Hey and welcome to follow my blog everyone! As you already may know from reading "about me" page, I am Daniel, your guide to Japan and all that it holds within in its bizarre nature. I will be visiting Morioka for 2 months, which is part of Iwate Prefecture. It is located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu island. Last time I checked, there is around 300,000 people populating Morioka alone, which is staggering to a finn who is used to living in small town with only around 30,000 people.
This certainly will be an amazing experience to me, no matter good or bad. I will be just happy that my long lived dream to go to Japan is about to come true. Hopefully my years of japanese study have paid off, because this is the first time I have ever needed it. I think I know japanese, enough to get by, but I have never spoken a word aloud to anyone, thus hindering my memory of words that I have learned along the years. However, I hold great faith on the chance that my subconscious mind will bring those words back to me when most needed. And I think this is something that many language learners are interested to know, because we all know that our brain likes to forget things when we don't use the words we have learned. Let's see if that holds true...
My japanese study has been greater than ever before in my life, as it should be. Nowadays I can not do much but think if how much I learn in a day is enough for me. I tend to use 2-3 hours to learn japanese each day, but lately I have been learning 6 hours a day, and still thinking if that is not enough. Fear of being in an awkward situation where I don't know what to say because of language barrier is something I just can not accept. Yet I know, that I must come to accept that I am not gonna be spared from failure and embarrassing situations, no matter how much I study before going. It is part of learning a language, and something that will take years to master. One does not simply learn a whole language in a day or a week, yet I believe that is how much time I have left before going, even though it is not true. What is true however is that the flight to Japan is approaching, and it is going to be very soon. So much to do... so little time, as the saying goes.
With this blog, I aim to update my readers about everything that I do in my daily life in Japan. Now I don't know yet if I will have an internet at the place I'll stay in, but I hope to write blog posts once a day, before going to sleep. If this does not hold true in the end, you can be sure to have your doze of "Daniel in Japan" at least once a week. I will visit some library or internet cafe to have an access to internet if everything else fails, which I highly doubt, but just to be clear...
I want to experience so much during my stay, which means I barely will stay still for more than a minute. This is why I warn you in advance: If I don't get to update my blog each day, you have to prepare for a wall of text the next time I get opportunity to update :D I try to keep my blog posts short and light to read, but no promises there :) Also, pictures are something I hope to add to my blog posts in the future, but for now you will have to do with what you got, because I don't have any pictures of anything, yet. And I don't want to take google images and pretend I was there and did this and that.
Oh well, I believe the next time you will be hearing of me, is either in Japan, or about to fly there. I hope to bring you a lot of news about everything that my visit in Japan will hold for me, starting from the up-coming flight.
Last thing before I go! If there is anything, and I mean anything, you wish me to do while in Japan, just contact me and tell me. I want this to be as much your experience as it is mine. This means, if I am able to do something that you want me to do, whether it is to go some place and take video/pictures, try out some restaurant or specific food, I will do that for you, IF i can. And that's a big "IF" by the way. You maybe might want to know about something regarding Japan, its language, customs, and culture in general, and if I can answer that question for you in private or in my next blog post, I will happily do that, so that's another good reason to contact me. I might not answer each post in person, but you may hope to see the answer in my blog posts at some point.
Just know before you contact, that I will be located in Morioka for the whole experience, outcluding the trip from Tokyo to Morioka when I land and leave. So if you want me to visit some place, make sure it is either in Morioka or near it, because I think I'll not have a chance to travel afar from where I'll be staying.
Anyway, thanks for reading my first blog post. Stay tuned for more!