"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
- Mark Twain
It’s been a while since I posted in this space, huh? Well, I just took my first trip during my time here: a couple days down in Tokyo with some of my Korean friends. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first I thought that I’d try to play catch-up and go over what I’ve been up to the last couple of weeks since I posted last.
It’s been a pretty full weekend for me once again. Since Wednesday, I went to the second concert on Thursday (which rocked), went to Aomori with Hwang and Paku, did CPR training with my club, went out for karaoke and finally, on Sunday, spent the entire day with my new host family. Well, let’s get into then, shall we?
Sorry for taking so long to get a new post up! I’ve been busy with this and that, but I decided that enough was enough and that I’m writing this thing now. Thank you for bearing with me. I also decided that from now on I’m going to use a jump on my posts, since the long pages on this site are making it difficult for some people to load it properly. Click the following link to read the rest of the post.
Here I sit in a Japanese hotel room in Hirosaki, Aomori, Japan. It is hard to come to grips with. The whole arrival in Japan and subsequent journey to my present location has been and still continues to be the most intensely lucid dream I have ever had - I fear that I might wake up tomorrow, back in my bedroom in Maine. After all the talk, all the preparations, my money is where my mouth is. Perhaps you would like to share with me the events that have transpired over the past 24 hours or so, complete with pictures and video? I thought you might.
All the preparations are made, all the packing is nearly done - yes, I’m about ready to finally leave. After all the forms, research, studying and dreaming, it is about to become reality. In less than twenty-four hours, I will be on a jet plane off to Hirosaki, where I will be speding five months in the Land of the Rising Sun. I must say now that I feel a mixture of excitement, nerves and apprehension. But on the whole, I couldn’t be more ready to leave. You can be sure that this blog is ready to now go prime-time. I will be posting much more frequently (as soon as I’m settled in) and hopefully posting different media, like video. Look forward to it!
I’ve had a pretty uneventful final week. Mostly it was spent spending time with my friends and saying goodbye. Last weekend was especially hard, because I had to say goodbye to my indescribably wonderful girlfriend, Zoe. The above photo was taken while hanging out in the dorms up at UMaine. I’m sure we will both be missing each other lots, but we’ve already discussed plans for her and possibly my family to come out to visit in August. Hopefully by that point I’ll have learned my way around a bit, and I’ll be able to give them a great experience in Japan. :)
This will probably be my final post until I touch down in Hirosaki. But I will certainly be twittering. Follow along with my Twitter widget to the right, or go to this page here. Next time I write here, it will be on Japan time. Later!
There’s my spending money for the first couple months! I got the call earlier today from the bank that my yen had come in. It was convenient, also, that my brother Will called up about getting picked up at school at the same time. Two birds, one stone! That is 91,000円 even, worth $1000. It’s the amount that Hirosaki recommended for students when first arriving in country. My first expenses upon arriving in Japan will be taking the subways around in Tokyo to catch my flight up to Aomori and then staying in a hotel the night I arrive. Hopefully I can get by with the money I’ve saved for the trip, and maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll get some donations from my parents, too. :P
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog here, and for that I am sorry. Ever since my wonderful girlfriend Zoe headed back to school, I’ve fallen into the groove of working two jobs which leave me with very little free time. I need to earn that cash for Japan! Anyway, I’ll get you up-to-speed on what’s been going on in the past couple of weeks.
First things first, I finally received my acceptance letter to Hirosaki. I’m relieved it came because that is final confirmation that I have been indeed accepted at the university as a foreign student. Before that, I was somewhat in limbo wondering if I really had been accepted. Had I not, I’d be down a semester at school and working at my terribly un-fun factory job for several more months. That, and I’d be an emotional wreck after all the time and effort I’ve put into applying and learning Japanese for this trip. Well, maybe “emotional wreck” is a bit strong, but I’d certainly be upset.
But why am I discussing all that dreary nonsense? I’ve been accepted so it’s all good! I got an email from Ace up at UMaine that my letter had come, so I asked for him to send it down to me. I got in the mail a couple days later and it has been sitting on my bedside table ever since. Really, I was able to read its contents in a matter of a minute. In the letter, they basically told me to expect more letters that would actually contain details about arriving on campus, housing, classes, etc. It also told me not to expect my visa information until March, mere weeks before I’m to leave. However, there was one critical piece of information that allowed me to get the ball rolling on traveling: my arrival time and date. I’m to show up at Hirosaki University on either April 2nd or 3rd between the hours of 9 A.M. and 5 P.M., so that means it’s time to buy plane tickets! Yep, I finally ordered my plane tickets for my flight over, so my plans are set in stone (barring changing them with an airline exchange fee). Final cost? $1728 -_-;;. Better keep working hard, amirite? I’ll be leaving on March 31st and arriving in Japan in the evening on April 1st, just in time for me to find some lodging for the night and show up at Hirosaki the next morning. I’ll be coming home on Wednesday, August 27th, so that means that you dear readers can expect to read of my adventures up to that day at least. :) I’ll have the whole month of August to travel, as classes will be ending on July 31st. I’ll then have to turn around and haul my jet-lagged body up to UMaine again to begin the fall semester. What fun! :P
So as of this moment, I’m waiting on that letter containing more details on my arrival. I’ve been working 60 hour weeks in the meantime between two jobs to make sure I have enough scratch to get around. I’ve been considering my options for traveling while there. It seems that the best way to get around, especially when I get my month off in August, will be to get a JR rail pass. They are about $550 or so for a 21-day pass, which seems quite reasonable considering I can use it to travel the entirety of Japan.
It really seems like this thing is coming together. At this point, it still feels somewhat surreal, like I’m just imaging that I’m going to be leaving in a scant couple months. I’m sure in the days and weeks ahead I’ll be running around more and more like a chicken separated from its neck trying to make all the arraignments I need to. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m also promising that from this point forward, I’m going to be making more of a concerted effort to post in this blog. I know that I’m not there yet, but I’m sure I can come up with something relevant to post here. A blog just isn’t a blog with out frequent updates. With my current work schedule, I don’t think it will practical to update more than a couple times a week. Obviously, the closer I get to leaving, and then when I’m actually there, I will be posting daily at least. Look forward to it! :)
So why would someone want to do this? Get out of their comfort zone, go to a completely foreign land where they don’t know anyone, and then stay there for several months? Well, there are a couple of reasons. I guess I should go back to high school to really start this off.
When I was a high school student, I found that I took a liking for foreign language. At the time, I was taking Spanish and I did pretty well. I was fortunate to have a dad who just happened to be fluent in it. I would be lying if he wasn’t one of the primary reasons why I settled on Spanish. It was partially because of him too that I did well. But I found that I enjoyed learning a language, feeling the ebb and flow of the new sounds, discovering the grammatical structure. I know, it all sounds very nerdy. But I really do enjoy it now studying Japanese just as much as when I first started to learn Spanish.
It was also around this time in high school when my family took a trip we had been planning for a while: a trip to Europe, visiting the countries of France and England. Even though it was tiring and exasperating at times, I found myself enjoying the different culture immensely. We stayed in Paris, walked the streets, visited all the touristy spots. We also went up to Normandy to see where the D-Day landings took place. That was an amazing experience as well, because as an avid video gamer I had seen this patch of ground several times, but to see it in person was fantastic. You really feel more of a connection to something like that after having seen it for yourself. England was great too, and not just because they spoke English. :P London was a great city where we spent most of our time. Later in the week we went up to Stonehenge, which was cool to see as well, but I do remember it being a bit underwhelming. It really is just as the pictures show it to be.
Anyway, the result of this trip was a new found interest in travel and foreign cultures. As such, I began thinking about studying abroad in college, but I just couldn’t see myself going to Spain for an extended time. I didn’t feel myself having a connection there - it was more of my “father’s” country. I really wanted to visit somewhere I could relate to on some level personally. It just so happens that around this time, my friends introduced me to animation from Japan, a.k.a. anime. I was instantly hooked. I always had an affinity for the fantastic, which anime had plenty of. But more than that, I was able to hear the language of Japanese for the first time. This too, I became hooked to. As time went on and the more I watched, I started picking out bits and phrases.
Like I said earlier, I am also an avid video gamer. It was also in this way that I exposed to another facet of Japanese popular culture. I played some of the Final Fantasies, Resident Evils, Metal Gear Solids, and several of the happy, bouncy Nintendo games. I really loved the style of these games and their difference from their Western counterparts. I knew it now. I knew what country was “mine.”
Towards the end of high school and beginning of college, I began studying Japanese on my own. At first, I found that learning the basic character sets was the best starting point. After some time, I had the “kana” under my belt. Come my Sophomore year, I discovered the Critical Languages department here at the University of Maine. I immediately began taking Japanese classes. Which brings us to the modern day. I am up to Japanese III and still loving it. I just wrapped up my applications to study abroad and am now waiting for March to roll around so I start my travels. :)
A final thing I want to say about my decision to travel: the quote at the top of the blog. I really feel that traveling is one of the greatest experiences a person can have - I had a taste of that on my family’s trip to Europe. The thought of staying in one place all my life with the big, wide world out there is a frightening thought to me. So more than my love of Japan and the Japanese language, I desire to see the world while I still can, at a time in history when it is more important than ever to be understanding foreign people and cultures.
Well, now that we have gotten to know each other, I suppose I’ll wrap this up. I’ll go into greater detail what the University of Maine had me go through in the application process, so that those contemplating a study abroad program can get an idea about what to expect. Later!
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