日本！！！！！

(にほん / nihon: Japan)

I AM IN JAPAN.

I'm enjoying free wifi at Osaka Kansai International Airport at the moment, having just gone through customs very quickly and easily (yet totally smooth and professional), now waiting for the "Jumbo Taxi" to pick me up and take me to Kanazawa University. I still can hardly believe I'm actually here, in Japan, to stay, for the duration. I hardly have any impressions yet--I was enjoying my time in LA up to the very last minute (I was in the audience for The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien last night) and now suddenly I'm halfway across the world, with my awesome new guitar and a ton of other luggage.

Really, the overwhelming impression that I've felt so far is how very smooth it's all been. I slept through most of the flight to Osaka from San Francisco, had some nice conversation with the person next to me on the plane, read through my handbooks for the program, and now I'm here. Totally business as usual. It's certainly not a bad start though--I have a feeling that my experience in Japan is something that won't happen all at once. It'll be gradual. I expect that the first couple of months will actually be quite difficult (albeit awesome and tons of fun), considering my present challenges with the language, but it'll get better and better!

I think the other part of it, though, is that this is totally new. Yes, I've thought and talked about ways I connect and relate to Japanese culture, and reasons why I'm interested in Japanese culture, but there's nothing personal about this connection. I have no ancestry or family here. I'll be living in a culture probably more foreign than anything I've known before, and this time I'm on my own, responsible for my own space. I'm incredibly excited, but I'm feeling cautious to start. I've been wanting my own space more and more recently, and now I'm finally going to have it in what is undoubtedly for me the best way possible. Every minute I think about it, I realize it more and more--

This is going to be an amazing, unbelievable, incredible, unforgettable year...!!!!


行きましょう！！ Let's go!!