Spam? Definitely not.

I shall now tell you a story.

As most of you will know I am quite lax when it comes to checking my email. It's not that I purposely don't want to read it, it's just that most of the time I have better things to do. Well, at least I think they are of a higher priority. I don't think many people would rate anime-watching and sleeping to be above checking my remaining connection to the real world but...that's just me.

Anyway, so a few days ago I opened my inbox and quite to my dismay I found I had been stealthily invaded by a lone spam email. From no address I knew, nor recognised to be one of a familiar origin but being less than concerned with the continued livelihood of my laptop, I proceeded to open it. This is what I found:

Hello Ashley！

Nice to meet you.
I'm Kamito Yui(^ω^)
I live in Japan.
I look forward to that Ashley stays from April.

Japan is the depth of winters now.Is Australia warm？
When Ashley comes to Japan,I will become warm！

My mother is busy with work.So let's cook together(^∀^)
My family very happy！Because Ashley coming to Japan.

From Yui

Of course, at that stage I had (and technically still have) no information from AIIU on where I was going, what school I was going to and with whom I was staying; I, quite naturally, freaked out. It was all I could do in my incapacitated, shocked state to call my mother (several times) in a voice that obviously scared her as she called in reply, "I didn't do it". When she finally came in, it was all I could manage to point at the cutest email ever written in half horror/ half elation.

Once I gradually slipped out of shock and after a small procession of jumping up and down as females are often wont to do, I hurriedly emailed back in Japanese. Considering that I took a considerable amount of time just staring at the screen wondering what I should say. The obvious questions came first:

- Where do you live?
- What is the name of your school?

And the not so obvious questions followed soon after:

- How long does it take you to get to school?
- Do you go by train?
- Are you in any clubs?
- What are your hobbies?
- And so on, and so forth.

The not so obvious questions are equally as relevant as I have to pay my own travelling fares for the train and I am afraid of walking/cycling for long periods at a time. Clubs are important as I want to join one and bonding with my to-be host sister is also crucial to my sanity and enjoyment once in Japan.

I quickly received answers to these questions the following day.

My host sister, Yui, lives in Isahaya, Nagasaki. The school is named Isahaya Shou Gyou. It is a commercial school (I'll explain more about it later). It takes her an hour to get to school by walking and catching the train each morning. She is in the english club and her hobbies are singing, karaoke, talking with her friends and cooking.

And thus an emailing war began, I shall include what I know about my school and prefecture in the next post. The saga continues...