Onsen are the Greatest

 Especially when you have the place to yourself! Look how amazing. It's like the prefects bathroom in Harry Potter. On a cold winter day to be able to go have a scenic soak inside or out is really nice! This is a particularly nice private onsen on the island of Shodoshima which is currently in it's off season so not too many other tourists are around.

 The aesthetic dedication they have to the outside tubs is amazing!

 This is the view from another bathhouse on the same island. It's built up on a hill so you can see the sea from the baths. Probably the bath with the best view on Shodoshima.

Plum and Cherry Blossom Season in Kagawa, Shikoku

Nikko!

If you ever go to Nikko, be sure to wake up as early as possible to get to the tourism sites. We were lucky we just happened to get up at sunrise.

See this picture? If we had gotten there even an hour later it would have a hundred tourists in the background. People come from all over! We heard people from south america, all over japan, and all over the west.

The Futarasan shrine complex is an enormous complex of buildings. Each one is ginormous and ornately decorated. Many of them had gold plating (fake gold plating, of course)

Everything was extra colorful and majestic. It was really fun to walk around!

One of the golden ones

bad lighting but everything behind me is white and gold!

White and gold dragon from the portion where photos werent allowed. Oops ;)

Was Nikko worth the drive out? Absolutely! It had so many interesting shrines and temples and especially the main one we visited everything was so supersized we felt like ants! It's very impressive and a great place to take photos and enjoy the surroundings.

china

 people doing calisthenics training exercises  I did them too! What an incredible sight. At first I was like, is this a flash mob? No, better.

Ok, so to explain why I was in China... I had a connection flight that ran late, so the airline gave me a free hotel, and China has a nice 1-2 day visa for these occurrences (which I *did not* know about). So I was like, trying to unpop my ears and groggy from a 10 hr flight and all of a sudden smiling people are telling me I can hang out in China and then leading me to a bus. Hahahaha. Good thing I'm not paranoid! Everything went better than expected. The people of Ghanzhou were friendly, cheerful, and helpful. People on the street seemed pretty peppy, the place had a good vibe.

Actually, this accidental mini adventure to China has really warmed me to the idea of exploring China more. I honestly had very little interest before :)

Kao San Road

 Crickets, maggots, and scorpions

 Don't buy drinks in Thailand, it is such a waste of money

 The trusty tuk tuks

 tourists as far as the eye can see :)