It’s important to remember that being surrounded by the language is a massive leg-up on learning, but it does not mean it isn’t going to be a lot of work. Just make sure to keep studying, and when you’re out and about (which you should try to do as often as you can) use everything that you can. Talk to people, even if it’s just simple things. Practice makes perfect and all that, and having the exposure you’ve now got is going to give you a lot of opportunity to practice.

I’d also recommend finding a language exchange partner; I couldn’t tell you WHERE to find them, but there are plenty of people who will sit down with you and spend half the time talking only in Japanese, and half the time only in whichever other language (Brussels; French or Dutch? I can’t remember). The benefit being you have that regular person to speak to, instead of relying on brief conversations with total strangers.

This, of course, is coming from someone who DOES NOT live there and IS NOT fluent, so take everything I’ve said with an entire salt mine’s worth of scrutiny lol. But this is mostly based on what I know about languages in general – some of this stuff is very universal.

Best of luck to you and I hope you have a great time. Do you have a blog/vlog or anything for us to follow?