June 22nd, 2009 | categorizilation: all categories,Post-2008,Random
Just seeing what interest there is out there for a touring recumbent…
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=225982835
June 22nd, 2009 | categorizilation: all categories,Arrival Home,Japan,Post-2008
I seem to have come full circle; I now find myself back in Japan…
My wonderful host parents from 13 years ago (AFS exchange when I was 16 years old), with whom I have remained in contact with over the years, suggested at the beginning of this year that I come and visit. Not one to turn down a good offer, I now find myself in Tokyo. I’ve been here for a week so far, and I’ll be here for another three weeks, and head back to New Zealand on the 13th of July.
It’s a very laid back trip, with nothing much on at all, apart from exploring the surrounding area and getting used to speaking Japanese again after the three year hiatus.
Very exciting news is that I have passed the preliminary screening for the Monbukagakusho Research Student scholarship to study Masters in Japan in 2010 and 2011. I applied thinking that it would be great to study the link between new media (blogging, social network sites etc) and gloablisation/glocalisation in Japan, and so far so good. If I do manage now to convince a Japanese university to take me on, then I’ll be back in Japan for the next two years at least in April 2010.
It is really great to be back in Japan. I didn’t think that I would ever say that (I left in July 2006 fairly certain I would never return), but it really is. It is great to be operating in a foreign language again, and I’m enjoying the daily, or should I say hourly, challenges of living in a second culture. My camera is enjoying it too; it is liking to capture little snapshots of life and times in this big bustling city of Tokyo.
