Some of you may have noticed that I wasn't active on the forum lately for several months or so,

Well, what happened was that I graduated from HS okay!

The Touhoku earthquake made me really depressed and also made me realize just how much I love and want to go to Japan and thanks to this realization I acquired very powerful motivation at the right time and managed to do what was needed to get accepted to a Japanese university
and so I will enroll in The College of International Management of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan!!!

Now I will be able to spend at least 4 years in the land of the rising sun!!!

Thank you very much to the fellow forum members who encouraged and helped me with studying when I had those very stressful times in march, april and may!

Everything you wrote did help me! And a big big thanks to Fabrice for this website and forum, I still am a big fan Had it not been this community, I really doubt that I would have learnt Japanese as intensively as I did and neither would I have had as much motivation as was needed for succeeding in studying in Japan for 4 years!

This will be my very first flight to Japan and at first I am planning to stay at Tokyo for 5 days:
9th september until 14th September, and then I will proceed to my University, which is situated in a very nice place full of onsens! It's one of the most famous Japanese hot spring resort cities!



So If any of you who I have had more conversations and contact with are planning to come to Beppu, feel free to send me an e-mail and let's meet, and I'll be more than happy to get to know you in real life and introduce you local onsens and the city!!

Congratulations! Many of my students go to Ritsumeikan high school or university here in Kyoto. It is smart of you to arrive in the final few weeks of summer. If I were to have visited Japan in the summer, I would have never returned!

Nice. I mean to go to Beppu sometime soon. I know a very crazy but cool Japanese woman from there, haha.

I actually went as close as Kumamoto (which I think is a very cool place), but didn't have time to go over to Beppu.

Nice one. I really enjoyed Beppu when I visited there. Also Kyushu in general is one of my favourite parts of Japan, Mt Aso, Kujuu Renzan, Kurokawa Onsen town, Kagoshima etc.

Beppu is a nice little town- head over to Yufuin (which is closeby) for another great, famous onsen town.

おめでとう！！！

that's great news Jettyke!!! Well done for sticking at the highschool stuff, bet it feels great now to know it's helped you get to Japan!!!

... that onsen looks gorgeous!!!

Make sure you take lots of photos & put them up somewhere

卒業おめでとうございます！ Wow, 私は羨ましいですね！

I wish you good luck in Japan, big success in your studies, and with everything you do!

I'm so bloody ENVIOUS of you, jettyke and I suppose I'm quite allowed saying it like this, because it's honest. I'm really happy for you.. wow, 4 years is a long time and perhaps we could have one or another chat on skype when you're in Japan. I'd really like to know your 'route to success', as I'm pretty much undecided where to go after my A levels here in Germany I will have long finished already next year around this time!

Edit: Neither I have been to Japan. The flight has to be horribly long from here. I hate long flights. My longest was from here to Bukarest (Romania), which took about 3 hours and the airplane almost crashed because of some mysterious cloud. Just saying
Edit 2: Get a laptop and extra batterys charged you could attach. At least this is what I plan before flying to Japan. Getting money in order to buy some decent laptop filled with movies and naturally Anki and a few pdfs on it.

^^ long haul flights have personal tv screens on the back of chairs so there's plenty of movies to watch, and if it's a flight to Japan there's always stuff in Japanese. They're a lot less boring than short haul flights.

Wuah, what I can tell you is, that I always book the cheapest flights. And always sit in one row with mothers having children sobbing, crying and making my head hurt T___T

Every flight I've ever been on (50+) turns off the systems 40 mins before landing and for the first 40 min or so from takeoff (in other words, during ascent and descent). The music still works but technically you are not allowed to wear headphones during takeoff or landing in case of emergency. I've only been asked to take them off once though. Maybe it's different for US flights but I refuse to fly through America because of the TSA, incompetent ground crews and the bizarre international transfer procedure.

The nice thing is that newer planes use on-demand video, so you don't miss 10 minutes of the movie while the pilot blabs about the weather in Narita and the cruising altitude (who cares?). There is also a MUCH larger selection now.

Don't bother with active noise blocking headphones. The algorithms reduce sound quality, they are expensive, are bulky, and need batteries. Get a passive isolation based solution (aka canalphones with good foam tips) and a 2mono->1stereo adapter so you can plug it into the seat. Modern jets are a LOT quieter than they used to be even five years ago anyways.

Congratulations Jettyke!

Congratulation, I'm so happy for you!!! You'll be where I'd like to be: where 九州弁 is spoken
I've friends who went there to study in a regular university (cinema, fashion and other stuff) and I've heard that's pretty though. However never give up as we are here to support you
From what I see on the net, Beppu is gorgeous and it's in 九州, in my opinion, a great combo to have fun!
I'd quote Armstrong but I feel I cant really call the flight to Japan 'one small step' ^.^;
Congratulation again !

Cool, good news. To bad for me I didn't really do much in Highschool, kept thinking about games and stuff. My mind wasn't focused on what to do., But it's good to see others with focus out there. Keep up the good work.

Travel safe. Remember to plan ahead about what you want from this experience, long-term goals.

Congrats!
Make the most of it. ^^
And keep us posted every now and then.

Yay, Japan will be a lots of fun, that's for sure. And things can always turn into a completely different outcome than what you had planned too.

Yesterday I went to 豊岡 by 'accident', and before I knew it, I was suddenly in a food stall selling grilled squids and whatnot on the last day of a matsuri (七夕祭り I think). Lots of fun!　いらっしゃいませ！いらっしゃいませ！美味しいげそ焼きどうですか。

Congratulations on graduating High School and getting accepted into a Japanese university, that is quite a feat. I hope it all turns out as great as you hope it does. Try not to get sidetracked in your studies in the same manner that a lot of Japanese college students do.

I'll be heading back to Japan here soon myself as an ALT. Leave on the 13th of August. I sort of envy your September arrival, because as bodhisamaya said, summer in Japan is utterly dreadful especially around Kyoto.

Good luck and keep us apprised.

Thanks guys!

@captal
I will keep the name in mind, Yufuin. Thanks!

@IceCream

I will try to start taking pictures now after a long break!

Yea I will probably have listening practice even on the plane. Sounds really nice!
@Tori-kun

Don't be envious, just live your life the way you want!

I already have a laptop but I definitely wanna buy a phone which can run anki, play music and connect to the internet.

@tokyostyle

yeah I should buy decent earbuds in tokyo. And I will also definitely need earplugs

@Shakunatz

Does 九州弁 sound particularly interesting?

Yeah kyuushuu seems really nice! I plan to start surfing and scuba diving somewhere there, or in Okinawa! I heard that you can learn scuba at the price of 50% in Okinawa during spring!!

Actually I think that going to Japan is a small step, because I have plans to make much much bigger steps than that so feel free to quote Armstrong now!

@ta12121
Will keep the work up and have fun also! I hope that most of my Japanese learning will take place by socializing and having fun together.

@nest0r

Long-term goals are always good for such decisions as going to Japan that change my whole surrounding environment. I guess that what I want from this experience is to become more intelligent, flexible, emphatic, sociable, friendly and tolerant towards people. And also to change my own life so that it is the way I want it to be

@EratiK

Try to keep you posted, but I think I will definitely have less time to spend in here than before. So let's keep RTK forum at least as friendly and good, or make it even more interesting than it is!!! Then I will definitely have time

@paasan

"Yay, Japan will be a lots of fun, that's for sure. And things can always turn into a completely different outcome than what you had planned too."

I am quite sure they will. I will plan detailedly and a lot, but I will definitely change my plans along the way.

@vix86

"Try not to get sidetracked in your studies in the same manner that a lot of Japanese college students do."

Well it will be one of the hardest things to do. The question will be, how to balance the fun social life and exploring and school studies.

@bodhisamaya

And I thought it was very hot in Japan in september!!!

Does anyone know any Japanese equivalents to http://www.meetup.com/ ?

It's a website for meeting up with people around your home area!

There are also lots of Tokyo meet-up groups on this site!

Edit: I plan to couch surf in Tokyo, so If anyone has 2 couches available ( for me and my friend with whom we will be traveling), let me know!

I've been to a few places in Kyushu (Miyazaki, Kumamoto, Kagoshima, Fukuoka) as I have friends who live there and it really is a nice place. I love how it feels more tropical in some aspect, but then you can go up into the mountains and it is like being anywhere else in Japan. Kagoshima is really beautiful especially with 桜島 in the middle of the bay/harbour.

I'm a tad bit jealous of you too...I wish I was going back (><)

Hey guys!

Can someone recommend me something?

I have 5 days, don't have very much money (will be couch surfing) and I want to meet as much interesting people as I can in those 5 days, as well as I want to go to cool spots in Tokyo ( know any?) !

What counts as a 'Cool spot'? with a couple more details of your interest maybe i could help but my experience is mainly limited to bars and clubs.

Also I don't suggest using your earbuds in Tokyo. Unplug and listen to people around you and engage them and start conversations especially if you think she's cute. They won't be too quick to brush you off and if they do there's Millions of people in Tokyo to talk to someone will want to talk. The earbuds make you look unapproachable and as if you are not open to talk to anyone. Nice headphones on the other hand are lots of fun. Can be stylish and you can play people music you like as a conversation piece.

By cool spots I mean the places that are randomly found, kinda underground, like not mentioned in tourism leaflets or books, but are some places you found by accident and are awesome! Bars and club are also quite good.

Some good tourist spots are also welcome.

Hmm well I'm not sure about that I suggest you take a look at some ramen shops. IF the place is packed around lunch time but off the main streets its probably a really good place to eat. Also in Shinjuku theres a shrine down the main street with all the bars that even a lot of Japanese don't really know about. I would take people there for a quick break from the city and they would tell me they never even knew it was there. Kind of weird going from city lights and Family marts to a 神社 with trees and a quiet calm, then back to the busy streets.