I’ve now had my second full week of classes. I’m still already familiar with the vocabulary and grammar that we’re covering, but that just means I can focus on improving my listening and pronunciation skills rather than having to memorise new content. There’s homework every day, and a timed in-class quiz about as often too, but it’s not too onerous at this stage. Also, we’ve had lessons with the other two teachers, Ms. Nakane and Ms. Iyoda. Like Mr. Yokozawa, they’re skilled and kind. I’m getting to know some of my classmates better as well, which is nice. I haven’t caught up with anyone outside of school hours yet, but hopefully that will change before too long…

Speaking of extracurricular activity, I’ve started going to a local bouldering gym. There’s actually a climbing gym on campus, but it’s mainly for rope climbing – there’s only a small section of wall for bouldering. The owner of the bouldering gym I like going to in Osaka recommended I try a place called Play Mountain! instead: it’s bigger, it’s 100% bouldering, and the problems are more diverse. I’ve now been three times and I’m happy to say that even though it’s not as sizeable as the gyms I went to in Sydney, it will definitely suffice.

It hasn’t even been three weeks since I left, but it already feels like a long time ago. I think that’s because now that I’ve started to get back into some of my routines, I’m reminded more of how I lived in January before I packed up my flat and went travelling. I’m even eating pretty similarly to how I did back in Sydney – I’m making the same breakfast I’ve had for the past 5 or 6 years, and thanks to the help of my old Japanese tutor I’ve been able to get my hands on some sourdough here too.

However, I have been making an effort to cook Japanese food for dinner: I don’t think I’ve had a Western-style dinner once since I got here. Admittedly, that’s probably in no small part because Japanese supermarkets (as you might expect) primarily stock the ingredients for Japanese cuisine. But I’ve been leaning into it. I’ve really taken a liking to salted mackerel (though it’s a pain to debone) and niku miso (a kind of meat-based sauce that’s not a million miles away from bolognese). I’ve been eating a lot of rice, which is a problem because it’s shockingly expensive here at the moment: about A$9 per kilo. I’ve also been doing a lot of pan-fried meals. I should really start trying some soups, noodles, and simmered and steamed foods. Maybe this coming week.

There’s a lot more I could say on the topic of food, actually. I sort of naively assumed that supermarkets and the things they sold were more or less the same everywhere, but that’s turned out to be completely wrong. I might write about that sometime.