Welcome Back

This post is mainly for people who have stumbled onto this blog and are interested in travelling to/ studying/ living in Japan. But just for the sake of closure I thought I'd also include some updates.

I've been in the UK for over a year now, and Japan feels like it was a dream. It's strange, but I'd go so far as to say that sometimes I even feel a bit home sick. I miss the people, the combinis, the train journeys, the culture. It really did feel like a second home to me by the end of it, but I will go back again someday. 

I still keep in touch with some of the friends I made, and I'm still learning Japanese. It was much easier when I was totally immersed, though, so for those reading this who have yet to study in Japan - make the most of it! 

I feel like I made the most of my time in Japan and I have no regrets. 

But if I had the chance to do it all again, I would:
Go to Hokkaido during the snow festival
Visit Tottori, the sand dunes in Japan. 
I'd go hiking in sunny Okinawa.
I’d hitchhike/ do onsens in Kumamoto
Go to more festivals
Watch a baseball match
Go on more adventures with the 'WhyNot?! Japan' group. 
And study wise, I really should have joined a club at the university and stuck to it, so that I could have gotten more Japanese language practice. It would have been helpful if I'd taken the intuitive and learned the meaning of the kanji and signs I saw everyday on the train and around university - repetition, you know?

Looking back at my blog now I cringe at how messy and childish my opinions and observations are (sorry to those of you trying to browse it), but I'm also so, so glad I kept it up. A blog is a great way to keep some of your memories, and has the added bonus of being useful to others who want to do the same kinda thing.

 This blog also reflects how I changed over the months I spent living abroad - I was more willing to say 'yes' to things in Japan, and I had a great time with it. I've learnt a lot about their culture, about people from other countries and I've learnt a lot about myself, too. I've become more open-minded than the me from the start of this journal.

But anyway, hope you've had fun browsing this blog. 

さよなら！

For a more comprehensive blog on studying in Japan, visit my friend Lindsey at http://peaceteaandsweets.tumblr.com/. She went to the same university in Japan as me, so we had similar experiences.

And if you have any questions about studying in Japan, Konan University, living with a host family, living in Itami, or, I don't know. About what good clubs there are in Osaka or something, then you can e-mail at charlottemlb2@gmail.com.

Have fun travelling, guys.

Akashi, Lake Biwa, Kobe Festival etc

It's been over a year since I last checked this blog, and I've discovered that a whole fortnight is missing from my adventures in Japan. I was staying at my friends place in Akashi (she went to Kobe Gakuen) because my contract with my host mother had ended. I explored Japan a little more from there.

The details are fuzzy, so I'm just going to illustrate the last few days in a non-chronological series of captioned photographs.

The view from my friends apartment in Akashi

Last nomihoudai in Osaka

Tokishi getting ready to wave goodbye to me at the train station

My friends at Kobe Gakuen featured on a train poster in Osaka!

Signs at Kobe's Oji Zoo - baby pandas

A proffessor at the womans college we tutored at

A last look at the woman's college

Kobe Festival

A lot of people at the Kobe Festival

Believe it or not, this is a love hotel in Osaka

Intense six hour karaoke session in Akashi with Elen!
I didn't even realize I knew 6 hours worth of songs ><
(This was a last minute time killer which turned out the be one of my favourate nights in Japan)

Rasta panda at Oji Zoo. Complete with marijuana on his little red tee.

Caroline managed to convince someone to rent us bikes for cycling around lake Biwa

A congratulatory meal after cycling around Lake Biwa all day

Me with Ayaka at Kiyomizu Dera (Water temple) in Kyoto

Me and Ayaka decided to cycle from Kyoto to Lake Biwa
Took us 2 hours there and 1.5hours back (because it was all downhill)

Lots of rice paddys around Lake Biwa

Sunset was beautiful at Lake Biwa - I recommend going swimming there in the summer

Owner of a cute gay bar called Frenz where Lady Gaga partied when she went to Osaka

Having deep political conversations with a guy at Captain Kangaroo in Umeda
 (a cosy bar with good deals and burgers)

Larry getting dressed by a shop assistant in Hep Five, a huge and expensive shopping mall in Osaka

The Fountain Clock in Osaka JR Station: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf5aI1J_HEo

What's missing is just general nights out, trips to the 300 yen store and the park in Akashi, the not-very-british-but-amusing-british-pub called Hub, visiting Kobe Gakuen, awkwardly waving off my host family at the train station, accidentally melting my friends plates in the microwave and forgetting to replace it, visiting Robert at his new apartment in Kyoto, taking Caroline to the airport, etc etc.

In hindsight, this blog as not been at all useful in terms of how to get to places, but at least you have names and a vague idea of it. Every place that I've mentioned on this blog as a whole is worth visiting, though. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to mention it. Japan is not as small as it makes out, it's huge and wonderful, so do explore and keep your own blog if you can, so that I can stumble across it one day and schedule some of the sights you see into my next trip to Japan.