The title of this blog serves two purposes.
Firstly, and most obviously, its also the title of a book by Dr. Seuss. I don't own the book - at least not yet - but in thinking of things to bring to Japan to teach with, it instantly came across my mind as a must bring item. I know that it will be especially helpful around graduation time (as I intend to read it too all my graduating students each year) but I also think that there will probably be other times to utilize the book in instruction as well.
Secondly, the title of the book got me thinking about my time in Japan. I've only just now realized what an opportunity I will be presented with while living in Japan. Far away places in Asia and Australasia will suddenly be much more feasible destinations for vacationing. When once these places were 13 hours away or more, I will now be able to get there in probably 5 or 6 hours at most. This made me begin to wonder: which countries near Japan do I want to visit before my time on the JET Program is up?
The list that I have for now is (in no particular order):
- South Korea
- China (maybe)
- Vietnam
- Singapore
- Russia
- Thailand
- Australia and New Zealand (maybe - already been to both)
- Hong Kong/Taiwan (maybe)
Shoot - Japan alone will provide me with enough distractions as it is. Perhaps I shouldn't be thinking this far ahead, haha.
This thought process then got me thinking about all the places in America that I've always wanted to go to but have never had the chance to visit. These places are only a few hours away by plane, and its really quite sad that as an American citizen I've never been to them. The places I'm considering visiting before I leave are:
- Las Vegas (this REALLY needs to happen)
- The Grand Canyon
- San Diego (my poor Louis - I'm so sorry I havent made it down in the nearly 3 years you've been there)
- Vancouver, Canada
- Portland, Oregon
- Seattle, Washington
- And I've still never been to Mexico - but I can't decide if I want to go or not
In other news, I've been powering through my Japan prep by buying even more stuff. The big ticket item is a new 13" Macbook Pro, which will become my one and only computer while I'm over there. I've also bought a nice guidebook to Japan made by LonelyPlanet. It lists some pretty good places to visit in Japan, and a lot of them are places that would normally be hard for someone like me to find in the first place - so thats nice. I also got two phrasebooks which I've been trying to skim through each day. Some of the lines in these things are priceless though. One of them has a line which translates to, "Let's go somewhere quieter," and another has a line translated as, "Will you come home with me?" ...uhhh - creepy much? Despite some of these odd lines, the books appear really useful and they are nice and pocket-sized so I can easily see myself carrying them on my person 24/7.
Here's a fun fact: I haven't had any soda since March 9, 2011! Can you believe it? Don't worry, I can't either. But it is true.
Okay. Enough rambling. Have a great weekend and be seeing you next time!
Jordan
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