#117

13 hours ago I was at the last Journey concert in Honolulu, 13 hours later I have woken up realizing I have no voice.

I can now safely check off, "Was part of a large mass of voices singing in a stadium/arena along with [insert band name]" from my very vague Things-in-life-I-would-like-to-do-list. The concert was just speechless! Two encores and Journey played mostly all of the favorite classics of their songs. I was kinda bummed they didn't play "Sunshower" but it was still a utterly fantastic concert. I stood for the two whole hours, my shoulders hurt from keeping my arms raised and pumping for most of that time. Arnel was an unbelievable ball of energy, Journey did really good in picking him to take up the lead.

It was a moment, one of "those" moments and I got the chance to go. Thanks Aunties!

Now to do homework and its raining...

#116

As I was posting some new stuff to my artfire account (which only turned out to be one picture as I was horrendously sidetracked, you will soon see why...) I had to pull out my Ireland travel journals in order to label the picture accordingly. I think I spent an hour flipping back and forth through the dog-eared pages reading entries at random, then I suddenly started tearing up. I realized how I utterly miss traveling for the sheer sake of adventure. I've probably mentioned it before but on that one trip I never remembered being that brave or adventurous as I was then, not even now.

So in my nostalgia what do I do... I pull out the Japan journal I've started and two dog-eared Japan guides that I'm using as references and got back to laying out my Japan trip. What I love right now is that there are so many small insignificant (not really) things that happen that seem to remind me of this goal.

Here is what I figured out so far:

I plan to save $5000-$6000 dollars. (I spent $3000 on personal expenses in my two months in Ireland) I could cut it down to half as I get flesh out my final plans. The main money suckers is the airfare and the rail passes. (Not to mention I really want to go to a Ryokan and an onsen)

My initial list has 13 main areas to visit and I haven't even hit south Japan yet!

I'm looking to travel in July and August, most especially because I want to make it to a couple festivals.

That is my trip so far.

And the excitement still hasn't gone away.