Kizuna Project Pre-Departure Orientation and Dinner~

Hello guys!

Today~ I attended the pre-departure orientation and dinner for the Kizuna Project which was held at the consul-general's home! May I just say how gorgeous his home was? Absolutely beautiful!!

There is a total of 6 university students (2x UWA, 2x Curtin, 1x Murdoch, 1x ECU) selected from Western Australia to participate in the Kizuna Project. At the orientation, there were also about ~30 high school students who were also chosen to participate in the program! Their itinerary was essentially the same as ours except that they leave earlier and come back earlier.

This orientation, although informative, I must say was more for the high school students. I did feel a lil out of place but still it's a privilege to be at the consul-general's house :P We we able to have a chat with the consul-general and was given a small souvenir gift.

The best part of this for me was the soba demostration towards the end~ The lady is originally from the Fukushima Prefecture, and when the March 11 Tsunami disaster struck, her soba shops were destroyed. Because there was a lack of food supply at the time of the disaster, she took whatever buckwheat flour she had left from her shop and turn them into delicious soba noodles for the survivors of the disaster.

Later, when it was time for dinner, along with other Japanese goodies, we got to taste the soba made the lady~ yum yum yum it was sooooo goooood!!

cold soba <3 <3

assorted sushiiiii

takoyaki

vegetable tempura yumm

karaage~

I had a really good time, met lots of new people and made a new friend from my university~
Can't wait to take off~ counting down 14 days!!

xx
rei

p.s sorry for the blurry photos here and there... I'm still a beginner^^

a little update^^

1) i've booked my tix from perth to singapore with tiger airlines: AUD 222.00
i've booked my tix from singapore to shanghai with malaysia airlines: AUD 218.00
will be booking my tix from shanghai to tokyo or osaka within the next few days depending on whether or not my cousin comes with me.. if he does, i'll be heading into tokyo, if not i'm going straight to osaka.. soo hopefully he can and then i will have the excuse to go to tokyo hehe

my friends stole my camera and took pictures with it~ good memories~~~

2) a month back, i entered this japanese language video making competition where you have to make a video incorporating the use of japanese language.. i entered a vid of me singing my original song 'ano koro kimi to'.. and i won hehe

"And finally, Rachel Ong of the University of Western Australia left us speechless with a stunning performance of her beautiful original song in Japanese."

http://video-matsuri.jpf-sydney.net/halloffame.html

3) the other day, my club 'korean cultural club' (kcc) had its final annual general meeting of the year where we had to handover of the club to the new committee of 2013~ bittersweet i must say.. sad to give up but glad and proud to passover something that i've created *sobs* kcc has really become something big! even though there were many hard times, i'm glad to have been part of it :)

my 2012 exec girls ^^~ thanks so much for being there for me and with me~

2012 committee~

2012 & 2013 committee ^^

4) what else.. yesterday we had to decorate my workplace with christmas deco... tiring but good fun~~ and i got my paycheck 2 days ago.. am pretty happy about it :P gotta keep working hard and save up as much as i can for japan woohoo!! in case you didn't already know.. i work at a board game cafe where i teach people how to play board games.. i admit i'm better at making the coffees than teaching people how to play games tho :P i love my job, my bosses, my colleagues~

well, that's all for now! 

rei

assignments in!

i'm so so so relieved!!
stayed up all night to finish the exegesis for my film... have been awake for more than 24hrs..
really need to sleep soon.. lolllll
so.. all my assignments are officially in and all i have left for the year are 2 exams~~ 楽！
after that, it's going to be the best adventure of my life~japan,singapore then japan again.. gosh!

forget.

don't wanna waste time on things that aren't worth my time.
i can do better. i can definitely do better.

Filming Course in Singapore!

Woooo! My life is full of adventures!!

I've been accepted to a 3 weeks filming course in Singapore at Temasek Polytechnic~~!

Pretty pumped about it!! This will start around mid Feb? But I should already be in Singapore from the 8th of Feb to celebrate Chinese New Year! Can't wait for all the red packets wooo!! Then straight after this course... hello Japan 2013!!!!

My hard work is going to pay off all next year!!

KIZUNA project~ A short trip to Japan!

Sad love stories aside.....
I've been accepted into the KIZUNA project~~

In conjunction to my application to go on exchange in 2013, I spontaneously applied for another scholarship for a short exchange program. This particular scholarship is called the KIZUNA project which to my surprise is organised by AFS (the exchange company in which I was involved with for my previous exchange in 2010). 

The KIZUNA project is a program sponsored by the Japanese government with aims of raising awareness for the Japanese reconstruction plans, and promoting global understanding of Japan's revival efforts in response to the Great Japan Earthquake.

We will visit the affected areas of the Great East Japan Earthquake and learn about the situation of Japan's reconstruction from the disaster. Later, we will also visit schools and do various volunteer activities organised by Japan International Cooperation Center (JICE).

This program will commence in December 2012~ where about 200 Australian students and educators will be sent to Japan for 2 weeks.

A lot of my YouTube viewers have asked me about the earthquake that happened last year.. I will use this opportunity to film my experience and hopefully answer those viewers' questions :)

Pretty excited about it hey!!