July 24th marks my one-year anniversary living in Japan! I have to say, having decided before I departed Melbourne that I would 100% only be staying for one year, it is a strange feeling to know that I have completed one contract and am still staring down the barrel of a whole year to go. Most times I miss my friends and family and Australian life so much that I can hardly believe I willingly recontracted to stay another year. But then I think about all of the things that I have been afforded the opportunity to do in Japan (and all of the things that I still want to see and do while I'm here) and the decision doesn't seem so crazy after all...
My one year in this beautiful and often bewildering country has been busy and dare I say it adventurous, to say the least. I have wandered lost around Tokyo, partied in Kobe, made new friends from all around the globe, seen it snow and celebrated a cold Christmas. I have travelled to Osaka and Nagoya and Hokkaido and abroad to Malaysia. I have met up with a friend in the rain in Kyoto, sang more karaoke than I care to admit, gone zorbing, visited the mysterious mountain regions of my prefecture and become friends with a handful of cool people in my neighbourhood. I have eaten a lot of weird food (raw horse or poisonous puffer fish anyone?), stuffed my face full of crab and lamb, downed sake under the pink blossoms of the cherry trees and introduced my mates to Triple J's Hottest 100, kangaroo meat and VB beer on Australia Day. I have read Australian poetry to an entire school full of children and German poetry to a 30-strong group of my colleagues in a cabin in the woods. I have been whitewater rafting, visited more than 30 Buddhist temples and danced in one of the biggest dance festivals in the world. I have sweated buckets and been bored shitless and encountered way more creepy bugs than I ever thought possible. I have studied Japanese, attended drinking parties with my colleagues and gone with them on a day trip to Amanohashidate (one of the top three sights in Japan). I have helped to start up a charity, given presents to orphans at Christmas, thrown parties and organised a black tie ball. I have had 12 x-rays, bumbled my way through a million conversations in a language that isn't my own and been in two car accidents. In the classroom I've played English games with my students and in the playground I've taught them how to play footy. I've bought a lounge suite, a laptop and my own DSLR camera. I've drunk more beer, fake beer, whiskey and umeshu than I can even begin to count. I've gotten a Japanese drivers license, ridden the shinkansen and had a mouthful of someone else's booze sprayed all over me in a packed train. And I've laughed and I've cried and I've used way too many squat toilets for my liking.
Yes, my one year in Japan has been amazing. And though I am often homesick and wondering why the bloody hell I decided to stay, I hope that my second year will be more of the same.
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