Day 76 - 14th of November

10:05pm　普通電車

天気：曇り

We're almost at Nara now. Carly, Diego and I are meeting Jessica there. We woke up at 7:00 this morning and quickly got ready to leave for Makino station at 8:30. We took the local train from Makino to Kuzaha, then changed to an express train. We got off at Tambabashi, to change to the Kintetsu line. We waited on the platform for a bit, and I bought a playstaion mag. We're here...

1:53pm　レストラン

Right now, I'm sitting in exactly the same restaurant in sat in 4 years ago on my high school school trip. It's on the street towards 東大寺 (Todaiji temple - which houses the 大仏 - Daibutsu - "Great Buddha"). Carly's eating with me; Diego and Jessica went elsewhere. So far we've been to a number to a number of shrines and temples in the park. My food's just arrived...

2:10pm　レストラン

Finished. The trees are of a million different shades and the deer are abundant. We walked through a beautiful forest with ancient camphor trees, before deciding that we were very hungry and had to eat. We past a market on the way to this restaurant and I bought a beautiful old scroll. Carly just got a message from Diego saying that they would have to wait 25 mins for their pizza to be made; there's an Italian restaurant in the park across from us. Oh well, I want to explore and take more photos before we enter Todaiji. I should take some video too...

5:44pm　奈良駅

Carly and I are watching for the train home in Nara now. We bought a ticket that would get us all the way back in one transaction (basically paying for both kintetsu and keihan lines at once); very convenient. Diego and Jessica went into Nara to eat; I hope they find somewhere nice. So yeah, after lunch we walked around the souvenir shops and the park for a while, then me up with Diego and Jessica. It was about 3, so we made our way straight to Todaiji. Since my camera batteries ran out, I filmed it; already taken photos there before anyway. Even still, seeing the Great Buddha again was awe inspiring. You can't appreciate the true size of it in photos or film. And the structure itself is absolutely magnificent. We left just before it closed at 4:30, then walked out the side way, back towards the station. On the way, we visited a private garden. It was free entry for foreigners, so of course we leaped at the opportunity. It was so beautiful. We didn't spend too long in there since it was closing we continued walking toward the station, and stopped by one last souvenir shop.

I was supposed making 牛丼 (gyudon - a beef and rice dish) with Amber tonight, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen; by the time we get back Sanko will be closed. She'll have already have eaten anyway. Still got about 20 minutes to wait...

7:01pm　急行電車

We're now on the sub-express to Makino from Tambabashi. We decided that we'd rather sit down and have a longer ride, than stand up all the way and get there sooner. This way we don't have to switch over at Kuzuha either. It's been a long day, and now all I want to do is sleep...

Day 46 - 15th of October

9:46pm　セミナーハウス
天気：寒い
Another long Thursday... I woke up at 9, made breakfast (scrambled eggs with rice), and lunch (avocado and rice on toast, and carrots sticks). Wore my overalls for the first time today. Over all good impression; hahaha, I made a funny. Yeah I pretty much love them; they're so comfy. Anyway, got to uni and made my way up the 72 stairs (yes I counted them) to Speaking. The student teacher took the class again today. We've moved on to passive sentences. She's doing really well I think, making the classes fun. Then I went to Reading and Writing. Had a kanji and vocab quiz, read from the textbook, and got test results back. Did really well in my composition and average on the test.

Then went to CEL. I'm so excited about the field trip we're going on tomorrow. We're going to Korea town in Osaka to see the 秋祭り (Aki matsuri - autumn festival). It's gonna be amazing; I'm changing my batteries now! After History, I had an hour and half to kill before my meeting with the members of my booth for INFES. I found Diego just outside the class. He was waiting up here for Jessica's class to finish; he's so committed, xD. We ended up chilling out in one of the vacant rooms (apparently he does this every week). I took photos out the window, and Diego showed me a really great view of the campus from the guys bathroom, lol. Carly joined us in the room, and told us about the trip she was taking to 北海道 (Hokkaido - the top island of Japan). My ears immediately perked up and I enquired about it.

I am seriously considering going along!!! We'll be going the 27-29th of November (Friday to Sunday). Her friend got an amazing deal through a travel agent. It's going to end up costing about $350 round trip by plane and accommodation!!! Now we just need to figure out what we want to do when we get there. At this point, about 6-8 of us are going I think. It's going to be epic. I'll get to see snow, and probably freeze to death; so excited. I feel so lucky; through making all these friends I'm having so many great experiences. Anyway, at 5:30 went over to my meeting (it was literally across the hall). The foreign students got partnered up with Japanese students and then we had to choose two songs to sing at the festival - one for the karaoke competition on Saturday, and the other for exhibition on Sunday. These are the same days I'll be performing koto. Lol, I should so go on stage in the Kimono I'll be wearing.

My partner's name is Naomi (yes, it's a Japanese name too). She's really nice. We had a list of songs to choose from for the karaoke competition, and for the second day we could choose a favourite Japanese or English song to sing. The fist song I've forgotten the name of (it was in Kanji) and I didn't write it down; silly me. The second song I'm going to be singing though will be Angela Aki's cover of Kiss from a Rose, a) cause I love Angela Aki and b) cause I've sang Kiss from a Rose heaps!!! So yeah, should be interesting. We're going to meet up next Wednesday, and go to Karaoke in Hirakata to practice. After the meeting I did a little bit of grocery shopping at "Kirindo" (the shop that just opened). Found 6 slices of bread for 88円. I have only once found a decent sized loaf of bread; most of the time bread is packed in lots of 5-6 slices; and it's usually really thick.

Anyway, got home, cooked dinner (spaghetti bolognese), and watched this really funny Japanese game show. Basically it was the contestants' aim to get three outof five random people in the audience to laugh within a minute, in a number of different scenarios. Presumably, they were all comedians amateur or otherwise. This one woman came in the room screaming a got everyone to laugh within 5 seconds. That kind of thing always seems to work cause people don't expect it. So, apart from tomorrow night, I don't think I'll be going anywhere on the weekend, partly because I want to save money, but mostly because mid-term exams start next week and I found out that I have three on the same day; Speaking, CEL, and History on the Thursday!!! Really looking forward to that one, not! Better get ready for bed now, night...