At 1:30 am tonight (technically tomorrow), I’ll be catching a nighttime flight to Japan and arriving in Osaka for a 3-week, all expenses paid cultural/travel program…
The program is called the Rainbow Student Exchange Program and it’s sponsored by the non-profit Ashinaga organization and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Southern California. It gives college students with particular family hardships both in the U.S. and Japan the opportunity to travel around Japan together for free. Our airfare, meals, travel insurance, and housing are all paid for. The only thing we need to pay for are extras such as souvenirs and anime goodies XD Next year I will be past the age limit for the program so I’m really glad I made it ^_^ Other good news is that JET, the other program I applied for that entails actually working in Japan, will excuse me from the orientation that I will miss because I’ll be on the Rainbow Program. So I might still have a slight chance at JET when I get back.
Our itinerary for the Rainbow Program is planned as follows: a week sightseeing in the Kansai area (Kobe, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto), a day trip to Hiroshima, a week sightseeing in Tokyo, and a week in Yamanashi, hanging out at Lake Yamanaka and climbing Mt. Fuji. It sounds like it’ll be a blast! Like with my first Japan trip, I’ll definitely take lots of photos, write about my experiences, and post them on the site when I get back ^_^
Anyway, with so much planned, limited Internet access, as well as my wanting to savor every moment in Japan, I doubt I’ll be able to do any blog posts for the next three weeks (which also means I won’t be doing my weekly reviews for the next four Haruhi episodes, though I might Twitter about them). But you can look forward to lots of Japan coverage when I get back! I THINK I’ll still be able to moderate comments and answer e-mail though, just not as quickly as usual. And I’ll try to do Twitter posts if I can too =)
Well, with that said, I’ll see you all in three weeks! I’ll be back in the U.S. the afternoon of August 9th =D
okay…. this may sound weird, but i am soooo excited that you got to go on the exchange program!! >.
Unlikely we’ll be meeting up, unfortunately. My time in Tokyo is all business. But hey, go nuts, have the time of your life. That’s what being young is for.