new blog ~ SO EXCITED!

i've decided to start a new blog~ i've been dreaming about going to japan for years and i'm finally going! i know my crap about it will end up on the internet somehow anyway so i may as well start organizing it all now.

as i mentioned, i've been wanting to go for such a long time now... really, my interest in japan grew gradually so i can't say exactly when it began. i remember doing a geography project in grade 9 about japan and stealing my brother's "japanese on the go" language learning cassettes (yup, i'm THAT old) when i was around 15 but i've always had an affinity towards asian esthetics and culture. by the time i ended high school, my "interest" had turned into obsession!

so, i've been dreaming (literally) about it for, let's say, 15 years ~ and i would've gone sooner but something was always in the way... lack of money, education, work.... relationship (i shouldn't say "in the way" for that one but... well, i'm sure you know what i mean!)

for the last year or so, i've been out of school and unemployed AND my husband and i have been talking about starting a family... i knew that if i didn't go now, i wouldn't get to for... maybe 18 years! i've been waiting so long that the thought of another lifetime seemed like a death sentence. as much as i want to go... i'm really uncomfortable with the idea of going alone since it'll just be a vacation and not an extended working holiday. my japanese skills are... horrid ~ and i'm not a very outgoing person so... yeah, not alone was a huge priority.

one of my good friends lives in korea and has been to japan a few times now. i thought she would be the perfect person to go with. there would be some things that i wouldn't get to do because she's not interested in the same things i am and i wouldn't want to drag her around and for her to not have fun but getting to do a FEW things on my wish-list would be better than nothing. ...but she got knocked up! (bad timing for me but fantastic news for her and her hubbs! ~love you pea!)
then i considered asking my sister... well, she has a one-and-a-half-year-old, a tight budget... and SHE put another bun in the oven too! (their due dates are actually a week apart)

needless to say, i was feeling really down one night thinking about it. i thought all my opportunities had slipped away. i really, really wanted my husband to go with me ~ that way i'd get to do whatever i wanted without feeling bad (he's really easy going and supportive of my j-love and we have more similar intrests when it comes to sightseeing) and get to share the greatest adventure of my life thus far with the person i love the most! but... he's the owner of a pharmacy and has very limited vacation time. (whatever hours he goes over for the year, he has to pay back out of his earnings.)
oh yeah... he also hates travelling!

we HAD decided before getting married that we weren't going to go on a honeymoon and he promised one day he'd take me to japan ~ but that was in, like, 5 years or something once we had saved up enough money to lavishly spend it on whatever we want... now did not seem like the time for THAT.
however, i thought i would just bring it up that evening ~ how i NEEDED to go so that i could move on with my life without having the left undone feeling... i told him i thought it would be worth it even if we had to pay back money spent to hours given to his other pharmacists and oh the memories we'd make together and blah blah blah ~ hee hee

i was so shocked! he actually cut me off and said, "okay. let's go." just like that! *woot*

now only 18 days left until we leave!!