I am learning Japanese primarily because of my academic interest in modern Korean cultural studies. Korea's modernity is very much tied to Japan's, and many of the Korean writers and artists whom I am doing research on studied in Japan in early 20th century. I hope that learning Japanese will help me expand my understanding of cultural products of the time. Other than this research interest, I love traveling, Japanese food, and Miyazaki films. I am excited to become conversant in Japanese so that I can talk to local Japanese people while traveling and learn more about contemporary Japanese culture through studying the language. My biggest challenge so far has been memorizing the different scripts. (Katakana and Kanji in the near future!) This is from my most recent trip to Japan in 2016, at the top of Mt Fuji. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the sunrise. Descent from Mt Fuji. Tsukiji market