Host Family Information

Since yesterday I received news on where I'd be going to school, all I was waiting on was the news of my host family. That arrived earlier today and I have to say I'm pretty pleased! I'll be spending the first 6 months of my exchange with the Tomori family. The family consists of 4 people; Mother (Junko), Father (Hideharu), and two Sons (Hiroki and Fumiaki). They also have a pet dog! Hiroki and Fumiaki are 16 and 13 and they're interested in skateboarding, music, painting and reading. Which sounds interesting, I'm sure they're both great guys.

According to the information sheet I was given, Junko enjoys cooking which should be good, I can imagine. Unfortunately they can only host me for the first 6 months, so I might have to move to a new host family after the first 6 months. This could be interesting, it'll be good to live with different types of families. I'm looking forward to my stay with the Tomori family though, they seem like a really nice bunch.

They describe themselves as; kind, tolerant, cheerful, individual, tidy, independent and strict. Definitely a great blend of traits for a family to have!

Murasakino High School

Today I was told I'll be attending Kyoto's Murasakino High School this year. After browsing the school's site it looks like a great school, what did seem peculiar to me is the fact that Murasakino High School is one of the few schools in Japan without a school uniform. On one hand it could be a lot more comfortable and easy going to not have a uniform, but on the other I was pretty fond of my old school uniform being able to save me the trouble of picking outfits every day, as well as the fact that for a lot of schools in Japan the school uniform is a big deal. Anywho, on the bright side of things at least I know what city I'm going to be going to now!

My new best friend

Since the date of my departure is growing nearer and nearer, there are tonnes of purchases that need to be made in the next few weeks. From clothes, to cameras and luggage. A few days ago I ordered this beauty - the Canon V80 Wordtank. A Japanese-English and English-Japanese translator with a massive amount of useful features.


One of the biggest bonuses of the V80 is the ability to draw on the screen using the pen tool, this would make searching for unknown 漢字 (Kanji) a lot easier than using the keypad and dictionary. These things aren't cheap but definitely worth it, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. I'm pretty sure this is going to be one of my best friends once I'm in Japan.

A few mundane updates

I wish I could post here more often at the moment, but the reason I haven't been doing so is that there is very little to update on. I haven't heard much else at all regarding my trip to Japan, which is really quickly approaching as I'll be leaving in a little over a month, if the estimate departure date I was given is correct. There have been a few mundane updates handed down to me from Student Exchange Australia, but it doesn't help much to ease the apprehension that's going through me right now.

Apparently all the students going to Japan with SEA this year have been assigned schools already, and possibly host families, but I still haven't been told where I'm going. The coordinator that was assigned to me wasn't sure either last time I heard, so it's all rather up in the air at the moment. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that something is told to me soon, because as soon as I know where I'm heading this will seem much more real and I might be able to plan things a bit better.

Pretty soon it will be time to start buying all those essentials I need for the trip; clothes being the main thing, but also things like a camera which I wouldn't be able to do without. At first I was planning to work part-time until my departure but sadly those plans actually never came into fruition. I applied at places, had trial shifts, and even got hired somewhere - it's a long story, but fast food chains in Australia are unbelievably slack. This said, I won't be able to go on any massive shopping sprees while I'm over in Japan, but I can't imagine I'll be dirt poor for the entire year either.

I guess the main reason I wanted to write something here was to just make sure you all know I'm alive and actually intending on posting, as soon as something does happen. With any luck the next month or so will be much more interesting. It's only a matter of time before I start getting more and more information about the trip.

First of Many

So this is my first entry here, a new blog I've created for the express purpose of documenting my one year long stay in Japan, starting towards the end of March this year. I decided I really wanted to start a public blog whereby I could keep memories and let all my friends and family here in Australia keep posted on life as an exchange student in Japan, this said it'd be great if I could draw readers in that may be considering taking part in an exchange or just curious about life in Japan! As such, I guess I'd best start from the beginning and do a little back tracking.

As you've probably gathered, my name is Kaspar. At the moment I'm 17 years old and just last year I graduated Year 12 at Kelvin Grove State College in Queensland. About a year ago I began seriously contemplating the idea of taking part in an exchange as a Gap Year between graduation and starting University, the idea was just floating up in the air for awhile and was nothing more than fantasy due to the financial aspects that could be a problem. After attending a meeting with Student Exchange Australia, my parents seemed pretty sold on the idea, and I am really thankful to them for supporting (And not to mention financing!) the whole thing. I am really lucky to have such a supportive family.

SEA (Student Exchange Australia) seem to boast a fairly great reputation as far as I've gathered, and their team has been really supportive and great with updating me and my family on the situation. I applied for a Language Scholarship worth a sum of $3,500 to go towards my exchange about midway last year. The whole process involved writing an essay (In English) on my motivation to learn Japanese; after writing and sending this off I was stoked to find out I was short-listed. All the short-listed applicants were given a moderately lengthy phone interview (Entirely in Japanese) to assess their abilities, and I was absolutely ecstatic to find out that I was a winner of one of the scholarships! Winning this meant I could at least save my family as much money as possible.

So here we are today, in the meanwhile I've had to deal with school and grades and applying for passports, but for the past month or so I've heard little news on anything at all. I'm still waiting on the news of a host family and where I'll be spending the next year, so that should be a surprise (Be it good or bad, I'm sure it'll turn out fine in the end). In the past few weeks the nerves and excitement have really been settling in. I guess it just finally clicked and I've been thinking "I'm going to be spending the next year in Japan!”. I can't even begin to imagine all the things I'm going to experience, the bad and the good, because I know I am picking myself directly out of my comfort zone.

I hope that I can keep you updated with exciting stories and photos directly from Japan this year!