And so it begins...

              All right Australia and other non-Japan countries, here is the first post of my AMAZING Japanese blog. So the journey here went something like this; Go to airport by car (2 hours) wait around until all of the EF students and staff had assembled (30 mins) fill out forms, go through passport control etc ( 1 hour) More waiting (1 hour) And then finally onto the first plane, headed to Kuala Lumpur (8 hours) Arrived in KL, got off the plane, went to a food stall and got Malaysian street food, which was fairly amazing, and then continued onto the next plane (6 hours) Thankfully I actually slept on this one, so it wasn't so bad.
              Right! Transit over! Or so I thought, because then we had to wait for the other flights to arrive in Kansai International Airport (2 hours) and then we caught a bus to the International Youth Hostel in Osaka. After arriving here and being introduced to my fellow Japanese ryuugakusei (Exchange students) we had a short introduction to the year, and the rules that we would have to follow for it. Then delicious onigiri for lunch and a short test to assess our Japanese skills and to pus us into groups for the afternoon. List some Japanese words in Hiragana? HA! List ALL the words in hiragana.
            After this we adjourned to the hostel and had a traditional Japanese meal of tuna sashimi, squid, rice, Japanese pickle, grilled salmon, tempura (prawn, eggplant  and sweet potato) and also miso soup. As most of you probably know, I am not the greatest fan of fish, or seafood in general, so you should all be VERY proud of me when I tell you that I ATE IT ALL! Dad, be proud. With this done, we had one on one meetings about our school and family(s) and also played some games in Japanese, which was good fun.
           Day two: Woke up, MAY have been a little late to breakfast, but who was keeping track of that anyway? (Sorry Kota) More fish and rice for breakfast, it was pretty good. Then we rolled out to the mall for everyone to buy their mobiles that they would be using for the year, which was kind of awkward because Lianne is getting mine, and everyone else was getting theirs then, so I just sat around and did... well... nothing really. Then we oohed and aahed over the cute Japanese things in the shops and we tested our Japanese skills on shopkeepers when we tried to buy things. It went well, other than someone asking how long these headphones will take. Note: the verb for costs is the same as the verb for takes time. (かかります）
               Then we all returned to the hostel and had a "Curry party" where we all cooked Japanese green curry together and had a great time with that, with the night finishing at about 11 o'clock, with everyone really tired and ready for bed. Of course this is the time when we had to pack our bags, which is hard enough when not sleep deprived, so there was lots of disgruntled boys all sitting on the tatami mat that covered our floor, bleary eyed and attempting to shove clothes into our bags. Not so fun.
          In the morning we got up, had breakfast (more fish, I'm practically Japanese already) and then caught the bus to Shin-Osaka station. The problem was, the bus stop was about a kilometre away, and the weather was like a British summer. So after being soaking wet, the warmth of the 45 minute bus ride was enough to put even the most hardened of ryuugakusei to sleep. When we got to Shin-Osaka station, I kind of freaked out at how awesome the Shinkansen (Japenese bullet train) are, and how they looked like missiles of the people carrying variety. If you ever go to Japan, ride on a shinkansen, they are comfortable, smooth, and everyone is polite. Pretty awesome.
           3 hours of sleeping and looking out the window later, we arrived at Tokyo station, where we found several families waiting for us, one of them being my family for the week, as Kaneko-san and his family are away until the seventh. Then my family and I went to a restaurant and had dinner (at 4:30, don't judge) and then went on a twenty kilometre, one hour car ride back to their house, where we had iced coffee and this kind of sesame seed cake, that was very tasty, but very hard on the teeth. That pretty much covers what I have done in Japan so far, so enjoy! 待った来週！