Let me break this down for you Bob-O style

Signs that you might be in over your head: Packaging and instructions for your recently purchased tools come only in a foreign language.

I experienced this earlier today when some bonsai tools arrived in the mail. As I pulled each tool out, I was greeted by more and more little Japanese symbols and very few characters that made any sense to me. At least there won't be any suggesting that these aren't authentic from Japan. They all look like what I ordered, but unless I learn Japanese, I'll never know if they have the same names as the things I ordered. At least the three spools of aluminum wire were labeled 1.5 mm, 2.0 mm and 2.5 mm -- I know what those characters mean, and that's what I wanted. But now I've got an even harder task than learning Japanese so I can read about these tools I got -- Now, I have to learn how to use the tools to make the bonsai trees do what I want them to do.

At least I have a book to get me started. And at least it's in English -- not that that's all that helpful in some cases. Flipping through the book today was a bit like flipping through your physics textbook on the first day of class. Lots of pictures, diagrams and symbols, but a lot of stuff I still don't understand. I always knew there was more to this art than Mr. Miyagi let on in The Karate Kid, but some of this stuff goes really in-depth. Guess it will just be a learning process for quite a while. But that's the exciting thing about learning a new hobby. First up: figuring out how to wire the branches.