Maryam Hassan is a 32 year old Photographer, Montessori Teacher, Wearer of Yellow from London who transplanted herself to Chicago in 2015. She likes punk music, hash browns, animal facts and mangoes.
I was on my way back from Kawagoe the other day and I was a little anxious. Rush hour trains in Tokyo are a very intense experience, and not entirely dissimilar to London. There’s a lot of people and you want to find a place you can feel sort of okay for the ride to your stop but sometimes you just end up squashed or awkwardly placed. Shinjuku Station is
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Back in Tokyo now, which is sad because it means that the adventure is coming to an end, but there’s also a whole ton of cool stuff going in the next week and I get to do shopping! I am not usually this much a slave to consumerism but due to luggage restrictions I’ve been holding back on art supplies and things I really wanted but now I’m in Tokyo
Fujimomiya, when I arrived, was grey and made me a little sad, this is probably because I was exhausted and irritable. I was meant to be staying at a guesthouse but I had a bad feeling about this place for the last few days, I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t want to stay there. So I booked myself into a hotel right near the station which was a
Since I landed in Japan it’s been all go. Every day has been full of stuff, lots of walking around which is totally understandable because I’m on holiday and I’m like thousands of miles away from home. Today I got three trains for a 4 hour trip to the next destination Fujinomiya. I’m staying in this little, old hotel that is super dated but at least clean. But I got
I want to start this by saying I moved hotels. I wish I’d just booked this one for three nights, I don’t know why I didn’t in the first place. But this hotel is amazing and there is a TV above the bath so you can lie in the bath and watch Japanese TV which is honestly the best way to chill out. It’s easy to zone out when you’re
Osaka is wonderful. I love that it’s on the water, the bay is just great to sit and pass time watching boats drift in and out. There are mountains all around, and I can’t get enough of mountains. I think it’s because I lived in London for so long, and then the super flat Midwest of America, so I just am obsessed with mountains. I can’t imagine being able to
I was sad to leave Art Manga Hotel, mostly because I had 8 books left of Anonymous Noise left and I wanted to see what happened. I stayed up far too late reading as much as I could. The only issue with Art Manga was that they didn’t turn off the lights outside of the capsules, so it never really got very dark. You could turn off the light in
I was moving from the Airbnb to the Manga Capsule hotel today. Although I do massively recommend the place on Airbnb where I stayed, it’s affordable, is in an excellent location for subways and I had my own bathroom, it was however very dated. So I was excited to move over to the more modern capsule hotel. I was not excited about dragging my bags from where I was to
I didn’t want to get up this morning. That little Japanese style room was so cosy, the futon was layered with blankets and duvets so it felt like you had a weighted blanket on you and made you feel like you were in a cocoon. I just lay inside watching YouTube videos thinking about how perfect everything was. There was a whole day full of sights to see and so
I woke up at 2 am again, and since I had to get up at 5 am anyway I decided to just give up trying to go back to sleep at around 3 and instead planned my day out in Nikko. It was actually quite handy, I was able to plan my day, pack my bags and get all ready to go without rushing. I decided to walk to Asakusa,
