Long Adventure Post Time

After a full week of adventures in Japan, I can confidently say that Kansai Gaidai is AWESOME! This has been the most incredible week!

 The week was spent sitting through orientation sessions, making lots of friends, and eating tons of great Japanese food! I had to take a language placement exam and register for classes as well as figure my way around Hirakata City. On one of the adventures trying to figure everything out, my friend/roommate Shawnae and I tried as best we could to find 枚方市駅 (Hirakata City Train Sation). It involved about an hour of wandering, a chat with a police man, and a bus ride to before we finally made it to the station. All was well, though, because there was a Starbucks across from the station haha! We bought electronic train cards, which are incredibly useful in Japan when using the bus and train system, and did some shopping. 

 Some comics from a convenience store- totally different from in America!

One night, we found an incredible little noodle shop! It's about a 5-10 minute walk from my dorm and had absolutely delicious udon! Nothing better than little hole-in-the-wall restaurants!

 Keeping with the theme of adventuring (there was A LOT of adventures this past week), one evening was spent taking the train into Osaka!

 A ferris wheel on top of a building in Osaka!

Once in Osaka, we headed for an all-you-can-eat sweets shop. You pay 1,500 yen (~$15) for 70 minutes of unlimited cakes, sweets, dinner food, and drinks!

After an epic 70 minutes of relentless cake eating, we all went to the Osaka Pokemon Center! It was filled to the brim with every Pokemon-related product imaginable. 

Of course I had to buy some things while I was there!

My Pokemon Center purchases!

School begins on Monday and I have officially gotten into all the classes I wanted- woo hoo! I'm sure there will be plenty more adventures to come as the school year officially starts! 

And so it begins...

I began my day at the airport, waiting excitedly for the 13 hour flight that would take me to Japan. Mind you, 13 hours in an airplane isn't the most enjoyable or interesting experience. I have to give so much credit to the JAL staff though because they made the flight awesome! The food was delicious and they were always serving yummy hot tea! The plane itself was one of the huge dream liners and was super comfortable! 

      Helllooooo delicious ice dream 

The scenery from in the air was gorgeous! Check this out! 

Flying is always a cool experience! I still don't think it's fully set in that I'm in Japan, but I am so glad to be here :) I'm in Narita airport right now waiting for my flight to Osaka, so in the mean time enjoy a photo of the Japanese coffee I hade today :P 

Almost There!!!

I'm a little over a week away from heading off to Japan for the whole school year! Woohoo!

She doesn't seem to care too much...

My family had a get-together/party for me on Sunday as a last hooray before I head off :) It was lots of fun to get together with my extended family and share a super cute cake!

It will be so strange not being at my normal college and at home for holidays this coming school year. However, I have been planning this experience for the past years and am over the moon excited that it is about to begin! I picked up yen from the local bank and have been doing shopping for light weight clothing, shoes, and other supplies. I have Outlander by Diana Gabaldon loaded onto my phone and ready to go for the 13 1/2 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean. It will be just a matter of days before I fly off to Japan (which stills seems hard to believe!) Packing everything efficiently is the biggest challenge right now so I have started pulling everything together.

I cannot wait to get to Japan, but for now I am just relaxing and knitting for the next week :) 

I'll post again when I am in Japan!