A lot has happened in the last month! I climbed a mountain with some friends from a student organization, which was a ton of fun. We also had a training camp for the same group, which was fun but uniquely challenging— the university itself has programs in English, but this camp was entirely in Japanese. I managed to get by well enough, but some of my fellow international students were struggling.

The holidays were a pretty different experience from the U.S. because Japan doesn’t have a cultural tradition of Christianity, Christmas is really just a commercial holiday. They still have Santa, of course, but the image of the holiday is more oriented toward couples and gift giving than what we might imagine at home. For example, I remember a lot of love songs on the radio, but I’m not sure I can remember a single Christmas carol playing.

To end off the year, I am at a music festival. It’s really exciting to see all of these artists because I wouldn’t be likely to see them in the U.S. I’ve been having a lot of fun. I’m currently on break from school for another week, so I hope to find something memorable to do with the first week of January.

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: Sophia University