My Kansai Gaidai Student Exchange

So today, I went to SPA WORLD in Osaka!

Well well well, what is SPA WORLD in Osaka, you ask?

Well Spa World is basically like the best place ever, as you may well be aware. Onsens exist in Japan, yes that’s right. They exist, Onsens and Sentous or whatever you’d like to call them, call me ignorant but yes yes, back to the point. Myself, Jamie, Micheal and Angie went to Spa world today and it was quite the experience! basically, we rocked up to the joint and put a thousand yen into a little machine and it gave us a ticket, we gave the said ticket to some lady and we were IN!

Round and round!

We put our shoes away and jumped into the elevator and had a little meeting and decided to meet up in the pool area quick smart. So, we left Angie on the 4th floor the girl floor for that month and we went to the 5th floor. Basically, how Spa World operates is that it has two themes, Asian and Western themed spas etc. Since they are segregated by sex, the guys get one and the girls get the other, and then they rotate each month. This particular month the guys got to experience the Asian theme and Angie got the Western theme.

Wooooow!

Annnyhooow, we went into the dressing rooms got changed into our togs and went up to the top level to the swimming / water park area! I say water park because it was like a mini water park, they had some slides and rides and even a cave and mini castle type thing and it was really fun. We got an unlimited pass for the rides but only went a few times cos we wanted to go for the onsens / spas soon enough! after an hour or two there, we went for food and then parted ways so we could go to the spas! Micheal, me and Jamie got naked and went in! before we knew it we got to a place where you’re supposed to throw some water on yourself, I emulated the Japanese guy in front of me as I was leading the pack.. but unfortunately I threw cold water all over my front, which was unpleasant to say the least.

Two saunas and 6 onsens later we were done! we met up with Angie and friend she had made while being all naked (i’d love to be a girl in a onsen) and headed off into the night!

I have a blog, no wait. I have two blogs and I’m still not keeping these things updated as much as I should. Why is that? well life is busy, or as they like to say in Japanland.. ISOGASHII DESU NEEE! yeaaah, learning the language is real fun right? but seriously.. Japanese classes rock.

Yep, Japan life is good. They (the Japanese natives) roam the streets with their mobile phones in one hand and a determined maniacal grin across their face as they try to mow you down while they tell Ai-chan that there are dirty little foreigners without bikes running and screaming and disturbing the harmony that encompasses Japanese life. Naah, it’s not that bad.. it’s not like they try to mow you down everyday.

Hmhm, so what have I done thus far since coming to Japan? I’ve had to read previous blog posts to figure out what page of this little book we’re up to now.. and I think it’s fairly obvious from the state of said blog that I’m still at the beginning, but to the question — What have I done since arriving in the land of the rising sun?

Well since I can only really remember the really memorable stuff (go figure =P) we’ll start there.

• Nara trip
• Universal Studios Japan
• Koreatown
• Hiroshima Weekend

Ookay, so these things happened over the last two weekends and my memory is terrible so let’s begin before I forget anymore.  Gimme 8 hours.

I’ve lied already! 12 days and 14 hours til I take off for Japan.. Holy crap! typing that just now has made me feel a new wave of excitement, it’s unbelievable!

Now now, me being me I like to leave things to the last minute but it appears I have somewhat a list of stuff to do! courtsey of my Mum she’d like me too:

• Print off copies of (for me and her):
  • Travel Insurance
  • Passports
  • Visas
  • Travelers Checks (scan =\ …)
  • Contact details for uni, KGU and QUT
• Give her my banking details? lol
• Get my luggage in order
• Do up a will and give her ‘power of attorney’.
• Prepare Travelers Checks and some cash.

Soo of course I’ll do all the above except for a will and the power of attorney because that’s just rubbish. I’m not going to die, and I think by getting that stuff together I’m just jinxing myself / falling into the trap that my mum has set for me to arrange my sudden and unfortunate death. =\

It's Scuba Steve!

Ahhh anyways! that’s a general list of things I have to do, NOT including all the other little things that still has be done which includes my list of personal ‘things to do before leave Australia’ which includes stuff like eat a Subway sandwich with HONEY OAT bread instead of the cool breads and those sorts of things.

Regardless! there is stuff to do and I’m gonna do it. Watch me work peoples, before you know it I’ll be saying ‘ehhhhh going to Japan tomorrow woo~!!’.

P.S – gotta study more though.

Guessss what guys? it’s August! you know what that means! writing the date has become EASY again.

Yeah.. so what I did there was, I thought to myself that 8 is a pretty easy number to draw so I kinda implied that I’m happy it’s August because the date is easy to draw. It then dawned on me that 7 is even MORE easier to draw.. but I’ve left it up here because it shows me and what goes on in my head a little. Hopefully that’ll help you understand me a teeeny bit more.

Annnyways, it’s August! I leave Australia for a year in August. Hence I’m kinda happy (but a lil bit sad) that it’s finally August, after ALL this waiting.. it’s finally here, I’m finally going to Japan. Pluusss, it’s sooo much suave to say, “Ohh you know, going to Japan for a year in less than a month.” — so that’s pretty sweet too.

Me in kitten form, pretend bacon says August!! tho I LOVE bacon tooo.

So for 2009, I think August is officially my favourite month of the year.. either that or September because I’ll actually be at the start of my mega super duper awesome adventure at that point in time. But yes, I’m excited.. I think alot of mah Kansai Gaidai peeps are excited at the moment.. it IS exciting stuff, at the end of the month we’ll all be in Japanland! buying toothbrushes and fooling around with the transformer toilets.

So now that it’s August, it’s dawned on me.. I only have three weekends left in Australia! and I’ve already booked two of them out! so naturally I’ve assigned the last weekend to the family (cos I’m suuuper nice and owe it to them) and I’m hooping.. REALLY hoping I get my jumping castle as I was promised. But yeah, it’s really really cool that it’s less than a month now but on the flip side it’s also a bit saddening. I may as well be on my death bed here! I’m gonna be gooone for ages and my family absolutely depend on me for all awesome things in life. I don’t want to brag, but these guys literally live and breathe because I’m around.. when I leave I’m gonna have to get them onto some kind of suicide watch. ^^

So now, I am unemployed.. I’m trying to spend as much time with my friends as possible. I’m also endeavouring to study my arse off! I really really need to freshen up my Japanese skills.. otherwise I’ll be a retard relying on body language (which I’m sure will consist of alot of pointing and random gestures) to get my message across.. which although fun, is not the method of choice for the majority of my communication.

Ummm so a pointless post! enjoy? pweeease?

So I’m listening to Apologize by OneRepublic and feeling as if the physco babble is about to start. 

Well here goes, ummm. So this post in essence is about nothing in particular but has a certain theme to it, the quintessence nature of a friendship that starts out as nothing more than a common interest. For those curious, Japan.

I really have to give it to Facebook, they really live up to their bold claim. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Facebook, helping people from all around the world connect – or something to that effect. =\

For those that read and do not know, there is a Facebook group called Kansai Gaidai Fall 09 — and somehow, it has brought a group of people together in a way that I thought was impossible for Facebook, naive on my part considering Facebook is Facebook.. but enough about Facebook, it sucks in general right? yep.

Puzzling stuff.

But onwards, I’ve gotta honestly say, that I’ve made alot of friends out of this group and I’m sure that a few of them I will continue to talk to even beyond the scope of Japan, which is really ridiculous to start talking about as I haven’t even started my legen… wait for it, I hope your not lactose intolerant… DAIRY! adventures in Japan yet. But yeah, I just can’t believe how innocuous these friendships can be, starting from a simple ‘heyy’ or ‘hihi’ and extending into the realms far past your personal fort knox / boundaries. I can’t begin to grasp the silly concept of what this will spell out for me in the end but I think it has to do with something I like to call the mother-fucking Internet.

The Internet is great, but it can be a bitch some times. For the purpose of this post the Internet has become a rampant internetworked evil demon! it allows you to establish ties with other people, allowing the creation of friendships and whatnot whilst doing it’s evil deed of preventing you from actually doing what real friends do. Now, I don’t want to get into a discussion about the semantics of the phrase ‘real friends’, again for the purpose of this post, it’s a friend that you get to see and get to do stuff with and particularly enjoy the company of. The Internet while great and all, stops you from doing much of the things you would normally do with a friend and for this I’ll go to gripes with it.

Being said, would I have it any other way? would I rather say no, fuck you Internet, I’ll wait and meet these people for the first time in Japan?

The answer is no. =P

I count down almost everyday until I get to meet these wonderful people.

EXAMS ARE DONE!

This means the entire ‘hey, hey there — not you, yeah you. You’re going to Japan for a year! congrats’ thing is starting to sink in and it’s really making the crazy in me bubble up inside and spew out a little which hey, come on now. It isn’t a horrible event to unfold and witness! so I’ll take it in my stride if you say I’m a tad crazy / over the top / weird / bonkers or whatever because hey, I know I just might be letting off a little extra happiness which doesn’t translate well through whatever medium I choose to exert myself with.

Where to from here?

But yeah, obviously happy, but the next real question for me, and probably alot of other exchange students going to Kansai Gaidai, is what to do now? like sure, I’ve got a job that I work a few days a week and that’s all well and all.. but what else?
Is there anything I need to specifically prepare for? hmm, well let’s see.. I’m going to a country that speaks an entirely different language from which I am far from comfortable in. So MAYBE I should do a little Japanese study eh? yeah, okay.. that’s nice.. but there is a slight problem, I just finished all my exams and whatnot so I don’t particularly feel like doing any study again.. ever. Sure that’ll change in the coming weeks but as of now, for the life of me I can’t find anything else to keep myself preoccupied with apart from a few coding projects I wanted to get started, one which I’m going to pitch do ye old Kansai Gaidai exchange students on Facebook on the weekend.

So yeah, what now you ask? I don’t know. I guess the next week or so will be celebrating the completion of another semester and looking forward to Kansai Gaidai but atm I can’t figure out what to do next.

That’s me, over and out. Got any suggestions? lol.

Sooo it’s official. Last night I received an email from what I can only say is the worst picked email address ever! aspadm@kansaigaidai.ac.jp — I think it may stand for Asian Study Program admission? Regardless:

We are happy to inform you that you have been admitted to the Asian Studies Program at Kansai Gaidai for the fall semester of 2009. All the faculty and staff members of the Asian Studies Program join me in extending a warm welcome to you.

Ahh, so anyway, from my favourite show, this is how I felt:
_

Happy times! maybe I should do a dance?