3 and a half months since I started this blog post. Only to delete it all today and start afresh, as Japan means something completely different to me now than it did back then.

I think about Japan a lot these days.  Every now and then a vivid memory flashes past my eyes of me riding my bike to Makino. Or of a park. Or of Kansai Gaidai. Or of the Cherry blossoms. Or of watching the sun set from the roof of the Osaka Sky building in Umeda. Or to the people I miss so dearly. And every time I do it makes me smile. For that split second I relive those feelings, those moments, and the wind physically gets knocked out of me but I know they’ll never happen again. These memories aren’t reminding me of what I’ve lost, they remind me of all those special moments that I never had to experience – but life gave them to me anyway and so I should never be ungrateful for them.

As I said in my last post, my trip to Japan was amazing, yes. Amazing. UHHMAZING! But when I got back and tried to write this blog post I felt myself speechless. The words I wrote were words that littered the page but didn’t give me the satisfaction I needed to click that publish button. Satisfying whatever it is that compels me to write these posts is usually easy but for this one… not so much… for the life of me I couldn’t do it.

So this is it, the time has come again for me to depart from the Gold Coast here in Australia and make headway towards Osaka.  Again.  It’s happening again.  I mean, i never doubted that it would, but there’s always something surreal about something this grand – in my experience anyway.

It’s actually kinda scary.  I don’t know what I’ll think of Japan when I get there.  I loved that place more than anything in the world, but i’m a different person to who I was when I was in Japan – i’ve come a long way.  Will i still love it? Will it still appeal to me?  Maybe.  But the scary part is what if it doesn’t? What then? I guess i’ll find out soon enough!

It’s also very exciting.  Just now, at the airport, I gave our hostel a quick ring to confirm our booking.  Now, i’m out of practice with my Japanese – slowly getting into the swing of things due to my studies this semester – but out of practice none the less.  But, i managed to check our booking with ease – all systems go.  This was actually the wake-up call (quite literally a wake-up call).  It really drove home that i’m going back to Japan, it also boosted my confidence.

If this place exists, I need to check in.  I believe I have a problem with impulse buying plane tickets when I don’t have the money to do so.

Example #1: My friends and I had the idea to travel to New Zealand last December.  So I saved up my money.  A month or two later I had enough for the whole trip! Yay! So what did I do now that I had the money? I bought a return flight to New York. Blast! Wrong “New [location]“! Then I had to scrounge up money for New York AND start from scratch for the New Zealand trip.  Not smart – but I did it (to some extent… we were homeless for a few nights in New Zealand)

Example #2: The flight to Japan that I just booked for April.  I had the money to do it – awesome, but… That money wasn’t exactly meant for Japan… I was meant to use that money to fix and register my car (currently running on 3 wheels – badly, as you would imagine). Now I’m STILL without a car and relying on everyone else to drive me around! But I have a flight to Osaka booked =) <– see that smiley face? That’s Example #3.  I shouldn’t be smiling.  But I am… … … =) (#4)

Priority issue? Maybe…

Howdy all! Remember me? I used to post on this blog!

First of all, i’ll tie up loose ends.  The 48 hour game comp I entered didn’t go so well – we overscoped the project (ie. bit off more than we could chew) and as a result we ended up with a rushed, unpolished project, which is a big no no.  Bugger! There’s always next time!

I have been and gone from New York.  My time in NYC was a lot of fun! And really interesting considering that America was my first English-speaking country I have travelled to.  I would like to comment on the differences between Australia and America – but I can’t.  I haven’t been to “America”, i’ve only been to New York, and therefore I have nothing to compare it to and from what I understand New York isn’t an accurate depiction of America – It’s a big city.  I suppose I can compare it to Osaka and Tokyo, but even then I can’t really because the cultural differences between New Yorkers and the Japanese are near polar-opposite.  I mean, New York was grungier, and older looking than Osaka/Tokyo – but that’s all I can comment on.

I would like to mention that I found New Yorkers very friendly.  They have this reputation of being rude and all of that, but everyone I spoke to was very friendly and helpful.  I also found New York to be quite safe.

Ok so first stop of the big trip around Japan was Tennoji in Osaka.  This didn’t feel like such a big deal because it was just Osaka, except – Paul arrived.  So it was a big deal.  It was fun introducing Paul to Japan and attempt to fill him in on what’s to be expected – even taught him a few words.

Now i actually hadn’t been around the Tennoji district in Osaka much before, so it was a little new to me.  I had heard that Tennoji was a bit of a rough area, and it was true.  I’d describe it as the ghetto of Osaka, but it still had its nice parts.  It had character.

So on the first night, Paul and I checked into our hostel, “Peace House Showa”

Just trying to update my blog via iPod touch. itsit’s annoying coz my iPod touch insists on writing in capitals. Just about to go to bed at our first hostel. its nice here. Just went for a walk with paul. Ok thats all for now.

So there is less than 24 hours until I land in Osaka… wow, it’s come along faster than I thought, and of course as usual, in typical ‘Paul Style’ I have left everything until the last minute. I had to start work at 5, so I knew I had to get everything done before I went to work.

First of all i’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who checked out Road2Japan during Korea week.  It was a lot of fun making it happen, especially the video at the end, although my brain WAS on the verge of collapse after editing video for about 1238192873 hours.  For anyone who missed Korea week, it was a series of 5 posts about my trip to Seoul, South Korea.  In part 5, there is 3 youtube clips i made, basically an 18 minute video in 3 parts. Here’s a link to Part 1 of the Korea week posts.

However, as good as Korea week was, I think my timing of it was a bit off, because things happened during Korea week that I felt I couldn’t really mention due to the theme of the week.  So, time to catch up!

Korea week here at Road2Japan was known by another name to the Kansai Gaidai students: “Finals week”.  That’s right, all my finals were last week, and now that they’re done, my first semester here at Kansai Gaidai is over! Time to relax! Blow some money! And prepare for the big backpack trip around Japan.

I think i did well on my finals, i should have passed everything at least, but there is also the possibility for an ‘A’ in there somewhere, so that would be nice.  The finals week format was pretty much the same as the mid-term week, in my case.  That was that I had a Speaking Japanese oral, a Speaking Japanese written test, a Reading and Writing Japanese Oral, and a Reading and Writing Japanese written test.  All of which were tested almost exactly the same way as they were during mid-terms. For my orals, I had to read a passage out loud for Reading and Writing (something about eating turtles…)