5. FEELINGS

I've officially been in Japan for 2 months, and earlier today I came across a blog post I wrote (but never posted) towards the beginning where I talked about all the things I was struggling with. I talked about the pressure you feel when you've been told for so long that something will be the best experience of your life - it meant that anything less than perfect felt like a total failure to me. Being in a new country is really bloody hard and for the first few weeks I definitely had a lot of anxiety that I would never get the hang of it. But I am VERY happy to report that 2 months in and my confidence has increased x10000. Kyoto has started to feel like my home and that makes me happy beyond words :D

Without wanting to sound like too much of a cheesy finding-myself traveller, the thing that I've learned the most here is how resourceful we can be. I tend to be a very lucky person and good things are usually handed to me with little effort on my part, but coming to Japan has made me realise that if things don't happen that way the world doesn't fall apart. I'm just working harder, puzzling things out and coming out with experiences that I can be even more proud of because I've been active in making them happen.

I still get very exhausted and homesick sometimes - apparently around 3 months is the peak of that so there is more to look forward to - but that's all OK. On December 1st I'm moving house. Currently I live in an apartment in Kyotanabe, a suburb city, about an hour away from central Kyoto. I've met some amazing people here and grown really attached to the community, but it isn't the place I believed I was applying for and since I'm here for only 1 year I want it to be the best it can possibly be. It's going to be a long, stressful and very expensive process moving to the centre but I've got so much to look forward to once I'm there!

Basically, I'm good. Having wanted to come to Japan for so many years I had set the bar ridiculously high in my head, and I really worried at the start, but overall I think this country is actually exceeding my expectations. I know it's early days and I don't want to speak to soon but yeah, that's my life right now :)