"Looks like we're not in Kansas anymore..."

I'm HERE!!
Here is currently Okayama, Japan. I'm walking around, all wide eyed and excited, looking like an obvious tourist, and despite the fact that my Japanese is even worse than I thought it was, and the constant lingering smell of stale smoke (Japan isn't as much of an anti-smoking country as I'd like it to be), and just general shyness- I'm loving it. All neon lights and tiny people bowing and vending machines everywhere.

The weepy me seems like someone else. Just stepping off the plane in Hong Kong, 5989 miles and 11 hours and 17 minutes away from Heathrow, London, for my transfer flight made me feel so much better. I can't lie- I love to travel. I love the unknown- the new sights, sounds, smells of a foreign clime- it's just the leaving people behind that I can't quite handle.

I still can't quite believe I'm here- but as the hours pass it feels more and more real. I will add some of the pictures I've taken so far of my mini hotel room and the people I've met later.

Renraku shimas= I'll keep in touch...

18 days 'til Japan...

Way back in October I was sitting in my temping agency reception area waiting to be seen; waiting to be signed up for yet another shitty temp job.
Then I saw this random advert in the Guardian's jobs pages about teaching English as a foreign language in Japan of all places.

Fast forward past an embarrassing interview that was videotaped and saw me singing the rainbow song whilst waving handmade flash cards-
(if that tape ever emerges later on in life I think I'll curl up in a corner somewhere and die), and I'm on the verge of flying off to Japan to live and teach there for a year.

On the 18th of March I will be flying out to begin my life as an assistant language teacher- and even though I have known that this date was always going to come- it has still managed to sneak up on me like a stealthy trained assassin.

Anyone who knows me is all too aware of my ability to not think about things, even really important things until I really have to. Couple with that my tendency towards leaving things to the very last minute, and my interesting idea of what organization is- then you know how prepared for this life changing trip I really am.

As I type this- the list of things I still have to do is hanging over me:

• Book flight
• Go to the Japanese embassy to process my working visa
• Tell credit card people that I'm leaving the country
• Buy stuff to take
• Pack
• Arrange my leaving do
  
• LEARN JAPANESE

It will all get done- somehow- I am the queen of the last minute. But how do I feel in amongst all this?
I am shit scared- I cannot lie.

I have never been anywhere that I was completely unable to communicate with the people around me. Japan- its culture and customs are so far away from all that I have known that I am afraid that I will sink. I am afraid that I won't be able to drown out that nagging voice I have inside me that tells me that I am not good/smart enough, that people don't/won't like me, that the shyness that has always plagued me despite my efforts to act otherwise will kick in in a large, in-ignorable way, that I have made a huuuuuge mistake, and that I won't be able to cope in such an alien environment. I worried/worry about how I will be treated in Japan, both as a foreigner, and a black foreigner.

But all these reasons eventually became the reason why I had to go. I tend to challenge myself- to push myself out of my comfort zone- "See if you can cope, San", "Audition for that show, San", "Yes, I know you can't swim and are somewhat deep water phobic, San, but go scuba diving"- because who am I to decide what I am or am not capable of? I just might surprise myself...

And so the countdown begins...