What I'm up to....

Going to Japan, that is!
I got my sabbatical leave of 6 months which I will spend most of the time on the island of the rising sun.
I'll attend a language school in Tokyo.
Before returning home I hope to travel somewhat around, in any case stopping by in Ottawa visiting my grilfriend there.

But for now it's going east!
I will arrive at Tokyo 19th of september. My intention is to stay there for two days, then travelling up wrongfully neglected Tôhoku (Northern Honschu). One destination will be Aizu Wakamatsu.
The beaten track including Kyoto and Nara I'll probably take up later on during my stay.

29th of september I'll move to a host family. Course will start 1st of october.
So that's the plan so far....


Here an updated To Do-List

Travel Preparations

• Writing down and memorizing graphic characters of locations I will visit. --> DONE!
• Buying O-miyage (small presents) for host & others. --> DONE!
• Make reservation for a room in Tokyo. --> DONE!
• Asking for fees for a change in booking for my flight (so i can go to canada). --> DONE!
• Buy a train ticket. --> DONE!
  

Insurance & Medical Matters

• Take out a foreign health insurance --> DONE!
  
• Vaxxination --> DONE! (except Typhus)
• Collect Information about travel isurance --> DONE!
• Filled out insurance-form in casd of emergency return --> DONE!
  
• Visiting a dentist. --> WILL
• Visiting a physician. --> WONT
  

Job & Educational stuff

• Looking for the right language school --> DONE!
• Try to get an arrangement with my employer. --> DONE!
  

Finance & Money

• Opening a savings account. --> DONE!
  
• Put back some money --> DONE! (hehe...)

What's my motivation?

Basicly I wanted to learn one more langugage and live in another contry for some time. Only this time something more different than my stay in Switzerland (which has been rather nice after all).
From the beginnig on my choice has been either an eastern european or an asian country. While the first would have been much more easier to realize and also lucrative of some sort (regarding EUs eastward expansion) my decision fell on the latter.
That is because I wanted getting to know a really different kind of lifestyle and culture, which wouldnt be the case in an european county (who are all very much alike in the end).
So my preferred options narrowed very quickly to either Japan or China. That's based on my fascination for the grafic characters used both in chinese as well as the japanese writen language.
Besides at the final stage of my studies i rather accidently attended a university-course on chinese philosophy, which let my interest grow once more.
Finally I have already been training Iaido (Art of the Sword) for quite some time, so one more thing to make up my mind.
Besides Iaido it's my personal fascination for Japan, which has always been in the background of my perception during early youth, though always present.
There are the well known Cartoons made for European Television, as well as the expanding economy, which made the country in the news (about as much as China today), Tokyo as of beeing some kind of city of the future, where they are already building robots and at the other hand the land where there were samurais: at once a culture beeing in the midst of modern times but at the other hand rooted in a cultural background, which is totally different (That word defintily occurs a lot!) from mine.
So my final decision on focusing on Japan is not really rational, but more rooted in curiousness.

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