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.

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.

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….

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…)

Things are sinking in, im starting to get a study routine goin, i finally feel like i have a bit of order in my day to day life – whilst still living in my lovely chaotic lifestyle.  It’s good.  I feel this order is really opening my eyes to what is going on around me, which really helps with time management too.  It felt like before i had no time and things were just a blur, however now i can sorta make time for study, uni, emailing and even gaming.

So what’s been happenin?  Well the Japanese students have returned to Uni. The result?

The relationship between MYSELF and the other Japanese students is completely non-existent.  Something i’m not entirely happy about. 

Yeah so… i rocked up to lecture today… walked in just as the “not-lecturer” said “Ok i’ll see you next week!”

An Actual photo of me at the time

After consulting my buddies they told me that the ACTUAL lecturer was sick and therefore lecture was cancelled.  I could’ve slept in! Oh well, more time to work on assignments I guess.