Progress

The paper is coming along.  I am all set for the presentation portion on Wednesday and the last 3rd (the analysis section) is nearly complete (or, well, i only have 3 more pages on that part!). Tonight I'm treating myself with some wasted time spent reading my old blogposts, you know, clicking the little links at the bottom of the post there...
reading stuff I forgot I had written.  You know I've had this blog now for 4 years.  FOUR YEARS.  And I didn't celebrate my blog-versary with a giveaway or anything trendy like that.  Sometimes I really miss how blogging used to be back in 2006.  So so much different than it is now.  Less etsy.  Less designer fabrics.  More photos of people's kitchens... And on my own humble little blog here, more words. I used to write really long deep posts.  Sometimes about quilting but a lot of times about life.  I was still growing (I am still growing), still sorting things out.  I've got a much better handle on a lot of those things now (for one thing, I found quilters in Athens!) but now I've got new stuff to sort out-- grad school and family, housework and guilt.  Some of it I'm not so sure I want out here and open on the internet.. (I should mention that this is the subject of the paper I'm writing= the hell that insues when stuff you write online comes back to bite you in real life..)  But I do miss pouring my heart into thoughtful blogposts.  I like looking back and reading myself, revisiting how I saw the world at that particular time. 
Ok, enough melancholy non-quilt-related posting for the moment.  I should get to bed before the kid wakes up for his midnight snack.  But wait, first I want your opinions...

1)   List 3 blogs you really love these days and why.
2)   What's your favorite aspect of the quiltblogland community at the moment?
3)   How long is too long to keep breastfeeding?  (Loaded question, I know.  I have my own opinion on this, but i'm curious to know how YOU feel about it..

ok, thanks.

My oldest UFO

My oldest UFO from jessica alexandrakis on Vimeo.

Unpacking, part 3: shoeboxes

As I continued stacking and sorting, a pile developed on the table and I realized that, quite by accident, I have become a collector of shoeboxes...

You know a post about a shoe collection has no place on a quilting blog (but a lip balm collection is totally acceptable, of course), so what's really in there? Well..

a long long time ago (oh, say about from 2003-2005), I used to have a lot of penpals and I used to get A LOT of mail..

But that's not really the beginning... I started penpaling in the summer between 7th and 8th grade. It felt awesome to be connected to people all around the world, to be 13 years old and "know" people in Sweden, Germany, Hawaii, Texas, and other "exotic" places, like California. To a suburban girl whose family didn't travel, getting letters from different parts of the world was the next best thing to going there myself. I had a big map of the world on my bedroom wall and would put stickers on every city I had a pen pal in. There is still a big box of letters in my parents' basement from that period. I wrote letters on and off through high school and college, but had stopped almost completely by the time I moved to Hokkaido in '01. The internet re-introduced me to paling and got me started on swapping, a fun but expensive hobby of sending booklets of mail art with each letter. I think by the time we moved into the condo in '05 I was a bit overwhelmed by it all.. and wanted to spend more time quilting. Costas was relieved that I had settled on one expensive hobby, and stopped trying to keep up with two (to give an idea, some months of swapping would cost me $60+ in postage..). I kept up with some of my pals on livejournal, but when I started blogging here I lost touch with most of them too. Of course now there's facebook- and the ability to reconnect with almost anyone in an instant. That's why I'll be heading out to eastern Long Island tomorrow, to meet up with Courtney, an old swapper that I haven't talked to in ages. It should be nice. Thanks Facebook.

Unpacking, part 2: incense

The unpacking in the sewing room continues. The more time I spend in there, the more I realize that I have a lot of "stuff." Fun stuff, useful stuff, stuff full of memories. Not only do I never need to buy fabric again, but I really don't need to buy anything fun ever again either. Today's post will highlight my collection of incense. Most is Japanese and my addiction started in high school when Ryoko sent me the two boxes of "Meditate" incense in cedar and musk in the summer of 1994.

Again, the photo with notes is over here at flickr. After discovering Japanese incense, the stinky american versions found in hippy-type stores always seemed a little gross to me. On my first trip to Epcot Center when I was 15, I found "aloes wood" in the blue box, and that was what I burned throughout the rest of high school. The big box in the photo was a present from a guy that had a huge crush on me, for my 16th birthday. He showered me with presents that year, totally upstaging my boyfriend at the time, but still didn't win me over. I sometimes wonder what happened to that guy, I bet in 3 clicks I could find him on facebook...
The Nag Champa I didn't discover until college, when Lexi turned me on to it and then its scent became synonomous with our relationship, Jeff Buckley, and certain other extra curriculars of the time. Now I keep the smaller box, wrapped in plastic, in my sewingbox. The sewing box came from Walmart (?) and always smelled a little plastic-y. The Nag Champa really helps.
Each one of these packages has memories, I've tried to jot them down quick on flickr. If I spent time explaining and revisiting each one here I'd never finish unpacking..

Oh, and look what else I found-- 4 more lip balms. After taking the pics, I also came across 2 more in a box labeled "Japan Keepsakes." (Now that was a fun box of memories..)

tiny tumbler

Digging through my pile of UFOs, I pulled up this little bundle, which I think I'll work on for my next project in the challenge.

what's inside? This is a pouch I started in 2004, just like this one. the tumblers are pieced all by hand, with sewing lines traced on the back. I used to do all my quilting like this, tiny patches, tiny stitches. Today though, when I started to sew the first two rows together, I felt like I was all thumbs. It took a while to remember how to stitch like this again, checking the front and back to be sure I was sewing on the lines. I guess if I could just do it all in one sitting it'd come back to me pretty naturally, but with interruptions...let's see how long it takes me.
Today I put George in the sling and started really unpacking the sewing room while he slept. I packed up most of the fabric in April, when we started house hunting, but a lot of boxes & tubs had been packed and stored since before our last move in '05, and some things were tucked away since Atlanta ('02-'04) or Japan ('01-'02). Going through boxes and piles of things made me chuckle more than a few times. I was laughing at myself, my habits, what kind of things were important to me over the last 10 years... I think some of the things I found deserve blog posts all their own. If time allows, I might write them.

Surprise finds

I spent most of the afternoon unpacking the kitchen boxes and realized several things:

1. this house has about half the cabinet space as our last place.

2. the cabinets go to the ceiling, meaning I need a step ladder to reach half of the shelves.

3. I love my dishes <3

4. I have a pretty sizeable collection of cute Japanese dishes..

I was planning to put all the cute ones on display in a tall glass cabinet so I could actually use them, but that cabinet is filling up quickly and I keep finding more...

(sorry for the glare, I haven't had time to find good spots to take pics in this house yet)

Some of these I haven't seen in years, always packed out of the way so I could access the "daily" dishes. Well not anymore. I love these dishes! some of them I've had since 1996 and I've been carrying them around with me with each move. Once I find somewhere to put them all, I want to actually use them. And once they're better displayed (like, not on the carpet), I want to photograph and talk about them too.

Ahhh, moving. you'll never know what you'll find.

Fruit Pizza

I'm at home in Chicago and loving it. Today Lori & I made a dessert pizza for a family party:
This is an old-school Pampered Chef recipe from when my mom used to sell Pampered Chef products in the late 1980s. We hadn't had one in years.
So satisfying to make, even better to eat..

Tomorrow they're throwing me a baby shower, yay! more food and family, my two favorite things these days.

Christmas Presents~~

Christmas break is going well, I'm spending lots of time with family but not much time online. I did make plans to hang out with Carolyn next week (yay), hope that works out. The family totally loved their quilts, which made me really happy. The first photo is me and Lori, then mom and dad with mom's quilt:
And mom & dad with dad's quilt. I want to get "real" blog-type photos at some point, but I haven't had the chance just yet. I was working on mom's quilt until the very last minute-- sewing the binding on at grandma's across the street. My left thumb is really sore, but I can't stop sewing, you know me.
I got a very unexpected present on Christmas eve from my cousin Emy. She put together a vintage box of tons of fabric scraps from our great grandmother's collection, with pieces from her stash as well. It's awesome. If I have time in the new year I'd like to make a scrap quilt with all my vintage cottons... quite a project, and I'll really have to commit myself to it because if I cut them up and then never finish I'll be heartbroken.
ahhh.. It has been tough going through the holidays without Theresa, especially the big family parties. Lori has been a great support though.
Hope all went well for everyone out there in blogland. I am terribly behind in reading my bloglines but hope to catch up soon.

November 4

Makiba came over today to finish her duvet cover (that we started in June?!), and it was a big, big project. Solid orange, 8'x8'. I don't usually work with things that size so trying to figure out the math and the measuring, not to mention hauling it back and forth between the sewing room and my bedroom (we didn't have anywhere else to lay it out..) was a big job. Once it was done, Makiba started flipping through some magazines i brought back from Japan. I love this because she reads aloud all the stuff that I just glanced over. She really wanted a bento-box bag but didn't like any of the patterns we found. A pretty striped pillow caught her eye though, and when I suggested we make a bag like it, she was a little confused/nervous. But making small things is my style. ;)
I let her root through some fabric (my entire stash kind of overwhelmed her) as I eyeballed, cut and stitched the bag lining from her left over orange fabric. We cut strips of the ones she liked and I had her sew them together. I did all the thinking and she did all the sewing. When we got to the part where you pull the bag through the lining, I told her about how I learned to do that from the wife of a Yakuza. True story-- when I was living in Hokkaido, I wandered into a shop selling handmade goods in Sapporo and asked the shop keeper where I could learn to make stuff like what she was selling. She invited me to sit and sew with her, and we ended up sewing together that whole weekend. I think it was after I showed her my tattoo that she mentioned her husband was a gangster... but anyway.
The bento bag came out really cute. I totally wanted to make one for myself too, but by the time she was done we were both hungry and I still had the whole house to clean. We ate leftover yuvarlakia and she watched as I cleaned the kitchen. You know you have a good friend when you invite them over even when you haven't showered and you can do stuff like wash pots and pans while they're there.
I did sew together 1/4 of the cross blocks this morning and I'm fairly confident I can have the top done by the weekend. Don't worry, all progress (and distractions) will be posted here.

Scrap History

Late last night I sat down to do a very mindless activity and started to sort my scraps. While most are still a big wrinkled tangled mess, I know have cute labled ziplock bags for squares less than 3"x3", squares bigger than 3"x3", long narrow strips, short strips, wide strips, bias strips, and a great big (one gallon?) bag of scraps the right size/shape to cut into 2 1/8" diamonds for English paper piecing.
This morning I came in and saw my scraps lying around in the sunlight and thought a few of them deserved a bit more attention. Most fall into the "too small to use but could never throw away" category, but each one has deep memories attached. Please click the link to flickr to read the notes, the scrap history.

September 29th

I have truly enjoying having M and S stay with us this weekend. Having them here has brought back a lot of memories, I woke up this morning next to C with the feeling that we weren't alone in the house, and outside of the bedroom M and S were sleeping or doing whatever, exactly like it used to be when I would stay over at their place in Worcester when I was still in college. And I thought about C and how things were when our relationship was new and fresh.. things that hadn't crossed my mind in a long time.. it was nice.

Today we drove up to check out the beantown jazz festival. It was nice but very crowded. Met up with 2 friends and went for coffee and had a big long discussion about democracy and greek politics/history. then the 4 of us went to dinner on Newbury St. and had another long discussion about innovation, technological adoption, and data collection. Of all the dinners I've sat through with economists, this was one of the most enjoyable. I do like these guys-- wish they lived closer.
When we got home I left them to watch TV and I came upstairs to play with fabric.. I am still working on layouts for the mile-a-minutes (pics soon, i promise) and I'm having fun working with nine-patch variations. Choosing to only use fabrics from my stash is pretty hard though.. I want to give these as gifts, but all of my fabric is stuff I like, and I'm not sure how the recipients will feel about it... I'll keep trying.

a few words on culture..

Thanks for all the kind words of encouragement on my last post.

The problem with being multicultural is that sometimes some aspects of one of the cultures get on your nerves. But I've got to remember that I'm lucky to have such problems..

Ah, to think back on the days when I only had one culture-- just middle-middle class, German-Irish Catholic south side of Chicago culture. I only knew about the things I saw in my daily life; getting teased at school, singing in the choir, going bumming with grandpa. Everybody would say, "what are you?" "I'm half Italian and half Polish." "I'm one quarter Lithuanian, one quarter Irish, and half Dutch." "I'm 100% Irish." "Me too."

And we did countless projects in school where we were assigned to go ask our grandparents about our family tree, when did they come to America, do we still have family back in ____?
Then we'd plot little stickers on the map of the world to show were "we" came from. Once a year we'd ask our grandmas to bake soda bread or make canoli for the "international lunch."
It was all great fun, definitely inspired me to want to learn more about other countries, but all in all, we were all still American. All of us. Even Jim Fergus whose mom came from Ireland (and she had an accent!). Why wasn't being American celebrated when we were growing up? Why did we have to wish we were from somewhere else, or fool ourselves into believing that we actually were?

I fell in love with Costas because he loved America. He could tell me things about my own country that I had no idea about, and no interest in knowing, before he made it sound like the best place on earth. That's when I started loving America. But before that I had already hightailed it out of here. As soon as I could I left the country (at age 16, for a 3 week trip to Japan). Choosing to go to Japan was completely arbitrary. I could have gone anywhere and been just as happy to have finally left the States. But fate had it that I would end up in Nara, just as Ryoko had started at Doshisha University, and I fell in love with Japan, hard. And since then I've wanted to go back, over and over and over.. so I did.

Part of my mixed feelings towards Greece are as I mentioned before-- lack of like-minded friends. Other issues are not so much a difference in culture as a difference in class. And another big point, which I didn't clearly realize until I was typing this post.. there are a lot of things about Greece that Costas doesn't like. He has chosen to live here. When we're here he'll complain about America, when we're there he complains about Greece. But my introduction to Greek culture came not only with my own observations but also with his point of view. Ah. Now I see things more clearly. Greece is a very passionate country. Things there make sense in the right context. Same as with all other places, right? It's so true, but not always so easy to remember.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my long rambling post. I treated my sour mood of last week with a healthy dose of sewing (pics to follow shortly) and a few of Regina Spektor's songs on repeat in the car, especially this one.

Kikuyo Kubota

I had really wanted to title this post "My pre-trip Expectations and the (at times) better-than-expected Reality" but that's a little long, don't you think?

What I really wanted was a quilting tour of Japan. I researched and planned, packed and re-packed, scoured the internet and racked my memory, all for the things i knew i just needed to do one more time. Though I made the decision myself to leave Japan in 2002, I've had mixed feelings about that choice ever since. Whenever life wasn't going how I wanted, I'd let myself fall into daydreams of "what if I'd stayed.." To say I'd been viewing Japan with rose-colored glasses is a gross understatement. So I knew from the start that my expectations for the trip would be a little unrealistic and I tried to brace myself for the shock of going back and the reality of seeing Japan/Hokkaido/Tomakomai for what it was. Physical vacation aside, it was a very big emotional trip, thank goodness I had my paper journal to capture the deep thoughts and stunning realizations. I made a list of things I wanted to do while I was there: Go to every quilt/fabric shop. Go to every local quilt show. Tackle the 100 yen shop. Check out used bookstores/recycle shops. Sit around and quilt with the ladies. Help Mrs. K. finish the wedding quilt she started for me. Go to some onsens. Eat Sapporo ramen (with butter and corn).

Of that whole list... at least I went to an onsen.

If I look at the trip from the perspective of what I didn't do, then yeah, I could get disappointed. Missing that quilt show in Sapporo was tough. But I took a few deep breaths and looked around. What I was doing, all of the mundane everyday unplanned stuff ended up being a lot more fun and more rewarding than I could have imagined. I met a lot of people. I changed some people's views of what an "American woman" was like. I got a personal tour of two women's complete quilt collections. Yeah. No regrets, it was awesome.So, speaking of quilts..

All of the quilts in this post were made by Kikuyo Kubota (Mrs. K.). Hand pieced. Hand quilted. I don't even think she has a rotary cutter. She draws all of her sewing lines on the wrong side of each patch with a pencil. She completed a correspondance course and has her "quilting instructor" certificate hanging in her living room. She is talented, dedicated, and patient. She's called me every month for the last 5 years. I thought we'd done a pretty good job of keeping up with each other. But somehow I wasn't listening, I didn't understand, or maybe I just didn't want to accept it. She told me two years ago that she had diabetes. She told me her eyesight was getting bad. I asked about my wedding quilt and she said she couldn't see very well and it was getting hard for her to work on it. I naively thought that if I went there it would be like it was before. I thought we could finish the quilt together.

When I arrived and we were leaving the airport, she needed to grab my arm to go down the stairs. She told me what was wrong with her eyes but I didn't understand the vocabulary.. we looked it up when we got home-- cataracts. This was tough for me to accept. I know cataracts aren't the end of the world. She's having the lazer procedure in a few weeks. But she couldn't quilt. I traveled all the way there and the only thing I really wanted to do was sit and quilt with her every day, and she couldn't quilt. I wanted to show her things and she couldn't see them. My little Moo cards-- just a blur. I could see it hurt her not to be able to see and share things with me. I almost felt guilty sitting there piecing my diamond stars every night after dinner, but she was happy to have me there and I was happy to make her happy.

We filled our days with social engagements, shopping trips, cooking and household chores. I didn't even bring up my wedding quilt until I had been there a week. She hadn't been able to work on it in almost a year and had tucked it away for safe keeping. She looked for two days but couldn't find it. I was sad about that too. Sad I couldn't appreciate all the work she had done for me, and sad that I could see the pain she felt because she couldn't do it anymore.

I'm lucky to have her for a friend. She is funny, thoughtful, and generous. In a lot of ways we're a lot alike. On the outside their lifestyle may seem like nothing special, but in a lot of ways her home reminded me of how I grew up. She stretched every penny and happily told you how far it went. Her motto is "ecology and economy" which she'd cheerfully repeat as she reused plastic wrap or emptied the food trash into the compost bin. She reminded me of a lot of things about myself that I had forgotten. That alone made the trip worth every penny.

The realities of jet-lag, part 1

This is Hokkaido.

This is the heater in Mrs. K's living room. On the top they keep a pot of water so the air doesn't dry out and a kettle to keep the hot-water supply constant all day. They do have a hot pot, but use the kettle to fill the hot pot. I've decided that once I've recovered (financially) from this trip, I want a japanese style hot pot too.

I left for Japan on a Monday and after one of the worst series of flights in my life (late planes, cranky airport employees, and a best friend with motion sickness coupled with a turbulent ride, to name a few), I arrived at New Chitose Airport on Tuesday night. Mrs. & Mr. K. picked me up and the shock of how familiar it all felt (the airport parking lot, for one) helped me ward off sleep for a few hours. We talked a lot, Mr. K. drives the same car that I do. When we got home we watched tv and I struggled to pull simple Japanese phrases from deep corners of my memory.

I used to live there, in southern Hokkaido, and I taught English in a public senior high school for one year on the Jet Program. I met Mrs. K. on the train one day and we've been friends ever since. There are many many things I love about Mrs. K, which I hope I'll remember to write more about later, but the incredibly obvious attraction is that she quilts. She quilts a lot, or well, she used to (more on that later). This is the wall hanging displayed in her front entrance hall, all pieced and quilted by hand. She must have been in a wedding ring phase for a while there, because the bedcover she was making for me was also a double wedding ring, and after going through her completed works, she gave me a small double wedding ring placemat as well (pictures on flickr eventually). Though I was tired after arriving, I couldn't remember exactly how bad jet lag was when you go to Japan.. I recalled waking up early, but..

I got up at 4:30 am. I marvelled at where I was. I flipped through a magazine, my japanese textbook, and wrote a bit in my journal. As much as I tried, it was impossible not to wake someone who was just as excited to have me as I was to be there, so for the first 3 days, 4:30 am it was. I'd come downstairs around 6 and start the housewives' morning routine. They live a good, simple life and I was very grateful to be a part of it.

am I ready for this?

I bought my plane tickets for Japan nearly 2 weeks ago.
though I'm thrilled that I'm going, it either hasn't really hit me yet, or my subconcious is playing some tricks so that I don't think about it. Either way that's fine, it's best if I don't obsess about it for the next 3 months. I want to make it a well planned trip, get in as much quilt-related sight-seeing, shopping, and relaxing that I can, and try to appreciate being there now for what it will be-- a solo pleasure trip in my mid-20s to visit friends, and a time to find some closure. I'm telling myself that it will be my last time there for a while, maybe a long while, maybe ever.

who knows. this is exactly what I want to avoid-- dwelling on my intense past relationship with Japan. Can't I stay in the "now" for a while? So... I'm posting about going because... Mrs. K called and I told her I'm coming. She was excited and said she'll cancel all of her appointments (she attends one aerobics class per week, i told her not to cancel it). She wants to keep it a secret from her husband until I get there.. I wonder if that'll work.

I'm happy that she's happy. It will be good to spend time with her. It will be good for a lot of reasons... yes, i just need to accept that. it's good that I'm going, no matter what happens.

The pic at the top is from a fieldtrip my exchange program took to Kanazawa. I'm the first female on the left (brown pants). This was in the spring of 2000 maybe? or fall of 1999? Now I don't remember. I was shocked to realize that i have no digital photos from that time. I have hardly any digital photos from when I did JET either, only the handful that I emailed to Costas from my cell phone. It hits me how much time has passed not by my age, or what I've done since then, but how technology and the internet play such a different role in my life now compared to then. Sure, as an exchange student in Japan at the turn of the century, I had a cell phone that could send email, but I didn't have a computer or a digital camera. Those items were acquired in 2002 & 2003, respectively. I used the internet mainly to send email to my family and friends, not as an ultra convenient information storage system/social network, as I do now. Hmph. if these things shock me, what else am I in store for when I get off the plane in Sapporo?

ahh, questions to ponder in a future post.
now, I should run off to bed.

Memories

Costas and I have been bumming around the house this weekend. Both of us have an annoying cold, and the weather, though warm, is anything but cheerful. As I was doing laundry yesterday I was struck with the urge to gather all my old t-shirts and make a t-shirt quilt right away. What's the rush? I don't know. I hadn't even been planning to make a t-shirt quilt, but of course I couldn't part with all my favorite worn out tees over the years and had been stashing them away, knowing that one day I could make a quilt out of them.
So yesterday I pulled them all out, cut out the good parts, ironed on the interfacing, and chose some fabrics. This morning I've been chain piecing like a machine. It feels good. Of course all the t-shirts have their own memories and stories, but I decided to throw in a bunch of fabrics I'd been hoarding (mostly blues), and those have special memories too. I'm so happy to finally be using them, you know what I mean?
I still don't know what came over me that made me tackle this project with such drive this weekend, but it's gotta be something good, some positive energy or something. Each fabric I'm using makes me happy. I couldn't ask for better comfort on a rainy sick weekend.

daydreams

This week I've been having wonderful daydreams of spending my spring break in Japan. A quick chat with my boss on Tuesday alerted me to the fact that I may be able to find tickets under $1000 after all, and that I should have better luck going through one of the Japanese travel agencies. He mentioned I might even get a price as low as $600something. I didn't tell him that I've got the added expense of wanting to go to Hokkaido (which will involve another flight after arriving in Tokyo or Osaka), but thinking that it could be affordable just had my daydreams start to snowball. I even scoured the internet to find quilt show information for the time of the year I'd be there. couldn't find anything though, I'm better off getting a current issue of Quilts Japan or PQT and having someone read the listings for me.
Aside from daydreaming about quilt shows, I've also been thinking about onsens, the fabulous spa/capsule hotel in Sapporo (i've forgotten the name, but it was amazing), meeting up with old students and co-workers, wandering the streets and department stores, shopping til I can't stand it anymore...
The desire to go has gotten very strong, especially since I'm not pregnant yet. If we keep trying (and get successful one of these months) this may be my last chance to travel on my own for a while. And it kills me to realize that it's been almost five years since i've been to Japan. When I left I never thought I'd be gone for good.
Mrs. K. faithfully calls me every month though. every month for 5 years. If I go, I'll try to stay with her for the full 2 weeks, or atleast most of it (also toying with the idea of spending 2-3 days in Tokyo, because i've never really been there). She hasn't finished the wedding ring quilt she started for me, and I'd like to help her work on it if I can. So yes, my ideal vacation would be spending 10 days in her house in a corner of Tomakomai (a less than exciting, far from traditional city) doing nothing but chatting, cooking, quilting and maybe watching Sumo. Of course I've planned out little day trips to Noboribetsu Onsen (I think it's called Grand Hotel, ahh that was nice) and Sapporo. Maybe even Muroran, just to see it again.
I know a real trip would probably not live up to my expectations and I wouldn't feel wholly satisfied. Even after 2 weeks I'd think it was too short. I'd come back and realize that there's so much more I should have tried to do. I've got a little bit of fear that I'd get there and feel the same dispair and lonliness that I did when I lived there. There are definately pros and cons to traveling alone...

so at the moment I'm content with my daydreams, planning out every minute, keeping it as perfect as possible. Where my money never runs out and I've always got an extra hour to soak in the tub. Somehow I want to capture the scent of the onsen, the sights along the highway, the taste of some washoku dish and a cup of too-hot green tea. I'm soo happy with that image in my mind, I'm scared to take the risk and spend the money if it's not going to be just as I imagined.

but maybe I'll call the travel agent next week.. we'll see.