Mukashi-mukashi, engoku e tabi ni deta souretsu na rekishika nan datta…

(Translation: “Once upon a time, there was a brave historian who journeyed to a distant land…”)

…And so the adventure begins! Welcome to the official blog of Joshua’s journey to Japan! Here, I’ll be posting entries periodically describing what’s going on with my time of study abroad at Kansai Gaidai, an international university in Hirakata City, Nara Prefecture, which is very near Osaka and Kyoto. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post updates on classes, friends, sightseeing, whatever, in addition to lots of pictures and/or links to pictures hosted on other sites, such as Photobucket.

I’m set to leave on Thursday, January 18, on a flight from Charlotte to San Francisco, where I’ll spend the night before taking a morning flight on the 19th to Kansai International Airport, arriving around 4 p.m. Japan Standard Time (JST). Japan is 14 hours plus a day ahead of Eastern Standard Time because of the International Date Line. An easy way to calculate this is to add 2 hours to Eastern time, change the a.m. to p.m., and move ahead one day of the week. This basically means that you will only be able to get in touch with me in the early morning or late evening, generally 6:00-9:00 a.m. or p.m., but I will post more exact times once I get over there and find out what my schedule looks like, probably by the end of the last week of January.

In the next post, I will try to have some information about Kansai Gaidai and what my life will be like there as I currently understand it. Plus, I’ll tell you all about my conversation partner, Hino Tomoko! Stay tuned, cause there’s lots more on the way!