Day 3

During cold winter days I consider museums are one of the best refuges.

Metropolitan Museum, for instance, provides with well hidden but incredibly interesting japanese section where you can spend hours admiring ancient calligraphy, unbelievably embroidered kimonos and painted china, or just kill time reading about japanese culture and history.

Day 2

It's a commonly known fact that Japanese is one of the most difficult languages on Earth. 

Unfortunately for me, it's true.

It's not that much because of the speaking (unlikeFrench, the pronunciation is quite friendly), and when you get used to the special way of japanese grammar you'd find out it's not rocket science either. But what will truly break your neck is the writing system...

It's because Japanese don't satisfy themselves with just one alphabet. No, they have to have 3 ways of writing. 

Hiragana, katakana and kanji.

Hiragana and katakana are syllabic systems that have 46 signs each, and represent the same syllables.

So ex. ha is written differently in each of the systems although it's still pronounced as ha (see bellow).

And then there's kanji = 3.000 - 4.000 adopted Chinese signs that, of course, have different meaning and pronounciation in Japanese.

But kanji is for me still a matter of wildest dreams (or nightmares - depending on the sign)

as I'm currently struggling with its two friends.

The immense help is an iPhone app Dr.Moku that in a simply comprehensible way helps me to remember where to draw what line; and the endless patience of my japanese sensei, of course. 

Oh! One day, I swear I'll be able to read Haruki Murakami's books in japanese. Just wait! :)

Day 1

I remember it as if it was yesterday.

3 years ago I was lying in bed with bladder inflammation (my long time favourite) and surfing the internet in a desperate attempt to amuse myself. And then it happened. I stumbled upon a streaming page with japanese anime - the best anime of all anime - the Ghibli one. 

And I fell in love...

And here I am now, hunched over a japanese history book studying for entrance exams to go back to University - and hopefully immerse myself in the magical maze of Japanology.

Well, it's still a long way to go... as today is the first day on the journey to reach my dreams.