I gotta get back to HOGWARTS

Last Tuesday I returned to one of my favourite places ever! Hogwarts!!!- I mean harry potter studio tour. I love this place so much, you really feel like Hogwarts comes alive, like harry potter was a thing, that happened. I took my friend Yurika, she loves harry potter and is currently on her year abroad in London! I think, no matter who you are, you're going to get excited about the Harry Potter studio tour. This was my second time, I remember it so vividly and I still got excited at every little thing! I felt like a child again at disney land or something!!

we had lots of photo ops, we even got to pretend to be witches

The harry potter studios really feel like home to me, I really didn't want to leave, it physically hurt. I think for my generation Hogwarts did become a home from home, a place we could always return to when things got too bad. For me definitely. Harry Potter was my gateway into reading (and into making my working memory work). My dyslexia makes it hard for me to read the words on a page and translate that into a story, I could never imagine what characters looked like from the words on my page. I'm not sure if others do, my mum always describes reading as a movie in her head but for me it's always about the words. The words are all I have. They don't translate into an image of what a character looks like or is doing, they flow and if it's written well enough they can become a story I know and love. So the harry potter films were... they were amazing! I could finally see Hogwarts! I could go there, I could retrieve that memory next time I read the books! I still haven't physically read all of the books myself, I've relied on audio books and my mum reading them to me so the film's have been my gateway to potter ever since.

and to be able to go INSIDE the world of Harry Potter? that's amazing

It's such an immersive experience, you're IN THE GREAT HALL, then you can get pretty close to some amazing sets, then you can ride a broom or a car AND THEN YOU WALK THROUGH DIAGON ALLEY, THAT IS JUST AMAZING!!

The new Hogwarts Express is also brilliant, YOU CAN GO INSIDE THE ACTUAL TRAIN, I really felt like I was going to Hogwarts! and the interactive part, where you sit in a carriage with a green screen was brilliant! So funny! I tried to get a selfie with a dementor... didn't work that well 

I loved my second visit to the harry potter studios just as much as my first, I can't wait to go again. and I'm going to try to read all the books!

Hyper Japan

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HYPER JAPAN- I barely remember hyper Japan HAHA! Oh mygosh I need to keep up with posting.

Hyper Japan is an event I like because it actually celebrates Japanese culture (although recently its turned into anime central) unlike mcm expo which has slowly turned into ...a load of crap. But mostly hyper Japan is about hanging out with friends. I actually spent most of my time sitting at a stall my friend was helping to run, which was fine by me that kind of event is tiring.

but Domo was there so it was cool

Of course my biggest achievement at hyper Japan this year was beating two of my friends at smash. These friends are like, amazing at smash. I'm not sure I've beaten either of them before. AND THEN I BEAT THEM, AS FREAKIN' ROBIN AND ICE CLIMBERS I MEAN HOW

I am the smash queen.

I bought some presents for a family friend AND A SEAL LOOK AT MY SEAL IT'S AMAZING

and I got to take a che..ki? with Joey, because she is (one of) the cutest maid(s) and why wouldn't I want a cool photo with Joey!? 

awhhh yeaaa everyone ignore me and look how cute the rest of this photo is

JET Orientation

I'm so behind with blog posts it actually hurts... But next on my list is Jet Orientation! Way back on the... 9th ... of July. The day of the wonderful tube strike!

As they said at Orientation, this really was the first day of the job, I broke out my BRAND NEW SUIT (ugh), ate some awful breakfast from the awful on campus cafe (seriously what is that university, it's horrible) stayed in an awful room in a flat full of boys (SERIOUSLY?) and attended a lot of workshops and lectures.

The lectures were really helpful, despite almost every single lecturer, including the Japanese Embassy being late. Well, they were mostly helpful but I feel like we could've been given more info on daily life. The teaching workshop was a little pointless, we discussed drilling techniques and they're all techniques I use at Kumon. I get the feeling the majority of UK JET's have zero teach experience if they don't know basic drilling. We also had a really inspiring lecture from Michael Maher King, he actually did a TED talk. His lecturing skills are much better now but you can get the gist of what he said here!

I made some friends on the first day and went out for food with them (god forbid going back to the on campus cafe!) and the next day was dedicated to Japanese classes ... all day! IJ1 at SOAS made me feel awful about my language ability so I put myself in the intermediate class (even though technically I guess I should've been in advanced) but it turned out that intermediate was full of people too nervous to go into advanced so it worked out well! We covered a lot of stuff I already knew but it raised my confidence and it was nice to feel I was good at Japanese again. I have a nice shiny new self intro to use in Japan now too! But... again, I feel like most JET's don't know Japanese, there were only 2 classes for people who knew some Japanese, the rest were complete beginner classes as far as I could tell. It does make me wonder what kind of person they actually wanted to participate in the programme.

But anyway! I'm glad that's over, next week is Tokyo orientation (ugh more classes?) but we'll be in groups with people going to our prefecture so I'm looking forward to meeting people I'll actually be close to!

Pari- I mean Saint Dennis

As I mentioned Paris was my first holiday with friends! I'm really happy I did this and that I did this with these people. I'd had flirtations with holidays with friends before. A trip to... somewhere very boring sounding with some friends from school, it was a party... place. I can't imagine that suiting me. But Paris, Paris with these people did. Liam bought a wiiu so we played a lot of super smash bros, we watched movies and I even got a crash course in how to play league! It was super fun and I felt really comfortable around everyone, even Jonny who I met at the beginning of the holiday!

Japan Expo was the main thing on our schedule but we got some other things in too! Like the Eiffel Tower! I've wanted to go up it as long as I can remember! I remember driving THROUGH Paris on the way to the Dordogne and NEVER stopping. I stood under it last year but couldn't go up which was a little heartbreaking. We got there when it was light and got to the top when it was dark! It was really spectacular!

Paris is very picturesque, (for more pictures head to my flickr) it was nice to see a blue river, not a murky grey one! I'm still gutted I missed the Pont Des Arts padlocks! But at least they've kept some just off the actual bridges, they make for really good photos! 

Paris has this amazing reputation, being romantic and all that. but, personally, I don't like it. I think it's a bit of a dump, the people are scary, the men are scary. There are beggers everywhere and it gives a really unwelcoming feeling. It's definitely not somewhere I want to go back to. but even though the apartment we stayed in was in Saint Denis, which seemed hold all night parties on the street and is infamous for its crime rate (not that we knew), I enjoyed it. I enjoyed spending time with everyone and I feel like they're the friends I'll know forever!! 

I <3 u guys

Japan Expo!!!!!

I'm just going to put everything about Japan expo in one post because splitting it by days will just get too confusing.

Japan Expo was big, like, crazy big, like... imagine London mcm expo X AT LEAST 5 IT WAS JUST INSANELY BIG. It sort of made me realise how useless London is. Japan Expo got in Japanese idols, artists, that one guy from nintendo and it even dedicated a whole section to Japanese culture!

Focus on traditional Japanese culture is something you'd never see in a London convention (which is basically for bad cosplays and selling crappy anime merch from 4 years ago). I really enjoyed seeing it although I didn't reaaaally understand much of it. Anyone who knows what that kanji is please tell me it looks like a bug.

There was, of course, also a lot of fun anime stuff! recently London expo has become more... marvel/game of thrones expo and its a bit boring so seeing so much anime dedication was nice! and so much up to date anime stuff!! Miku Hatsune lego, a KAGEPRO STALL

there were even these crazy... shrines to certain anime or artists. Well I'm calling the crazy eva poster a shrine to eva because WHAT ELSE SHOULD I CALL IT?

I loved the Hiromu Arakawa displays, BIG PAGES FROM FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST WITH NTOES ON DISPLAY, sketches of Arslan! just, woah! I love her stories so much, if I hadn't discovered FMA I don't think I'd have liked anime so much!

I think Moshi Moshi Nihon were my favourite stall, although Sailor Moon was also amazing. They let us try on Japanese school uniform cosplay! Which was a little weird considering I'm about to move to teach in a Japanese school, but I'm sure 14 year old me would've been over the moon! Oh and they had THE BEST glasses.

ONTO MY HAULLLLLLLLLLL.... Looking at what I bought I'm wondering how I spent so much money! I couldn't resist the kagepro merch, the Hibiya keychain and Sailor Pluto lanyard are for a friend! We also went to purikura, oh and theres one more sticker thats not included because it's found its new home on the back of my camera! it says 猫カメラ so its perfect!

Edit!: I totally forgot! Liam bought me a 2d bag as a going away present! It's so cool!! I actually used it for my globe shift today (perfect size for an Oyster card, book, ID card and money which is all I ever take to the globe). I still can't get over this bag... It's just trippy. 

We loved these stickers so much! and the guy who made them was so nice, he heard me reading out the stickers and began speaking to me in Japanese and he asked me to visit his stall when I go to Japan HAHA. The people at the Miku stall were great too (well he made music with Miku... I think) they were so impressed when I spoke Japanese HAHA.

Japan Expo was great, I really enjoyed it and being on holiday (which my next post will be on) but I found the language barrier difficult, my French really isn't what it used to be I don't think you'd guess that I'd lived there if you heard me speak now which is kinda sad. But luckily I had Japanese to fall back on!!

The day I received lots of things (and travelled to France)

My posts are a little back logged because I've been so busy and I'm currently writing this from a gross room in queen Mary's university to distract myself from, well the gross. 

Back to Wednesday 1st of July! Haha this post is basically about, well, the post. First I received this AMAZING STRAP I BOUGHT 

The free! birthday merch is adorable I'm so glad I have it! I was so excited when it was announced because ISN'T IT JUST THE CUTEST THING EVER?

 I also received an email from my predecessor and my contract! 

My preds info wasn't that useful but I guess some contact was nice. I did find out that I will be teaching at two elementary schools!! I'm really excited because primary age kids are usually really fun and I won't have to explain much grammar (THANK GOD). I'll also be teaching special needs students... I'm a little wary about this. First off I'm suspicious as to why I am doing this. I don't know another JET teaching disabled students and I have a feeling it's because I have a disability. This will be such a challenge but I had a pretty long discussion with some JETA's this week about disabilities in Japan and instead of scaring me it's made me want to do all I can to help. 

My contract is great, I get paid leave for THAT TIME OF THE MONTH and as someone who sometimes faints from the pain I am ETERNALLY GRATEFUL. THANK YOU NAGAHAMA BOE.

I also got my new glasses... Which... Then broke...

Then off to kings x I went to catch le eurostar which was DELAYED because of reasons unknown. Idk. Eurostar are awful at communication. 

R.I.P. glasses

We arrived in Paris just after midnight and at out accommodation even later, thanks so much eurostar I CANT WAIT FOR MY REFUND.