One of the coolest things I’ve found in the past year in the world of apps is Periscope. It is run by the same folks who do Twitter & is an app to view & also take live streams & interact with others on that stream through a chat. The neatest part of Periscope is the fact that it is accessible most everywhere there is internet access. Feeling bored some time? Find a place on the world map & see if folks are scoping (streaming their live feed).
Using Periscope has helped me find interesting places & spark interests- specifically that of traveling to Japan. Scoper DaveInOsaka (you can view videos through his twitter account- it will lead you to Persicope) has taught me quite a bit about Japanese culture, food (YUM!), travel & everyday life through his slice of life videos. Learning what I have, along with talking to some friends who have traveled abroad to that area of the world, has led me to daydream about traveling to Japan.
(It has just occurred to me I should probably explain that Dave is Canadian & has lived in Japan for 15 years & teaches English to students at a university, hence he does his videos in English.)
I didn’t know until after I was knee deep into this new interest that Losson was also quite interested in the country as well & when he was growing up, that’s one place he really wanted to visit & possibly live one day. It’s so awesome how that just randomly happened.
We have talked about seriously visiting Japan & all the things we would do, all the places we would visit & all that we would eat (ok, that’s totally partially what I’d plan on doing) & hopefully can make a trek to the other side of the world happen in 2017. I’ve looked into many different AirBnBs all over the country & have a pinterest board chock full of places to go. The biggest part of funding the trip would be the air travel, hence the biggest reason we are going to have to wait a little longer to visit.
We don’t just want to see Tokyo, either. I’ll save the list of specific places we are dreaming of visiting for later (you can see quite a few on my pinterest), but thanks to Dave’s videos, we’ve been able to learn about & see life in Osaka, Kyoto & other small places. Things could change, but the culture & daily life in Japan speaks to me so much at this point, I’d possibly be interested in teaching English myself over there at some point. But that’s after checking it out & seeing what we think is the best in the future for Losson & I. All I know is we’re getting passports this year for some other (hopeful!) travel & 2017 is definitely earmarked in my brain for a big trip abroad to Japan. Who knows where life will take us, but might as well give it all a good look, right?
PS There are also 3 Disney parks in that section of the world (Tokyo, Hong Kong & Shanghai). Tokyo has a cat, Gelatoni, as one of their big mascots. This might help the need to travel… just a little!
xoxo
Jenny
JLB Nerdy 