Happy Friday, everyone! I made plans to talk about my trip to Japan. I’m still having trouble uploading pictures to this site, so I’ll be spending the weekend overhauling the website. I may even go back to my old HTML days and build the site entirely from scratch. I hope not, though; I forgot like…105% of everything I learned in high school. I actually think I’ve got worse at programming since then. Still, you can’t get better at something unless you put in the work and learn from your mistakes. So let’s start with today’s post!

Japan has been a dream destination since I was a kid: I’ve wanted to visit, explore, eat the food, and work for Nintendo since I knew what Nintendo was. And I have the family photos to back it up! Mom literally has photos of me holding the player 2 controller while my brother played Super Mario Bros. on the NES. I may not have actually been playing, but to me that means I’ve been gaming since before I could walk.

I loved Nintendo, and still do. I grew up playing Zelda, Mario, Kirby, and several other oddball games throughout my lifetime. I wanted so badly to make games for Nintendo. Nowadays, I’d just be happy to visit Japan. And I am!

I visited in March 2026 (this year) with a few of my dearest friends, all of whom I’ve known since high school. We got to explore temples, ride the bullet train, observe Mt. Fuji, shop at local markets, tried wagyu beef ramen, drank sake, and ate legit wasabi! It was all a wild ride, and I can’t wait to go back. My friends and I are already serious about a return trip in the next few years, and I was reminded that I can actually go on trips on my own if I want to do something I know my pals don’t want to do (like climb Mt. Fuji to get a view of the sunrise). I may go on my own at some point, presuming I can afford it. Otherwise I may just make it work another way, like traveling early and meeting them after completing the climb. I’m told it takes an average of two days to climb Mt. Fuji, which definitely did not sound like something we wanted to do on this recent trip since we only had a few days in each of the cities we visited.

We landed in Tokyo, but spent all of one full day there in the beginning before running along to Kyoto, Nara Deer Park, Osaka, and then back to Tokyo for the remainder of the trip. I loved each of the cities, though I definitely want to spend more time in each city. Or at least commit to more time-consuming activities: there is a city in Japan where you can make your own kitchen knife and learn how to care for it. Naturally, it’s an event that will take at least a couple of hours. I think for this trip, though, I knew I was going to be so scared of missing out on anything that I would have been too stressed to enjoy these more intense experiences. Now that I’ve gotten to enjoy so much of Japan, I’m looking forward to going back with a more relaxed approach to what I do and see.

That’s it for today! I’ve learned my lesson about trying to plan posts ahead of writing them. It was annoying, I had trouble actually coming up with things to say even when I had plenty to say at the time I committed to writing about them, and then I felt trapped when I thought of something else more relevant. I’m going to plan to write posts early, but I’m also going to set aside time to write even when I have the week’s post prepared. If I’m able, I’d like to build up some backup posts in the event that I start to get busy or am unable to prepare ahead of time. I’ve been slipping a bit in working ahead of my deadline, and being prepared will definitely help to keep the anxiety down when it starts getting down to the wire again.

Have a great weekend!