Getting the ball rolling

Well… Where/how do I even begin?

A few days post send-off and sitting on the shinkansen (bullet train) going from Tokyo to Kyoto, I’m finding it rather difficult to wrap my head around the fact that less than a week ago, I was sitting on my bedroom floor struggling to get a shoe out of my dog’s mouth. It’s all very surreal. I regret having not started blogging from the get-go. Then again, more time blogging means less time doing, right?

With the popular idea that “a home is where the heart is” in mind, I feel myself emotionally investing in my host country far faster than I could’ve imagined. I am making a point of this despite my recently acknowledged habit of falling in love with everything and everyone in a heartbeat (hah, but seriously). I am just completely smitten! [Speaking of kittens, there are so many of them in Japan and they’re all unbearably kawaii (cute). It’s an unfortunate thing for your “dude, I’m really fucking allergic to cats” friend here.] But the people here are so kind and polite, albeit, shy and (as I'm looking at the mountains rolling past my window) the country itself is absolutely gorgeous.

Anyway, I’m homesick for my hostel in Asakusa if you can believe that. I stayed there for four nights and met some really lovely, kind and interesting people. I was talking to this one couple from Australia about how staying in the hostel really beat a) the homesickness/loneliness and b) the culture-shock.

Being able to come back to a hostel lobby and just talk to people in the native tongue really makes the whole traveling alone bit a lot easier to bear. It was also really cool to hear French and German and Japanese getting thrown into the mix. The more veggies in the salad, the more fun for the palette. But yeah… Now that I’m on the shinkansen going to Kyoto, I’m feeling homesick and lonely for Tokyo! Isn’t that kind of funny? Well, I think it’s funny. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve had an outrageously fun first few days...

And so, it begins... So this is how to start this off!