About an Island

This all began as a set of e-mails. A friend of mine lost her job at the beginning of the recession, and was planning on teaching abroad. Having returned from working in Japan six months prior, I began sending her short articles on what to expect. From that this blog was born.

Before my own time in Japan, I spoke to several friends who were stationed there in the military or lived there to study. I also read a number of travel guides and books about living in Japan, most notably a book titled “Live and Work in Japan.” While all this prepared me some for what to expect, there were many things that I felt should have addressed. Then again, there are some things that you never fully understand until you experience them for yourself. The purpose of this blog is to fill in those gaps of information that you don’t find in other books or blogs in a condensed and (hopefully) entertaining to read form.

If this goes well and I can build up a sufficient and respectable repertoire of articles, I hope one day to publish this as a small cultural guide. Maybe something like an paper back addendum to all those books on traveling and living in Japan. What no one tells you about Japan is, there’s a lot more that no one tells you.