Konichiwa

Wow time flies in Japan! We are already in mid – terms period. Felt like I just arrived. Even if they work load is heavy, I’ve been travelling (within Japan ) the last two weekends. My motto; Work Hard Play Hard, and there is not a huge chance that I will come back to Japan in the nearest future, so I have concluded, while here lets experience as much as possible….. 😉

Two weekends ago, I was in Hiroshima with to friends, one Spanish girl and an American guy. Hiroshima was a place I really wanted to visit last semester, but I always put it on hold since it’s actually not that far away with Shinkansen (the bullet train), you don’t have to really plan for it, so well…. I was a bit too lazy to be honest. So now when I came back for the second semester, I decided to do it as quick as possible, before running out of money and time.

We left early Saturday morning with Shinkansen, and we decided to visit Miyajima first, which is a Island close by Hiroshima, and it only takes 20 minute with a boat ride. Miyajima has such a beautiful nature and is famous for the Major gate in the water, and all the deer walking around. Also the street food is amazing, I think we were eating every 30 minutes, well… not really, but kind of!!!! We spent the whole day walking around and watching shrines, temples, and deer on Saturday. We also took a cable car to the top of the mountain, such an AMAZING view. I realize after living in Kyoto for 8 months, that I really miss the ocean. Miyajima is surrounded by the ocean, and I felt really like home, which is difficult in Japan I have to say, cause everything is so different from let’s say the western world; it’s impossible to explain, have to visit to understand 🙂 However, heading back to Hiroshima in the night we checked in to our hotel and went for dinner, awesome Okonomiyaki. Hiroshima is famous for their Okonomiyaki, which is an omelet with noodles inside, LOADS of mayonnaise, and some other Japanese sauces I don’t know the name of, it’s sooo Oishii (delicious in Japanese). Ohh I almost forgot, we of course went to Karaokeeeeeeeeee, a Saturday night without Karaoke isn’t working, so we were trying the Hiroshima karaoke, and yes it deliveredJ The day after, slightly tired, we decided to explore Hiroshima, our focus was on the Bomb – Dome and the Hiroshima Peace Museum. That was an emotional journey, we started with the Dome, and there was a man that was just a baby when it happened and whose parents have survived the atomic bomb, or his father died after couple of weeks, and his mother recovered but was suffering from several diseases (cancer, inner bleeding, and so on) thru her whole life. It was so emotional to listen to his story, and actually see a real person who survived the bomb. We later on moved on the museum, and yes another emotional journey, and finally we went to the peace memorial hall. Before heading back to Kyoto we visited Hiroshima Castle, and we left Hiroshima with several impressions.

Okinawa

Last weekend, I went to Okinawa with a Swedish girl from the BKC campus. It was indeed another kind of trip than Hiroshima, the closest culture we saw were the American Army, Navy and Marine ( no complains though 😉 ) . Reason why I point them all out, because I learned that there is a HUGE difference between them. It was such an insult if you couldn’t realize there was a difference, I failed that test 😉 Okinawa is an island belonging to Japan and the American Army, yay all of them are stationed there. Why? Because Japan don’t have any defense, so there’s agreement between the States and Japan; if Japan will be attacked the States will defend them. It was such an amazing Island, and it was so different from other places I have been to in Japan. It was so Americanized, which I didn’t mind. The Japanese people there were more open, they could speak English and they didn’t stare at you. You could really see that the American culture has a big impact of their way of living and behaving. The island it self with all the nice beaches, ohh laa, it was a nice weekend get away, and I meet a lot of nice people, both Japanese and Americans. I would love to go back, and I can recommend people that may not be that interested in Japan, or just Tokyo, go to Okinawa, the beaches are as beautiful as in the Caribbean. (and yay, we found a karaoke bar that served free drinks to ladies, we were their all 3 nights)

This Friday it was Halloween, as a swede you don’t really have any tradition to celebrate it, but OMG Japan it has been 3 weeks of celebrating Halloween, and we all went out this Friday. It was a night to remember indeed…. 😉

See ya soon again

Matane

Cecilia – San

Did you know…

That if you order a coffee at Tim Hortons, and ask for a “double-double” you will get a coffee with double sugar and double cream (you can substitute the cream with milk).

Dear reader,

My apologies for the very late post. The reason for my lateness is, simply put, homework. A lot of it. I will make it up to you not with excuses, not too many, but with my adventures these past few weeks since my last blog post.

 Homework

While I’m usually quite talented in keeping up with homework and finishing it on time, here at the University of Guelph the situation is a bit different. I started out here with 4 courses. I ended up dropping and couple and registered to three. Although I managed to keep up the first couple of weeks before I dropped two of my courses, I somehow managed to fall behind, severely, as soon as I registered to the tree new ones. Obviously the three courses were two weeks ahead, and I had a lot of catching up to do. 

Catching up is easy if you lock yourself inside your room for the weekend. However, I didn’t have the heart to do so. You see, I wanted to experience Guelph and its hidden beauties. The arrival of autumn is an excellent example for this: imagine being inside, doing homework, as the leaves change colour from green to red, and then from orange to yellow. I couldn’t miss that! Therefore, my dear reader, I admit to have spent a significant amount of time outside exploring the “city” with my fellow exchange students, instead of staying home catching up.

I did, however, observe how the student of U of G managed their time. These people, or some of them, spent most of their time studying. This did this either while eating, chatting with friends, at the library, at the UC until 11 in the evening, or walking home etc. Non-stop studying is certainly not my cup of tea, no matter how much I love the subject.

Let us conclude this boring subject by me sharing this sweet experience I had the pleasure of living through the past couple of weeks. As I have already made clear I was behind on homework, lectures, and notes as soon as I registered for the three courses. I spoke to one of my teachers, and she told me, with all the serenity and kindness in the world, I should write an email to my classmates; asking them to share their notes. My first thought was “No way anyone’s going to share their notes with me.” However, after debating it mentally for a while I wrote a proper email explaining the issue, and asked the 400+ students (from across all 3 courses) to share their notes with me.

I ended up receiving over 15+ emails with kind responses and notes attached.

 Sweets

A quick note on this subject: although we Europeans hear all sorts of mouth-watering things about NA sweets, cakes, and pastries; the actual thing is not that mouth-watering. I rather found it teeth-aching. Sugar and artificial flavouring dominate a large portion of Canadian sweets. Personally I have always wanted to taste candy corn. The result: Never, ever, putting that in my mouth again. It was not sweet. It did not feel like you were eating sugar. It felt like you were boring into your teeth with a tiny screwdriver. Pardon the mental picture. That is not to say that all sweets are the     same. However, a very large portion of them are quite bad for you. Very bad.

Homecoming

My friends asked me about whether I was going to attend the homecoming or not. First thought: “Where do I find a dress for such an occasion? And why are we having a dance/ball/prom so early??” The homecoming turned out to be an exciting, well-planned, highly social, and brutal game of university American football. I blame my ignorance on American TV shows.

Sincerely,

Lady Diala