Hello everybody!

Sorry for not posting at all! As you all know I was away for spring vacation.
Twitter readers already know, but let me just tell you that I already got sick during my vacation and then came back home with almost 40°C of fever.
I had to go to work the next morning and that wasn't such a good idea. In the end I had to go to an emergency hospital where I got antibiotics and was told that I have a severe tonsilitis with yellow and fat swollen tonsils.
For the first time in OVER 3 years (!!!) I couldn't go to work. I lost 3 whole days! I say "lost" because I don't get paid if I don't show up at work although it's a proper full-time job. I don't have any paid sick leave which is why I usually go to work no matter how sick I am, but this time it was just too much ;___; I had to give up in the end.

Also, just as I feared, I missed the cherry blossoms. Like most of you might remember I was complaining about them being so late this year and was thinking about rearranging my trip, but didn't do it in the end. I was just hoping that I'd be lucky nevertheless, but I wasn't.
I was literally running away from the cherry blossoms! As soon as they started blooming in one place I moved on to the next one where they weren't out at all yet. That was what I was afraid of, but couldn't be changed at that point anymore (also considering that I didn't have the engery due to becoming sick).
When I finally came back home the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, but I was sick in bed as you already know.

Once I was fit enough again, they were already gone.
TIS SUCKS!

Flyjin who are slowly coming back to Japan now were all able to enjoy cherry blossoms and I who was here the whole time, wasn't. Fair world, isn't it?

Anyways I'm fit again and so here we go!
I'll post just a short preview of my photos today. By now they're all sorted out. It was around 5000 photos (unsorted) and around 500 had dirt on it (sand on the image sensor), so I had to use Photoshop and edit each photo individually which also took many many days *sigh*
On a positive note, this was by far the cheapest vacation I ever had! I only used the Shinkansen once and I also didn't buy too many souvenirs.
After visiting Kagawa (Shikoku) I only stayed in Chuugoku, so not much travel expenses in general.



The cherry blossoms were mainly like in the photo above. Most of the time I saw thousands of empty trees and I needed a loooooooot of fantasy to imagine how it would look like in about a week later :/



I took a lot of random and funny shots again.



I visited a lot of gardens this time (also because I thought they would look awesome in April with cherry blossoms in full bloom ...)



At least the weather was pretty good this time (apart from 2 days or so). Probably also a reason why I got sick. The temperature changed so quickly within a day. First sweating in the sun, then getting a cold wind from left and right and there you go!



I ate a lot of yummie food again. Mainly udon (and soba) this time as those were famous for where I went.
In the photo above you see Sanuki Udon - I'm completely in love with it!!! So yummie!! Especially with A LOT OF soy sauce! :D



Sometimes I found a few single trees partly in pink. Luckily there are so many different types of cherry blossoms in Japan which don't all bloom at the same time, but I still missed the full bloom of the mainstream trees :/



I visited a lot of famous temples and shrines again. Had to walk a lot, climb a lot of stairs this time, but it was nice!



If you can't find any cherry blossoms then you just look out for other beautiful things in gardens! ^-^





And yes, I was in Japan and not in the jungle or anywhere! That "bridge" was scary like hell, but fun to walk (crawl XD) over!



Random shot again.



In front of Kurashiki Sta. (Okayama).



Darumahausen ;P





Obviously in Okayama! Momotaro and friends.



Kurashiki: The Venice of Japan?! ;)





Apart from not being able to enjoy any cherry blossoms I got to see a few other nice things :D



I was also lucky to run into a Hina Matsuri festival. I saw it on TV in the morning and it was right next to where I wanted to go anyways. And everything was free!~







I ran into a lot of cute statues and stuff again!! Some of them so cute that I wanted to take them home with me!



*lol* Found in Kojima (Okayama).





Uhm ... Cheers! ... I guess XD







At least plum blossoms were still out there!



And yes, we're still in Japan!! I didn't leave the country! XD



On the back of a camel on the sand dunes of Tottori!~



A beautiful day, sand beach, awesome!





My footprints in the sand.



Beautiful sunset (a long story behind this photo, but you'll read about everything in a future entry ^^; ..)





Landscapes that somehow reminded me a lot of my home country.



Quite a bunch of castles again (actually I'm surprised as well that there's almost no castle photos in this entry! *g*)





Like I said, sometimes I ran into some single, lonely cherry blossom trees (not in full bloom, though).



Also visited the biggest Chinese garden in Japan!



I've seen frogs and monkeys, this is the first time I saw bunnies! PINK BUNNIES!! HOMG!



I visited Detective Conan ;P



Visited one of the biggest botanical gardens on a rainy day.



Walked to school with penguins


And that's about it, I guess.
More to come, of course, with more details and background stories to all the photos.




Like I said I didn't buy many souvenirs this time! I was able to add a few more Maneki Neko to my collection.



I especially adore this one as it glows in different colors when you touch a sensor (though this is clearly for young kids, I don't care at all XD)



One can never have enough chopsticks!!


Thanks for reading!
Sorry for the long absence! Hope you understand.