Uni started back yesterday, should be good to get back into it. I’ve only had one lecture so far because I spent yesterday volunteering at the Science and Engineering Challenge. This was an event where high school kids from all over Brisbane came to UQ to compete in a variety of tasks. The one I was supervising was called “Mission to Mars” and they had to build a buggy which could drive on Mars. Other activities included building bridges, hovercrafts and catapults. The students seemed to be having a great time and getting pretty into it (judging by how competitive they were getting) and I had fun chatting to the students (including some people from my old school) about engineering.

In other news, I’ve just returned from a month long trip to Japan which was AWESOME to say the least. I can’t say a bad word about Japanese people, they were all so friendly. Some of the places I travelled to were:
Tokyo – absolutely HUGE
Utsunomiya
Nikko - which has world heritage national park and historic temples
Hiroshima - the Peace Museum was very moving
Koyasan - where we stayed in a Buddhist temple
Kyoto
Nara – there are about 1500 deer which roam the city. Also home to the world’s largest wooden structure
Osaka
Nagoya - I met up with some Japanese friends here
Hakuba – the ski fields!

Anyway, I’ve put up some photos if you want to take a look. There's a sweet soundtrack to go with them

The Victorian bush fires featured in the Japanese media while I was there and many Japanese people expressed their concerns for the Australians involved. Particularly at the ski slopes, where there were many Australians holidaying, the Japanese had set up donation boxes in lots of the shops and hotels.

Many mining companies have also made donations, including BHP Billiton, Newmont Australia, Iluka (CRL) and Wesfarmers who have together donated over AU$1 million.

If you’d like to donate to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal, you can do so online on the following website:https://www.redcross.org.au/Donations/onlineDonations.asp

You can also make donations at post offices and the following banks: Westpac, NAB, ANZ, Commonwealth, BankSA, Heritage Building Society, BOQ, Bendigo Bank.