Got this in the mail a few months ago. It’s a Tateyama sake cup sent to us by a partner agency in Japan. Cute!
Ngayon ko lang naalala ulit ‘to kasi may balita na magluluwag na ulit ang Japan, and gaaaah I can’t wait to return!
We’re often asked why we love Japan so much. And part of the answer to that is because we kinda feel like Japan loves us back. 😅 (Valentina delusion realness yarn?! Hahaha!) Maybe love is a strong word 😂 but at the very least, they *like* working with us. And it’s something we deeply appreciate.
Over the past decade, our team had visited 28 prefectures. A number of those trips were at the invitation of various city and prefectural tourism offices — from as far north as Hokkaido all the way to Kumamoto in the south. We’ve received collaboration proposals from Japan tourism bodies more than any other country (yes, even more than PH)!
At the height of the pandemic, when the travel scene was understandably dormant, Japanese agencies were among the very few that continued placing ads on our blog, keeping us going! We promptly warned them it might not be a great time since the borders were closed. But they believed in the power of Search and the shelf life of written long-form content. I live!
Posting this just to document how thankful I am. Hopefully in the future — if this zeal fades, if this obsession shifts to another destination, if I decide to move to another continent — this photo of a tiny tin cup will remind me of that period of my life when Japan filled my heart with so much joy and gratitude. ♥️