こんにちは！

へロー！

I created this blog so all at home and randoms wanting to go to Japan would be able to see my journey to 日本! If you don't know me I suggest reading the 'ABOUT ME' section, it's well a gid read (very good read)! I must apologise in advance for any wee (little) Scotticism used henceforth.

Right so, what's all this Japan malarkey? Well, on September the 12th I will fly from London to Osaka and continue to Kyoto where I will be enrolled in Ritsumeikan Daigaku's Intensive Japanese Language track. The year abroad is a compulsory part of my course aimed at giving me the Japanese skills Edinburgh University can't.

But why the interest in a hieroglyph-based language? Honestly, I'm not sure. My obsession with the Japanese language didn't arise by watching too much Pokémon when all the other kids had tossed old Pikachu in the bin and moved on to the craze of the demon Furbies (who subsequently met their fate in the microwave). I developed an interest in the language purely on a linguistic basis rather than from the influence of the infectious J-pop culture. This is not to say I'm not interested in Japanese culture and entertainment, on the contrary, it was learning the language that led me on to this fascinating fantasy world and not the other way round.

So, much to my history teacher's displeasure (I was the 'A' girl in the class), when submitting our UCAS applications for university I took a bold leap by placing Japanese at Edinburgh University as my 1st choice. I later got a C at Advanced Higher history... sorry Mr Walls, I guess history wasn't for me after all. After receiving an unconditional I was determined that Japanese was my destiny! At 17 my whole life was already stretching out before me: I would lead women in Japan to emancipation, I would become an English teacher and make students believe in their own voice and see there is more to life than 受験地獄 jukenjigoku (exam hell), I would share my love of Japan with the rest of Scotland so that they too could learn to love Japan. But first I had to master ひらがな hiragana. This would be a whole lot trickier than I had thought...