日本語 My Adventures Into Japanese

So, I've started learning Japanese. The pronunciation isn't too difficult, other than the r, and the word order seems pretty straightforward. The only big difference I can see so far is the placement of the object before the verb, not after it. I've also realized that there are "markers" for the subject (wa), plural personal pronouns (tachi), and possesive pronouns (no). "Our" is "I" + "plural marker" + "possesive marker." Simple enough. What's more difficult is the fact that the native Japanese alphabets, are mixed with Chinese characters. While the Japanese alphabets, syllabaries is the correct term I believe, are generally based on the one symbol per each possible syllable (ka, ra, na, etc.), Chinese characters are logographic in nature. Some Chinese characters do represent sounds, but most represent ideas. This means that a student of Chinese, and Japanese, has to memorize the characters in order to be able to read, no small feat when there are hundreds of them. I'll definitely need to buy a good dictionary, but right now I'm just learning vocabulary with a free ipad app I found.
さようなら