Fernweh

I took almost 400 photos over the course of the five weeks – visit my photo album to see all of them!

As I'm trying to find my footing here again, I've played around with something: Before I left, I created a 'good stuff' playlist – just random songs (74 of them) I enjoyed, some new, some old. I actually didn't listen to as much music on this trip as I normally do, mainly because in Japan [...]

Back in Switzerland – the journey went well and I've had a shower and showed my mom and brother the things I bought. I missed them, that's for sure, just like I missed all my friends, on- and offline. Hope to catch up with you guys soon! Thanks for sharing this journey with me – [...]

So now I'm on my way home and Japan is really behind me. Had a lovely day yesterday, though – karaoke in those little karaoke 'boxes' really is a lot of fun, and the National Museum was very interesting, too. I even managed to fit all the books and souvenirs I'd bought into my suitcase, [...]

Today is my last day in Japan – tomorrow will be spent traveling, and Monday morning I'll arrive in Switzerland. Because my plane will arrive early no train from Basel gets to the airport in time, so I'll have to make my own way home, sadly enough… But enough of this, as I'll have six [...]

Slowly but surely it is getting to the point where I have to count the hours I have left to spend in Japan… On Tuesday, after traveling all day, I was picked up by two friendly young ladies, Nozomi and Mie (who is half-Swiss French) at Tokyo station, who brought me safely to my hostel [...]

Had a lovely relaxing time in Sounkyo (although the weather didn't always cooperate and the famous gorge was partly closed due to rockslides) and the farming village of Bibaushi, where I rambled over the fields and stayed up late (until almost 11pm! *g*) chatting with a nice bloke from Amsterdam. Only back here in familiar [...]

I must say, it feels good to be out of cities for a spell… Much less stressful rushing around, more just taking the beautiful nature in. Of course, the mountains are not specifically Japanese, but they're sporting the most beautiful autumn colors – and yesterday, I even saw snow! Glad to say it was only [...]

This was by far the most horrible day on this trip. Because of crappy public transport links I didn't get to see either one of my two Ainu villages – instead I sat around train stations waiting and experienced the gulf of the language barrier until all I wanted to do was scream. Instead I [...]

First the good news: I finalized my itinerary for Hokkaido today, picking out hostels, making reservations and looking up trains. Luckily there always seem to be helpful souls around to make phonecalls or find information for me – but I've got to admit, speaking Japanese would definitely be handy… Anyway, I'll be leaving Sapporo the [...]