Back in Japan

Hello from Japan! I arrived safely back at Kansai Airport last night and am currently on my first day back at work today. It feels like a stretch to call it being back at "work", as we only have an opening ceremony today (lasted 15 minutes and there are no classes), but being back in my normal environment makes it already feels as if the whole trip to Australia and New Zealand was a dream!

So... I have a bit of catching up to do...

I’ve honestly been online a total of about 2 hours over the last 3 weeks (including booking hostels, checking the weather & emailing my fam in America to tell them I'm alive), so I haven’t been able to do much blogging. At the same time, that’s also a good thing because I was using the time to see and explore the countries I was in and now have a lot to share! Things definitely changed a lot after the first day in Sydney, which was a rushed message and really the last time I wrote, but I promise not to bombard you guys with too much detail on why ;)

So, yes, AUSTRALIA. The great land down under. I'm going to start by being brutally honest about this one: I thought I would love, love, love Sydney, but in the end... it was still really just OK. I do like Australia and badly want to go back (Wet Sundays, Wet Sundays, Wet Sundays!!), but I think I am better suited to places like Melbourne than central Sydney if - no, when - I do return to this vast nation. I love the city atmosphere, but the more artistic, coffee shop, laid-back vibe of a still bigger town like Melbourne seems like it would be a better fit.

I will blog seperately about what I got up to while I was there, but my initial observations of Australia, a totally new place for me, laid along the lines of Sydney being extremely fashion-forward (armies of Haviana and Gladiator sandal-wearing, boutiquey sundress clad women) and having a rather large Asian population. It wasn’t until days after I arrived, however, that I realized that I was staying right on the edge of Chinatown (hence the Asian population...haha) and that it might not be that so many other advanced countries are that fashion forward, but that America is just generally not. Yes, people are fashionable at home, but the way we approach it is sometimes different (read: laid-back) and there's too much of a pattern with non-US countries to make me think it's an Australian (or European, or Japanese) trait. I’m sure gladiator sandals and fringe purses/boots will make an appearance in Minneapolis in the next few years, but they were already the "big thing" over 6 months ago in Japan and it’ll take more than that before people at home feel comfortable wearing them out. Tulip dresses were out two years ago here. If you know what that means, you know what I mean.

Anyways, I found a lot of ways to spend my brief 5 days in Sydney, including jaunts to famous sites such as the Aquarium, the Sydney Tower, the Sydney Opera House, the old Coat Hanger, the Rocks, Bondi, Manly, Coogee, Paddington Markets, the Blue Mountains and Three Sisters Rocks, staying with a friend from uni... generally a really good time!

Next, New Zealand, where I spent the last two weeks of my trip, I absolutely fell in lurve with. As with pretty much any trip I have taken, there just was not enough time in the end, even though we covered an amazing amount of sightseeing. During the stay, we managed to include into the agenda: a roadtrip around the northern coast of the south island (and back - through Aurther's Pass), a trip to a friend's summer house (what we Americans might call a "cabin trip" - even though it was a house) and the holidays with family. The roadtrip was a bit of a whirlwind and we got sort of tired halfway through, but NZ (yes, with a "zed") is literally one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and I had a fabulous, fabulous time.

I still have three weeks worth of emails to sort through - yikes! - so I need to go, but I'm trying to jot down notes, thoughts and memories from the last couple weeks so I'll make sure to throw them up here soon. Until then...