Preparation

We've had a busy past few months, and only recently decided to take the plunge and get to Japan on our own. FINALLY, it seems like our lives have calmed down to the point where we can just chill out and get ready, so I thought I'd share some resources that we've been using to prepare.

• Read The Kanji - an amazing and FREE resource to study kana and kanji! Lauralyn is rocking her way through JLPT4 pretty smoothly and I still get hung up on the occasional kana, but now I know that there is an annoying amount of proper nouns for the days of the month... for example, I know we will be hitting up Yasutaka Nakata's FLASH party on our first Nanoka in Japan. :)



• WikiTravel - a great travel guide, with a focus on semi-budget traveling although that isn't the stated goal of their project. I have done some edits on cities that I've lived in but its a bit controversial because of who now owns the site and what they plan on doing with it. Regardless, its a great resource.



• Expats Japan on Livejournal.com - a LiveJournal community for people who live in Japan, or are on their way. Content is useful and focused on living in Japan instead of anime or what have you.



• and of course, our fav blogs listed in the sidebar - particularly Punk You Japan, which inspired me to take the plunge. I read the whole blog in one day and bought the tickets the next.

Alright, back to craigslistin' and ebayin' (blech)!