Cherry Blossom Adventures

Three and a half years ago I went to Kyoto. It was my first time there and it was pretty amazing. I was there for about 5 days staying with a friend from high school. This friend, Kanako, is the reason I decided to study Japanese.

See I didn`t get into the uni course that I wanted to get into…in fact I got my sixth choice…my last choice. Which was an arts program at Griffith University…I thought I would do it for six months then transfer into the course of my choice. I was quite shocked at first, I thought getting into a course of my choice would have been easy…my OP was good, my grades had been good at high school and all but my first choice was thought to be well in my range…It just so happens that a lot of people applied to do the courses I wanted to do…people who had better OP`s.

Kanako had attended my high school on exchange for my last year there. I hadn`t studied any Japanese since it was compulsory in the eighth grade…I remembered nothing. Luckily she spoke awesome English and we were in the same roll group and we became fast friends.

So when I ended up in an arts program at Griffith I decided that studying Japanese and doing some media courses for six months while I waited to get into a program of my choice would be a good idea. A second language had worked well for Kanako…and at that time I had been thinking of going to visit her later in that year (2003) and a bit of basic Japanese would help right?! Thing is, I hadn`t anticipated that I would love Japanese so much…and six months later instead of transferring out of the course I was applying to go to Japan on exchange. I was told my chances were pretty slim since I was still a first year student and my Japanese level was minimal….but I got in, and even got a scholarship grant from my uni.

I arrived here in March 2004 and 2 months later I went down to see Kanako in Kyoto. We had both changed a lot but it was great fun to see her again. I haven`t seen her since but we still catch up by phone occasionally and mail back and forth when we have time. She is set to finish university in the Spring….she will go back to Nagasaki, her home town, and be a junior high school English teacher.

I decided that before she went back to Nagasaki, which is really far away, that I would go see her in Kyoto, and see the autumn leaves at the same time. So Shun and I have taken a day off work and will be going down to Kyoto for two nights the first weekend of November.

I am really excited because I haven`t seen Kanako for 3 and a half years. I will get to meet her boyfriend and she will meet Shun for the first time too. Plus Autumn has begun and I am hoping that I will get to see all the beautiful temples and shrines surrounded by autumn foliage. I went to Kamakura last year to see the autumn leaves which was amazing and beautiful and I suspect that Kyoto will be just as amazing and beautiful if not more.

A couple of photos from my Autumn trip to Kamakura last year…

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