So i’ve been back in Australia for almost 3 months now…  And i guess its important to inform any prospective Kansai Gaidai/Japan (or other) study abroaders about MY experience post-exchange.  Not only that, but it seems as though this blog, that you all know and love, is going to come back to life! Read on =)

I was looking forward to going back to Australia and seeing my friends again.  The other thing i was looking forward to was actually studying games and IT again, as i felt completely out of my element at Kansai Gaidai – ive never studied history or politics! lol

But i’m back now, my friends are awesome as ever, even made a few new ones.  I’m lovin University.  I see Australia the same way as i saw it before – even after being away from it for so long.  It still doesn’t make me want to be here.  It IS a great country – i have nothing bad to say about it.  My wanting to leave Australia has nothing to do with Australia, instead it has everything to do with how amazing Japan was.  I want the wacky way of life Japan gave me.  Riding bikes, not being able to read signs, constant politeness everywhere i went, the tiny cramped houses, beer vending machines… I also loved just stumbling across new cultural things that would just wow me.  I’ve lost so much of my Japanese language ability too because i have no one to talk to (in japanese) and i dont have 8 Japanese classes a week. I miss Hirakata…

yeah, so i’m a bad blogger, i havent really blogged at all lately, and i’ll be honest, i’ve kinda lost the desire to and replaced that desire with something more productive, like programming games.  So whether my winter road trip series gets completed or not is a mystery to the universe.

However, I DO have something for you guys.  Before last Sunday, I actually hadn’t even been to Nara yet, and I had a Field Report to write for my Professor Kenney for her Religion in Japan class.  So I decided to base my report on the Todaiji (Todai Buddhist Temple), home of the laaaargest Buddha in Japan! (According to somewhere on the internet that might actually be wikipedia).

Prof. Kenney asked for a “Field Report” so I wrote a “Blog Post”, which i’ll print out and hand in as a “Field Report” then she’ll tell me “Jace, this is shit, this is a ‘Blog Post’” and I’ll be all like “Yo waaaaaat?” and she’ll be like “yo i’m-an-easy-marker-so-have-an-’A'-even-though-you-didn’t-do-what-I-asked” and i’ll be like “kthxbai”.

Here it is, my “Blog Po”- i mean “Field Report”:

It was 5am and still dark when our Highway Bus pulled up at Sendai.  The bus ride was comfortable.  We parked our asses at a nearby 24 hr internet/manga café and waited for the sun to rise before calling our Hostel so that we could maybe drop off our baggage.  We learned our lesson from our day in Hikone, we do NOT spend a day carrying our travel packs – that’s a recipe for a sore back and a terrible day.

Annie called the Hostel (which was actually a Ryokan – Japanese Style Inn) and got directions, they also said it was ok to drop our stuff off.  It was only a short bus ride and a 5 minute walk away so we did that.  The hostel was nice looking, I’m not actually sure it was a hostel.  Inside was really nice, and it reflected in the price we paid.  It was the most expensive stay on our entire trip, but luckily we were only there for 1 night so it wasn’t so bad.

We walked back to Sendai Station where all the action was, bit of a mistake as it was a bit tiring of a walk.  I might mention that by Sendai I still had not seen substantial snow. (I say substantial because it DID snow in Hirakata, but like a total of 18 flakes fell).  Sendai’s roads were icy, and slippery, so much so we actually saw a local fall off her bike – aww…  Sendai was also really spacious and open.

When I woke up I felt great, and like I said early, it was the start of my enjoyable travel. We had a quiet one up in the common room of the Hostel that night, Paul, Annie and Chris filling me in about their day out. They had a great time.

The following day Paul, Annie and I got up early to go to the Tsukiji Fish market. We were really tired from the early start, but we got up, took on the cold, and made it to our destination. We had a bit of trouble finding our way in, but soon enough someone pointed us in the right direction. There were all sorts of crazy fish and GIGANTIC tuna! I’ll let the photo’s speak for themselves:

The guys riding on their little cart things were vicious. Everyone was in a hurry and they were, in the end, at work. They needed to be quick and efficient, and so people like us were always in the way. We were constantly looking over our shoulders trying to make sure we didn’t get in their way, but it was tough.

When we got back, we went back to sleep to catch up on the lost rest we had that night. The fish market was awesome.

Sorry for the late postings guys!!!! Just remember these posts were written well in the past!

The day after New years, we went to the Imperial Palace, turns out Emperor Akihito was gonna show himself to the likes of the lowly public. Back in the day, Japan was “ruled” by its emperor, not only that but the Emperor was divine! DIVINE! …. Lol Well, he isn’t anymore, the Americans made sure of that after World War II, but the Imperial bloodline continues and the Imperial Family is still alive, and I was super excited to be able lay eyes on Japan’s Emperor. The Emperor only comes out twice a year, on his birthday, and the 2nd of January. We were lucky enough to be there!

We took the subway to Tokyo station on the borders of Ginza where we met up with another old friend: Chris! YAY! Remember Chris? “Do you like bubbles?” I went to Korea with Chris, a lot of fun this guy, an Epic piece of Aussie man.

We walked into the Imperial Palace grounds and followed the crowd to where the Emperor was going to come out. We didn’t know WHEN he was supposed to come out, or if he had already, or if we missed it, or anything. We just went. We walked to the big crowd of people in front of this pretty huge building that had a big glass room protruding out of it, I guessed that’s where the Emperor would be.

Ok, so i havent updated in a while, and YES there is still 129387123 posts about the backpacking trip still to come, but i’ll still update you with the goings on of the beginning of semester.

First of all, i lost my apartment and (rage incoming) i don’t know what the fuck is up with the Japanese and giving away things that have been reserved.  It happened with my phone last semester, and now my apartment this semester.  I even paid my deposit, but they still gave my room away leaving Annie, Paul and I without accomodation on the first day back.  But! More details on that when I cover it via the backpacking posts.

I’m currently living in Seminar House 4, i’m actually enjoying the dorm layout a bit better than the apartment layout but everything still kinda feels the same as last semester – everyone’s full of energy!  (‘cept me)  But that energy dies down, as reality kicks in with the noobs and study pressure really starts the weigh everyone down.

Tokyo was a riot.

On the first night, upon arrival we met up with Logan and his friend Nathan. Logan is a Kansai Gaidai friend of ours from South Carolina in America, greeeat guy! So much fun. We made our way to our hostel, checked in, dropped our 19837198371982kg’s of luggage and headed out for a bit of a night, some Japanese barbecue and a Wendy’s which didn’t have any meat left so we went to Maccas instead. Shunjuku was alive, lots of things to do and things to see, if we had the time and the energy.

Tokyo is an extremely and ridiculously large city, the likes of which I would claim that if you put every capital city in Australia together, it would STILL be smaller than Tokyo, my guess would be quite a bit smaller too. Tokyo is made up of various districts, districts such as Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Ginza, Roppongi…. And the thing I love about Tokyo and its districts is that every district is famous for something different, such as Shinjuku’s nightlife, Shibuya’s shopping, Roppongi’s Nigerian infested nightlife (neutral comment, make of it what you will), Ginza’s the business district, Harajuku’s crazy fashion….

After the shinkansen (I love Shinkansens) ride from Nagoya to Shizuoka (south-west of Fuji) we grabbed some food (tortilini – yummmmmmm) and hopped on some local trains on our way to fuji station. Fuji snuck up on me whilst I was gazing out the train window at the ocean, it literally snuck up on me. I turned around for a second and it was there! They call fuji a “shy” mountain and I can definitely see why. Even on the train it kept ducking out of view behind buildings and the train itself… and when we finally got off the train and rushed to get a good look at it, it was hiding behind clouds. We saw a bit of the snow covered peak through little holes in the clouds but there wasn’t that much we could see.

But what we COULD see was most definitely breath-taking. It just looked as though the earth rose into the clouds, it was most impressive. We asked around at Fuji station for bus information, they said the next bus would rock up in about… 4 hours…. Yeah, not gonna do that.

So we caught a different bus that was supposed to apparently maybe possibly should kind of drop us off somewhere in Japan. Sounds good. We jumped on and it headed up the foothills of Fuji – awesome.