Well, tonight is officially my last night in Canada. The whole JET Programme application has been a huge experience up until now but I'm finally glad the waiting process is over. It's a bit surreal how a paper application I filled out last year in November has led to me boarding a plane headed to Japan tomorrow. The reality of the situation hasn't really hit me until just recently. My life up until now has been pretty structured and laid out for me (not surprisingly since I just finished 17 years of school!) but I don't exactly know what my life in Japan holds for me. All I know is that it involves obtaining a Master's degree (although I still don't know how or when I'm going to achieve that yet). I also don't know what the gap between now and then holds for me either but I guess it's the whole unknown aspect that excites me. Besides, no one knows what the future holds until the second it happens.

What I'm looking forward to is stepping off the plane in Tokyo into 40 degree weather, spending the first night at my new apartment, exploring my town, meeting the locals, speaking the language, eating the food, being shocked by the culture, making new friends and experiencing something new every single day. That is what I'm really excited about.

I think a bit of wanderlust exists in my family. We all have the desire to visit and travel the world to see and experience new things. My older brother and his girlfriend left just two days ago to Thailand. They are in the same boat as me and don't exactly know what they're future holds either; they arrived in Bangkok with a pocket full of money and all the time in the world. In a few months a few more members of my family are hoping to relocate across the globe and move to Vietnam. With luck, most of the family will be in Asia by December and we'll be able to spend Christmas in Vietnam, which would be awesome. Anyways, I digress..

I plan on getting up early tomorrow morning (if I sleep at all!) to be at the airport by 9:00am. Most of my family is coming with me to see me off and my mom is coming down from Edmonton tonight just to drive me to the airport. My flight to Vancouver leaves Calgary at 11:15am and after a 2-hour stopover it's a straight 12 hour flight to Tokyo. I'll be arriving in Narita airport at 4:00pm the next day and then I board a bus for a two hour scenic drive to my hotel in downtown Tokyo. The following two days I'll be attending an orientation to the JET Programme which introduces us to our new jobs and lives. Then on Wednesday I head back to the airport and they ship me off to my home prefecture in Hokkaido. Once I arrive there, my adventure begins..

I was just reading my last post when it occurred to me I had written it over 3 weeks ago! Has it really been that long? I've been unemployed all that time, but I haven't even noticed! I've been trying to do as much as I can and I'm glad to say I've done quite a bit: I got free tickets to the Virgin Festival and saw a ton of good bands, went to few BBQ's and house parties, one of which I jammed on a friend's drum kit for about an hour (I think I am definitely going to buy one while I'm in Japan), played Glow-in-the-Dark frisbee in a park with my brothers until 2:00am, went out for sushi twice in a week, went White Water Rafting down the Kicking Horse river in what they said were some of the best conditions of the summer, went to the Calgary Stampede with Erika and almost got sick on one of the first rides we went on (we think we are getting old..), and finally a two-day roadtrip up to the Northwest Territories with Allison just for the hell of it. Now it's officially the countdown from 10 days until I leave. I am currently hanging out in Edmonton until the end of the week but when I get back to Calgary I have an intense five days of packing, more dinners, and more goodbyes. The goodbyes are definitely not my favorite..it reminds me too much of when I left Fort Saskatchewan. There were hugs and tears and faces that I still haven't seen after 5 years. I believe it's a part of life, and for me, it seems inevitable.