(I think I'm) Learning Japanese

From 2009-07-06 Dunedin

I dropped Josie off at the airport this afternoon. She's going back home, although hopefully she will be headed off to another winery in a few weeks to do a northern hemisphere grape harvest. After leaving the airport I carefully drove on the left to the hostel I'm staying at, and checked in. After which I immediately drove over to the Christchurch YMCA and paid for a one-month membership. I'll only use it for two weeks, but it's cheaper doing it that way than paying on a per-use basis.

It's wonderful to step into a gym after you've been away for a couple of months. The Christchurch YMCA has a very similar feel to the YMCAs in Minnesota. They've even got the brand and model of elliptical machines that I like. I listened to Green Day while cross-training on the stairmaster and inclined treadmill. I'm trying to get in a little training before I climb Mt. Fuji on August 1 (if all goes according to plan).

I studied the Japanese language for one year in 9th grade. I don't remember much of it. But I really want to pick it up again and try to learn conversational Japanese. I've got a couple of CDs, a phrase book, and a slick iPod Touch Japanese language app. The Touch app is pretty good. I'm liking it so far. The only problem is that before they teach you a word of Japanese, they make you learn the hiragana characters. So I've had the program for a week and I don't know any actual words yet. But I can read some written Japanese, without knowing what it means. We'll see what happens when I start learning words.