Hello~

Did anybody miss me? Sorry I've been busy planning my Golden Week trip and then I was off for Hokkaido and Tohoku for 9 days.
I'm traveling so much recently, it's really crazy! I never thought it would turn out like that!
After moving to Kansai in March I've been to so many places in just 2 months!
Lots of day trips and 2 bigger journeys (5 days, then 9 days). I've been to places nearby such as Kobe, Himeji, Mt. Yoshino, Sasayama etc., but also traveled further away to Shizuoka, Chiba or Kanagawa.
In my most recent trip I went all the way up to Tohoku and even Hokkaido!!! All by train!!!

Japan has 47 prefectures (did you know that yet?) and I've been to ................. guess how many?

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I've been to 41 of them!!!! That means I have only 6 more to go.
Those 6 are: Okinawa, Saga (Kyushu), Fukui and Niigata (Chubu), Gunma and Ibaraki (Kanto) .... that's it! I'm quite positive that I will knock down most of them this year and accomplish my new goal of visiting ALL prefectures in Japan!
I haven't updated my castle index in over a year, but I think I'm somewhere between 60 and 70 castles by now. My goal is to visit 100 castles. This one is gonna be a bit more difficult, but I won't give up!
I really need to update my list(s), huh?

Traveling so much keeps me busy, but is also a lot of fun!
All I do in my free time recently is sorting the photos of my last trip, trying to post about them, but then being interrupted by planning my next trip already! It's crazy!!!!
And right now I have my next 3-days trip in my head already (if the weather is gonna play along)!!!
I wanna use the time before my most hated, hot, humid season hits!

In summer I will have 2 whole weeks off!!! Paradise!!! Usually I never had more than a week off before, remember?

This weekend was the first time in a long time that I stayed home again and it was really necessary!
I can't keep up with posting about my trips anymore, but I rather travel NOW and post LATER, right?!!!!

Here's a short sneak preview of the trips I made:



One of my personal highlights was Tashirojima, Cat Island!
I always wanted to go! However, it was hit really hard by the tsunami last year and it was hard to find any information about the current situation of the island.
I could find out that the people and cats are still alive, but nothing beyond that.

( Read more... )



Of course I also bought too many souvenirs again! ^-^;; ... More Maneki Neko for my collection!

( Sakura donuts are so delicious! )


THERE'S SO MUCH MORE TO SEE!!!
So check out my TRAVEL BLOG for more photos, infos and souvenirs!


Apart from that I can't really post about much. There's not much going on apart from my traveling.
I intend to write a detailed post about my new job soon, though.
I wanted to join a Taiko group as you all know, but with the travel craze that's going on I just didn't have the time yet.

Time's running, but for the first time I feel I'm making full use of it.
There's so much more I want to do, but there's just not enough time - so THAT hasn't changed, unfortunately.
I am a little bit worried about the future. The plan of going back home next year is still valid, but my brain is filled with traveling at the moment, so I'm worried what's gonna happen then ....

I seriously need to work on my travel blog more, too, but right now traveling is more important. I can always work on the blog when I can't travel so much anymore (for whatever reason).

I hope you're all doing fine?!
Thanks for still reading - although I'm so bad at updating recently.