let's never come here again because it will never be as much fun.

we've been back in cold, grey germany since wednesday night but we mainly spent the last few days curled up in bed and sleeping. it seems like my body is catching up with the sleep it couldn't get those last few weeks and as for hobbes...well, tigers do sleep all the time anyway, don't they?

it's still 2-3 weeks before university life starts again. everything else is already catching up on me more or less slowly, all those problems i tried to refuse to think about lately, they're all waiting for me now as reality smacks off my rose colored glasses. but for now, crack is wobbling his head happily in front of me and my red panda robot is crawling around in the room. i've got a script to read for a play in november, papers to write and friends to visit. it's gonna be ok.

well, i guess it's time to say goodbye and continue following our own paths again. 600 readers in 2 months, that's really smashing. we hope you enjoyed this travelblog as much as we did, thank you for sticking by.



love & peace,
idilneko & hobbes

spekulatius.

this was definitively the suckiest of sucky journeys home ever: i missed and took wrong trains to the narita airport in the rush hour of crazy tokyo several times with my heavy baggage, arrived late at the airport and this lufthansa-bitch at the check-in made me pay a ridiculous amount of money for my excess baggage, she even billed my hand baggage! wtf!? i was like "yeah i'd love to pay but see, i just set this big pile of money on fire this morning!!" seriously, how can you rip off a poor student like that?! stupid fucktards.

a boring 12-hour-flight later, the first thing i see at the german supermarket at munich airport is sushi. duh. because it's oktoberfest-time in munich, there was an army of drunken germans wearing dirndl and lederhosen at the main station and to crown it all, the train to stuttgart had a delay of 70 minutes. yeah, welcome back to germany.

when i was finally home, everything was so unusually normal. it didn't feel like we've been away for almost 2 months at all.

well, as it's already morning in tokyo time, i should finally get some sleep.

when i was your age, pluto was a planet.

everything's finally packed and ready...except me. hobbes is dozing on my bed but i'm too nervous and worried to sleep. too many changes in my life lately, it's getting a bit overwhelming.

my new mobile phone is driving me crazy. that sony ericsson w660i is crap, it just annoys the hell out of me. bluetooth doesn't work, the screensaver is the most stupid thing i've ever seen (the same color for the background and font of the clock - wtf!??!), you can only use crappy themes and it even doesn't have a currency converter! i hope that at least it'll work in japan. also, the ac adapter i ordered didn't arrive in time which sucks. i hope i'll find a good one at the airport.

tomorrow's gonna be a long, long day:
stuttgart - munich - tokyo - osaka
a total of about 24 hours of travelling!
i have no idea if the internet at the youth hostel will work or when i'll be able to update the next time...also, i can't find any clever closing words for this post.

the pink dress.

the weather's awful here in germany, don't mind the smiling frog on the left. by the way i guess you've already figured out that those little animations at the beginning of each posting are displaying the weather at our current location. we're still working on the design and widgets of our travelblog. yesterday we've added a shoutbox, feel free to leave random comments there. still searching for a nice pownce widget though as they're not available for blogger yet. please let me know if you've found one!

idil is no big help at the moment as she is jumping around happily all evening because she finally found this pink dress she was looking for for weeks and even bought it at a reduced price today. oh well. i also have to look after my buddy mico (idil's brother's cat). he is so sad because his big brother left for turkey yesterday for three weeks so he is eating cookies and chocolate all the time like some depressed girl. he even started licking the furniture again. that cat is crazy...

/hobbes

plazes.

a few days ago i watched lost in translation again. as you can tell from my website designs, i really like that movie. ;) japan-guide.com has a list of the locations where the movie was shot and i'd really like to visit the park hyatt hotel for example. hobbes says i'm a dork.

some other places i'd like to visit in japan this summer are:

• tokyo: senso-ji, harajuku, shibuya, roppongi hills, ueno park, national art center, takaraza revue, ghibli museum, park hyatt tokyo
  
• osaka: osaka castle, kaiyukan aquarium
  
• kyoto: gion district, kiyomizu-dera
  
• nara: nara park, todai-ji

if you have more suggestions, let me know. (...) japan-guide.com is a neat website with lots of information on japan and tips for traveling/living there. for example did you know that there are large lavender fields on hokkaido? weird. too bad i probably won't leave honshû though.

i'm still a bit unsure about that plug and voltage stuff in japan as it differs from the european standards. i've ordered some travel plug adapter and i just cross my fingers and hope my notebook won't blow up or something. also, i don't wanna drag it around for nothing. especially not after i've checked the weather forecasts for japan earlier today: average 30°C! apparently i'm going to melt there.

there are still so many things to do! today i bought myself a new sketchbook and ordered my new cell phone. i just hope it'll arrive in time and that it'll work in japan. i also need to think of a name for it...

realization.

this morning i had the last exam for this term. i still got papers to write but i'll deal with those after my trip. anyway, i'm relieved the learning stress is over for now and i'm gradually starting to realize that i'm going to japan for almost 2 months!

i've never been away from home for that long and my longest stay at a guest family was 3 weeks. i got a letter from my host family in tsu today which lifted my spirits because they have two little children (you gotta love japanese kids!) and sound very nice and i'm looking forward to meet them.

nevertheless i must say, the whole thing's frightening me a bit but i'm also excited. i really need some time off of germany and especially tübingen anyway. i'm sure there'll be plenty stuff to take pictures of and maybe i'll even start drawing again!? i wish i already had some kind of crazy art project in my mind for japan. i really miss the art in my life.

hello there

hobbes an me are currently in germany, preparing our trip to japan this summer. we've already been to japan in april 2003 for one week and we were extremely lucky then because it was cherry blossom prime time, we had a very lovely host family and visited many interesting places in a very short time.

this is a picture of us i took on our first night in japan at the hotel in oogaki
this time we're gonna stay for about 7 weeks. the first few days we'll be spending at a youth hostel in osaka for acclimatisation, the next four weeks we're staying at a host family in tsu which lies in the ise bay and is the capital of mie prefecture. i'm going to take part in a language course at the mie university there. in september we're leaving for kyoto. we'll be staying at a temple there and by using the japan rail pass, travelling a bit around, visiting cities like hiroshima or nara. our last few days we wanna spend in tokyo before flying back to germany.

we're going to write about our adventures in japan and post photos here in this travel blog. if you have any comments or tips, don't hesitate to leave a comment! enjoy!

love,
idil & hobbes