Saturday, February 28, 2015

i'm long-winded

~in case you didn't know.

whilst doing my "research", i came across my new favourite youtube channel, sharla in japan. her videos are awesome. i guess she's somewhat famous or something. i'm kind of mad that i'm just discovering her now. i've been bingeing on watching her videos to the point where i feel stalkerish. and of course... 



O.o  
soooo~ i started following her on facebook, twitter, and instagram too. cause i'm creepy like that, i guess. anyway, she had posed a few questions to her fb followers earlier in the month for a future blog post she's doing or something. all the info she would have needed was posted within the day... but i didn't know who she was then. and i wanted to answer them just for fun. so i did.
annnnnnd, i can never answer concisely or get to the point without a story. (noticed that, have you?) it was really long, but interesting [to me], and shares some of my history of my love affair with all things japanese.  so, here ya go.

these were sharla's two posts:
"I'm working on a website project and I have some questions for you guys!! (For those of you that are interested in Japan, which I'm assuming is a good number of you, haha) If you could answer that would be amazing!! Skip any questions that you don't feel like answering~ Thank you! < 3
1. ) What got you interested in Japan?
2. ) Have you ever been to Japan? If not, are you considering visiting?
3. ) If you were to plan a trip to Japan, where would you look for information on places to stay, visit, eat, shop etc.? (guide books, google search, websites specialising in Japan...)
4. ) Which websites do you visit all the time? (Not about Japan, just in general!) What do you like about them?"

"Thank you SO much for answering my questions, very helpful and interesting to read!!
One last question for you guys, if you had to pick one, what's the ONE thing you are most interested in about Japan at the moment? (Anime, food, cars, travel spots, pop culture, traditional culture, martial arts, kawaii stuff, video games, cosplay, etc.... )"

and this is my unnecessarily long answer:
i realize this is an older post and you probably don’t need more input, but i feel like answering anyway~ i apologize in advance for the length…

1. at this point, i don’t remember. i did my geography project on japan in grade 9 (i got a b- because i was so enthralled that it ended up being 45 pages long instead of the 10 maximum), but i’m pretty sure there was already an interest by then and that’s why i chose japan over any other country. i don’t think it was any one thing before that – just seeing pictures and thinking it was beautiful, i guess. in grade 10, my brother had a learn japanese audio tape (that’s how old i am…) and i stole it from him. there was no turning back after that. lifelong obsession ensued.
2. i have been to japan once before. hubby and i never went on an official honeymoon, so for our 3rd anniversary, he made my dream of getting there come true. we were there for 10 days. i’m now in the middle of planning our epic return.  still only for 2 weeks, but during HANAMI this time! (30 days to go!!!)
3. since i AM planning a trip to japan, i can tell you that i have been quite well-rounded in my research variety. lol. i have a few guide books from last time (i planned that all myself too) but i mostly use the internet. i use japan-guide. com a lot. white rabbit had made 2 ‘walking tours’ (akihabara and shinjuku) which we pretty cool. i wish they had made more.  but the BEST source of information for trip planning is from vloggers like you. i’ve picked up so many ideas and tips that way.
4. i’m obsessed with pinterest. i spend hours searching and pinning random crap. it’s a place i can do my two favourite things~ hoard and organize. and i spend a good amount of time split between facebook, twitter, youtube, blogger, and a group chat app (online version) called groupme (kind of the same thing as whatsapp).
oh yeah. i also use google maps a lot. it’s good for trip planning too. i love the street view thing where i can just drop that little dude down into the map and wander around the streets of tokyo. it’s almost like being there. …almost.
5. (from the next post) idk if there is ONE thing about japan i’m particularly interested in the most. i was really into traditional things before, especially geisha – not that i’m not still, but my general interest has grown to encompass much more than that. i guess you could just say ‘daily life’ or something like that. everyday things most japanese people would find mundane or boring. those are the things i am fascinated by.

damn. that was even longer than i thought. ~gomen.

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