I left San Francisco yesterday after living there for almost 6 years. Time flies and now I am sitting in the Taipei airport waiting for a connecting flight to Fukuoka.
My last few days was spent trying to get rid of stuff and get ready for my trip.
It always seems last minute when it comes to traveling.
So…
I will be living there for probably at least 6 months. For starters I will be on a tourist visa, but then may try to get a cultural visa for studying judo or maybe, just maybe look for a job teaching English in Japan so I could get a longer visa.
My goals are to live in Japan, learn Japanese, train judo/jiu-jitsu, work on ESLinsider and some other creative projects.
ESLinsider has been able to sustain me over the last 6 months or so. Hopefully that will keep up and then there is always WWOOF’ing if that fails.
Every time I move my stuff that makes me question how much I need it. My DJ stuff is really heavy. I brought with me 2 cases that have my turntables in them. They weigh 40 lbs each.
I’d like to do a street performing show with my turntables, but that is tricky thinking how I will move it around.
Actually that is less tricky. I have some ideas for making a cart for them, but the trickier part is where am I going to keep it? I would need to live on the ground level and be able to wheel it into my home.
In another hour or so, boarding starts.
Haven’t slept much in the last 3 days. Hopefully tonight I will.
It’s hard to change your habits and make a move. But really it is not as hard as it seems because now I am on my way. This move all started with me buying a ticket and then filling in the blanks.
It started in a state of uncertainty.
It’s more of a shoot first aim later strategy.
So I am still aiming, but I think I am off to a good start. I have a room in a share house all lined up and will be paying less for rent than I did in San Fran.
And it can’t be much worse than that.
My desire to live in Japan started way back before I taught English in Taiwan in 2004. I sort of beat around the bush and lived in China, Korea and Taiwan and now finally I am going to Japan.
It won’t be the first time there, but it will be the first time to live there.
Japan was originally my first choice for Asia, but it didn’t seem as easy to get a job there teaching English so I always went with the other countries.
Now after years of hearing that voice in my head say, “go to Japan” I am.
I couldn’t go on not doing this. I didn’t want to be an old man saying to myself, “I didn’t, I should’ve, I could’ve…”