Where do I even beging to describe my day, today? It all started with my first ever starbucks - not too much, but not very Japanese! Then came the train ride through the most incredible Japanese rural countryside. Every angle had a mountain, and rice paddies and people who waved at the train and little towns, following seeing that I have a view of the Japanese alps from everywhere you stand in Nagano - including my hostel and the train station. You can't escape ...

I'm alive! After a lot of hustle and bustle, we all managed to get out of Tsukuba and on our respestive trips. After a stressful couple of hours (think: 20kg packpack, a new travel friend and tokyo peak hour traffic at the station) - we made it into Nagano! The sun was out today which was amazing but so hot, and made it a challenge! Plans for tomorrow are to visit the monkey park followed by dropping Daniel off then I'm going hiking at Togajushi, to the shrine. ...

Just a quikc update for today as its quite late! It was our second last day of class and we all leave Tsukuba tomorrow :( sad but exciting! We learned a lot about genetics, which I did not understand a word of really. We all made plans to leave a day early so I get 2 full days in Nagano - wahoo! We went to another international students night, it was run by Thai students and it was so much fun! I wish the ANU did something like that! Maybe I'll start one at B&a...

Field trippin' day 2! Instead of a day in class we spent half the day at Tsukuba mountain. We were told the story of Tsukuba mountain, aparently once a god came down to rest and Mt Fuji refused to let him sleep but Tsukuba mountain did so as repayment, he gave Tsukuba 2 peaks that are actually lovers embracing so that the mountain would never be alone, while Fuji remains alone. Aparently Tsukuba is also famous for holding some of the oldest written passages in J...

An inactive day today - we just had class again! We discussed environmental ethics in international laws and then we had a brief discussion on animal rights and their position in cultural pratices, I definitely had the chance to speak up, it was a good discussion! Just had dinner out on town again and have started plans for the last leg of my trip in Nagano and Tokyo - very exciting! I'm yet to find my missing earring so it looks like a trip into Tsukuba centre a...