How English has changed my world

It’s seems like yesterday that I heard the stories about Japan, the country I was born in. Although at that time, I hadn’t visited it yet.

On average, a return flight to Japan from Brazil is roughly R$ 6.000 or around AUS $ 3.000 dollars which meant that traveling to Nagahama, the city in which I was born, was something out of my reach at that time.

Everything turned around last year. In 2016, after 24 years of waiting for the opportunity to go back to the country where everything started, I got an opportunity to study in Cairns, AUS. A chance which not only enabled me to learn English but also offered the recourse to go and, finally get to know Japan. A return flight to Japan from Cairns is roughly seven hours and the ticket is around 400 dollars.

Also, the timing was right for me as my English was already good enough to communicate with other travellers and, of course, Japanese people. So, in the blink of an eye, I realised that being in AUS would not just be studying a new language and academic stuff but it would also be my chance to finally visit the country of my birth.

Getting there I realized Japan is such an adorable country. They have beautiful landscapes and I fell in love with the view in Hakkone where trees have different tones of green. The food, OMG, the food, is just spectacular – I put on three plus kilos in my first week over there. If someone asked me for advice as to which places they should visit, I would tell them about the Onsens and a tiny city called Izumo. Imagine a natural bath located at the top of a mountain  – this is an Onsen. As a volcanically active country, Japan has thousands of onsens scattered throughout all of its major islands. It is possible to find different kind of onsens which can be outdoors or indoors. The onsen water is pretty hot and gives a super relaxing sensation to the body. You also need to bathe yourself naked.

With regards to other places, each city in Japan has something special to offer. I was lucky enough to go to a place where tourists hardly ever go. It is Izumo, a city near Hiroshima (around one and half hour drive) where I saw one of the most amazing beaches. The water was so clear, almost transparent. They are also waterfalls and natural pools there.

*About social life*

Thanks to a platform called Couchsurfing, I made Japanese friends and also visited their houses. Thus, owing to that experience, I could get to know the real Japanese culture and break the stereotype that we, Westerners, have about them. None of this would have ever been possible if I had not studied English because all the chats that I had with the people there were in English. I do not speak Japanese, unfortunately.

After I got back I mulled over how special that trip was to me. Before, I thought I was going to Japan only to visit the country I was born in, but when I got home the penny dropped about the trip and I realized that I had not only got to know the place that I was born in but also figured out more about myself. Before, I used to think I was 80% Brazilian, but afterward, definitely and proudly, I can see that I am actually half and half.

The culture in Japan is totally different if compared with Brazil. As with most of things, I have positive and negative observations about the Japanese country. However, I reckon this isn’t the point of why I’m writing it all down here. Because at the end of the day, I still learned something new while I was in Japan so it was priceless.

Debora Komukai

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

About CCEB

We are teachers and students at the Cairns College of English and Business (CCEB). How lucky are we to work and study in the Australian Wet Tropics with the world's oldest rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef at our doorstep! We would like to share our happy posts with the world! Welcome to the CCEB space eveyone.

One thought on “How English has changed my world

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *