Blogs from Saitama, Japan, Asia

...and I didn't sound like an idiot!! In fact, the man (who is a staff member at TIU), told me 「あなたのはつおんはすごくきれい！」or "Anata no hatsuon wa sugoku kirei!" OOOOORRRRRRR "You're Japanese pronunciation is very pretty/clean/good!" (There are different meanings for the word "kirei") I was blown away. I had actually briefly met this man once before with a Japanese friend, Marina, but I didn't get past "hello" with him the first time. Obviously, when he approached me and said hello, I was already shocked that he remembered me... but then he started asking me about whether I'd studied Japanese before, and when: I understood everything he said, and I was able to reply in what I guess sounded to him like well-pronounced child's talk. Now, the Japanese are famous for their politeness, and also for their assumptions ... read more

Hey everyone! I can already tell that writing these blog entries is harder for me. The free time that I would have been spending on it is now being spent on hanging out with either friends or my host family, which is great! So far, the blog has been a great coping tool for dumping a bunch of feelings and potential frustrations when I am going through culture shock moments and feeling a bit empty. However, right now, I'm finding enough to keep me occupied that I'm not as likely to want to just hide away and write for an hour... except for right now. Expect these to come about once every week, where I will recap what has happened, my loves, my frustrations, and my deepest desires (probably not those actually...) So! Disclaimer over! I ... read more

...with how stupidly hot and sweaty it is here. That will be all I say on the matter. Hello again! It's been a couple days and stuff is happening very quickly. First things first, my host family is AWESOME. It's a small family, but that's the way I like it. My host-mom ( I call her okaa-san) and my host-dad (otou-san) and my host-grandmother (obaa-chan) are all very gentle and fun-loving people. They are very careful to help me learn Japanese, and are incredibly patient when it comes to listening to me or trying to explain something. With host-dad's good-but-limited English, and my straight up limited Japanese, we are getting by alright. Okaa-san speaks very little English, so I hope to progress my Japanese enough that I can soon actually hold a conversation with her. There's ... read more

After a surprisingly short-feeling flight, filled with enough time for me to watch THREE movies (Einstein & Eddington, Green Zone, and Date Night), eat TWO meals (Bibimbap? Bimimbap? Can’t remember how to say it but it was a delicious Korean spicy rice dish), and try to take ONE nap (and failing), I emerged out of the plane doors into the oppressive heat of East Japan. After stumbling my way through Immigration, I came into what looked like a completely deserted baggage claim. I felt as if my plane had accidentally flown to the wrong Japanese airport. ‘Isn’t this Tokyo?’ I thought. ‘Aren’t people supposed to be everywhere??’ But looking at the incoming flights list, we were the only plane in this part of the airport. I’m standing there bemused, and I hear a small, nervous voice ... read more

Well......lots of things have happened since our last rendezvous. We checked out of our normal hotel and then went to buy a really cool camera we had finally decided on for less than half the amount you would pay in Aus. Yay! This took quite a while but was well worth it. The weather was quite cool and raining so we decided to head to the Toyota Salon and the Sunshine 60 buildings in Ikebukuro. We had some time to waste in the arvo as we couldn’t go searching for a love hotel till later so we decided to play some games in an amusement centre (games parlour). The one we chose was fairly small but it still had 9 floors of games with one floor dedicated to skill testers. Was good fun. We then decided ... read more