So, here’s the story. We we having the class “Japanese grammar”, which kind of derailed because our teacher had some important messages. One of them was about a summer seminar in the town of Nabari in the Mie Prefecture in Kansai region (also called the “Kinki region”, which is A-OK by me ^_^). Madhatter and I thought: “Hey, that could be a pretty cool experience, and it’s cheaper than if we went on our own, so hey, let’s sign up“, so we did. *DUN DUN DUUUUUN*

Today, I got a mail from the director of the International Communication Institute in Nabari, Masaaki Nakamori-san, who informed me that both Madhatter and I had been accepted to the seminar (WUHU!). It’s gonna be a 3-week trip from July 22 to August 11, so don’t expect too many updates in that time frame, if any.

In the mornings, we’ll be attending a 3-4 hour long Japanese instruction emphasizing listening and speaking skills. In short, DEATH ENSUES!!!

Anywho, later, in the afternoons, we’ll visit local government offices, businesses, industries, banks, and retail outlets to study real Japanese business practices.

In the evenings, we’ll finally have some time to spend with our host families, interact with the community, and to see the town and whatnot. I’m personally psyched about seeing the Nabari baribari, which is a giant fireworks show and it is held on the night of my birthday, so I figure that is a way cool way to end it ^_^

Madhatter and I are currently waiting for information on our host families and a more detailed schedule, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated

Yes, we finally got our schedules at 4:23 A.M. (CET) today. They look as the following (NB! as per Masaaki Nakamori-san, the schedule may be subject to change):

When I become more aware of what some of the things mean (such as “exchange”), I’ll make a small overview of the stuff we’ll be trying out.

Fear strikes as a consequence of being made of fail! I regretably failed my PALCS (Presentations in Asian Languages, Cultures & Societies) exam, which means I have to take a re-examination in August. But here’s the kicker, if I go to Japan, which I have already invested a lot of money in, I won’t be back in time to draw my subject that I’m supposed to present (there’s an ectremely short deadline for when you have to draw your subject, 4 hours or so).

The pressure is on as I try to make deals with the administrative powers of my school in order to have my subject drawn for me and e-mailed to me while I’m still in Nabari. If I don’t get permission, I’ll have to cancel my trip to Nabari, and I’d rather not do that since I’ve already invested too much, and I believe it would be a bother for my potential host family as well, if I suddenly don’t show up.

Fingers are crossed and I hope for the best. JAPAN HERE I COME!! (please…).

I received another mail from Nakamori-san, asking about what time we arrived on July 22. Thing is, because Madhatter and I wanted a cheaper ticked and more time in Japan (4 weeks instead of 3), we would be arriving a week early. And that’s when it dawned on me, we had yet to book a hostel! DUN DUN DUUUUUN!!!! *suspense*

I had spent some time looking around for hostels back in late April or early May, but I hadn’t made any reservations because I couldn’t get a hold on Madhatter and because I was a bit short on moneyz. But I figured that it had to be done before it was to late, so I went hostel searching.

I used the site www.hostelbookers.com to look for hostels, and in my opinion, it was pretty good and easy to use. It’s search function is able to “weed out” the hostels that do not have room for you. Along with its excellent setup which gives you an excellent overview of the various hostels, their features, accommodations and whatnot, each hostel can write a little about themselves. More importantly though, it has a review part, where people who have stayed at the hostel can rate and review their stay. This is an excellent way of finding out whether or the hostel really is everything it says it is.

When it comes to actually booking the room, then DO NOT use any third party booking sites if it can be avoided (unless the hostel itself redirects you to one). Only use the sites to search for availability and to gain an overview of the various options you have. When you’ve then decided on a hostel, highlight and copy the name of it, open a new tab or browser, go to google, paste it into the search bar, and search for it. Then go to the hostel’s official website (these are usually in English, since they cater to International customers) and book the room yourself via their site directly or by the site they use themselves (just click “Reserve” or “Book room” or whatever, and let the link take care of the rest). “Why?“, you may ask, “I already found it on the booking site I was using, why go through all the extra trouble?” Here is why; to save a ton of money. However(!!!), not all hostel’s have a website you can book from, in which case, you will have to use the booking site.

Hostels often have extended stay discounts or special offers for specific days, or they might have differently sized rooms. Third party booking websites do not take these things into consideration, and already there, you could have wasted tons of money. Some booking website will also claim that they will need 10% of the total amount as a deposit for the room. The hostels themselves usually don’t require such a deposit, so it’s a “scam”, and an expensive one at that, if you stay for an extended period of time (especially if you later have to cancel your reservation). Here is how much I saved by going to the hostel’s own website and booking the room myself (taxes and whatever included, European decimal-system used, so you may need to switch the commas and dots depending on your country):

That is €30,8 (current currency = US$47,6 ~ £24,25 ~ DKK230) saved by simply visiting the hostel’s own site! This is all because I was able to take advantage of their extended stay offer, which the booking site did not mention. You may think that this is no money at all, but you haven’t heard the kicker. The room I ordered via the site preferred by the hostel is about TWICE THE SIZE of the one I would have gotten via the other booking site. Had I gone with the same sized room, I would have saved an additional €20. Lurking moar pays off!

As a final little thing, below you will see images of how the Studios at our hostel look. I believe it is a loop with the images of the 3 types mixed together; Value, Standard, and Grand. Enjoy!

I finally got the info on our host families that I thought I would have recieved back in April XD I will be keeping this extremely short, as I have exams in little over 24 hours, and still have to read, translate, and remember 200-some odd pages.

Anywho, it seems that during hour stay in Nabari, we won’t be living with one, but with two host families. It will apparently be seperated into two halves, marked by our field trip to Awaji (see 2: Schedule for Nabari Trip). Here is the list of who will be staying with what family:

NB! First half is from the evening of July 23 (my birthday, y’all better send me tons of e-mails saying congrats XD) to the morning of July 31. Second half is from the evening of August 2 to the morning of August 12.

Student name	1st half	2nd half
Madhatter	Mr. & Mrs. Mikio Uematsu	Mr. & Mrs. Igarashi
Hecko	Mr. & Mrs. Masahiro Kashida	Mr. & Mrs. Katsumi Michihata
WLAH	Mr. & Mrs. Kazue Matsuo	Mr. & Mrs. Koichi Takeda
Christian	Mr. & Mrs. Nakano	Mr. & Mrs. Isao Morimoto
Cat	Mr. & Mrs. Munenori Yamamoto	Mr. & Mrs. Kenichi Oyama
Signe	Mr. & Mrs. Kazuhiro Nakano	Mr. & Mrs. Kaoru Isobe

Here’s to everything going well with both families for all of us, BANZAI!!! ^_^

Well, what can I say? Destiny decided to pick the day I was supposed to be happy about preparing to go to Japan and finally spending some time with my girlfriend, but NOOOOOOUUUU, can’t have that now can we..? So it decided to pull prank after prank of friends getting hurt and turn the entire day into a museum trip of freaktacular misery… Siiiiiigh…

Anywho, skipping to the part relevant to this post, Madhatter and I aren’t going to Japan; the trip is cancelled. “Why?” you may ask. Well, the Goddesses of Destiny; What If, As If, and Fat Chance, decided that this was as good a day as any to fuck with us, so Madhatter came down with Mono (infectious mononucleosis, also called glandular fever or the kissing disease because it spreads via saliva). He swears that he hasn’t been making out with odd people though, but I don’t really trust his definition of odd…

Anywho, he felt too sick to travel, which is understandable. But here comes the kicker to the joke. When we booked the tickets back in March, Madhatter didn’t have enough money to pay for his ticket, meaning he couldn’t order it. Being the nice guy that I am, I offered to book it for him and he could pay be back whenever. This turned out to be the metal tip of the shoe that kicked me in the nuts, because when I went to cancel his ticket, I found out that I couldn’t cancel only his, but had to cancel the reservation itself, meaning his ticket AND mine (which in retrospect is slightly odd…).

Luckily, I was smart enough to invest in a cancellation insurance, meaning that we should get a majority of the money back IF Madhatter mails the doctor’s statement explicitly saying he was unfit for travel. If not, then he owes me a shit load of money… So while I don’t blame him for getting sick and cancelling, I’m still rather annoyed that I had to miss out on Japan because of it, and potentially lose all the money for the ticket that took me 7 months of getting up at 5 AM every other weekend to sort mail for 3 hours and spend the next 7 hours riding a fully loaded, 80-something kilogram heavy bike to deliver the mail to save up to. So let that be a lesson to you; never book a ticket with anyone else, should the unlikely occur, you’ll be paying for it too.

LATER EDIT: My suspicion about the illness not being Mono, due to the lack of more or less… 60-70% of the symptoms, has been confirmed by Madhatter’s own doctor. The first doc was apparently to busy with wanting to go on his own vacation to bother with a proper check-up, and has thus ruined mine. Thank you, Dr. Shithead, much appreciated, really helped strengthen my trust in Danish doctors, you fucking idiot. In reality, Madhatter had almost completely recovered only 2 days later, in time for the flight (though just barely), but by then the tickets had already been cancelled. Great call, Doc, great call…