wrap-up

End of chronography 1; thoughts, lessons, plans.

Been trying to write this post for a week, now, and it never quite seems to come together; but it’s overdue, so.

Japan was good.

Don’t get me wrong: the summer weather is anathema to me; the fashion in the cities is patently schizophrenic; the governmental/corporate lack of accountability is shameful and disturbing; and kanji is unbelievably aggravating. And this is just the bigger peeves.

But every country has stuff that bugs you, and for all that, I still feel like I’m a better person for having lived there, done the things I could, met the friends I did.

My original goal – and does it seem far away and naive now – was that Japan would be a springboard for my globe-trekkin’ adventures. I’d finish up school, snag a job teaching English (which, yes, are as plentiful and easy to get as people make it sound), live there for another couple three years and then move somewhere else.

Didn’t quite happen that way.

What it did for me, though, was give me a testing ground for those globe-trekkin’ adventures; a chance to test out living somewhere pretty foreign*, make a bunch of friends from nearly every corner of the globe (at last count: Sweden, England, Brazil, Australia, Korea, Italy, Germany, and all over Japan; useful for finding a bed to crash in when travelling far-flung locales), find out what’s useful to bring when travelling, suss out exactly WHY it is I want to travel and see things and meet people.. all the little odds and ends. There’re a fair few things I’d do differently, which just means I won’t make those mistakes – and miss those opportunities – in the future.

*(On the surface, Japan seems pretty Western; the cities, the clothes, the food, and the general atmosphere strikes you as very comfortable, with a touch of that “Asian mystique”. After about six months, all of the little oddities and quirks suddenly hit you full in the face like a clue-by-four and, as you make a beeline for the nearest bar, you start to realise just how incredibly screwed up the country is compared to your cultural landmarks. Nothing quite like delayed culture shock. This is my excuse for the dearth of updates in the last few months.)

Oh, and I also found that I’m a terrible web-logger, but that I’d like to try it again next time.. just in case.

So I sit here at almost 4am – hopelessly unable to adjust to the local time – and scheme and dream and plan.

Chronography 2 is going to be Michael’s European Harp Adventure: a boy, his harp, Sweden + Ukraine + Greece + Ireland, and far too little money. Ideally this will run a couple of years, but my initial funding will probably only be enough to definitely support me for a couple of months and get me as far as a Grecian beach sometime in September, having left for Sweden in late July. I’ve friends in the first two countries, a desire to spend some time in the third, and some nebulous contacts in the fourth in which I’d like to take up proper study of the instrument.

This plan is currently fueled entirely on wishes.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll probably write some postscript entries  as remembrances filter through; it looks like I have three half-finished drafts that’ve been waiting for me for awhile, and they will likely jar loose other bits of memory that I’d intended to write down. So while this isn’t the end-end, it’s the last “current” post. I might make the new posts sub-pages if they’re lengthy enough, in order to differentiate the time lapse further.

Anyway — if you kept up with this thing over the last year, I hope it was occasionally entertaining and/or insightful. Feel free to pass around the flickr set links and keep an eye out for chronography 2 hitting sometime in early August. And maybe a resurgance of Sponser-an-Adventure…