Catching up on things

So it’s been a little quite here recently due to the sheer level of awesome things I’ve been doing. I know, you are probably thinking ‘You live in Japan, you are always doing awesome things’. Well you would be mostly correct in thinking that, however I have also finished writing my first ever choose your own adventure book! Since I have finished it, I’m now in the process of getting enough backing to actually publish it. To achieve this I’ve put together a kickstarter project page. If I’m successful then not only will I have a rather nice book to show off, but an all singing and all dancing book at that. In reality that means pictures, narration and a soundtrack. If you fancy checking it out, sharing it with friends or even backing it when it launches I’ll be appreciative for any support I can get. The internet is a big and scary place after all.

I also went back home for a couple of weeks to catch up with everyone back there, which was also great. Hopefully everyone back there also saw enough of me to get them through the long year ahead / are now sufficiently sick of me again. I’ll be adding some more pictures to this of my time back in the morning when I’m using the device with all the pictures on it, so you have that to look forwards to, unless I’ve already done it by the time you read this and then I guess they are just here.

In addition to all this excitement I also watched an opera because I’m classy like that. This time I saw Die Fledermaus, or as I like to call it ‘Batman the Opera’. It was actually really good, both genuinely funny at points and featured some lovely music. Since my father works for the company putting on the performance I might be a little biased, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it too and I didn’t have to threaten anyone this time (Sorry to anyone watching Rosencavalier while being dangled over a balcony).

Since this is a kind of travel blog I thought I’d take a few moments to run down my list of things to do while in Cardiff.

1. Drinking. Cardiff loves a party and I fear that there are more taps than people in the city. That said there are also some great places to do it, and if you enjoy good music and a wide range of spirits then ‘The Moon‘ is the place to go. If you are more into your beers and conversation then either the ‘City Arms‘, ‘Brewdog‘ or ‘The Urban Tap House‘ will get you through most of the night.
2. More Drinking  Enjoy a show. With the Millennium Center in the bay and The New Theatre in the town center there is a great range of performances to choose from, plus both places have bars.
3. Visit the castle. Yeah, we have a castle. Suck it other places that don’t! It’s also quite a nice castle with rooms you can walk through that are not completely ruined because of the nice rich family that first maintained it and then gave it to the people. You can see a few stages of it’s history, from the original (I believe Norman) keep, to the Roman outer walls. If you check their website they also do events, including jousting which is pretty cool. I think the cafe also sells beer.
4. Visit Bute park. It’s next to the castle and is really rather lovely as well as being huge. It has a river and trees and all the nice things good parks have. You will probably need to bring your own beer.
5. Last but by no means least, check out all the random shops. It’s sometimes known as the city of arcades. This feels like a bit of an overstatement because there are maybe 7 in total and really only makes up a small amount of the city, but it sounds way better than city of drunks. That said there are some interesting independents trading out of these places. Also if you are a bit of a geek like me then you should check out Firestorm Games. Again I am a little biased since I used to work there, but they are one of the largest gaming venues in the world and also have a great bar. They also run lots of cool events, so worth seeing what is on before you head over.

That’s all from me for now, will catch up with you all again soon with more exciting updates and maybe more things to do in other places!