Hello Everyone :) As you can most likely gather my name is Codie, after a few months of trying to learn Japanese (I stopped doing it for a month at one stage) I finally decided today was the day I would put an end to my slack ways and make learning Japanese and speaking it fluently a dream. I guess I’ll tell you a little about myself to get the ball rolling.

I’m currently 20 years old living in Townsville which is located in Queensland, Australia. I was attending University full time and had been doing so for 2 and a half years, but a certain set of events occurred that made me sit back and prioritize what I wanted from life. And it was to see and do as much as I could while I’m still young and to do this I plan on traveling the world for at least 2 years. I have already traveled to Japan in December 2010/ January 2011 and I instantly fell in love with it, the moment I got off the plane I knew Japan was for me. I only spent just under 3 weeks there but it certainly is and will be one of the best experiences of my life. It will always mean something to me as it was my first time overseas.

I spent my first week in Tokyo; it certainly dwarfed any city I had been too. And the subways took an awful lot of getting used to, I easily got lost more times than I have fingers on my hand. I spent my second week in by far my favorite city I visited, which was Kyoto. I remember the first morning I woke up in the hostel I was staying; I looked out my window to see that it was snowing. It was the first time I had seen snow. I spent my last few days in a little town called Nikko which was stunningly beautiful and it had by far the best temple I had been to, if I remember correctly it was called Rinnoji. I highly recommend visiting there. This is just the watered down version of my travels in Japan, I’m afraid this post would be far too long if I went into anymore detail.

I guess I’ll tell you why I want to learn Japanese; it comes down to multiple reasons. The first being that I fell in love with country when I visited, it is no understatement to say that the people I met there were some of the kindest and generous people I have ever met. And I want to show my respect to them by learning their language. I also hope to one day travel to Shikoku and do the 88-Temple pilgrimage. I remember reading about it in the Lonely Planet Guide I bought for Japan, it instantly piqued my interested and ever since then I’ve wanted to set out on foot and complete it. And my last reason to learn the language is one day I could very much see myself living in Japan, I don’t know exactly how long it will take me to get there but if I were to sum this up this would be my biggest goal for learning Japanese.

Anyway I guess this is a long enough introduction about me, I hope to achieve all that I set out to do. And I’m sure in time I will reach my goals. I wish everyone luck in learning Japanese and I hope we all have fun along the way.