Hello my dearest,
I hope you’re all doing well! I just wanted to give you a quick update and tell you about my plans for 2014! Most of you know this already, but this year could be the most intense year of my life. I thought 2011/12 could be my most intense year when I lived in Japan but I am pretty sure this year will beat everything. I will live in four(!) different cities on two different continents and three different countries. At the moment I have about a month left here in Bonn until I will return to my hometown Berlin for a bit shorter than a month. That means I’ll only see my boyfriend about four weeks this year which sucks 🙁
For reference: The skyline of Bonn with the Rhein river / Hackescher Market Irish Pub in Berlin (where you find me often!) / Shibuya shopping district in Tokyo / Gangnam in Seoul
These months here in Bonn passed by so quickly I am pretty sure this year will be just so fast. We have middle of January already! I will be leaving for Japan in exactly 2 months! Crazy, it seems to be so far away still…
I wrote Tokyo but I will actually stay and study at Tsukuba. But I figured none of you might know Tsukuba, so Tokyo it is – it’s only a 45 minute ride with the train to Tokyo so I will be going there a lot! (Ohhh the shopping I’m looking forward to.. and SAKURA. I didn’t think I will be able to see sakura time again in my life.)
But what I am looking most forward to is going to Seoul, South Korea for half a year. I have never been to Korea so this will be the most exciting part of my journey! I am trying to learn Korean since October, but it’s so hard. I hardly can remember a thing and I most certainly cannot speak by myself. I hope I will get better until September! We will have Korean lessons in Japan as well though, which makes me glad. Also, I have a lot of Korean friends who stay either in Japan or Korea atm. I also try to travel, I at least wanna go to Kyoto and Osaka. My friend Federica will be working there in summer so I hope I can visit her! 🙂 Oh this will be so exciting. I am a bit afraid and sad to leave my boyfriend after I left him for a year again. So sorry, really. But this is a great opportunity! When I’ll be back in 2015 (how that sounds!) I will be writing my master’s thesis in Berlin 🙂
Also, I am happy to think back on 2013! It was a good year, with ups and downs but really good. I had a great year with my boyfriend, we both graduated in summer this year, me with 1,3 in Japanese Studies from university and him with a perfect 1,0 from physiotherapist school! He’s now working in his fathers company, I am doing my master’s course. On the negative side I suffered from a hermniated disk which was painful as hell and I still have some little problems but overall I got really lucky. I had to quit my job at Starbucks but I would have quit anyways in October when I went to Bonn. I met new people and made one friend here in Bonn (I’m a slow one on friends, like real friends, one’s just fine with me 😀 ) and had a good time, a lot of parties and finally started to learn Korean which I wanted to start for a really long time.
So far for my plans and last year! Do you have any plans for the new year? I wish you all a very happy time no matter where you will be and what you will do. You can do it!
Lots of love,
Sam
