Major Catch Up

A lot has changed since my last post. I have finished Japanese language school and started my internship at Mitsui Chemicals. Also, I have moved house from Higashi Totsuka to the middle of nowhere...officially known as Mobara!

Christmas was cool! All the Vulcanus students that remained in Japan came together for Christmas Eve and cooked lots of food. We ate, laughed and had an enjoyable evening. I also did some travelling between Christmas and New Years. WE woke up on the morning of the 28th, caught a train to Shinjuku station, bought a five day pass and jumped onto a train in the search of snow!

And my did we find it! It was one of the best memories I'll take home with me! We saw so much snow and travelled over 600km in three days using only local trains! We went up to Sendai, Matsushima (one of the three most scenic places in all of Japan), down to Aizuwakamatsu and onto  train so as to travel down the Tadami Line. However, that plan got altered slightly as most of the line was closed due to the snow! Thus we got loaded onto a small mini van and driven down to a small village known as Tadami. Here, the train station is actually a vegetable shop! It was a once in a lifetime experience. There was so much snow everywhere...you couldn't even find the train tracks! When the train did eventually turn up, we were the only people to board it all the way down to Koide! We ended our little adventure with a night train to Shinjuku station. Just a small note about night trains...the one we were on had the lights on (hospital-like lights) all night long!

So...Mobara...well it s difficult to describe...the Japanese would tell you it's countryside and I would tell you it's middle of nowhere land! However, it has this peaceful vibe to it that calms your mind. I think I will survive country life as long as I jazz it up over the weekends in Tokyo! And the best part...the express train gets me into Tokyo in under one hour! I took the train last Friday and as the train moved closer to the city and all the lights I thought I would pass out I was so excited (sorry but that s what a week in Mobara does to you!) A week out of Tokyo and after 5 minutes I was reminded of all the reasons why I'm totally in love with the city. I honestly do think it is one of the most amazing cities in the world and it's captured my heart completely. We found one of the coolest Mexican restaurants and ate guacamole and nachos all night. It was really cool as the waiter comes up to your table and asks you to choose the avocado you want used to make your dip!

The company I'm interning with is amazing! Mitsui Chemicals biocatalysis department is a dream job! The people and the work are great! It's more than I could have ever dreamt of having. This program is truly a dream come through...and a once in a lifetime opportunity. The flat I share is massive and Satai San (my room mate) is really helpful and sweet. I work Monday to Friday from half eight till ten past five and I spend most of my time in the lab carrying out genetic engineering procedures and using the latest technology (machines and tests). The only hurdle I found but am overcoming quite quickly is the language. Most of the staff do speak English but it is difficult for them and I feel like I should make more an effort to speak Japanese instead. I'm going to try to build up slowly. Although I do understand a fair amount it is so difficult to get my brain to talk back in Japanese, even though I can construct sentences fairly well inside my own head. The problem is getting the sentences from my brain to my mouth in one piece..it always comes out as a jumble of words and nothing like it sounded in my head!! Oh well...　がんばって　ね！