Day 1 in Japan will be an interesting and chaotic day, having a plan for what I want to do on that day I feel will make it go by smoother and be more enjoyable. Traveling and getting used to a new time zone is going to be an interesting and especially challenging aspect of this first day. As we all know coffee is a wonderful tool when you need an extra boost of energy. I have heard so much about how great Japan’s coffee is that I feel like this should be the first step in my Japan adventure. After getting coffee and experiencing a hopefully positive energy boost, I would simply want to walk around and try and get a good idea of what all is around me. I would be especially interested in any parks that are near by because when the semester gets intense I really enjoying going to the park and just relaxing for a while. Similarly, I would be on the lookout for parts of town that are calmer and have good places to just sit if I want to be outside and people watch. Of course, the next most important step would be to find as many restaurants as possible around where I will be staying and make a list. My goal would be to go to all of the restaurants that I find on this first day and hopefully more. I’ll probably end up picking one of these restaurants to go to for dinner and will dive right on into my food experience. The first day in Japan will already be extremely overwhelming and I think by trying to add too much into my day I won’t be able to really enjoy it as much as I should. I think being able to just walk around and get more accustom to my new surroundings while also locating some of the places that will be important in my daily life while I am there will be the best use of that first day.
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My biggest fear while being in Japan would have to be that I would not be able to communicate something important to someone and it would cause a bigger problem. My Japanese is not the best and I do not have as wide of a range with my vocabulary as I wish I could have. I feel like I know the basic words that are used in daily conversations but I do not know a lot of the words for medical issues or just general problematic situations. I also am not too sure even if I learn the vocabulary how you would say certain sentences with those words to make it make sense to a Japanese listener. It would be really scary if something went wrong and there wasn’t really a way for me to communicate that I need something or even what the problem is. I don’t imagine that there are a lot of interpreters working in hospitals or places like that that would be able to help with the situation. If something happened on campus I feel like there would be more people able to help explain what occurred in Japanese to the right people but that can only go so far.
I have allergies to strange things, especially types of medicines. I think that's why not having the right words to explain something if I needed to go to the hospital or even just to let a restaurant know about my allergies is scary to think about. Even in English sometimes people will mess up and not understand what I was saying that so it could just as easily happen in Japan, especially adding a language barrier. I have tried to look up some of the phrases for allergies and such but when it comes to medicines finding the words for the specific types that I am allergic to is difficult, as is explaining why I cannot have those medications. I think one of the best ways to feel more comfortable with this fear would be to ask Japanese exchange students and professors how you would say what I need to say. I could also keep a card with the information in Japanese with me to make sure that it gets communicated properly. Hopefully, it is a situation that won’t occur but it still one that is a fear and definitely makes me feel hesitant about traveling in Japan. I want to go to Japan to see the places that I have been studying for three years. I am excited to see all of the locations that I have read so much about and to get to see historical sites that I know the historical background for. I would also be excited to see some of the foods that are more difficult to try here in the United States. It would be great to be able to use the language skills that I have worked so hard to cultivate with people in shops and to be able to order these new foods in Japanese. Going to Japan will be such a shift from the ways that I have been studying and will change the way I see everything. I am very excited to get the chance to see someplace other than the United States. I want to see my hard work put to use in a practical way as well as in a way that will expand my knowledge and allow me a completely new experience.
I hope to get to use my Japanese in new ways and practice basic conversations with Japanese people. It will be exciting to find kanji that I do not know and to be able to learn some slang that would allow me to communicate well with people my age. I am very excited to build my vocabulary, especially since there could be words that I may not have thought that I would need to know. I am excited to see new locations that I may not have learned about in class but may still be so important. Once I am in Japan I think that there will be a lot of new information coming at me and all of the knowledge that I have already acquired will be expanded upon. I just want to learn as much as I can. I hope that study abroad will greatly change the way I see the world and the way that I see other people. I want this experience to teach me about Japan and Japanese culture in ways that are more difficult to be taught in a classroom. I think studying abroad will create the chance for me to question some of the things that I have learned and will show me new areas of Japanese culture and language that I did not know about. In the same way I think studying abroad will help me question things about my own culture and about the ways that people from the United States interact with other cultures. I think this experience will also make it easier in the future for me to learn about new places and cultures because once you have done a thing like this once the future times do not feel as scary. I am hoping that this experience will make me feel more prepared in the future to travel to places where there will be a language barrier or I only sort of speak the language. Hello! This is my first post for this blog. I am so glad that you came here to follow my growth with the Japanese language and culture. |
AlishaI have been going to school and pursuing knowledge about other cultures my whole life. I hope that this experience will allow me to continue on that path. ArchivesCategories |