Ok well I am only posting because I promised I would, but this one will be super duper short because I haven't done much.

Thursday was American Thanksgiving, and being an international house, the americans in our house (particularly Zenen) decided to throw a marvelous thanksgiving feast. After school Taku's mum and sister drove the car from Osaka where they live to take Taku, Zenen and Zina shopping for food. Meanwhile I stayed behind and pealed so many potatoes to make a huuuuge bowl of mashed potatoes.

So anyway the dinner was set for 7:30 and they came back with food to prepare at 5:30.....this is where the teamwork had to kick in. We had about 10 of us working nonstop to try and get everything done, seasoning and putting chicken in the oven, making salad, making pumpkin soup, peeling apples and making apple pie, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, bean salad. One of my menial tasks was to whip cream, not fun at all but I always get stuck doing it.

Surprisingly we got everything done on time and we took it all downstairs. Ashley had set up a hand-turkey drawing station....it was funny. Mrs Morita didn't understand what to do and she made hers into an elephant....looked so much better than a turkey anyway :)

Anyway the food was soooo good, it was so filling and yum. I at bits of everything and there was just enough for everyone. Then we hung around and chatted and Taku's mum came back carrying a guitar and this okinawan instrument that looked like a shamisen. Then taku and his sister dressed in traditional okinawan yukatas and he SANG and played the intrument thingo.....i've heard him sing in english quite...badly, but in Japanese he was really good. He sang Shima Uta which is quite a catchy song from....Okinawa!

Friday after school I planned to go with Tori and Amy to the immigration office to get a reentry visa for when we go on our cruise. Tori said the place closed at 5 so we needed to go rather quickly....we waited for amy for a long time but turns out she was eating (selfish bitch! :P) Then when we got to the busstop she realised she forgot to bring her passport (Sigh)....so we went home, got the passport and got on the bus. Finally we got there at 10 to 5 rushed up. Turns out it actually closed at 4....gahhhhh. Nevertheless we managed to knock on the door and ask for a form so it wasnt a total waste.

Saturday I cleaned my room because I had anticipated my friend coming to stay (don't read so much into this paragraph ben). I was planning on going out to karaoke with her and her friends but being clumsy stupid me as I was getting my washing from downstairs I tripped up the stairs and twisted my ankle and stubbed my toe. I had to hobble back to my room and sit down. So i texted her saying I couldn't come. And then she never turned up. Next day turned out she was out to really late so couldnt really make it here. Stood up eh lol. Down 1000 yen too.

Sunday I also planned to go to Nara with Tori and Amy but again it was too uncomfortable to walk, so i didnt.

That's it

Hey guys, sorry for my hiatus. Last weekend I did pretty much nothing worth writing about and this weekend I have been quite tired so no motivation to write.

So yeah school is getting very monotonous, but I have entered week 8 which means I am on the downward stretch already, it also marks the halfway point for my whole exchange trip. Now that I am closer to being in Sydney than when I arrived I am getting a bit homesick, the whole halfway blues thing. If you think about it I will be back before your holidays end, so in a sense that's not very long at all. I am expecting all of you to leave between the last week and fortnight of your holidays completely free because I will be wanting to do a heck of a lot with you guys to make up for lost time.

So yea uni was the same (I will probably stop starting with this line because it never changes)....but yea friday night the house was so empty. Lots of people went on a trip to Kyushu to stay at our Partner University campus in Beppu. I was not really interested very much because they actually went to lectures and stuff (most of them just went to get a trip to Kyushu). Instead we invited German Vanessa over and got her to bring some wine. Anne made Gluwein (Sp?) which is a hot german spiced wine, very christmassy, delicious. So people were drinking and having fun (I was not drinking this time either though) It was lots of fun.

One by one people went to bed until Me, Tori, Vanessa and Ben remained in the kitchen.....they were quite drunk and Tori and Ben got into quite a heated argument. It was a bit scary. They were swearing in the hallways and stuff.

Next day people were having a hangover sleep in, I meanwhile got up at 10 fresh as a daisy and the house was sooooo quiet, it was kinda creepy. Eventually though I heard the familiar screams of children because my manager's grandchildren were staying with them again. They're so cute, they always say hello to us in slow Japanese thinking we are crazy gaijin that can't understand them.

I couldn't sleep on Saturday night for some reason so was up until like 3 listening to music and talking to Malishka lol....needless to say it was horrible. I woke up at 11 by Anne breaking into my room to find out why I wasn't ready to leave. So i quickly got ready and we caught a bus with Anne and Tori to the station, caught a train to Umeda station in Osaka and stumbled around looking for the Umeda Sky Building (which was in the Amazing race wooooo) I mean we assumed it would have to be close to Umeda station and we could SEE it, we just couldn't figure out how to get there.

Finally after asking cops we found it and were greeted by the gates to the Christmas market. It was rather lame, but I guess how many german people could there be in Japan, I think all of them were at that market. Anne was having a good time though, she had to take lots of photos and interview people because she was writing an article for her student newspaper back in germany. So we walked around and it started to rain and the girls wanted to go shopping so we went to this big department store and walked around looking at the crazy english Tshirts which don't make sense (never gets old)

We got to the top and had lunch, I had Teriyaki chicken, it was awesome. I also found a shop and bought Mi Goreng, I was so happy :)

Afterwards we decided to go to the Harbour and see if the aquarium was worth taking a look at. We got there and it wasn't too expensive so we decided to go for it. The aquarium itself didn't have a lot of exhibits but there was a huge tank with 2 whale sharks in it. There was also a manta ray and these huge spider crabs. Nothing you ever see at Sydney aquarium, it was cool. There was also a petting tank to touch stingrays and sharks, rays feel like slimy jelly, and the sharks are like sandpaper.

By the time we left it was getting late and we were tired, but Anne wanted to go back to the chrismtas market again to see it at night. So we went back. Then we left to go back to Kyoto, our feet were soooo tired but we had to stand the whole train ride back. Hell

So we got back and went straight to bed

and that was my weekend. Hope you all are well

I will be back on Sunday/Monday. I promise :P

In order to be consistent ben, I followed your thinly veiled threat and yes I am posting, but this has been a very slow week so it will not be a long entry at all.

True to what I predicted in the last entry, I developed a cold. Monday morning I was starting to feel the effects of it so I wore a mask to school. My friends all made fun of me, and I didn't really need it but I figured where else in the world can you wear a face mask and blend in perfectly. The Japanese people on the bus didn't even give me a second glance. Whereas if I was at home there would be a mass exodus of any public transport I was on.

I managed to make through Monday and Tuesday reasonably well, Wednesday morning I woke up and felt crap so I skipped my 9am class and went to the next one because I had to be a part of a panel for my United Nations class for the topic of "Should the United Nations Security Council be reformed?"....my argument was not very strong, but I got through it fine enough.

However by Wednesday night I was coughing and sneezing like crazy yet I still intended to go to class the next day, did all the homework and everything. However I woke up on Thursday and I really could not get out of bed. So all day I stayed in bed with my trusty laptop. Friday was much of the same just home all day. In those 2 days I think I maybe ate 1 piece of toast, so of course I was wasting away. Saturday I still felt pretty bad but I really needed to go to the supermarket so I made the trek down and bought enough food to last me a while.

That night while some people went to Osaka to go clubbing, I stayed home with a few of the usual gang and made Maultaschen (my spelling is probably terribly wrong) it is basically like huge German ravioli....we made the dough and everything it was a lot of fun, and it was so delicious too. So we stayed up for ages talking but I was getting weary so I went to bed about 1ish.

Today was another lazy day, I was feeling much better this morning after JJ the Korean girl gave me some weird pills that I, of course, swallowed without question. I had to catch up on the work that I missed from being away. Pretty boring

So yea, thats pretty much it.

Later days

ok sorry that I am ONE DAY LATE....sheesh, anyone would think I was charging you all to read this damn thing.

So yes my week began on tuesday when I went to the city to buy a halloween costume....We went to this big shop that had lots of things to choose from, then we found the hat wall. OMG so many hats, and needless to say there were so many photos taken of us wearing said hats. I was particularly enamoured with the one shaped like an icecream cone, because it was one of the only ones that fit, so I bought it. Meanwhile Zenen bought the fish hat, and we tried to get Jeong Ju to buy a crab hat....she was so sad but we persuaded her. Afterwards she said to me:

"I think I made a mistake, I wanted to be cute, not funny....This is my only halloween and my dream was to be a princess, a crab wasn't my dream"...

it was hil.ari.ous......as was trying to get flora to be a cake, she was sooooo angry because we wouldn't drop it haha, but she got it in the end

A recurring theme in these blogs seems to be the consistancy in which i make a total ass of myself. This time it was something new, I was catching the bus home after buying my hat, when I fell asleep and woke up just near my stop....and I got off, WITHOUT TAKING THE HAT......i realised as soon as I got off, but it was too late by then.

The next day I walked to the bus depot, which isn't too far from where I lived and asked them if they had it, but my Japanese must be atrocious because they had no idea what I was saying....I promptly gave up. LUCKILY I tried again the morning of the halloween party (friday) and a woman was there who spoke english so it was much easier to describe having lost an icecream shaped hat.

My friend Clarice from Macquarie also decided to pay us a visit from Nagoya for the night, so we got her a ticket to the party too.

The party itself was lots of fun, although it went for like 2 hours.....such a shame. There was all you can eat/drink. Zina my neighbour who is also underage encourages me to illegally drink with her....and you could say I caved to peer pressure :P....although I was much more responsible, I have definitely learned from past mistakes (although maybe not enough, but that is to come)

The room itself was so hot, especially in my hat....but it was definitely a huge hit. I had lots of photos taken with my by people I had never met before.....Javi the spanish guy who lives in my dorm also professed that he would like to eat me because I am so "smooth, cool and creamy". hahaha

After the party we all gathered at the uni to decide where to go next, some of us wanted to go to karaoke, so off we went. The room was bloody small, but again free drinks, which seems to be my downfall. It was quite fun and I went pretty hoarse from all the singing, afterwards I was so tired that me and Clarice headed home.....although once we got there some people who didnt go to the party were still up (and hilariously drunk)......so we hung out with them talking.....at this point I was still pretty good, then I had a glass of wine.....kinda the straw that broke the camels back. I felt like I was going to be sick, but I wasn't, and I managed to run away to my room when the others were distracted

Saturday was a hangover day, didn't do anything. Nobody go up until early-mid afternoon and even then the were not in much of a doing anything mood.....that night we had some people over and had a cocktail party downstairs. I did not partake in the alcoholic cocktails you would be glad to know....the mocktails they made me were pretty damn delicious though.

Sunday we decided to bike to Arashiyama which is pretty much this touristy, old place....really beautiful though. Problem was it started to pour as we got there so we had a picnic under a nice tree. We also saw a wedding taking place, I felt so bad for them. We walked around some shops for a while and through a cool bamboo forest then headed home after a few hours.......I got absolutely drenched, which brings me to the final point

I am sick

Although it might be getting a lot better before it really got bad, I have been gargling this awful medicine as well as wearing face masks. the masks themselves are pretty unnecessary but I figured, where else in the world could I wear a mask without being stared at constantly......I was rocking it too

so there you have it. I am contemplating taking day off to recouperate seeing as I have a busy/early wednesday. Talk to you anon

jono