity to experience American style hospitality and eat delicious Cajun food again, which was extremely refreshing. We even had long deep conversations with the nice and amazing owner of the restaurant, who bought free drinks for us and gave us advice for finding long term jobs in Japan if we were interested! (For those who want to know what the advice was, he said that American military bases in Japan are hiring and they pay American dollar wages.) Finally, some other things we did was visit Okinawa World to see a drum show and the inside of a beautiful cave, did a boat tour of Okinawa’s Emerald Green Seas, and we, of course, went to a breathtaking beach in the countryside! Everything in Okinawa was so beautiful, especially the way the buildings and residential areas layer themselves on the hills, so the views are stunning. 
However, a word of caution is that I wouldn’t consider this Island very black-people friendly because of many factors, such as the negative view the military base brings to traveling Americans (with much more distaste being held if you’re non-white). Also, it being closer to Taiwan than mainland Japan made for there to be an incredibly large Taiwanese tourist population, so the stares and significantly poor treatment was immense for me and my travel buddy. But, all in all, I’d say visiting the island was definitely worth it for me as I had very many fun experiences and tried things that I wouldn’t have been able to try back at home!
In Country Post #8
Hello Again UMBC!
My name is Maranna Nwozo and I’m back with another update from Japan! Since the clock is ticking down to my final study abroad day is almost at its end, this past week was spent trying to complete the final stages of my bucket list! This included visiting the One Piece Cafe, A cat and dog cafe, Solo Karaoke-ing to Ado and Vocaloid songs, visiting the Ufotable Demon Slayer Cafe, and finally, making a trip down to Legoland and Nagashima Spa Land! I’ll give a review of how each activity went! 
First the One Piece Cafe was a themed cafe of the popular anime, One Piece. So they had themed food and decorations. I ended up ordering Sanji’s Seafood Baratie dish and a Going Merry Iced Coffee! The coffee was great but the Sanji dish lacked sufficient salt so it sadly took me out of the experience a bit (because I know Sanji would never). Next, I went to a Cat and Dog Cafe called Put on Lap! 
It was my first time petting a cat and it bit me twice, but I didn’t know that that wasn’t normal so I didn’t do anything about it. The dogs were cute (I also don’t have much experience with dogs) so it was my first time putting one on my lap and that was nice. Animals in Japan tend to act weird around people with a different skin tone so I was used to and kinda expecting some strange behavior, but I was grateful for the experience of being able to be near an animal because I seldom can in America.
I then finished that day off with a couple hours of solo-karaoke because legends such as myself must keep up with their practice (I’m joking, I just love to practice singing like a performer) and went to the Ufotable Demon Slayer Cafe later on in the week. Now that Cafe’s food definitely tasted… interesting but it was very pretty and each dish had a nice theme. I will say the entire cafe is only based off of the first few episodes of Demonslayer which thoroughly confused me to my core since there are currently 3 seasons and 2 movies out, but I’m still very grateful for the opportunity to go, since going to themed cafes have always been my dream. 
Finally, on Saturday I went to Nagashima Spaland!! If you take nothing else from any of these vlogs, PLEASE make sure you hit up this spot! It is the most amazing, fun, not-crowded-at-all, amusement park I have ever been to in my life! It even has the longest rollercoaster in the entire world (except for the new one that’s being built in Saudi Arabia). Barely anyone knows about it so it’s not a tourist-y place at all and it’s right in Nagoya where my study abroad school is! And last but not least, the day after that, I went to Legoland (which is mostly for kids but I didn’t mind since I adore lego games, movies, shows and just the entire concept as a whole). That concludes this blog segment! またね！