In less than two weeks, I will be boarding a plane (several planes, really) to Osaka Japan's Kansai International Airport (KIX). I have reserved a hotel room at the Dotonbori hotel in downtown Osaka. It was pretty cheap as far as hotels go. I decided not to stay in a capsule hotel my first night because I've read a NYTimes article talking about the bad conditions there, and also about how salary men are staying there for months at a time because it's cheaper than an apartment. I'm not scared of salary men, but I think people who live in hotels for long periods of time tend to bring a place down a little bit.

I bought a big Pelican case to take all of my photo equipment to Japan with me. It's a 1640 Pelican case, and it is almost too big to fly with. It barely made the size limit by just .6 linear inches! The case itself weighs 35 lbs, so I can't take much more in it without paying overweight penalties. Good thing photo equipment isn't too heavy.

I've been studying pretty regularly on renshuu.org to be ready for the placement exam once I get there. I talked to me friend Trey yesterday at OSU, and he said you don't have to write kanji for the placement test! I was so relieved - that is single-handedly my weakest area. I understand stroke order very well, but I have trouble recalling which strokes to make at all. I can identify and read around 250 kanji, I think, but not much more than that. Grammar will be my weakest point on the placement exam because it's harder to study outside of class.

Everything is looking good! This should be a great adventure.


Tyler