I’m already on the plane back to Brookline and I can’t believe how fast the trip has gone. I remember reviewing Japanese phrases, excited and worried about meeting my host family. With my high school “career” coming to an end as a senior, I felt that my four years of studying Japanese was leading to this trip. It was an amazing experience visiting cultural sights and sightseeing locations in Japan, and this trip was truly the first period of time where I was able to test my Japanese skills. The excitement of visiting a country that has a different culture, and a different history remained with me throughout the trip because I was continuously experiencing new things. From getting to know a family that I had never seen before, laughing and cracking jokes in awkward Japanese, to visiting historical sights hundreds of years old, the Japan trip was an experience that I will never forget. It truly reminded me why I was studying this language, not just to get credit, or emotionlessly memorize vocab, but because learning this language is opening up a new world to me.