So allow the documentation process to begin as a kid, I always had two major dreams, the second of which was to come and live here in Japan and what was no small feat to get here.

I've now spent the majority of my adult life right here in Japan thankfully I've stuck it out to the point where I can honestly say that Japan has given me more than I ever expected to have in life, definitely more than I could put into a single conversation or youtube video.

In fact, I considered listing off all of the things that Japan has allowed me to do and the things it's allowed me to be a part of, but there's an entire channel for that.

You know what I am way too restless and excited to sit here and do this.

So let's go to this at the airport.

I've always wanted this channel to feel like this, this journey of its own that you're kind of tagging along with.

But in order for it to be a journey, I kind of feel like we need to be making some kind of progress and with everything and everyone that the last two years have taken, I've decided that it's time to move forward.

No more radio, I'm chasing my dream of becoming an aviator.

I wanna fly.

I always have wanted to fly ever since I was a little kid.

It is by far my biggest dream in life.

I'm so excited to even be able to say these words and I'm gonna be doing that here in Japan.

Starting immediately.

I've actually been slowly and quietly kind of working on this in the background for some time.

But after a fairly big personal loss back in february I figured I would just stop wasting time and just just go for it.

Just do it.

I had to move, I live out in Kyushu now by the way.

So that's the thing.

I didn't want to say anything about it too early because there was so many steps and points along the way where anything and everything could have gone wrong and stop the entire process.

The first big challenging stuff was getting my pilot's health check through the government which is an insanely time consuming and difficult and tedious health check.

I was very nervous for that.

I'm slightly nervous because if this doesn't go well then nothing goes well, nothing happens.

So this is step one.

Everything rides on this.

I hope I'm as healthy as 4.5 hours.

The entire thing took 4.5 hours but the doctor said I am approved.

So unless anything major comes back in my blood work saying that I'm dying or in terrible shape or I guess dying.

So now I just spend the next week waiting for the blood results and staring at Tokyo Tower mm hmm luckily that went smoothly.

I got the health check and that enabled me to go to the next step which was applying for the card basically that allows me to fly and the day that that card arrived was exciting and emotional.

Like I now have a card that says I am allowed to fly an aircraft.

I still don't know how plus it took me three days to remember how to pronounce the name of the card.

Because you know what, that actually reminds me the real kicker to all of this.

Let me show you something.

Mm hmm Yeah.

So the big challenge here is that I am doing all of this in Japanese, my ground school, my flight school, my textbooks, my tests, my flight checks pretty much all of it is being conducted in japanese.

You might be asking yourself well can you read japanese at that level and the answer is not yet.

I don't want to say no because I'm working on one of the biggest struggles in it is I needed to learn everything in english first so that when I'm learning it in Japanese, I at least have a base of knowledge to work with and I know what's going on.

And so for the past 4-6 months I've actually been spending between two and eight hours every single day while running this channel studying I'd say 80-90% of that is actually learning aviation and then the other 10-20% ends up being me studying the language and the kanji and it's getting easier and easier.

But I'm not, not quite there yet.

I will be, but it's gonna take time also.

You don't let me continue this part as I do a little bit of a cockpit check.

I have essentially joined flight school in Japan and while everything is in japanese, the international language of aviation is still english, which means a lot of the other students can speak english, opening up the opportunity to make new friends and learn from each other and everything like that.

And I feel like I should also say that no, this doesn't mean that this channel is going to turn into an aviation channel.

There will be a separate channel for that.

The channel will continue on theme just with the odd adventure from above tossed in every now and then and how long will all of this take?

Well usually you can get your private violence license in a few months to a year.

But adding in the fact that I've got to learn it all in japanese and learn all the jargon and the kanji and everything like that.

I've earmarked myself about a year, year and a half.

If it takes two years, that's fine.

I think it goes without saying.

But I would much much rather do it right and actually learn it well than to do it quickly.

The majority of my time is going to be spent here in a place called Kirishima.

it's at the south of Kyushu, I'll be using this as the base for obviously my training as well as my travels out around Japan, which means we're probably going to get a lot more kyushu videos and I'll still be making fairly regular trips back to Tokyo.

In fact, I've got to go back to Tokyo in just a couple of weeks to do this three day course and test for my pilot's radio exam, which I'm really not looking forward to because some people claim it's more difficult than the tests that you have to pass to get your license, which there are multiple of by the way ranging from navigation and piloting skills all the way up to japanese, aeronautical law and it's, there's a chance I've bitten off more than I can chew at this point of the process.

I'm, I'm okay with that.

Only only time will tell, but when it's all done providing I survive, I'll be a pilot and that opens up this entirely other world, like there is a whole other world up there that most of us never get to see with its own culture and language and viewpoint and mindset and I'm just so incredibly excited to finally be at the doorstep of having access to all of that.

Like obviously I might hang it right now, but someday I'll be able to look out the window down at Japan as I fly over.

It is so exciting and the Patreon crew has been so supportive in all of this, which I really appreciate because this is one of the biggest challenges in my entire life, a bit more expensive than it is to do it overseas.

But I just got tired of waiting for the option to maybe someday go overseas and get my pilot's license and then even when I come back I would still have to do some of the tests and get the radio, examine everything in order to convert it to a Japanese pilot license and all that boring stuff.

And quite frankly I would much rather go broke trying to become a pilot than to spend the rest of my life wishing that I had done this.

It's getting pretty hot in there.

Being completely honest with you.

I am the greatest mix of excited and terrified that I have been in a very, very long time.

And again, while I'm sure some of the flight stuff will make its way into this channel here.

I've already set up an entirely other channel to document my aviation journey here in Japan.

While I'm still working things out, it's likely that the majority of the episodes will drop on Patreon first, possibly even months in advance.

I still don't know what shape it's all going to take.

It's, it's up in the air.

My first ever flight is coming up tomorrow by the way, which I'm extremely excited about and it's one of the reasons I've come out to do a plane and cockpit check and just kind of get used to the look and feel of everything but my heart is absolutely racing out of my chest.

There's just so much, so many things that I want to say right now and there's just not enough time to do it.

There's, I wish you could feel my pulse.

Like my heart is seriously, I also make this knowing that some of you may even be pilots and if you are, I would love to hear from you or you might be like some of my friends who think I'm absolutely crazy for doing this.

But either way, I guess this is it.

This is the basic, this is what's going on where I am, what I am doing, why I have moved.

I, I think I've said I'm excited about 4000 times.

So we'll leave that as is thank you guys so much for joining this.

If you haven't hit subscribe already.

This is your formal invitation.

I would love to have you as a part of this journey.

Also, the new channel is linked.

Everything is gonna be like, thank you.

Thank you so much with all that being said, I will, I'll see you again.

I'm real sick.

Yeah.

Also these clouds right here just tell me summer is on its way and it feels so back in university.

There were times where I would actually go out to a local small airfield and study just so I could watch the planes coming in and out.

And then when I first started this channel, there were times where I would actually go to the airport and work in the lounge just so I could feel closer to the plane.

That's how much that is how much I love planes and that is how much I'm looking forward to this and open the door right into my leg.

Oh, they're not gonna let me use these planes, are they?