... recently i've been feeling a really strong bond with my second country - japan. maybe it's because of world cup craze, but i think it's so much more than that.

i really miss living japan. everything about it. tonight, i found an old travel journal (online) that i wrote back in 2001. i used to go back to japan for two to three weeks every year, 2003 was the last time i was in japan. i need to go back. anyway, i am sharing my travel journal in its entirity. let me give y'all some background of where i was in my life in 2001: it had been a year since i graduated college and about two years since i had lived in japan. i was only months away from starting a MA/PhD program in japanese sociology. i was excited about being back on japanese soil for three weeks before school started. i was so much younger than (and it shows), and i had such a different outlook on some things. but a lot has stayed the same.

i don't know what i'm trying to say here. so much of my life has been molded by the fact that i lived in japan and majored in japanese. i still see it in myself, even though it's been nearly three years since i've been back. i need to remedy that - i think i'm going to try to go back to the big j for a few weeks in 2007. i think i need it. i need to be back on japanese soil where, just like the country itself, my past meets my present.

anyway, here's my journal from 2001. each entry is behind a seperate lj cut. enjoy, but don't be too critical. re-reading all of this really gave me an excellent perspective on who i am. at the time i had so much more of japan to see. i had not lived in tokyo (that came later). i had not yet climbed mt. fuji (again, later). and it wasn't until much soul searching (MUCH later) that i really felt that i understood my place in japan.

( the flight and the first dayCollapse )

( getting molested in tokyoCollapse )

( i'm in love with tokyoCollapse )

( this is what happens when you fall asleep on a trainCollapse )

( REALLY sick in tokyoCollapse )

( and now even sicker...Collapse )

( MY list! inspried by tokyo qCollapse )

( ridin' da shinkansen... the last dayCollapse )

so that's it. my little post-college pre-grad school journey to japan. i think, even though i had lived there before this, this was the time where japan really felt like home to me. i am so glad that i had enough foresight to document the entire thing. i love that country so much. i think in a past life, i was japanese (i think i lived during the tokegawa period in the late 1600s). i might live in the us, but a big piece of me is always in japan.

now maybe y'all can understand why i'm so obsessed with the japanese world cup team. that's really my country.