I woke up feeling ready to tackle the day after my first night's stay (though my hostel was wonderful and comfortable, a reoccurring issue with hostels in general is the other guests and how loud they are). I had an itinerary planned out so that I knew what I wanted to do, and my main reason for going to Hiroshima was to visit the peace museum and atomic bomb-related memorials. Since I'd walked through the remains of a concentration camp in Germany, I knew I wanted to do this to round out my World War II visitations, and to make sure that I never forgot the horrible things that humans can do to other humans. It's important never to let history die, lest we risk making the same mistakes again. Seeing as how Japan is my ... read more

It's been awhile since I did anything, mostly due to the weather - February is traditionally the coldest (and most miserable) time of the year, and this year was no exception: snow, snow, snow! It snowed twice here, which is perhaps higher than average, and the second snow was a record-breaking amount that ended up finishing at the most snowfall in 45 years. Tokyo traditionally does NOT get much snow, due to its positioning on the eastern coast of the country, so the ability to actually remove snow does not exist. As such, it was a slushy, slick, and not very fun few days while we waited for the majority of it to melt. But I did get some photos of the whiteness before it faded away. The snow also had the dubious timing of our ... read more

As it's nearing the Christmas holidays and I am pretty sure only my family regularly reads this travel blog, I thought I would take just a little while to talk about Japan, life, and not seeing my family back home during this X-mas season. :) Life in Japan is both different and also just life - just living, day to day, and creating relationships and memories and enjoying every day. I am sad that I won't be able to see my family in America for Christmas, and I miss them dearly, but it was simply too expensive to go home again (with a ticket hitting nearly $1500). And since there is no current answer in sight for "when will you come home for good?" which is a question that I hear often but wish I didn't ... read more

Not too exciting, since I visit Mt. Takao all the time, but I went last year to see the autumn foliage and wanted to make sure I went this year, too. Originally I had planned to go with Jocelyn, but she ended up bailing so I was sort of at a loss when I would take my trip when my friend Kelly said she was going the very day I was scheduled to go with another friend, Rie. Must have been fate!! Therefore, the three of us ended up traveling together and had a very wonderful time seeing the colors, eating dango, and buying good luck charms at the temple on our trip. ... read more

I had today off because it was "Tokyo Citizens Day", so Rani and I went to check out Kawagoe, or "Little Edo", which was supposedly a half hour away from central Tokyo. Well, given our location and that by "central Tokyo" they meant Ikebukuro (which is not central Tokyo lol), it actually took us closer to an hour and a half to get there. Still, we left early enough that it was alright, and we were excited to see what the area had in store. Getting off at Kawagoe Station put us nowhere near the area we wanted to be, so we did some walking, which certainly wasn't bad. The weather was gray and it kept intermittently raining, but it wasn't enough to be really annoying and it WAS enough to keep the big crowds away. ... read more