Japanese learning (with a special guest!)

I've been learning Japanese for a bit over a year now. I'm still only half-way through the first textbook, so it's slow going! I'm finding it a bit hard to juggle studying with all my other hobbies + work, but I am making progress in learning how to read and write kanji and grammar/vocab. Fingers crossed I can have some good basic conversations when I head to Japan soon!

Recently, my Japanese teacher organised an exchange program for a Japanese university student to come to Australia for a few weeks, and asked if anyone would like to host her for her time here, which we did! Her name is Manami, and she stayed with us for about a week.

She's studying Japanese Language teaching at uni, so we had a lot of practice speaking both Japanese and English together, and teaching her Australian slang! It was really fun having her around, but my brain did hurt a lot from extensive thinking of how to word things in another language for a week straight!

We did a lot of things in a week: a day trip to the Grampians, making gyoza from scratch, went to a local performance of Into The Woods (it was great!), a movie night with friends, and lots of shared meals and chats.

We had so much fun with Manami, and we've made plans to see her again soon when we visit Kobe (which is very soon!)