One is a full-blown book blog. Finally! I’ve been wanting to have this for the longest time.

One is my Japanese playing ground. I may put down notes, books, translations, and random Japanese-y stuff.

I will keep this blog for travel stories and cuisine adventures.

I know I’m having too many blogs to make any of them successful, but I’m thinking about it this way: Each blog is like a different room or spot in a house. One day I may feel like spending time on the window sill near the book shelves, another time in the kitchen with its island bench and high stool. You never know. It’s good for me to have separate corners for separate topics, and most probably, separate group of people.

The latest thing happening is to send your wish list up and try to fulfill other people’s wish lists too. In other words, sending gifts (this in the spirit of Christmas by the way) to strangers. You can see it here. It’s just waaay too addicting. I ended up making a couple of friends. One lives in rural Texas, 71 years old, stays with her 2 dogs since her husband just passed away. I had the most fun time reading her stories about where she lives and things happened in her life (summarized, of course). She’s sending me Japanese children book! The other one is from South Africa, who also shared stories from where she lives. About white Africans, the languages, situation in the country. It’s like reading tales from somewhere far far away. She’s sending me a package of stuff, including butterfly earrings that she made herself. I got a few packages to send to people, but I wouldn’t say here until they get them, because it’s a surprise ;D.

Another exciting thing is I got my first book from fellow bookcrosser, sent from Sri Lanka! It’s When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. Can’t wait to start this one. Someone in my office was almost as excited as I was when she saw the package. She wanted the stamps :). She said she started collecting stamps since people get packages from all over the world in our office (we have 29 nationalities here).

I’m also currently studying Japanese and Chinese. The latter one for fun because my company has this very cheap 18 weeks course for us. Most of the people in the class have never studied Chinese before though, so it’s been quite slow. Which is good, because it doesn’t give too much pressure on me. I have given up on serious learning of Mandarin language a while ago. From now on, I’m just gonna do it for fun. Conversation only, no writing or reading.

On the other hand, I’m really into Japanese right now. I’m planning for a trip to Japan hopefully next year. This will be a trip that I’ve been dreaming of since I was 5. Sure it’s been a couple of years since I can buy a ticket and fly off to Japan, but I want the trip to be perfect! After all, I’ve been waiting for it for as long as I can remember. When I do get to Japan, I will savor every little thing, as much as my soul can take. Hence I need to get the language. I will not make the trip if I’m not confident enough to speak and understand Japanese (including writing and reading). It’s good because I have a deadline now! The harder I work on this, the quicker I’d get there.

So anyway, I will continue writing about all the stuff I want and need to write. Siem Reap and Bali on the queue. My deadline is somewhere before Christmas, because Rendy and I are going on another trip. (Damn, the posts need to catch up!) I wouldn’t apologize for lack of posting, because then I would need to apologize a lot ;). I will do it whenever I feel like it.