Should I stay or should I go? That`s the debate that`s been occupying my mind for the past couple of weeks. I would categorically decide to go home as planned, only for a girl to walk past in a delightfully short miniskirt, as if tempting me to stay. Conversely, I would decide to stay and look for a job, only for a cyclist to nearly clatter into...

People have commented that because I am Australian, I must by nature be competitive and crazy about sport. And as much as I am normally against perpetuating stereotypes, in my case it is true. To make matters worse, I am also from Melbourne, which is the sporting capital of Australia and I would argue, perhaps the world. Melbournians are truly n...

It often goes without saying that Japanese and "Western" cultures are very different, and certainly there have been many articles from ALTs previously on that very subject. The reasons I came to Japan as a JET programme participant were to learn Japanese and to live in Japanese society. These two goals are somewhat intrinsically linked, however ...

Takamatsu! Right, so this is a random one! On one of our crazy Osaka nights out, I bumped into a group of english teachers who were all really cool and lived on a random island named Takamatsu. Talking to them about where Ad and I should go using our railpass, they kindly invited us down to check out their home town... So we thought why not! And...

We spent a couple of days making our way towards the next big city, Takamatsu. One thing I wasn`t aware of was the sheer number of things to see along the way. A lot of them are temples and shrines but those are very interesting in Japan, each unique and beautiful in their own way. As we rode along we passed innumerable signs pointing us in diff...