Oh my god ahhhh I’m leaving tomorrow for a two-week trip with my mom, and then a few days later it’s the opening of the World Expo (commemorative Myaku-Myaku ICOCA here I come!) and then a week after that I leave on my Golden Week trip. ALREADY. I feel like I just wrote about GW last year. It’s the second most recent post on this blog! And I want to write about my upcoming big GW trip year, of course, but have so much to write about that I’ve done in the recent past too that I’ve been putting off. I’m so behind. Ahhhhhhh.
I also received two very kind messages recently which motivated me to write this post in a very spur-of-the-moment fashion all in one go:
“haiii i stumbled across your blog while i was bored at work and i literally love reading them (especially the juzo itami one) can u please write more so i wont be bored at work. 🙏 thank you so much. you are awesome.”
“Just wanted to tell you and ive been reading your blog for the last hr and half and I’m and not only nostalgic (seishunjuhachi Kippu proud traveler) and learning (didn’t know ‘Kokeshi’ is actually Sendai Ben and I lived near the kokeshi museum in Kuroishi) but laughing my butt off […] I have a special love and respect for writers. I hope you continue.”
Thanks, guys!
OK, so for my New Year’s holiday three months back, I went to Hokkaido to bask in the snow. It was wonderful and that will be a long post at some point hopefully not too far in the future from now with lots of pictures as I make my way through all my trips chronologically. For now, this shorter post is focused on the first of a bunch of mini-trips I did before then.
It’s November 23, 2024. I had recently tried, and succeeded (I thought) in convincing some fellow-foreigner acquaintances from work to drive (the horror) to Shirakawago. They like cars and were down. We had plans in place already, but then one of them, the same morning, was afraid “there might be snow” (there wasn’t) so he pulls out. The other one suddenly “has to be back by afternoon” to “deliver some documents” and didn’t realize how far away it was despite living here since he was a teenager. OK. This is very typical, frankly. So the plan to go to Gifu is cancelled. At the exact same time, my Japanese IC card collecting friend Sunagawa-san, who lives in Kyushu, happens to be down in Kumamoto to see some plane that he’s obsessed with that looks like a dolphin, and confirms to me – I had asked prior – that the old Kumamon no IC Card design is still available in some vending machines, which I had learned about after having spotted it in a photo on Twitter few days back. And not only that, but the JR Kyushu Twitter account had posted that somehow the Sagan Tosu SUGOCA (commemorative design for the local professional soccer team who according to my undergrad friend are very mediocre) is also still available at one single station, five months after its initial release… with limited, decreasing stock. Who knows how long they’ll both still be around.
