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8 more days and I will be in Japan! It’s been 3 long years since I was last there and while I guess that isn’t an eternity, its long enough.

I’ll be visiting Japan for about 2 weeks and while that it decent length of time for vacation, it probably won’t be enough. I am going to Japan is to visit some really good friends of mine and so I really want to spend time with them. They rarely get the chance to come to Canada, and when they do its usually for only a few days.

I will be doing a fair amount of traveling when Im in Japan since my friends live in a few different places. I’ll mainly be staying in Gifu-ken(about an hour or so outside of Nagoya) at my friend’s house, but I will also be visiting Nagoya and Osaka. I’d really like to go to Toyama(where I used to live when I was on the JET program) but I don’t know if there will be time for that.

One other really cool thing that Im looking forward to is having my own cell phone when Im over there. This will be extremely useful as I will often be traveling and will allow my friends who can’t see me to call me anytime! My friend has arranged a prepaid cell for me and so it should be less than $100 for registration and maybe 30 minutes of outgoing airtime… I guess that may sound a bit pricey for 2 weeks but I am sure it will pay off.

The good thing about cell phones in Japan is that when someone calls you, no matter where you are in the country, its free…. You can also text message quite cheaply and that is also really useful and fun, especially when you are sitting on a train… The downside is that when you need to make a call, it’s quite expensive… especially on a prepaid cell….(not sure what the rate is now, but Im sure its about 50 cents or more a minute, which definitely adds up) So you know when they say….. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you…” You say, “good, cause I just can’t afford to!!” haha

While Im in Japan I may get access to the internet every few days and so I definitely plan on putting up a few posts on my blog. So stay tuned cause you never know what sort of tom-foolery or shannanigans I may get up to while over there!

Jya-ne!!!(see ya in Japanese)