Author: saholcomb@rollins.edu

     Studying in Japan in my 2016 Fall semester. Before touch down at Haneda Tokyo Airport, I had serious regrets. What was I getting myself into? What the hell was I thinking? The first four weeks in Japan were spent in a mixture of merriment and trepidation. “Japan really is for the Japanese” is what…

When you begin to write and explain an experience, along the way you come to realize that by recording the experience you begin to miss out on what is really happening around you. The first few weeks I spent ambling around in Kyoto and the Kansai area I was stricken with a clear feeling that “Japan was…

Preface this for me: I’m not a singer. I’ve never sung or played in a band nor enjoyed doing anything in public. I have nerves. And they freak out when people are focused on me. Even if it’s just helping someone fix their computer issue, if you’re lording over my shoulder –  I can’t think…

This is what you call the “shift” I guess Last time, I half answered the questions and feelings I came to Japan with. Because I didn’t really have an answer. From here on, I’ve found what I’m looking for and it needs no introduction. Before this project turns heavy to one side, here’s a little…

Hello and goodnight! I didn’t get to post before Halloween, before my Tokyo trip. To be honest, that weekend I wanted to call the whole trip off. But I didn’t, and the reasons and the carnage and the life changing events that ensued afterwards will have to wait for Japan: B Side. So to end…

This round needs no introduction. Halloween is in the air and creepy surveys and ghost stories are filling the atmosphere with things I sometimes wish I didn’t hear. The spiders and their webs are getting bigger and the days are getting chillier. Enjoy some of these Japanese horror stories and the chaos that conversations in the school…

I’m almost two weeks late! Welcome back — I can’t find the words to describe how busy Japan is — it’s pulled me in and now I understand how traveling, learning and experiencing new things everyday can change your life.  My goals for this project have become much larger — there’s too much to capture…

Huh? Five? Where did my four go? And did I even really get to nine? Everything here is backwards and I am already skipping a beat — I’ll chock it off as being usual for someone’s first week starting a new life in an unfamiliar society. Last time I talked to myself about philosophy alone in…