11/11/15 - 17/11/15 - Wedding

Before going on exchange, I never imagined I would go home in the middle. Especially not for a wedding. But, my sister decided to get married while I was away, so I took the journey home to be there for it. It was good being back in Australia for a brief time. Though, I was completely busy with wedding stuff the entire time, so I didn't really get to do much else. Emilie's wedding was really great. It was a great ceremony and I'm happy I could be her witness. Aside from being exhausted from flying and preparing, I had a really fun time. 

The flight home (Japan) was the only bad part about my trip. I was so dehydrated and had the worst headache of my life on the plane. I thought my head was going to explode! But, it didn't, so that's good I guess. 

02/11/15 - Universal Studios Japan Halloween

My first trip to Universal Studios Japan was probably one of the longest, and most fun days so far. I went with a few friends from the dorm, all of us completely excited. I got a year pass so I could go as often as I want, and I think it was really worth it. Seeing the gates almost made me cry in excitement.

Universal Studios Japan is very much like a massive version of Movie World in Australia. There were tonnes of themed shops and characters walking around the park. There were shows and parades at different points of the day as well. And, even though the park was still in Halloween mode, they had already put up the Christmas tree. It was a weird mix of holidays.

The rides at USJ are unbelievable, to say the least. They’re fun and really get your heart pumping. The only down side is most rides have over an hour waiting time. But, usually it’s worth it. My favourite ride is Space Fantasy, which takes you on a space journey with lights and planets. I had never been more thankful not to have photosensitive epilepsy.

There were many different themes in the park. They had a Jurrasic Park section – which is probably my favourite. You walk in and the music from the film is playing full blast. I didn’t get to ride the ride, but I really wanted to. They also sold themed food, like meat sticks and Dinosaur looking food. It was connected with a Jaws section, but that was only small. It had a good restaurant though. Every time you ordered your food, instead of saying yen they would say jaws! It was funny.

The most impressive part of the theme park is the Harry Potter section. It’s like you’re walking into the movie. They have all the shops from the film, and you can buy products that look like they’re straight out of the Harry Potter world. At one point, there was a performance with “wizards” from Hogwarts. They held the singing toads and sang to the crowd. It was fun to watch, aside from the horrific English accent the main girl attempted. But, we had a laugh anyway. They have a ride there as well, but the line was over 300 minutes! We couldn’t be bothered waiting.

Since it was Halloween still at the park, there were special elements that were left (even though it was November). As a joke, I suggested we go through the haunted house since it’ll only be there for Halloween. But, somehow we ended up in the line. On the website, it said “Do not enter this ride if gore makes you queasy,” – I wish we listened to this warning. I had no idea I was about to step into the scariest building of my life. From the outside, we could hear screaming. I thought to myself, ‘they must be easily scared!’ I was so wrong. As soon as we entered, the boys pushed us girls to the front. We walked in the Chucky themed haunted house and instantly I felt chills down my spine. The first hallway was filled with Chucky dolls lining the walls, every now and then one would move. But, where it started to get scary and fast, was the next room. As soon as you walk in, you see a man strapped to a chair covered in blood. He tries to move at you but he’s stuck there. Then another girl who is loosely chained also tries to grab you. She is so close to getting you, it was scary. There was a dead body laying on a table in the corner with its intestines coming out. Then, as we turned the corner a man with a chainsaw suddenly appeared and cut off the head of a guy standing next to him. We all screamed and ran to the next room. But, it wasn’t any better. It was a hallway, lined with what looked like organs and shockingly people were stuck in it. They tried to reach out for you and because it was so narrow they almost could touch us. We kept running. Eventually we were crawling through this metal cage, with hair hanging from the top. The last proper room was the most disturbing. There were surgical tables, and dead bodies hanging off hooks like cattle. We had to move them out the way in order to get through and then suddenly at the corner of my eye I saw a man with a scalpel standing in the corner. I instantly thought he would attack us. My heart was beating so fast I thought I would die. The staff of the Haunted House were ushering us out and we all could see the exit in the distance. But, as soon as we almost reached the exit, the door shut. Then, the door behind us shut as well. We were trapped. We were cramped up against the exit when we suddenly heard a chainsaw start up. Looking to the left, a man in a cage started trying to escape using his chainsaw. As he got out, we screamed and he continued to approach us with his chainsaw chugging away. But, just as he was about to attack us – Chucky jumped on him and cut his head off in front of our eyes. The back door opened again and we were safe. Japan definitely lived up to its standard of horror – I probably wouldn’t do that again.

The horror didn’t end there, either. As 6 o’clock hit, so did the apocalypse at USJ. There was smoke, explosions, but most of all – zombies. No matter where you turned, there was a zombie. They all carried some form of weapon and whenever you got close they pretended to attack you! It was fun, but my heart needed a break. We left soon after, but it was so much fun. I think everyone should experience USJ on Halloween at least once.

31/10/15 - Halloween

Halloween finally arrived. Everyone was getting dressed into their scariest costumes. I wore my zombie costume again, but going more full on with the blood. I was really excited because we were going to go to Namba and party all night at club Wax. We’ve been many times before but we knew that it would be a really good night.

Although I had heard of how busy Halloween is in Japan, I never anticipated how busy Namba was. On the train there, we were all worried that no one would be dressed up in the city. But, on arrival, we quickly realised there would be very few people not in costume. As soon as we set off the train, we saw a million different costumes. Some were scary, some were sexy, but most of all they were really amazing.

We left the train station and suddenly it was the busiest I had ever seen Japan. I assumed every single person was out that night. In order to get to the club, we had to cross the main bridge. Doing this was incredibly difficult. Making a chain, we attempted to cross the bridge. I could barely breathe and I thought my arm would be ripped from my body. I’m amazed we even made it across. But, we did and thankfully no one was lost.

Even the club was especially busy. My whole dorm was there, basically. We danced all night and had an amazing time. The only annoying thing was we had locked up all our bags and found out it wasn’t nomihodai afterwards. We were left with no money so couldn’t really drink much. But, either way it was a night I won’t forget.

24/10/15 - Not Halloween

Halloween in Australia is not as widely celebrated as other countries, so coming to Japan where it's as big as America - I was so excited! But, for some reason our RA's decided to throw our Halloween party on the 24th of October - one week before Halloween. A few of us were really confused, but eventually we just dealt with this decision and began preparing for the the party.

Everyone had their ideas of what to wear. Most of the guys were planning on wearing school girl outfits (shudder), and lots of people were going as a zombie (myself included. Others were going in cosplays, and some just had other costumes in mind. It was exciting thinking what people were going to turn out as, because everyone seemed to be putting a lot of effort into their costumes. When I was preparing my costume, I went shopping with Momo and just bought some clothes from stores and some fake blood so it was pretty basic, but it was fun making it all up on my balcony with her.

When it came to the party day, the entire multipurpose room had been decorated in black and orange decorations - with the lights and windows darkened to make it spooky. It was so exciting.

Like always with these events, we were split into teams. These teams were for all the games we were going to play and hopefully one of us wins a prize! However, before the games, we had a costume contest. People signed up and they walked down a catwalk while presenting their costumes. Some were really cool, while some… were not. We voted on Facebook and a really deserving girl in my dorm won first prize. As for the games, they were mostly fun. The first game was a cup stacking competition. In your team, you had to stack cups in a pyramid and then put them back in a pile. It was kind of difficult but we didn’t do too badly! I really enjoyed that game. As for the second game, I definitely did not enjoy it as much. After that game I became convinced that the RA’s are actually evil. How the game worked was, we would get into lines in our team and one by one we would have to eat a jellybean and choose the correct flavour while blindfolded. However, they used the jellybean from Harry Potter where the flavours were not particularly pleasant. In my case, I got mucus. I really thought I would gag!

Then, much like every other RA hosted party, we ended the night at a nomihodai. On that night, I met my friends Kazu and Andrew (Georgia’s boyfriend). Some later on went to Karaoke, while most of us went home. But, the night didn’t completely end with that – as we all went on a run to the convenience store – which isn’t particularly close to our dorm. It was more fun that I had anticipated for sure. So, now I am really excited for the real Halloween where we are all going clubbing! And now I have lots of events coming up as well including going to Universal Studios Japan!