Sorry for the quietness, but I am still here!

Unfortunately the month of January was hectic in not the funnest of ways - it involved essays, exams and revision and very little photo snapping in the end (that I would have been happy with put on Deviantart anyway... snapshots are up on Facebook though ).

However, Japanese New Years was indeed fabulous. I did all the traditional going to your temple and shrine, striking the mahussive bell, getting my fortune told (apparently I'm going to have a good year)and eating lots of food before returning home and watching the traditional cheesy festive TV . This was all before the above mentioned not-so-fun activities that filled the rest of my January.

I will admit that I also met a hell of a lot of people in January so I guess that salvages the month a bit. January is always a really hard month though, isn't it? Anyone else had January blues? It's just not a nice month - you get past all the excitement of Christmas and New Years only to find it is:
[x] you've put on a good few kilos
[x] it's now flipping freezing and pitch-black outside for no good reason
[x] you have to take down all the decorations
[x] school starts up again...
[x] ... and it's exam season

I do like February though!
[x] with any luck you've lost those kilos (possibly from the sheer shivering of January)
[x] it's at least a little bit lighter outside
[x] you can tell yourself spring is on it's way
[x] no more exams (in my case no more uni until april!!!!)
And all in all the world comes to life again.

As mentioned above, I am actually on 'Spring Holiday' from now until April! Ok... actually I do think this may be too long of a holiday, but I've decided to at least use my time productively which means TRAVELLING!!! This weekend I'm off to the Universal Studios theme park in Osaka on Saturday, Awaji-shima on Sunday and HOKKAIDO from Monday until Wednesday (Hokkaido being the most northern Island of Japan). In Hokkaido, there's a snow festival with ice sculptures which I'll be going to see. Therefore February = busy bee Izzy. THIS TIME I hope there'll be lots of pictures coming up but I guess I shouldn't make any promises...

xxxx