The Gate to Adventure

Less than 300 days and so much to do.

I never use this Tumblr for anything anymore except mobile phone pictures and reblogging motivational images, so here’s something productive - a list of things I want to do before I leave Japan. I have 9 months remaining to cheaply complete as many of these things as I can, with about 1 long weekend each month, public holiday weeks in December and May, and 17 paid vacation days. 

01. Watch more TV, rent more movies. In raw Japanese. Run the TV in the background all the time.
02. Pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level II
03. Translate at least one full volume of Mittsume ga Tooru
04. Read the MOTHER novelization in Japanese
05. Return to Hiroshima
06. Visit Okinawa
07. Visit Beppu
08. Visit Yamaguchi
09. Visit Nagoya
10. Visit Arashiyama
11. Visit Mana-chan in Gunma (see Hoshi)
12. Climb Mount Hiei and revisit Kurama
13. Ride somewhere really really far away on a night train
14. Ride on a ferry to Beppu
15. Ride on a ferry to South Korea
16. Climb Mount Koya, stay in a temple
17. Ride to Mount Rokko in a cable car
18. See the Naruto whirlpools
19. Spend a day meditating on Fushimi-Inari
20. See Ise-Jingu Shrine and the Wedded Rocks in summer
21. Visit Arima Onsen
22. Swim in Lake Biwako
23. See Himeji Castle
24. See Nijo Castle
25. See the Imperial Palace on New Year’s
26. Go to the Tsukiji fish market
27. Complete “Odaiba Memorial”
28. Make a set of video blogs/photos of my daily places
29. See the top of Tsutenkaku Tower
30. Eat homemade tofu at Ganko Nijo in Kyoto
31. Eat at a restaurant along the Kamo River in Kyoto
32. Visit Toei Eiga Mura in Kyoto
33. Aoi Matsuri in Kyoto (May 15)
34. Tenjin Matsuri in Osaka (July 24)
35. Visit Amanohashidate in Kyoto-fu
36. Write under the plum blossoms at Ishiyamadera
37. Ride a boat down the Dotonbori River
38. Eat Kobe beef. In Kobe.
39. Buy a full set of Japanese onsen-style wooden bath equipment
40. Bike to Kyoto from Hirakata

I will probably add another 10 or so items for an even 50.

I paged through “Tuttle’s Illustrated Guide to Japan” while I was mulling over this list. I love this book mostly because it’s so hopelessly 80s. <3 (I have the 1988 edition.) The descriptions are often hilarious, though. “Yokohama strikes the visitor arriving from Tokyo as a comparatiely clean, up-to-date, pleasantly laid-out city (at least spasmodically), where some priority is still given to matters like the preservation of greenery and the provision of areas where a pedestrian can walk without ending up under a truck.” Beautiful.