With a mix of excitement and nerves I’m off to Japan tomorrow and won’t be back until the 1st June! I’ll have loads of photos and I plan to write a few notes each day to post some sort of travel journal. So expect a lot more action on this site in June!

So I’m sitting planning how to get from place to place within Japan and I suddenly think “What the hell have I got myself into”, and I’m not even there yet! I only started learning Japanese a few months ago and suddenly I’m heading there for 2 weeks. I’m also meeting 2 penfriends which I’m really looking forward to. I’ll be taking a little picture phrasebook with me to help me with my Japanese and I’m sure we will have a laugh with it.

I plan to visit Akihabara once I’ve checked in and spend the afternoon there, probably wandering around feeling completely lost, but hey, should be interesting. I’ll eventually try and find my way back to the hotel. The next day I meet my first penfriend and I think we are heading to Asakusa for the Sanja Matsuri festival. After that I meet my tour group and I’m not entirely sure what’s in store but I have a Lonely Planet guide book and I’m going to read up on each place as we travel there.

Also I’ve just got in touch with a local Japanese tutor and I’ll be starting Japanese lessons once I return from Japan. So it looks like it’s full steam ahead for learning Japanese!

I finally sorted out the Yen for my trip which should arrive this week. I really wasn’t sure how much to get. I ended up getting it all in cash rather than travellers cheques to save myself a little time whilst I’m there. I don’t expect to get mugged or anything, but just to be safe I have a body wallet. So the muggers would have to strip me naked before they can get to it all and by that time my money is the least of my worries…

I also bought some small Harrods gifts to give to my pen friends when we meet. Hopefully they won’t think they’re too tacky. I have a feeling our conversations will be very slow because their spoken English isn’t great, and my spoken Japanese is almost nothing. I’ll try my best to speak Japanese but I think it’s going to be a case of me sounding like an idiot and eventually pointing at my phrasebook. I guess that’s part of the fun!

It’s with great excitement that I’m off to Japan on May 14th! I’ll be going from Tokyo and making my way slowly across Japan to Kyoto and then swiftly back to Tokyo for 2 days and I’m home by 1st June. It’s a guided tour with a group of about 12 other people so it should be fun. I’ll be arriving on my own and I’ve booked 2 nights extra in Tokyo at the start so I can meet a penfriend and do a bit of adventuring myself.

I’m also a little anxious as this will be my first time abroad on my own. It should be a good experience and I’m looking forward to meeting the others on the tour. I have so much to prepare! So far I have a massive backpack, my japan rail card, flights and hotel/tour all sorted out. I need to get money exchanged, make sure everything can fit in my backpack, check if my phone will work in japan, make plans to meet people in Japan aaaand buy lots of little things that I need whilst there. Phew! I usually forget something..

Also, I’ve decided to change the aims of this blog. I’ll be posting more often but the posts will be smaller. The reason for my silence recently was mainly a backlog of post ideas that required a lot of work and I just couldn’t find the time to do them. I also don’t yet have the experience with Japanese to really write any tutorials of great use to other learners. So I decided updates on my learning experiences would be a better idea than tutorials on how to learn.

This blog also seems a bit lifeless to me at the moment. I want this blog to be more personal, rather than a tutorial site. So I’ll be making posts on other things I find interesting about Japan.

Just a quick post to say I’m still alive and will be posting next week. I managed to get either food poisoning or the latest stomach virus over easter. Either way, it was nasty and really sapped the energy out of me so I’ve not been able to do much.

I have a lot of Anki cards to catch up on!

As I previously mentioned I ordered a poster from KanjiPoster.com and it has arrived! It took 2 weeks and came in a sturdy box. It’s in perfect condition and I’m very pleased with it.

It was expensive since I was in the UK, turning out to be £20 once shipping costs were added. However it is well laminated and will last a very long time. I’ll certainly get a lot of use out of it.

Unfortunately the ingredients for my super sushi feast didn’t arrive this weekend. However I found a small store in town that sold a lot of Japanese ingredients so I bought some noodles and a packet of spicy crispy seaweed. The seaweed is in sheets about the length of your index finger and makes for a very tasty light snack.

The nice lady at the store suggested I try a pack of soup stock with dried vegetables for the noodle soup. I also added some of the spicy crispy seaweed to make it extra yummy! I’ve never had Udon noodles before and I can safely say I will definitely be having them again. It was one of the simplest and tastiest dishes I’ve made so far.

I will have some Japanese language related posts soon I promise. Work is eating up all my time this month. Including my time for practicing Japanese!

Here’s a site I think is worth keeping your eye on. 100 Japanese Things brings you… well, 100 Japanese things… Slightly weird things, slightly crazy things, but fun things. All with the goal of learning Japanese in mind. I love it. Check it out.

I recently came across this timed Hiragana matching game. The idea is to drag the Hiragana character next to its romanized form as quickly as possible. It has helped me a little with remembering the Hiragana and it’s a great feeling when you manage to get them all right without guessing!

Does anyone know any other games that may help with learning the Hiragana and Katakana?

Today I decided to use up the few ingredients I had left after my first attempt at making sushi. I was in a bit of a rush so I made several mistakes. I completely forgot the wasabi and it needed something else like carrot or cucumber, but it was still delicious!