Rafting, openday, and welcome party

Ohayou!

Long-time no see. I haven´t had time to write this last week because we have a lot of homework.. We got tests every week and homework for every class. If you are going to a University in Japan, be prepared to study! But of course, I have had some time to do other stuff also, which will be summarised in this post. 

So what have I been up to? I have been to Kyoto one more time with two Swedish guys from my home institution. We went to the Kyoto National museum who had a special exhibition with very, very old things from Japanese culture. Usually, fro what understand, they have a few national treasures. But during this exhibition, they had a lot more. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures, so sorry no pictures from there...

At the weekend I went to Rafting (forsränning), and it was super fun. It was arranged by Japanese students from Kansai Gaidai, as an "Experience Japan" activity. Unfortunately, I can´t get the pictures from my camera on my computer, so I will just upload one picture below that I took from the train. My waterproof camera decided to not be waterproof, and somehow the water got into the camera... :( After the rafting, we went to a restaurant who have like a frying table. So we could pick what we wanted and fry it. Man fick välja mellan olika spett, som man sedan doppade i en smet, sedan i ströbröd och sen ner i friteringen(?). Kul upplevelse, men man mådde rätt illa efteråt haha. Det var buffé unkluderad maten, dricka och efterätt som man fick plocka från i 1,5 h. 

On Sunday I participated in Kansai Gaidai University's open day as a volunteer. We got to speak with high school students about our countries, which was super fun. It was a really good practice because most of them spoke very little English, so I spoke mostly Japanese. I sat by a table with my laptop to show a short PowerPoint and one group/family was showed to my table. We were supposed to speak to each group for 15 minutes, but I think I spoke to every group more like 30-40 min haha. It just flowed. I spoke to three groups with a mum and a daughter, one group with two boys, and one group who only included a boy. We gave each other tips about Sweden and Japan. Talked about food, IKEA, future plans, Table Tennis etc. :) 

Well, that was my weekend! This Monday we had a welcome party in my unit at Kansai Gaidai, we drank some Bubble milk tea (or tapioka as it´s called here in Japan). If you don't know what it is, please press here. We did some mini pizzas and ate Takoyaki (typ degbollar med bläckfisk i och så har man sås på). Takoyaki recept, press here: Tokoyaki recept.

Today is my free day so I have done some homework for tomorrow and I´m planning on going into Osaka. Saw that they had a pop-up store for a Harry Potter shop so I think I will check it out. :3 The rest of the week will only be homework until the weekend. On Saturday I will to Kobe for a crayfish party (kräftskiva) with a Swedish- Japan society (Japanskt-Svenskt sällskap). I got invited by my family's friend Seiko so I think it will be fun. 

From the welcome party, all in our unit. There is mostly Japanese people, it´s only me, and a french girl who is from outside of Asia.

Kanpai - SKÅL

We got this T-shirt to keep from the open day, fun memory :3

How our classrooms look like. This from one of my kanji classes. 

Found a friend on my way from the gym ;)

The gang from the rafting day 

View from the train. This was one of the rivers we went through. Nature was so beautiful.