Welcome to the Start of my 2-year-long Journey

    Okay, so it’s the week before the final exams of my first semester are due so, in and amongst the panic that has been this Christmas break, I have decided to get this blog set up and running before the mess gets messier (as it inevitably does when you decide to up and leave everything you have ever known and loved to live nearly 6,000 miles away for an entire year). The page does not look the way it will in the end. The background image, now a stock photo of an aeroplane as I refuse to google search for a stereotypical picture of Japan when I will obviously be taking many myself once I arrive so, for now, the default image found in the “travel” section, will have to do.

    It’s so exciting to know that I will finally be living the dream; going to a place I have not only wanted to visit since I was 7 years old, but immersing myself in that environment for a whole year. This must be the single, most scary thing I have ever done in my life, and yet I cannot wait. Every day is now a countdown and everything I do, somehow, now has to be done in retrospect of knowing that in just over half a year, I will be taking my one way ticket to fly halfway across the world for over 300 days; I must be insane.

    Despite the leaving date feeling so close, I know that before then, there is so much to do. One part of me is wishing the deadline to come closer, whilst the other part of me is wishing it will never arrive. How do I even begin to prepare myself for something like this? Can I really leave Samuel, our house in Leeds, my friends and family for a whole year? Simple answer: Yes, and I will prove anyone who thinks otherwise completely wrong.

    So this first post was never going to be a long one. I wanted to briefly sum up what this blog will be about and summarise my overall feelings towards the whole fiasco right now and, considering both of those things have been done, I’m going to quickly wrap up. Now I have my first text post, I will be able to finalise the first look of the blog (with my awful stock image) and distribute this link to anyone and everyone who may want to keep up with my adventures before I run out of time (or just forget) to do so. If you made it this far through, I am very grateful that you want to go on this journey with me (well through my eyes at least) and I hope I can keep you engaged enough to keep coming back.

Thanks!

-Alice  Xxxx