Hello blogging world and Flinders.

My names Nick, and I have the real honour of attending the INU Student Seminar on Global Citizenship and Peace in Hiroshima. It seems there are going to be a lot of firsts for me on this upcoming seminar. First time visiting Japan, first time alone in a country where the primary language is not English, first time traveling for my degree, first time leaving Australia on my own. My flight plan even involves a few firsts. As a very poor university student, I have opted for the long, cheap route to get to Hiroshima. This despite absolutely loathing flying. The travel plan involves flying with Air China via Beijing to get here, and yes, both of these will be new firsts. This is also my first time blogging, which I am sure is very obvious. So please excuse the quality while I get used to it.

This whole experience seems pretty daunting, lots of first time experiences and all that, and I guess it is, but it hasn’t really sunk in yet. That is probably down to the fact I finished packing an hour ago and I leave for the airport in an hour and a half. Organisation is key I believe. These are definitely not firsts, leaving the packing and blogging last minute. Best way to do it I find, not that I’ve really explored any other way of doing it.

Enough about anxieties and organisation though, lets start looking forward to this experience. If I am honest, I am extremely excited about this trip. Think somewhere between a kid entering a toy store and that same kid leaving an hour later loaded with the goods, and I fit about neatly in the middle on the two. I can only hope that my two years of studying Japanese at school more than a decade ago will put me in good stead to get the most out of this experience, and if not, well, I guess I will be relying on our host university to take it a bit slower with me. The theme for the Seminar is “Refugees in Global Society”, and should prove to be very interesting, and with any luck useful for my plans after studying.

Enough from me for now, although most of you probably stopped reading a while ago. If not, thanks for hanging around, and please be patient for the second instalment to come.