Japan Schedule

Here is my Japan schedule:
Sunday, November 12 - San Francisco Orientation
Monday, November 13 - Depart for Japan
Tuesday, November 14 - Arrival in Tokyo
Wednesday to Friday, November 15 to 17 - Tokyo Program lectures, seminars, traditional art performances (Kabuki and Kyogen)
Saturday, November 18 - Independent Activities-Explore Japan
Sunday to Monday, November 19 to 20 - Naha City, Okinawa

Tuesday to Sunday, November 20-25 - Miyakojima City, Okinawa

Sunday to Monday, November 25 to 26 - Homestay in Miyakojima

Monday to Tuesday, November 26 to 27 - Kisarazu-city, Chiba

Tuesday to Friday, November 27 to 30 - Toyko, Japan

Friday, November 30 - Depart for the U.S.

19 days and counting

I can hardly believe it, but I leave in only 19 days. I have spent a a great deal of time in the past months preparing. However, as time brings me closer to leaving I have been reading more and more.

Specifically, it took some time to find out a lot of detailed information about my homestay city, Miyako-jima. This was largely due to the fact that most of information that I found online was in Japanese, which my limited "Learn Japanese" podcast did not prepare me for.

The homestay city is where I will be spending most of my time, so I was hoping for a good city-and I think I lucked out! I believe that Miyako-jima will provide me with a very different Japanese experience than that of Tokyo (which I will already visit for several days).

Miyako-jima is located on Miyako island, which is one of the two southern most islands in the Okinawa Prefecture. The island is pretty small, home to only about 49,000 people. The island is home to a large number of sugarcane plantations, some of the most highly regarded beaches and diving locations, and the Strongman All-Japan Triathlon every April.

One of the things that I am most interested in about my placement is how I am going to get there. Miyako-jima is located about 300 km away from Okinawa, which is already over 1500 km from Tokyo. This means that I will be much, much closer to Taipei, Taiwan than to Tokyo, Japan. My schedule has me taking 2 days to get there from Tokyo, so I will let you all know how I get from point "A" to point "B."