For as long as you're alive, life has this way of reminding you how awesome it is. I'm in Australia right now, and after waiting ten minutes on an empty street for a taxi, I finally gave up and dragged my weary legs to another location to catch one. Along the way, I passed by a convenience store and caught a glimpse of purple. LO AND BEHOLD! It was a Violet Crumble bar, which I suddenly remembered, in that moment, is a chocolate bar that I absolutely adore, and it is manufactured in Australia. I bought two. And then, as I came out of the store, a taxi was just approaching. Life rocks.
Anyway, what the heck am I doing in Australia? I have no idea. My dad had a business trip, so I decided to tag along because I've never been in the southern hemisphere before.
OH MY GOSH SUDDEN REVELATION. VIOLET CRUMBLES ARE LIKE TIM TAMS. AND TIM TAMS ARE ALSO AUSTRALIAN. Australia is an amazing place.
So anyway, I'm staying in the city of Manly, which is half an hour away from Sydney by ferry. The city name cracks me up because every time someone uses it in a store name, it just sounds like an overly masculine...everything. Manly Supermarket. Manly Wharf. Manly Life Saving Center. I crack a stupid grin every time I read a sign. That aside, it's a pretty nice place. There really isn't much except beach and some restaurants, but I love the ocean, so it's quite nice. The day I arrived was a full moon, so seeing the bright big moon over the night water was amazing. I also caught a glimpse of some night surfers, who I think must be absolutely nuts. Surfing looks like fun though; I think I'll give it a try this summer.
That's if I have any free time. I finally feel pretty certain about the next path in my life, and I'm definitely going to go to law school. For that purpose, my summer will be completely occupied with test prep. Woo.hoo. Let's go LSATs. I've also decided (if anyone will take me) to volunteer at a law firm or some law-related place to get a good idea of what it's like. Since the main reason I want to do law is to help people out, I'm starting to lean quite heavily toward working at a nonprofit organization. We'll see how that works out...
As is obvious, I am no longer in Japan. I know I will miss being there eventually, but I think I really had enough of it for a while during my study abroad. Even though I've been away for two weeks now, really all I can think of is still, "I'm so glad there's this here. And I'm so glad that this is like this here." With that said, that refers to Korea and Australia because I still have yet to return to the USA. I'm really rather homesick. But I've been spending a lot of quality time with my dad, so being with family definitely takes a huge edge off the homesickness. Still. I miss my mom. And my brother. And my friends. And California. But just a few more days left, and I'll be there! In the meantime, I've got some koalas and kangaroos to distract me. I am so excited to go pet some koalas!
Right, back to serious reflections on Japan. I can't write any. Much as I'd love to sum up my experience in Japan into some tidy little paragraph about life and character growth and whatnot, it's not going to work. There's too much stuff there, but I think anyone that's had the experience of studying abroad, or even just being in a completely different setting for a while, will understand exactly what I mean. It's ironic that I turned this blog, originally a food one, into a travel blog for the sake of documenting my study abroad experience in Japan, yet I barely wrote about being in Japan. Oh well, things never go as you expect, I guess. But that's a good thing too. I wasn't expecting to find my favorite chocolate bars, which I haven't had in years because the one store that sold them stopped stocking them, but I did.
Life is really good these days. I actually think Japan did a lot for my positive thinking, so if nothing else (massive understatement since there was a whole lot else), thank you Japan for that.
