The travel bug

It's January and I have exams coming next month. Ugh.

My exams look like they're going to be in the first week of February. And towards the end of the month I have to do a presentation.

Anyway, right now I'm thinking about the spring holiday. Here's my plan:

19-22/02: possibly spend a long weekend in Nara (Rachel is coming the weekend before that, and I'll take her to Nara), to do more research on the area and take photographs for the competition I'm planning to enter

25-28/02:

01-02/03: 2-day trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima with the University

05-14/03: I'm currently planning a 10-day trip that'll take me to 高山、白川郷、新潟、仙台、日光, and I'm planning to end the trip at Rachel's in Yokohama (with possible day trips to 鎌倉 and 箱根?), before taking an overnight highway bus from Yokohama back to Osaka. The budget is 70,000yen (using the 青春18きっぷ and staying at cheap hotels).

15/03: 大相撲春場所 at the Osaka prefectural stadium

17-24/03:

25/03~ : family is coming over to visit and going to hanami, haven't decided where yet but maybe Shikoku?

I'm trying very hard here to save money for the travelling (I'm minimising eating out and karaoke - haven't been for a month!). I also want to plan a trip to 高野山 and 伊勢半島 (either end of February or in March, after the sumo), although I'm still figuring out the train/bus routes since I can't drive, and after that I can start budgeting.

Other future travel plans:

Golden Week: road trip! with Seb, Daan, Andrew and Morgan. Have no idea where we're going, 'cause it's just an idea (which I came up with, thank you very much). I thought since we're always going off to Shidax for karaoke, why don't we just go on a road trip, play CDs and music in the car and sing along! that way the car is our karaoke room :D

August: Summer holiday. Nadisha and Megan are coming to visit. They want to go to Tokyo and Kyoto. Obviously I'll join them for Kyoto, but I haven't decided on Tokyo yet.

P.S. I definitely need to do a round-Kyushu trip, plus island hopping in Okinawa.