do what you love Page 38 of 61

Schedule, what schedule?

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Nijo Castle

Nijo Castle – an inspiring way to start the day

Here in Japan I don’t really have a schedule. The days are wide open, and each morning I sit down and work out how to spend the precious hours of the day ahead. Now we are more than half way through our adventure this time is feeling even more precious, and more than ever I am conscious about the choices I am making about how I spend my time.

The other day I had a Skype call scheduled for 11am and back at home I would normally have spent the hours before it catching up on emails etc. But instead we spent an impromptu hour after breakfast exploring a 500-year old castle – and guess what? I came back in time for the Skype call, very awake and already inspired before our conversation had even begun.

As a meticulous planner in the past, I am slowly trying to let go of the reins a little… not completely but enough to let my instinct guide my day, and reveal new ways of travelling through it…

How do you spend your time these days?

How organised are you?

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Tokyo

Arriving in Tokyo back in March without much of a plan

I like to think of myself as a very organised person. I love lists, notebooks, getting things in order. But that is only one part of my personality. Another part – the bohemian wandering part – has no interest whatsoever in being organised. And that is probably how I came to write in my journal, whilst sat on a plane to Japan at the beginning of this six month trip, that “I have never felt quite so unprepared for a trip in my life as I do for this one.”

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The long cycle

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The long cycle cycling2

Cycling is a brilliant way to travel – you see so much more than when you are in a car. It’s like you are IN the scenery. We had a brilliant time cycling 70km across seven huge bridges over the Seto Inland Sea, breathing in fresh salty air as we pedalled high above the sparkling seas.

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Naughty, naughty

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Beach

I led him astray.

He was supposed to be at school, learning some more grammar and having a kanji test.

But I pursuaded my man to skyve off for the day and we escaped to the beach.

Of course I wouldn’t generally advocate truancy… but it was all the more deliciously fun because we shouldn’t have been there!

My kind of Monday…

Daisen National Park

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En route to Daisen National Park

More glimpses from the road around Japan…

I travelled to many parts of Japan but this was my first time in Daisen National Park. They call the main mountain ‘Daisen’ the ‘mini Mount Fuji’ and you can see why from its conical shape. We wanted to get away from the hot hot city for a couple of days and this was the perfect place. In the winter it is a popular ski resort but in the summer, away from the roads, it is a hiker’s paradise.

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This is what Saturday mornings look like round here

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This is what Saturday mornings look like round here IMG 3204

Don’t get me wrong, I love Japanese food. I eat it nearly every day. But when you haven’t been brought up in a rice culture. every now and then you crave something else.

We live in a tiny apartment here in Kyoto – far too small to dry our washing, so once or twice a week we pedal off to the launderette to get everything dried. And while our clothes are swirling around in the giant metal tumblers, we have the perfect excuse to spend 30 minutes across the road in Le Petit Mec, a patisserie so continental you’d think you were in Paris.

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Why we did this

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Stride -Paul K

As we come to the end of our time here in Japan (only three weeks left!) I have been thinking about our reasons for coming here.

Spending six months in Japan is expensive. It’s an upheaval. And if you are studying Japanese like my man, you even get grammar tests. So why did we do this?

Because we had slipped into too much routine and needed to shake things up.

Because my man wanted to know this place that was so special to me.

Because we wanted to share a big adventure.

Because we could.

But mainly because it sounded like a good idea at the time.

And it absolutely was.

What kind of adventure sounds like a good idea to you right now?