旅心は里心になった。♡ yen to see distant places

旅心は里心になった。

"wanderlust became homesickness." is the title of today's update. 

The last about my trip to Japan, back in spring 2014. I can't believe how long it took me to actually share everything I experienced and I still think there are a lot of things, I could not include or simply wasn't able to express with words.

   

お土産 ♡ what I bought in Japan

Assuming from my own - pretty nosy - nature, I thought it would be fun to share what I spent all the money on, during my trip. Since I stayed a month in total, I'm sure a certain amount of cash was used to feed and carry myself around. There are only two or three days I recall, when I didn't board a train during my 4 weeks stay.

However, I got the chance to buy a lot of stuff - though I couldn't help my thrifty nature and didn't spend nearly as much as I feared I would - and especially the 100￥ shops, namely Daiso were to my liking. I still don't understand why we can't have something like that where I live.

Literally everything there was more pleasing to the eye than what I've seen for easily twice as much in my home country.

The quality might not be the best and I have to admit that some of the stationery I bought are decrepit by now (after one year of constant use), but other things from the same store still work completely fine.

東京と大阪 ♡ city view

As one of the last posts about my trip to Japan, I tried to gather all the photos that were still missing to grand them another post, that will be filled with impressions I collected when I roamed the cities of Osaka and Tokyo.

スカイ・ライン ♡ all the lights

During one of our last days of our stay, back in Tokyo we took the oportunity to visit the Tokyo Tower. Sadly the weather wasn't that good and so we went without going up the tower, being quite sure the view through foggy air and grey clouds wouldn't be worth the while. The time we spend in the base of the tower and the cute food, however was worth it and the next time, I will go on a good-weather day and enjoy the view from the top of the tower even more.

浅草 ♡ the aftermath

When I looked through my remaining photos I found a bunch that definitely deserved an own post.

The day deserves some words anyway, though it's not chronological anymore, since it was before our trip to Tokyo Disney Land (part one | part two).

東京ディズニーランド ♡ once upon a dream

It's been forever since I uploaded the first part of our day in Disney Land, back in March 2014, so it's definitely time to reward your patience and continue with the second part.

I ended the last part with our visit to the castle in the middle of the park and shall restart from there again. We waited forever to go into their Haunted House that turned out to be quite boring, if you consider how long you've been brimming with anticipation then, burning in the sun.

東京ディズニーランド ♡ happiness is here

After my last input on the JAPAN tag was rather inofficial, I decided it was about time to go on with the last bits and pieces. My strategy of postponing my updates, just to have an excuse to dwell on memories a little longer, isn't paying off as well as it used to and after 10 days without an update (though this here has been patiently sitting in my draft box for a while) I thought it was about time to revive my blog a bit.

I still remember how I argued with my grand ma, who thought that I was too old to go to Disneyland and after just taking the chance and going when I was in Japan, I kindly have to disagree on a whole new level. Needless to say I am really happy I visited this theme park during my stay and certainly have a bunch of stories to tell and a lot of photos to show from this day. So much actually, that I decided to divide it into two parts. I will link the second one here.

渋谷 ♡ into the night - TRUMPROOM

As much as anticipated seeing so many things in Tokyo and making my first experiences in this country in general, I was really thrilled to meet Catrin from Mutsuminism, a really cool and super fashionable blogger who was living in Tokyo during my stay.
After we returned from our trip to Osaka, we finally took the chance to meet up and enjoy Tokyo's nightlife.

四天王寺 ♡ my view on Japanese religion

This is long overdue, but since I miss Japan so damn much right now, 

I try to keep this series from ending as long as humanly possible...

On our last day in Osaka, we visited the Buddhist temple Shitennō-Ji - 四天王寺,
that is located in the Tennōji area - 天王寺区.

奈良市 ♡ lucky charm

{part 2/2}

春日大社 & 東大寺

It hasn't been more than two weeks yet but university is already taking a toll on me. I therefore apologize for the long wait....

As the headline already says I'll talk a bit about Kasuga-Taisha {春日大社} and Tōdai-Ji {東大寺} this time.

If you have missed out on the first part of my Nara-Tour, check out the last post where I talked about Kōfuku-Ji {興福寺} and Nara Park {奈良公園}. 

奈良市 ♡ oh deer...

{part 1/2} 

興福寺＆奈良公園

通天閣 ♡ in midair

After our stroll through Osaka Castle and some other, minor discoveries our first day ended with a tour to the Tsūtenkaku {通天閣} tower in the Shinsekai {新世界} - which means "new world" - district of Osaka.
The tower is rather small with 103 meters, the main observation deck at a height of 91m.
We still decided to do it and got up there.
It was evening already when we arrived so the chances were quite high, we would be able to take some photos and see the tower enlighted.
Depending on the season the construction of the tower - that was originally based on Paris' Eiffel Tower - shines in different colors once night has fallen.

大阪城 ♡ on a visit to Hideyoshi & Tokugawa

Though we would have been able to spend all our time solely discovering Tokyo, we seized the chance to take a trip to Osaka from March 13 till 17.
We took an overnight bus and arrived in the early morning. Seeing that we were rather tired and took our time to arrive completely our trip to some of Osaka's sights had to wait till the next day.
Osaka Castle - Ōsaka-jō {大阪城} in Japanese - was of course one of them and our first stop.

新大久保駅 ♡ EXO's living room

... or K-POP {and music} in Tokyo

I'm pretty sure this update is long overdue. 

I'm kind of sorry, really but on the other hand I've been such a lazy bum since my lecturers ended.

It's been almost a week now and I didn't do much yet. Not even for my term paper but I gladly realized that my writer's block {that's been bothering me for almost nine moths} is finally gone and I've found the motivation to work on a project I've been planning more than a year now.

This time now, I want to share a bunch of photos from Shin Okubo {already mentioned in the headline} as well as one of my most favorite stores I've been to during my time in Tokyo: Tower Records in Shibuya.

It's a large, 5 or 6 story building stuffed with nothing but music. Music of all sorts, from everywhere and I don't even know what.

It's amazing. I tell you... and I'm pretty sure I spent the majority of the money I spent - there.

練馬区の桜台 ♡ my neighborhood

As expected, after the first row of midterm tests are over and I just have another re-exam coming up - 

yuku is a scaredy cat and fails this one written exam ALL the damn time...

 can't keep her cool if pressured too much 

- I used some non-existent spare time to finally finish editing the photos for the next JAPAN posting.

This time we'll take a closer look to the neighborhood I lived in.
Honestly, I didn't saw incredibly much of it apart from the two routes I walked every day to get to one of the two stations that were in walking distance but during my second week, when my cutie-patooty felix had settled in for a few days already, we decided to make the best out of a 'free' day and stroll around our neighborhood to take in some of the 'Japanese' flaire and enjoy the sun, fresh air and good weather.

Since we just randomly went off to 'discover' our surroundings I still don't know what the shrine we found before we made our way back is called or where it even is located.
Later, on one of my last tours, when I got another suitcase because yes - of course I had too much luggage - I took photos of the cherry trees around Sakuradai Station {桜台駅} being this the only chance I really had to capture them in Tokyo. The weather that day was rainy and a bit stormy, too but thanks to photobucket the photos still look really cute and dreamy now.
I'm sorry they are not really assorted but it's getting late here and I should head to bed, soon.

いただきます。♡ food in japan

Just going to warn you in advance. This post will make you hungry. Really hungry.

It's a mass of photos I've prepared for this update and let's just say that it took me so long to do it because of that. 

Since I have a fondly love-hate-relationship with food, the aspect of it was a point for me in Japan as well.
Bluntly said, I absolutely love the food in Japan. 
I swear, what I ate in this month equals what I usually eat in 2 months here in Germany and funny enough - I lost weight.
I generally love the picture of food what explains why I have the urge to take photos of it whenever I can.
Even if it's just my cup of breakfast milk tea.

Another point here, is how food is handled in the Japanese society and/or culture.
I actually wonder why I never had a class about this in my studies yet because I think it's pretty interesting.
From my observation I conclude that food has a big point in Japanese culture.
A good example are A) the flood of coffee shops, cafés and restaurants you find basically everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE and B) the sole fact that you find it everywhere on TV as well.
We had 12 channels at my apartment and - believe it or not - it didn't matter when you switched it on, you would always - ALWAYS - find at least 2 channels that have a food-related programm airing.
Best recepies charts, celebrities searching for the best ---restaurant, eating contests, ... 
We even watched a Japanese drama occationally that was basically about food {ごちそうさん - gochisousan; if you are interested}.

It's almost as if the whole island is obsessed with food. But honestly, I can't really blame them, seeing that Japanese food is definitely heaven for your taste buds.

私のアパート ♡ room tour

One of the minor but still existent good points of having a blog is the potential of procrastination that comes with it. So as usual - I should be doing homework or study vocabulary right now but instead I finally came along to write the first posting about my trip to Japan.

Basic information is basic.
My flight to Japan was at the 2nd of March, had a stay in Copenhagen's Kastrup-airport and arrived at Narita March 3rd.
Additionally I made a really small overview to show you when I stayed where. It's not really fancy but should be a bit helpful at least.

In this first part I want to give the answer of one of the most frequently asked questions: Where did you stay?
I could cut it really, really short and just give you the adress but you sure want some photos and details and here you have them.


I stayed in a small 20m² flat, on my own.
It was in a really, really calm, beautiful neighbor-hood {I will make an extra posting about that} a bit off the center, in Sakuradai {桜台} - a part of the ward Nerima {練馬区}. It's west of Ikebukuro Station {池袋駅} and it takes you roughly 10min to get from Sakuradai Station {桜台駅} there.
As soon as you reached Ikebukuro Station it's a lot easier to get anywhere since it's a station on the Yamanote-Line {山手線} - prolly the most important JR-line in Tokyo.
If I wanted to get to Shinjuku {新宿駅} for example; it took me approximately 25min which is - in my opinion - no time at all, considering that here at home I need about three-quaters of an hour to get to Berlin's city.

東京 ♡ 1st week

It's been almost a week since I'm here and though nothing much has happened yet, I guess I should share some bits with you anyway.
I arrived at NARITA at the 3rd of March (JST) and after some more or less necessary checking I met my dear friend Sha who was already waiting for me. We went to my appartment directly and though my suitcase broke on the way (damn handle) we had luck. Though it was said my check-in time would be 3pm, we actually were allowed to get into the flat already at 1:40pm. So way eariler than we thought.