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I think I've entered the wrong profession... my little cousin with whom I am staying is attending a cake-making school, where she is learning to make a wide variety of cakes and other baked sweets and breads. One of her assignments over the holidays was to go to a cake store/petisserie, sample 2 cakes, ask the owner a few questions and write a report. Sampling cakes is SOO much more fun than writing law assignments...

I'm not sure if I just haven't been to enough places, but I really don't think Australia (at least not the gold coast.. or adelaide even) has the variety of cake stores or cakes that they have in Japan. It is amazing - and so many different types of cakes to choose from at each place... not like the stock-standard cheesecakes/mudcakes that we tend to have here (although I do love them too).

Off to Kyoto tomorrow - a little family holiday before I visit my grandparents in Haruna.

(The cake display at Patissier Labo Tetsuya in Kasugai-shi. If ur in the area, come in and buy a cake or 10. And buy the 'Tetsuya roll' - it's their specialty)

(Baked goods - mmmm....)

I went to take a sneak peek at my exchange university yesterday, and it is huge!! It took about an hour to get there - a bike ride to the train station, then a short train ride, then the subway, then a bus to the university. It's going to be pretty rough on the trains if I have early classes... not looking forward to rush hour!

The uni has pretty much everything ... it's own convenience store and McDonalds?! Swimming pool, gym (yay, so at least I can work off the kilos from eating so much!!) tennis courts, libraries, athletics track, soccer/rugby/baseball field, and a zen prayer room to top it off, just to name a few. I will get a full campus tour during my orientation, so hopefully I won't get too lost trying to find all the places once I start studying.

Otherwise I've just been relaxing, doing a bit of shopping here and there at nearby stores and spending time with my family here, whom I haven't seen in 3 years. It's been good just to catch up. My parents will be coming in a few days, so the travelling will start a bit after that!

(Photos: clockwise from left - walking from the bus stop at Aichi Gakuin; Garden outside the meditation room; my little cousin and me standing next to the meditation room; and outside some building at the university)

Arrived in Japan around 8.30 and got back to my ‘new home’ at about 10am. Pretty smooth plane ride, although it’s hard to sleep sitting up – I kept waking up every hour or so with a crooked neck.

The humidity in this place is rough… Luckily there is air-conditioning, otherwise I would die. On Friday I went to organise my ‘alien registration’ and a mobile for when I’m here. My registration will be done sometime in September I think, and I’ll get the mobile later. The food is AMAZING, I can’t get enough of it. And the sweets… I have a feeling I’m going to start piling on the pounds if I don’t get some exercise soon!! 0_0

I experienced my first earthquake on Friday – a scale of 3 in my area. Not too bad. And then another one yesterday but I didn't feel anything, I only knew cuz it was on the news. Lets hope there's nothing serious while I'm here.. although everything in the house is connected to the wall (as I'm told) so we will be safe if we get a huge earthquake.

Slowly getting my head around speaking Japanese all day, every day... Did i mention the food? mmmm...

So this is it - tomorrow I'll be leaving Australia and landing in Japan about 15 hours later. It's pretty exciting, but also sad to know I've spent my last semester at Bond. Still got a little bit to pack but it's so tiring!!

I'll miss everyone, but I'll be back in the sunny coast in 5 months time! Grad night is gonna be huge!! In the meantime, I'll try and keep people updated on stories from Japan, and I'll post up a bunch of photos too. Please keep in touch and let me know what's happening in Oz!! xoxo