The Next Step: Life After Japan

As I've mentioned before, I have decided to leave Japan and move towards the next phase of my life. I get asked a lot what exactly I plan on doing after leaving here, and since it is a handful of days away (my apartment is looking really bare...) I thought I would take a few minutes to give a short update as to what the next steps in my life are going to be and some different things I am working on.

Living in Orlando, Florida (with my parents!)

Yes, you read that right. I, a 26 year old girl who moved out of her parents house at 18, am moving back in with the folks. It's a temporary set-up, mainly so that I can adjust to life in America and save money so that I can buy grown up things like a car and an apartment. They've also remodeled the house since I have been gone and I am looking forward to taking advantage of the HUGE kitchen and huge bathroom-that-is-bigger-than-my-apartment.

Finding A Job

This one is a no brainer. I want to get a job and save some money. What type of job? I'm not too sure yet. I haven't really looked into any serious careers, as I am not sure I'm quite ready for that yet, but I have been applying to various theme park, photography, writing, event planning type gigs that may provide me with some cash. I'm not picky at this point, I just want it to suit my interests. Hopefully it won't involve a cubicle.

Planning a Trip to Europe

I really want to visit Europe in the next year, and right now I am aiming for a Spring 2016 trip. What exactly that trip will consist of I am not sure of quite yet. It all depends on how the whole securing a job thing goes, and how much time off I can get!

Giving the Blog Loads of Attention

Now that I am a NEET I have loads of time on my hands. And while a lot of it is spent trying to get myself out of this apartment and onto a plane bound for Orlando, a lot of it is also spent doing absolutely nothing. This is what happens when you give yourself a month lag between stopping work and leaving. So I've joined a number of Facebook groups geared towards helping bloggers network and I am slowly trying to get myself out there. I also want to get up to 3 posts a week if possible!

Doing Collaborative Work with Other Bloggers

Part of getting my blog out there is doing work with other bloggers. I have begun writing some guest posts for various travel blogs which I will let y'all know about once they are live, as well as started my own collaborative post venture, which I hope to launch in the next two weeks! If you'd like to get in contact with me about collaborative work, I've set up an email just for this blog! Please send communicationisdifficult@gmail.com a message if you're interested in working with me!

YouTube Videos!

I have wanted to do YouTube videos forever, I have had a few (failed) ideas and I think my move back to America will give me the perfect chance to really focus on this area. I love YouTube and watch videos on there constantly. Way more than any other video media. I am hoping to start a vlog type series on becoming an ex-expat and moving back in with the parents at 26. Have I mentioned that my parents also have a beautiful home that I can film in? Way better than my cramped Japanese apartment.

Photography and Writing

While I have been doing quite a bit of photography lately, I would like to do more of it. I would love to step into portrait or wedding photography (I've applied to some relevant work!) to go alongside my travel photography. I also wanna give my Instagram way more love! Hopefully when I get the new iPhone next month it'll help, because my iPhone 4 camera doesn't cut it anymore! Especially next to my DSLR photos! I also want to get back into my creative writing, which is my true dream. If I could be anything, it would be an author, so I am going to try and get back into that (hello, NaNoWriMo).

Cooking!!!!!

This is probably the one I am most excited about. I love cooking so much but my Japanese kitchen really limits what  I can do. Not to mention I can't really afford many ingredients in Japan. And cooking for one kinda stinks. So, living with my parents will give me the perfect setting to really develop my cooking skills. I'll probably post about it on here!


As you can see I have a lot planned once I get back in America, hopefully it will keep me busy! Also, all the distractions will be nice because I am sure I will miss my Japan friends so much. A lot of it is focused on this blog, so I hope you'll enjoy everything that I have planned!

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An Update

I have been bac from my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia for a little over two weeks now. I've been slow at posting because I currently have no work and find myself laying around myself doing nothing all day. It's honestly not something I particularly enjoy, but it's better than going out and spending money just because I want something to do. Which means I spend my days watching YouTube or Netflix or attempting to read (but that mainly leads to falling asleep when I am home). This is welcome for a few days and then I just start hating myself for being a lazy drain on society.

I mainly feel restless, the trip overseas has awoken the travel bug inside me once again and all I want to do is go out and see what amazing things the world has to offer me. I'll get started on some actual posts about my time in Vietnam and Cambodia, but those will likely take a while to write up. So I'm writing this update so that y'all know I haven't forgotten, I am just not busy, which means I can't get anything done. I guess I am an "all-or-nothing" sort of person.

I love you.

Actually, I think it's more like I just cannot get anything productive done in my apartment unless I really, really have to. Today I lugged my laptop to Starbucks and am using their WiFi (because Japan doesn't believe in public WiFi, already missing Vietnam and Cambodia in that regard!) and it's the only place that really has it. So here I am with an amazingly delicious chocolate chip cookie Frappacino (I've given up coffee! It makes me energetic in a creepy way) jamming to the weirdest mix of music, I guess it's their "world mix" but it randomly has English songs that I recognize so the atomsphere is just very strange and ever-changing.

There are a few things coming up that I am looking forward to. Spring is starting in Hokkaido, finally, and we will have sakura blooming in the next week, which means hanami (flower viewing parties)! This is probably my favorite time because everything just gets really beautiful and full of color after months and months of white. Hokkaido acutally gets the sakura a month after the rest of Japan, so it's something that I wait for anxiously while seeing my friends on other islands enjoying the flowers while it's still snowing here. Though, the sakura usually correspond with Golden Week, which is a string of national holidays that usually equate to nearly a week of vacation time for (almost) every Japanese person, so I will have plenty of opportunities to enjoy the flowers with friends and drink under the falling pettles. Romantic!

Last year's hanami season.

The one thing I have been sort of productive with these last two weeks is the photographs I took while on vacation. Shortly before I left for Vietnam and Cambodia I bought myself a Nikon D3300 and I was able to get a number of great shots at the places we visited. I've gone through all the pictures and added my favorites to my "new" Flickr account! You can check it out below!

Check out my new Flickr account here!!

My cookie Frappacino has started to turn into mush, so I should focus on that instead of this before it becomes to gross to drink! I hope you are all having a great start to Spring! I'll try and get a post up about Vietam and Cambodia (maybe a few) ASAP. Enjoy the good weather because it'll be winter again before you know it!

Bonus shot of my writing station today. Whooooooo~

Oh god the bottom of this Frappacino is just really soggy cookie this is disgusting yet delcious. I am conflicted.