Planning... and lots of gigs!

So it's still over four months before I finally set off on my exciting journey but there's still so much to arrange!

The plan at present looks a bit like this:

Day 1: Arrive in Tokyo
Day 2: Visit Tsukiji, Sea Life Tokyo, Imperial Palace, Ghibli Museum and Tokyo Met Gov't Building
Day 3: Go to Nagoya (via Shizuoka)
Day 4: Visit Nagoya Castle & the Science Museum
Day 5: Visit Shirakawago (overnight stay?)

Day 6: Head to Kyoto

Day 7: Gion Matsuri & Visit Temples

Day 8: Fushimi Inari Shrine and head to Osaka

Day 9: Visit Osaka Castle (I also found out jealkb are playing live on this date so if I can get tickets...)

Day 10: Head to Yokohama, visit Nogeyama Zoo and Yokohama Landmark Tower Sky Garden

Day 11: Free Day in Tokyo

Day 12: Visit Mount Fuji & Fuji Five Lakes

Day 13: As above

Day 14: Visit Nikko - Kegon Falls and Yutaki Waterfall

Day 15: Free Day in Tokyo

Day 16: Sumida River Fireworks

Day 17: Free Day in Tokyo

Day 18: Fly back to London

I'm lucky enough to have discovered that my trip coincides with the Gion Matsuri in Kyoto so I've slightly altered my original plan to include visiting while that's on.

I'm so excited but it really will be first time travelling alone so I'm pretty nervous too!  Hope I can get all my accommodation sorted!

Obviously this schedule is still being added to, if anyone has any suggestions for my free days or any other locations, please let me know. I want to fit in as much as I can but I'm trying not to be too greedy!

In the meantime, I still have lots to look forward too. Next month I have tickets to see lots of awesome concerts:

An Cafe

Miyavi (VIP ticket)

VAMPS (VIP ticket!!!)

If I survive all that excitement, I'll make sure to write more about them!

Here Begins My Next Journey

I don't really know how to start this as I've never had a blog before but I guess it'd probably make sense to explain what I'm wanting to blog about, right?

I've always been quite interested in Japanese culture ever since I was a child and playing Final Fantasy 7 with my little brother. It was a natural progression to become interested in anime after that and although I had been a fan of Hikki for many years, last year in particular, I discovered J-Rock and more bands than I could have ever expected to fall in love with!

In the past year there have been several other firsts, first time I made a cosplay outfit and subsequently attended a convention in said cosplay, first time I attended a meet up event, first time attending a J-Rock concert (see video above), first time becoming slightly fan girl over said band (slightly may be an understatement) and all in the year I first had the chance to live entirely on my own. Perhaps all that space gave me the opportunity to realise what was really interesting to me?

It has always been a dream of mine to visit Japan and upon some rather big changes in my life over the past few years, I decided I was no longer "waiting" (who knows what for) to go out and do what I wanted to do. Fast forward 6 months and I've begun to attempt learning Japanese, moved back in with my parents to save up some funds and booked flights to finally make the trip!

I hope in this blog, to invite you to share these new experiences with me and maybe learn from others about their experiences and other things that I maybe don't know about now. So here's the warning - I'm not promising to enlighten anyone, I don't know that I'm going to discover anything that many of you probably don't already know but I hope that maybe you enjoy taking the journey with me (^_^)