Hi Everyone! We`re here! and we`re learning how to use a Japanese keyboard! Here`s the update...can`t wrtie for long as I am tired and this internet cafe is smoky. We arrived safely on Thursday night; very late and settled into our new apartment. The aparment is Japanese style tiny but as each day goes by you find yourself adjusting to the space; or lack thereof. Its a really cosy home in a really happening area of Osaka. For those not in the know, we currently live in Juso. Juso gets a bad rap on the internet (and from conservative Japanese people) as a bit of a `red light district` but its actually a really tame night area. There are famous lights to see at night, this huge giant famous crab thing that waves its legs back and forth (on a restaurant`s outside wall~hard to explain) and heaps of cool restaurant, shopping areas, etc - its great; we`re absolutely loving it. We are a five minute walk from the station (less now that we bought bikes!) and then the train takes about 1 minute to go into the city centre. We had a bit of culture shock and overtiredness when we arrived here; and spent our first few days just trying to figure out how to order dinner and buy butter but we are feeling much more settled now. On Friday we spent the day buying bits and pieces for the apartment (dishes, pots, pans etc) and food (though we still havent cooked a meal!) We also did a bit of wandering and sightseeing in the centre of Osaka city - near Umeda station. Yesterday we were still exhausted so we overslept and managed to only get a couple of things doen. We found the local 100yen shops (like a two dollar shop but SO much better) and bought so much shopping that we bought bikes on our way home so we didnt have to carry all our stuff (Im not joking). The shopping here is incredible. Hard to describe but Im pretty much in awe of every aspect of it. Food shopping in the bottom of the department stores, tasting the wares of little stores in laneways, clothes shopping at one of the hundereds of boutiques, the list goes on. Shopping is immediately apparent as the favourite pastime of the Japanese - and I tell you its contagious! There is a supermarket near our house called `Don Quixote` and we were just walking past when we saw some bikes, shrugged and went in and bought them. A real test of my Japanese skills! The bikes are fantastic though, really daggy (all bikes here are really old school with daggy handlebars fully intended for daggy shopping expeditions and just cruising around). Today we spent the day with Yoshimi Nishimura (my past host sister from when i came to Japan in 1998) and her family. It was great. They took us to this enormous Kmart style department store that had everything. We bought lots of boring stuff like shampoo, etc. I couldnt get over the size of the place. They had an entire aisle of glad wrap. Insanity. We had dinner tonight with Fumichan (Yoshimi`s sister) at a Yakitori restaurant. It was delicious -all kinds of chicken on skewers and great salads as well. Lots of fun, especially the challenge of speaking Japanese in proper conversation again. Lots of love to everyone, we`ll write again soon but am mage busy and am planning to head to Kyoto tomorrow so hopefully Ill have some great sightseeing stories for you all! Love, Allie xo

Well... here we go!

It is now 1:15 am, and we are leaving for the airport in a couple of hours. I however, (this is Ross posting) cannot sleep due to extreme excitment. We were up until after midnight packing and tidying anyway, so I figure a couple of hours will leave me feeling more tired than no sleep at all - and this way I'll sleep on the plane. I thought that this was as good a time as any to post our final blog entry from Australia. We had a crazy night packing our bags. As is typical for us, we planned to have this task completed by mid afternoon, yet we didn't get started till after (a late) dinner! We managed to fill both of our suitcases ridiculously over our baggage allowance, and spent a great deal of time and energy repacking and taking non-essentials (which all seem essential) out of our bags. Now we are both only 2 kg over our allowance and are hoping that the lovely people at Avalon and Sydney Airports will be kind to us. So that's it! In a couple of hours, my (endlessly patient and helpful) Dad will drive us to Avalon Airport. From there we fly to Sydney at 6am. We have a short stopover there, then leave from Sydney to Kansai International at midday. We will land at about 8pm Osaka time, go through customs and catch a bus to meet our housing agent. He will then drive us to our apartment in Juso. The next time that we post a blog entry will be from Japan. By then we should have heaps of cool photo's of our apartment and surroundings!