The past week has been a roller coaster of emotions, in pretty much all good ways. Just over a week ago, I was officially accepted to Kansai Gaidai. The past several days, all of my free time has been spent looking at plane tickets, hotels (for both my layover and once I land in Tokyo), directions from airports to hotels and attractions, pocket wifi plans, and on and on and on.
Ever since the summer I was 13, I've loved looking at flights to Japan as a sort of "maybe someday" daydream exercise. I've always enjoyed looking at photos of major Japanese landmarks and imagining seeing them for real one day. When the first limited-time-only Kirby Cafe opened in Summer 2016, I spent those few months looking at photos people I follow on Twitter posted of the cafe, the food, and the trinkets they got in the gift shop. But all this was never done with the intent of actually going in the near future.
This week, all of the research I've been doing is finally for real. I've figured out the flight I plan to take to get to Tokyo, and hope to get those tickets bought next weekend. I've found a good, reasonably-priced hotel for my layover, and a cheaper-but-better hotel in Tokyo too (unsurprising, honestly). Most exciting of all, the Tokyo Skytree is visible from my hotel, and Skytree Town just so happens to be where the second limited-time-only Kirby Cafe is now, open through mid-February. As soon as January reservations open in mid-December, I've hoping to reserve a time slot there.
(The Kirby Cafe is basically the ultimate "pilgrimage" a Kirby fan can make--think being able to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for Potterheads, or Disney World for a Disney fan. As someone who's had quite the Kirby obsession for the past five-odd years, knowing I'm probably gonna get to go to the Cafe is beyond exciting.)
However, just because it's all but certain that I'm going now, doesn't mean that my prep work is done. If anything, we're quickly approaching crunch time. Sure, I'm buying my plane tickets next week, and probably reserving hotels fairly soon after, but there's a lot left to do. Currently, I'm waiting for Kansai Gaidai to mail me my proof of enrollment that I'll need to be able to mail to the Japanese consulate in Chicago in order to obtain a student visa. I'm going to need to order some yen in cash, to use in cash-only situations (fairly common in Japan) until I can get a checking account opened overseas and direct my financial aid for next semester there. I'm also going to need to remember to reserve a pocket wifi plan between now and early January (funny story; I already accidentally reserved pocket wifi during my over-zealous research. Thankfully, they let me cancel it when I explained I'm not quite ready to pay for it, but why they let you reserve without payment to begin with, I'm not entirely positive).
Part of the reason I haven't been posting is because for the past two or so months, there just really haven't been any new developments. As I said last time, it was time to hurry up and wait (and, actually, I'm still waiting to find out how the Gilman Grant will turn out--the announcement is at the end of November). But now, things should start picking up a lot more. After all, it's only two months from tomorrow that I take off, according to my current travel plans.
I'll keep you all updated as everything keeps unfolding. For now, though, let me just say... I'm more excited than I ever have been before in my life.
My dream is finally coming true.
TL;DR: I was officially accepted to Kansai Gaidai, and from now through January, I have a bunch of stuff I've got to get done--but I've never experienced anything more exciting.
No comments:
Post a Comment