Reasons for disappearance

Hi Peeps!

I've been disappearing for a whole month and guess what?! I'm in Japan!!! I will be in Japan for 2.5 months. Why so long?!

Actually, it's a pretty similar concept to what I was doing in Korea - VOLUNTEERING! After having gone through these 2 programmes, I realised the meaning of volunteering - doing something without MONETARY returns. In Korea, I went to a cultural exchange volunteering program. This time, too, is a cultural thing, but more towards hands-on cultural thing, for this program, it's known as internship.

This VOLUNTEERING internship programme is organised by Holiday Club which they collaborate with ICLS, the place where I took Japanese lesson. Apparently anyone who took Japanese lesson in ICLS could join this programme. However, in the first batch, there was one person who is not a student for ICLS, but she is able to join the programme with certain condition, of course. 

The person from Holiday Club has collaborated with a few Japanese hotels, ryokans and restaurants in Japan, in which they agreed to provide the interns with a place to work in exchange for food and accommodation for FREE. However, recently I have heard that some of the place, the interns have to pay for accommodation. It's a pretty similar to working holiday, but in a much shorter term (1 week - 3 weeks) and without any salary. Since the interns are not receiving any salary, they are not consider working and therefore they do not need to apply any visa (may differ based on your country of residence). Oh, there's a service fee for RM 200 per company the intern applies.

Since I've always into hospitality and Japan is a place I've been dreaming of going for ages, this offer is way too attractive. I applied 3 places in a breath - Takimotokan Yukinosato, Sukeroku and UmiHana. Takimotokan Yukinosato and UmiHana are ryokan and Sukeroku is a restaurant that offers traditional Japanese Cuisine. One of the reasons I applied these companies are because I could learn authentic Japanese's hospitality. There are also other ulterior reasons like wearing kimono, trying luxury Japanese cuisine and watching firework with the best view all for FREE! Sounds really good, right? Imagine how much money I could save while volunteering in Japan for 2.5 months!!

However, while I've been volunteering in Takimotokan Yukinosato for the past 3 weeks, the accommodation they provide does not come with wifi and I did not purchase any portable wifi as it costs a lot for 3 weeks. I did not save the money for the wifi part, which is why my blog has been so quiet these days. But now, the okami-san, aka the landlady, in Sukeroku insisted on buying a portable wifi for me to reduce any unwanted worries, I am now able to access the internet and write a post. FINALLY!

So, from now on, there will be more post coming on my journey in Japan, though I have not even finished the ones in Korea... Procrastinating kills!

For a starter, here's a video of how I travel to Japan: