About

Hello, welcome, and thanks for visiting!

This blog was an attempt to cover my experience in the Junior Year Overseas program at Yokohama National University (YNU) in a more thoughtful and coherent way than, say, Twitter. Initially inspired by a former JOY Program student and friend who did the same thing, I tried chronicling my adventures around Japan. It didn’t work out too well — I only ended up writing some 30-odd posts here — but I hope you find it interesting.

The title of the blog is a reference to a manga called Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (“Yokohama Shopping Log”); Ryuugaku (留学) means “study abroad”.

If you’d like to get in touch, I’d prefer if you use the comments section first. If you’d like to e-mail me, I can be reached at mattie-at-mattieinjapan-dot-com. ◆