Mission Impossible in Iceland

Another weekend away from London and some more adventures on the agenda. I travelled this time with some lovely friends that I met through work. It had been a while that I travelled with some people. At some point I was a bit anxious and nervous as I wasn’t sure how everything would go and if there would be any trouble along the way. Soon I realised that all of them are well travelled and that I didn’t need to worry. I think I calmed down just before we actually took off.

A Spanish, French, Mexican and German boarded a plane….this is how a joke would start, luckily the weekend ahead was filled with laughter and not only a joke.

Travel Music

Every time I am planning a trip I am not only thinking about what to pack, my itinerary but also what music I will be listening to, what song will make certain situation a memory.

As some of you know I have now lost an iPod (just shuffles no worries) for the second time and relied on my netbook to listen to music while traveling, this of course is not possible when walking around. A friend of mine told me, just listen to the music of the city/forest/place and take it in. I do that as well, but there are just certain moments I want to listen to that one particular song, want to sit high up on a moment and feel like I need classical music to let my thoughts flow; so having music with me while traveling is an absolute must and necessity to me. I need to switch off the outside sound and make my own.

The other day I was searching various blogs and website to what other people listening to while traveling and found the selection pretty weird. Most songs of course had something to do with traveling, but were absolutely not my taste nor would I want to listen to them while sitting on a train or walking around.

 

Traveling alone

A lot of people tell me I am brave because I travel alone to different countries. Am I the only one that doesn't think so? I don’t think it is brave, I think these days it is normal as a lot of people travel alone and explore the country on their own. Of course there are countries I wouldn’t want travel alone to. It would be naive to think the world is one happy place. But I don’t think there is anything wrong with traveling alone in well developed countries or countries that are known to be safe.

Others tell me that they couldn’t travel alone because they would feel lonely and they need company and share the experience. I partly agree, that it is certainly not easy to travel long term on your own, but for a couple of weeks it is refreshing and can be a challenge to yourself. You will open your mind and you are required to talk to people if you need help, you have no one around you that you could rely on, you will get to know your own strength and your limits.

Japan and Japanese Culture - The conclusion

Happy New Year everyone. I hope everyone had a great start into the year and will continue to be great (and if not, I hope it gets better).

I returned now from my holidays back to good ol' London. Back to work and nearly back to normality. Looks like a good time to write about my final thoughts and observations about Japan.

Overall I enjoyed Japan a lot and hope to be back one day to see more of this beautiful country. It might be small compared to others like Australia, but rich on diversity and beautiful scenery.

Doing research on a country brings certain expectations and hopes to maybe experience certain things (even though some are related to certain seasons like the cherry blossoms). I was even afraid to a certain degree which is usual when traveling to an unknown country, but none of my fears were actually confirmed or came true. An example would be the Tokyo Transport System, I really didn't understand how someone would not be able to understand the system, but then again I live in London where there are similarities (e. g. Oyster Card) so I knew already how it works. I would understand if someone barely travels and never experienced a similar system to be scared.

What I have learned and experienced in Japan