03. Japan 2018 is a GO!!!

I'm convinced this cat was a samurai in its past life. It was just chilling outside of a castle.

I went to Japan in 2014 for a week. Easily one of the best times of my life. It was a "senior trip" of sorts, mainly because it fell the summer after my senior year of high school. I went with this company called EF, short for Education First. On the last day of that trip, I was already trying to conspire ways to come back. Study abroad would be the obvious option, but an academic semester and even more so a whole year, is a long time and is hella expensive. Beside, I had only been in Japan for seven days and in a heavily chaperoned and sheltered environment. There was no downtime and everything we did was planned out. It took me three years, but I finally found something that fit exactly what I was looking for: EF language courses abroad.




I'm not advertising, I swear. However, given the great, seamless experience I had with EF and all the staff I had a chance to interact with while I was in Japan made me have no qualms about going to Japan with them again. They have fun tours that range from 9 to 11 days (that seven day trip perhaps doesn't exist anymore?), which had been the main thing I'd found on Google. Then, somehow, I don't know how, I landed on a page talking about their flexible language courses. Basically, you can go study a variety of languages overseas, including Japanese, for anywhere between 2 to 12 weeks. PERFECT. After mulling it over for a little over a month, I finally booked my trip 4-week trip to Japan for summer 2018.

I'm excited, obviously. Not only do I get to go back to Japan, but this time around, I'll get to experience a little bit of what it would be like to live there. I'm not saying I intend to move there permanently one day, but who knows. The ways people are able to make a living these days is so varied, who says I'll have to work the 9 to 5 grind for the rest of my life?

The entire trip is going to cost me about $4500. Which I don't think is bad considering the cost of going on that one-week trip with the same company was maybe only $500 less. Though, that was all-inclusive (tickets, hotels, most meals, transportation, etc.) The $4500 includes almost everything except airfare and meals since I'm staying in a residence instead of doing a homestay. Considering this trip is 4x longer, I don't think that's a bad price at all.

I'm already thinking about the things I want to take and the things I plan on getting when I'm there. While the language learning is important, this is honestly going to be like a long vacation for me, with the classes simply giving me something to do and somewhere to go five days a week. I'm a bit of a nerd since I actually like school, and getting to study a little bit abroad is exciting. My mom is apprehensive about me going, and while I can understand her concern, I have to see more of the world than just Texas and Florida and Texas and Florida and Texas and Florida... She told me I should wait. Wait until when? Next summer is going to be my last summer as just a student. In other words, the last summer before real life starts. I might as well go now while I have the finances to do so and very few responsibilities to hold me back.

As things get nearer, I'll write about them here. I also intend to document what I do on my trip extensively, if time permits. Even if it doesn't, I'll play catch up once I get back and add posts about it then.