Going to the University of Michigan

Overview

Continued from the previous post↓

(2026-09-20) Going to Ithaca

The travel diary continues. I went to the University of Michigan.

Unlike Cornell University from the previous post, which is one of the private universities in the Ivy League, the University of Michigan is one of the Public Ivies, a term used for prestigious public universities.

This↓ is how we got from the Detroit airport to Ann Arbor.

Wandering Around Ann Arbor

The University of Michigan and the city of Ann Arbor are almost one and the same. University buildings and campuses are scattered all over the city.

Well, I went to so many places that I'm just going to list them one after another. This↓ is the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. It has things like mastodon fossils.

This↓ is the Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry. I came here because I'd heard that a museum about dentistry was unusual. But it was more like a museum room than a full museum. The woman who gave me directions spoke English insanely fast.

This↓ is a square in the center of town called The Diag. Students were constantly walking through it.

This↓ is the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library. That's me jumping in the middle. For privacy reasons, my face has been covered by Lord Golden Mask. The library faces The Diag, and I went inside thinking, "Oh, there's a big library here." Then, to my surprise, I found a Japanese-language space called The Oka Tadoku Room on the top floor.

This↓ is the Law Quadrangle. A quadrangle is a courtyard surrounded on all four sides by buildings, or the group of buildings surrounding it, often found at universities.

This↓ is inside the law school buildings surrounding the Quadrangle. The bookshelves are packed with records of court cases from different states.

This↓ is a 7-Eleven in Ann Arbor. The inside looks surprisingly similar to a Japanese convenience store. The cramped feeling is the same, and the way the products are displayed is the same. But every single product is different. It felt like being in another world.

This↓ is another entry in Midori-san's Starbucks photo collection: a Starbucks in Ann Arbor and a Starbucks tumbler. Man, I really wanted a souvenir from an American Starbucks... but I wasn't going to carry a tumbler or mug all the way home. So I settled for a photo collection instead.

This↓ is the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. The man at the front desk was kind and spoke slowly for me.

This↓ is the University of Michigan Museum of Art, or UMMA for short. Missing the chance to buy a pin badge of this white statue will haunt me for the rest of my life.

This↓ is the post office I stopped at to send postcards to my friends. I said, "I'd like to send some postcards," and the clerk asked me, "Do you have them with you?" But I couldn't catch the "have them" part... When I speak English myself, I don't often replace ordinary nouns with pronouns, so my lack of practice showed here.

This↓ is the Dawn Treader Book Shop, which I happened to see while walking around and decided to visit. It's a used bookstore. I loved the atmosphere. The elderly owner spoke quickly, but for some reason his English was very easy for me to understand. I told him, "I don’t really read English books, but I thought this store is so nice." Then I bought a postcard from the shop, and he seemed happy about it (it's the one in the bottom left). It's nice when a shop has its own postcard.

This↓ is a restaurant called HopCat Ann Arbor. There was something on the menu called the Michigander, so I thought, "Michigan?" and ordered it. It was kind of a breakfast burrito, I guess.

I should mention something here. There are lots of University of Michigan buildings around town, and most of them have free Wi-Fi. Because of that, it almost feels like the whole city has free Wi-Fi. Pretty amazing.

This↓ is the Stephen M. Ross School of Business. It had a very nice study area, which impressed me.

This↓ is Ann Arbor at night. RALLY HOUSE is a store selling University of Michigan merchandise. If you want souvenirs, this is the place to go. If you wear a shirt with the M logo, you can use it as a conversation starter with store staff or even random people passing by, saying something like, "Hi. It's my first time in Michigan, and I really like this logo."

This↓... AVIS and Budget are rental car companies. Renting a car was a struggle... So let me write down some of my personal rental-car tips here.

Get an International Driving Permit in advance at a driver's license center or similar office in Japan (there is no test or anything).
The name on the rental car reservation needs to be the same as the name on the International Driving Permit (so you can't have someone else say, "I'll make the reservation for you").
At the rental car counter, the process is something like this: "They confirm the details of your reservation, such as whether it is one-way," "You show both your International Driving Permit and your Japanese driver's license," "They ask for the address of your hotel," and "They ask for your date of birth."

Bonus

Well, I think that's about it. This↓ is Midori-san's pin badge collection. The University of Michigan badge in the top left and the Detroit badge below it are the ones from this part of the trip.