looooong time no blog

howdy!

not sure whether any one has bothered to check up on this blog (coz I clearly havent) but after months of Thomas nagging me to update it, here it is in a nutshell.

So although I was supposed to only be on exchange for a semester, I decided to extend for one extra semester at Kobe Uni as I had simply fallen in love with it (and I wasn't quite yet ready to go back to the land down under).

So my birthday came and went and New Years also came and went (along with a few incidences and surprises).

January consisted mainly of wrapping up the semester with exams and assignments with some nomihoudais, karaokes and Seijinshiki (coming of age ceremony) thrown into the mix.

February involved the conclusion of my first semester in Kobe and we celebrated by taking a little skiing/onsen trip to Nagano (Nozawa Onsen). While the athletically competent boys tackled the slopes, Agata and I relaxed by soaking in the numerous free onsens scattered around town. On our last day we travelled to a place named Jigokudani (Hell Valley) to check out some monkeys enjoying themselves in some hot springs.

It was around this time that a lot of the students who came to Japan for only a semester headed back home. We said good bye to the likes of Odin, Mandrew, Jesse and Tyson, Min Jung, Alicia, Robin and Kacy to name a few. Pyjama girl also left so the kitchen was now in peace.

A large chunk of March was spent not being in Japan. Agata, Tristan, Marc and I wondered about how we should spend the 2 month Spring break and we decided to skip town and country altogether and hit South-East Asia. We spent a scorching week in Cambodia checking out the World Heritage Angkor Wat as well as soaking up the sun in the beautiful coastal town of Sihanoukville. Drinks and food were dirt cheap and decent accommodation could be acquired for roughly $5 a night. Tuk-tuks became our favourite mode of transport. We had to bid farewell to Tristan after only five days (important presentation required him to come back to Japan) and Agata, Marc and I spent the next two weeks travelling through Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City all the way to Hanoi courtesy of several (relatively comfortable) sleeper buses. The heat was unbearable at times but it was nice to feel warm for once after spending the past few months shivering our socks off.

Along April came the newbies for the next semester. From all over the world yet again, we now have new friends from Australia, Sweden, Austria, France, the US and the like. They seem to be settling in well and it's nice to have new players for "Never Have I Ever"!

With more English speaking people on my floor, we seem to have dominated the kitchen. Thanks to Agata dating Tristan, gourmet dishes are always being prepared much to our delight. (I should now also mention that Marc also does a great job in the kitchen too.... hem hem)

A lot of us have decided to take the Japanese Language Profeciency Test in July so the past few months have also been spent in preparation for it. Japanese is a ridiculously hard language and it is currently driving me a little insane. It seems as though our wild days are somewhat behind us for now as a lot of us opt for a studious night in than a night of debauchery. Hopefully once everyone's scholarships have been deposited again the crazy days will return once more.

Golden Week involved a day at Nagisa Music Festival in Osaka with some lovely ladies followed by a few days in the Japan Sea side of Honshu (Tottori and Kinosaki Onsen in Hyogo). Marc and I successfully hitchhiked our way to Tottori and back from Kinosaki to Kobe, and we met some delightful people in the process. A group of guys who picked us up near Kobe who we thought would only take us to Himeji coincidentally happened to be travelling all the way to Tottori as well so during the lovely four hour ride treated us to beer and wine and other little knickknacks. They even helped set up our tent at the campsite where the rest of our camping friends had already taken up a few days earlier and also paid for most of the dinner that night. Thanks guys!

Thanks to not having to pay anything for transport, Golden Week turned out to be rather afforable. As the weather warms up, we hope to take more advantgae of the free camp sites and generous drivers. A road trip organised by Val is also in order for one of the following weekends.

Anyway that pretty much brings you back to speed with what's been going on. Obviously there's a lot more that's been going on but for now I will leave it at this.