Hi there!

So, I’d better begin getting myself habituated to writing in my journal here. It’s almost impossible to believe that I leave in less than a week.

What happened to all those good intentions for studying and brushing up? Where did the time go to lose a little more weight and get in slightly better shape? How come there’s still so much on my “To-Do” list that hasn’t been done?

Sigh…

Well, there’s not much time left to cry about it, I’ll just have to get on with it. I am going to try to do an audio podcast this weekend to get things started since I haven’t done one in a while—in fact, I haven’t done one using my MacBook Air yet. I also need to test out my new Blue Snowflake microphone, which promises really high quality but in a very small package.

I’m off to have lunch with Alia-san today to talk about old times, and of course anime. She may be coming to Japan later this summer under a different program, and I wish her luck on getting accepted!

So get ready for the new adventures of Doug in Japan!

That’s Korean for “Hello”…

Not content with just six foreign languages and in conjunction with a thought I’ve had to visit South Korea following the IJP program, I’ve signed up for a 10-week basic Korean class at the Sejong Institute in Los Angeles. I started last Tuesday night and will finish up 2 days before I leave for Japan.

At first I was mildly concerned about taking on another language both so close to the time I’m going back to Japan and because it’s another asian language—I don’t want to get confused. But what I’ve seen and heard so far is that Korean is very different from Japanese and I don’t think it’ll be a problem. All I want to do anyway is get a few words and phrases down so that I can travel there and not be completely in the dark. I’m hoping to learn to read Korean writing (which is not as daunting as it looks) so that I can figure out where I am and what I want to do.

So in addition to sprucing up my Japanese before I go (I want to review both Genki books and all my kanji before I leave in 10 weeks—yikes!!!), I’m going to be “moonlighting” at the Korean Cultural Center.

I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment!

Today I took the train to Little Tokyo, had a nice lunch at Mako Sushi, then purchased my plane tickets at H.I.S. Travel. I opted for the most expensive itinerary on United Airlines flying directly into Kansai on June 19 and back home again from Tokyo Narita on July 29. I say “most expensive”, but it was only $133 more than the Northwest itinerary I was thinking of purchasing that would have brought me to Nagoya. I figured an overnight stay and train trip would work out to be about the same, so chickened out and took the no-hassle option.

Now I’m going to put my trip planning into full swing. The KSU portion is, of course, pretty much all set except for the free weekends—but I’ll probably leave those for spur-of-the-moment trips, though I already have a few ideas like a definite day trip to Osaka and one to the Sekigahara battlefield that I never got to in ’06. I’m sure there are other nearby things I will want to see and will be researching that shortly. There’s also plenty to see in Kyoto itself and I’ll certainly want to make another pilgrimage to Kurama—one of the most beautiful, peaceful and spiritual places I’ve ever been.

So the real work is my 10 day post-school vacation, beginning when I depart the I-house dorms on Saturday, July 19. Right now, believe it or not, I’ve been thinking very seriously of taking the first three days, hopping the “Beetle” hydrofoil from Hakata to Busan and spending three days in South Korea. It’s so close—and will add to the collection of “Red Dots” on my world map! It seems less expensive than Japan and quite interesting in its own right. A 3-day train pass is only about $75, and will get me all around the country. I’d definitely visit Seoul and as many interesting places as I can.

Of course, there seems to have been a recent outbreak of Bird Flu there, and a strain that easily transfers to humans to boot—so the whole trip may be a “no thanks”. If that happens, another option would be a night train from Osaka to Hokkaido for a few days in Japan’s unspoiled wilds with visits to Sapporo and Hakodate. I don’t actually need to confirm any of this until I’m already there, so we’ll see how it goes. Just in case, I’ve bought a book/CD on Korean for Beginners (!!!) and a couple of guidebooks.

Finally, I’ll once again rent that same apartment in Tokyo like I did in ’06 and use it as my secret base from which to explore the city and day trip to other places for the final week of my stay. I definitely have Hakone and Nikko on the itinerary and would also like to see Matsumoto and its castle and probably also spend more time in Nagano—maybe even get to the Kawanakajima battlefield which I unwittingly passed right through last time. So many places, so little time…

This is gonna be GREAT and I can’t wait!

I’ve taken my placement test, submitted my application and mailed in my deposit check.

I’m going!

Yes, I’m very excited to have made this decision and am totally looking forward to another wonderful experience in the land of the rising sun. I certainly can use all the practice I can get at speaking Japanese.

The one BIG pain, though, is that there are NO available flights in June that I can get for free using my Virgin Atlantic frequent flyer miles. That means forking out around $1k for plane tickets that I would have liked to use for other purposes. I won’t be letting something like that hold me back, however.

I’ll probably make a few entries here and there as I get ready for the trip. But I will certainly be keeping my faithful daily journal as I did in 2006—so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, it’s off to Little Tokyo tomorrow to find out about discount tickets and a Japan Rail pass..

Part of what I forgot to mention about yesterday was that in my searching in Akihabara, I never discovered any big Manga shops. By doing an evening search on the internet, I discovered where to go—but they were closed! So I decided to get up early and take those last few precious hours before leaving to go and check it out.

Arriving more than an hour before they opened, I went back to an already open Yodobashi Camera—where I made the snap decision to buy a new camera! It’s the pocket-sized, latest version of the Sanyo VPC series, and it actually does HD movies—and it was a good deal. Of course, now I need to sell the old one and scrape up some more money to pay it off…

Then the manga shop—Mandarake—then turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, but then I didn’t have a lot of time to check it out thoroughly. It’ll have to be for my next trip…

Then It came time to leave the apartment behind and make my way for the last time to Shinjuku and the Narita Express. That part of the trip was fine and uneventful—but raining, of course, right when I needed to carry all my stuff to the airport. The airport was really nice, since they’ve just re-opened their new facilities after a major renovation. I haven’t been to a more efficiently run airport checkin service since 9/11, and it was refreshing. I made the snap decision to upgrade to Business Class, which I was glad I did (since I had really good food, service and plenty of room with a seat that reclined and had a leg rest—I managed to actually sleep on the plane for a change). Before I’d thought about it, though, I spent some extra money and an extra hour eating lunch at an airport restaurant instead of just making my way directly to the Business Class lounge where I could have snacked for free and had more time to relax and use the wireless internet. Oh well, not for next time…

So then I got home. Dad picked me up at the airport and took me home to an absolutely sweltering Woodland Hills. There has been a record-breaking heat wave here since I left, with only 1 day in the past six weeks where it was below 100 degrees. It was about 106 today, and completely insufferable since I have no air conditioning. That will have to change immediately.

So then—here ends my Japan travel diary. I’m going to switch back to my regular blog and website, where I’ll probably continue to talk about how my visit and study trip to Japan changed me. Check back there over the next little while…

Sayonara…

It’s hard to believe my time here is almost over. I’m at that point where I’m trying to pack in everything I possibly can before the clock runs out, and beginning to have regrets about things I didn’t do and won’t have time for…

Anyway, the first stop was Asakusa to see the famous Kaminarimon Gate to the Senso-ji temple. It was a typically gray morning, threatening rain just to make things perfect. I also ended up doing a lot of souvenir shopping on the market street between the gate and the temple itself. I actually used the fortune sticks at the temple and got one that was really true: “Always traveling around since your childhood has given you a lot of places [sic]…Wherever you go, everything can be done as you wish.” Seems like my life does involve a lot of travel wherefrom I derive my happiest times.

Next stop was the famous (or infamous) Yasukuni Shrine where Japan’s war dead are commemorated. I don’t see what the big deal was—except that supposedly Class A war criminals are also remembered there, but I wouldn’t have known that without the news reports. Most importantly was the museum there, which discussed a lot of Japan’s Military and other history—it was fascinating. My favorite part was watching the little film with actual footage from the Russo-Japanese War.

Then it was off to the Kato Hobby Center Tokyo, which was really cool and much bigger than the Osaka one. They had a ton of operating layouts and I got some good photos for reference on my own layout. I also couldn’t help but succumb and make a couple of additional purchases…

Last stop was Akihabara Electric Town again, which drew me back like some kind of electro magnet (pun intended). I discovered the Yodobashi Camera super store, which is 8 floors of consumer electronics and other goodies—a veritable wonderland for a guy like me. I could easily spend an entire day in here and not see everything. They had a nice hobby section there too—where I ended up buying even more stuff. I ate a really nice Tonkatsu dinner in the 8th floor restaurant area. My niece and nephews would love this place…

And then it was back home to begin packing. Time is too short…

The day started off poorly with me wasting a few hours searching in vain for another place to get wireless connectivity for my Mac—I finally gave up and checked emails and such from the ¥200 internet cafe. I also muddled my way through finally finding a ticket counter (at Shinjuku) that sold the full-day JR/Subway passes.

The morning being shot by then, I resolved to stay out as late as I could getting things done. On the list for today: Odaiba and Akihabara. I’d wanted to go out to Odaiba primarily to see the Tokyo Big Sight building because I’d seen it so often in anime like Comic Party. I also knew it was a popular place to hang out with lots of entertaining things to do. That turned out to be true, so I spent a few hours there, had lunch then went to Akihabara in search of anime stuff and electronics.

What a place! It’s almost an overpowering assault on the senses (it probably didn’t help that the first place I ventured into by mistake turned out to be a noisy, smoky pachinko parlor). There was so much going on, and every shop had their touts out front with microphones or bullhorns, shouting for you to come and see what they had. I found a really cool anime and model store—8 floors! There was one floor with nothing but Gundam models and figures—thousands of them. And it was like that with all the other figures and models and series—I was absolutely amazed at the variety. The one thing I did not find was any big manga shops, particularly used manga and doujinshi stores. I think I was in the wrong area, and will try again tomorrow.

Since I’d purchased a separate all-day ticket for the automated train out to Odaiba, I decided to go back there for dinner too and see the city and the Rainbow Bridge all lit up at night. It really was beautiful and also nice and cool out by the water; I can see why it’s a favorite date spot and place to kill time. I ate at a famous Hawaiian hamburger restaurant, of all places. I had the “Set Menu A” which had an avocado burger, fries, salad and drink. They were in “American Sized” portions, too—I think this was the first time I can remember since leaving home when I finally ate enough at one sitting to be full! Of course it cost me around $12.00…

I began wending my way home, stopping off at Shinjuku once again to buy my Narita Airport Express train ticket for Monday—my train leaves at 12:42 PM, and then I’ll be on my way home. I got back to the apartment at around 10:00 PM and took a relaxing bath. I’ve got another big day ahead of me tomorrow—my last full day here—so I need to get to bed!