Closing this Blog at end of 2011

Hello All -

I started this blog, when blogging felt like a new thing, way back in the summer of 2004, when I had just arrived in Japan to start what ended up being 5 years with the JET Programme.

I blogged and posted quite a bit back in those first few years - writing as a way to let friends and family back in the States know what my life was like in rural Japan.
A funny thing happened along the way - my family rarely read my posts, but I started getting comments and page views from an ever increasing number of strangers who were simply interested in life in Japan. I think this happens to many foreigners who come to Japan and start blogs or vlogs on YouTube to keep in touch with their friends back home only to find that their musings and experiences are of interest to many more people than they ever thought.

I started my own channel on YouTube back in late 2006 and it grew slowly at first until I started to blog specifically about being an ALT in the JET Program in early 2008. My YouTube channel became more and more popular and my time spent here posting text grew smaller and smaller.

I also joined FaceBook and now Google + and I feel like a lot of the links and material I would have posted here back in 2005 or 2006 I now post almost daily to sites like Twitter and Google +. So I'm seeing less and less of a reason to keep this blog going.

Of course, the archive of my experience as a new ALT I think still holds some value. Maybe I am the only one who finds my early postings amusing in their wide-eyed angle on things, but I think I would like to preserve these writings for myself, if no one else.

So my plan is to move (cut and paste) the early years of this blog to an archive I will set up at my newly revamped website - JapanJuku.com

I will forgo the postings of pictures that are no longer public, and simple updates about current events or daily trivia. But the postings about my life as a new ALT I will move to the new site so perhaps others can learn from them or chuckle along with me at their innocence.

I don't think this will happen quickly, so like the title of this posting states, I'm thinking this blog will remain open until the end of this year.

But after that, please keep in touch via my other sites - YouTube (I hope to go back to posting videos in the fall), Twitter ( @TaishaJason or @JapanJET ), and you can follow me on Google + at Myargonauts Jason.

I really, truly have enjoyed this blog over the years, but it's time to move on. I thank you for reading, and I hope to see you over at JapanJuku.com (opening again in September) or one of the other sites soon.

Peace,
Jason