T minus one week

This is a blog about going to Hakodate, Japan for a language & culture program there. Why then, is it named happy cabbage? Well, that has to do with my little denshi jisho (electronic dictionary), which I will rely upon to help me navigate in Japan. It's a Canon G90, a nifty little thing complete with a touchpad feature that lets me write and translate unknown kanji. I was playing around with it, trying to figure out the multitude of features not explained in the minimal 10 page English manual, when I typed in "happy," knowing that it should give me "ureshii." This it did, and it also provided helpful translations of English expressions involving "happy"-- "happy camper", "happy hour", "happy-go-lucky", "happy cabbage"... Wait, happy cabbage? Yeah, you know, that commonly used expression. Basically, "happy cabbage" exemplifies the amount of sense I expect to make when speaking Japanese--thank goodness my host parents speak a little English!