Jenny852 said:
Hello pplz....anyone going on ( or been on) Japanese exchange??? I want some ideas of wat it'll be like coz there's one at the end of the year...anyone interested i can also give you guyz some info coz i got it...but has anyone been there?? I mean i've been to Japan once ( stopover only :'( ) so..i really wanna no wat ppl r like over there and how life really is...anyone going at the end of this year too??
yes i have. i was meant to go for a whole year but end up only being just over two months. long story. i'll give you the short version - i want to japan, was scared and excited. my family spoke english pretty well, but they were very strict and i had trouble communicating at home and school (in japanese) and hence it was hard to make friends. (thats the first thing, for the first few months it hard to communicate well and you get big culture shock). two weeks into the exchange i wasn't having a great time, my family and my absolutely psycho bitchy host sister kept on getting angry at me for doing this, or that, or not speaking enough, or not waving etc. and in a p.e. lesson at school I got tripped while playing soccer and fell on my hand. it hurt so bad it was not funny, but my family said that they didn't think it was broken and wouldn't take me to the doctor if it hurt less the next day. it hurt less the next day. after two more weeks of missing home and a really mean host sister and a few fights with my host family, i fell on my hand again and it absolutely hurt amazing bad. (even though it had been hurting for the past two weeks anyway). so they took me to the doctor and my scaphoid (a bone in my hand) had been broken for two weeks. they put a massive caste on me and wanted me to stay in japan for the rest of the year. but i needed to have surgery so eventually i came back to australia (to my family's disguist) 10 months early and then had surgery. now i have a big scar on my hand.
and my conclusion? it was the best two months of my life. i experienced so much over there and it was so amazing. everything was - missing home like hell, having fights with my evil japanese host sister because she would not stop yelling at me, waking up at 6 am every day to ride to the train and to take the train to school, experiencing japanese food (i ate alot), obento, airports martial arts (judo and kendo), japanese school, japanese toilets, going to Kobe, culture shock - everything. it was the best. there was this one weekend, where the principle of the school (who was a great and kind man who spoke ok english) heard that my host parents weren't treating me so well so he took me and marcus (another exchange student who was at the same school (from aus)), to kyoto for the day. it was the most amazing day of my life. going to shinto temples, kinkakuji, buddist temples, the whole thing. it was amazing. we had lunch at this ramen restaurant and it was the best meal i have ever had. on the basis of this excursion and this exchange i am going to do japanese at uni and take up prac teaching in japan when i finish my degree. and i promised myself i would go back to japan, go to kyoto and find that exact same ramen bar and have that amazing meal once again. i was there over new years so i also got to experience the that whole custom too.
fuck, that was the time of my life. i realised i was more japanese than australian in those two months of hell, yet heaven. and i took so many photos its not funny. photos of EVERYTHING, everyday. great memories.
TAKE AN EXCHANGE. even you hate it at the time it'll be the best, most amazing thing you have ever done. although i didn't have a great time alot of the time there, it was the most amazing thing ever. i never regret it, i only wish i had chosen to stay there for 10 more months. even though i never would have at the time.
guess that was the long version after all. can't wait to go back to japan.
SHIKOKU FOREVER
p.s. the exchange was 100% (bar spending money) sponsered by a government funded organisation. although, they wanted to charge me the full price when i said i wanted to leave early. the fact that i had broken my hand and needed surgery was the loophole that got me home and out of the binding contract, even though it could have happened in nihon.