icarus

faced with the excitement of life and all its many possibilities, I strive to soar higher and higher. What is yet to see is how much heat my feathers will withstand until they melt from the sun?

This week has been so tiring. I have so much stuff to do. First of it, the week started with me skipping class and going to mount fuji with a friend. Taking a long bus, seeing all the different sights (with a lack of the actual mount fuji) and arriving home late. Even then I still had to cook all my food for the week. It was fun, and the little bit I saw was pretty, but because I am travelling so much I couldn’t even compute it. The views and the experience was still cute.

This week is also have my taiko, where I end up at home around 22pm, and my Wednesday jazz drums class. In Thursday, my school have their yearly graduation in Ginza, and I want to buy new shoes for it. And of course, I also need to still buy more stuff for my trip and actually plan it. Now I have the locations and accommodations but there is a bunch of stuff I have just briefly checked without actually researching or deciding.

To add on my workload, I will give my room to my friend who is staying for 3 extra days outside here rent and needed a place to sleep. This means I have to clean my room, the sheets and even the fridge.

If this feels like a lot to do, the reality was way worse. For around 3-4 days, I have only been sleeping around 4 hours per day. Let’s go through some details.

On the night of Tuesday after arriving at 22h from Taiko, I went to sleep at 2-3 am. I woke up at 6 am, cleaned my hair, did laundry, hanged my clothes and went to Tokyo Tower to meet a friend from the Netherlands who was visiting. We walked around 10k steps, then got a sandwich and 4 hours of Japanese class. Straight away, I went to Akihabara to my drums class. It was 1.5 hour. After that, I had to do some shopping for my trip, so I went to Yodobashi and bought a SD card and an extra GoPro battery. The next day was the graduation so I looked for some shoes as well. I had a quick dinner there and went home around 21.30.

Don’t think Thursday was a normal day either. I woke up early (7am) for the graduation and ended up arriving home around 20h, when I still needed to start packing my suitcase for my 16 day trip the next day.

Technically I should rest because what awaits me is even more tiring. Plenty of travelling and new adventures and dangers. Will I be like icarus and fly to close to the sun that I will fall apart?

my Japanese level

On Thursday, we went with some people in my class for lunch. Tacos again, goddamn. This time we went with two of our Chinese classmates. They don’t speak a word of english so it’s Japanese practice for everyone. I was a bit afraid because talking Japanese for that long felt a bit too much. However, I surprised myself in how much I could talk, ask and follow. My vocabulary and conversation topics are limited but we could talk for many hours in this social setting. We had many different conversations and I feel like I could get to know them a bit better. It is a bit disappointing we only did this kind of meetup in the last day of class for this semester. Hopefully we can do days like this more after the spring break.

A little spoiler to the weekend, I ended up talking to a random Japanese man and my chef in an okonomiyaki restaurant in Hiroshima. For okonomiyaki, the chef cooks it in front of you and I was sitting in the bar right in front the iron plate. The chef is supposed to talk to you. She spoke English at first but when she found out I could speak Japanese, we switched. We didn’t switch to English back at any time, which I am quite proud of. There was a group of 4 Japanese men also having dinner and they were saying how good my Japanese was. Japanese people love saying that. At some point, the men moved to the bar and after a bit, one tried to speak with me. We talked for a bit, he had visited the Netherlands 2-3 times so we had something in common. Sadly, I had already asked for the bill so I didn’t stay much longer. He should have started talking before. Such a missed opportunity. He even recommended me some restaurants.

This experience has repeated itself a couple time during my trip so far. It feels nice to be able to keep up with daily life here. I can talk to people in the store, ask for stuff, solve problems…

my diet

To get energy, best source is food. During the week, I am eating so healthy. I always eat 3-5 vegetables in every meal and I’m currently obsessed with kimchi, I eat it almost every morning. I even tried radish kimchi and it was so delicious and sweet. I ate the whole 2 portions in one.

Normally, I have 2 meals per day, my brunch and dinner. It’s my tupper ware for lunch and sometimes also for dinner. Lunch tends to be rice with a protein, the 2-3 veggies and kimchi.

This week I even bought kiwis. Someone in my share house gave me kiwi once (I didn’t like kiwis before), and I found it tasty. So now I gave kiwis another change. I like them, maybe I will become a kiwi person like my mom.

beginning of my trip

On Friday I had to take the shinkansen, I slept so well that I woke up 15-30 min before my alarm. I felt so recovered. Maybe it’s because I had been sleeping 3-4 hours every night for the last 4 days.

I still hadn’t planned most of the things I will see on my trip. I will plan it on the fly but I am definitely living a life so full of stuff that is hard to find the downtime to just wait for the next activity.

When I went to my graduation, I had to buy new shoes, and right away, continued my todo list. However if I didn’t have so many things on my plate, maybe I would have just thought more about the graduation. Should I do a new hairstyle tomorrow? Should I check my outfit the night before?

In the shinkansen, I had to sit there for several hours, without walking, without doing anything. I had no expectation on what to do so it was so comfortable. I ended up planning details about my trip, like foods I can try or places to see. Having slept a normal amount and having time and no pressure, felt nice.

As always, I have made a polarsteps about my travels. And as always, I am struggling to keep it updated. PolarstepsLink

Today I am in Onomichi, a very, very pretty and cute town. It’s full of culture and shrines, and also of stairs. I was already exhausted from these past days and this town has destroyed me even further. I only did stuff here from 12 to 3pm, and then just rested for tomorrow. I am a bit sick, and my foot’s past injury is acting up. Great conditions for my 45 km bike ride tomorrow.