Missing the Japan Trip

If I could travel anywhere in the world, I would go to Japan. 

Japan always interested me when I was younger due to their revolutionary technological advancement and all of the cool inventions I heard about. However, taking Japanese class at Uni made my desire to travel to Japan increase exponentially. Coming in to Uni, I actually put Japanese as my second choice of foreign language behind Spanish since I perviously learned Spanish in middle school. Although I was a bit bummed when I found out that I didn't get in to Spanish because too many people signed up, Japanese quickly became my favorite class of all time. Through that class, Sensei not only taught us the ins and outs of the language, but she also put a large emphasis on understanding and appreciating Japanese culture. 

Learning about culture was always the most interesting part of class to me because there were so many unique traditions. Of course visiting a shrine or temple is a must-do when visiting Japan, but in particular, I would want to experience a festival since they always have an incredibly high amount of energy and festive spirit. For example, Danjiri Matsuri is a festival where teams race large carts through the streets of a city, and there's also other festivals with theatrical performances and taiko drums. Japan also hosts a stark contrast between their beautiful scenes of nature and futuristic cities. While there may be cherry blossoms, the alps, bamboo forests, and countless gardens, there's also innovative buildings just around the corner. And last but certainly not least, there's the delicious food like takoyaki, sushi, ramen, taiyaki, and much more. 

A tradition of the Japanese class is for 3rd and 4th year students to travel to Japan over the summer and stay with a host-family to actually experience the culture we learned about in the classroom. I was looking forward to this trip ever since I first heard about it subbie year, but during my freshmen year, we realized that we wouldn't be able to go as 3rd year students. Due to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics which was planned to take place right around the time we would travel to Japan, flight tickets and travel plans for foreigners were hectic and much more expensive than usual. Although disappointed, we still had the following year right? Sadly, no. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we also missed out on the Japan trip as 4th year students. 

As a senior now, I'm going to graduate without experiencing the Japan trip I heard so many older Uni students talk fondly about. Although I've finished all four years of Japanese at Uni, it felt somewhat unsatisfactory for me since I never really got to utilize the knowledge I learned outside of the classroom. Traveling to Japan would not only allow me to finally use and witness the things I learned about in class over four years, but it would also be a life-changing experience with so many new things to see and do.