Osaka Gakuin University Winter School ～

As I announced earlier I'll soon be flying to Osaka, Japan (my first time!!) and taking Japanese lessons. Some of you asked about more details and here they are:

Prelude:

After Coco's death I was shattered. I was not only depressed and facing several personal crises but also completely demotivated in my studies. I met up with my mother, shared some of my worries and she casually offered me to pay a trip to Japan to freshen my motivation for Japanese studies. Of course I said yes!! Note that this happened End-October/Early-November.

So I went off to browse the web for any Winter Schools I could visit during my break (January-February). Unfortunately most universities accepted applications only until September, so I missed several universities. And then I happened to discover the Osaka Gakuin University. They were still accepting applications for their international Winter School program and so I applied and got accepted!

Their program runs from 12.1 until 1.2, so it's more or less 3 weeks of Japanese studies, making friends, eating yummy food, city discovering, day trips, having fun and freezing your butt off. ;P

Osaka Gakuin University (OGU)

It's a private university located in Suita, 10 train minutes from Osaka city. Main focus are law, economics and international studies. Many of their graduates became famous soccer players (random fact)

One funny fact is that despite accepting international students from everywhere the Winter School program is mostly intended for student groups from their partner universities. I was told that this year there would be participating students from Australia, China, Korea and Thailand. Another thing is that I'm the only non-partner-university student who applied. So I guess I'll be the only student who will arrive there alone. ;_; I hope to quickly make friends and get integrated.

So here I am, 2 days before my first flight to Japan. I have no idea how it's going to turn out (compared to, let's say, the Summer course at Yonsei in Seoul, if you google it you can find heaps of (video)blogs, reviews, photos about the courses and accomodation etc) but since this program isn't well-known yet I will try my best to inform everyone through my blog. I don't know how often I will connect to internet, but I'll try to update from time to time. =P

I'm super excited and looking forward to my Kansai experience! My only worry is my lacking Japanese and shyness to speak... but I guess I'll just take the plunge and see what happens. =)