On 1st July I went on the most amazing trip to Japan for 2 weeks, I had such an incredible time and I miss it more and more every single day. Japan is an incredibly, beautiful country and I feel so lucky to be able to say that I have been and I can't begin to put into words how amazing everything was there. The people are so, so friendly and welcoming, it's easy to navigate around and if you have a basic understanding of the language then you'll be just fine! I studied Japanese during my first year of university, so I did okay! I'm going to be doing some posts based on my time there and I hope you enjoy reading them and looking at the pictures I took while I was there.

After recovering from being extremely jetlagged and having a good sleep, we woke up and went to Osaka Castle!

Osaka Castle is one of Japan's most famous landmarks and it played a major role in the unification of Japan during the sixteenth century of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. You can go inside the castle and walk around and read about the history of the castle. There are 8 floors in the castle (for some reason there isn't a sixth floor, so technically there's only 7?) and each floor displays something different to the last, unfortunately the lift only goes up to floor 5 but we walked up and down the stairs regardless. You're not allowed to take photos once you are inside, so I wasn't able to capture anything that was inside of the castle. On the fifth floor they had scenes from "The Summer War in Osaka" on a folding screen and I thought that it was done beautifully and was so amazing to look at. It was quite busy on this floor so it was difficult to get a good look at things but we got by. Situated on the eighth floor is an observatory deck and the view was breathtaking, this is where the bottom picture was taken. The view stretched out for mile and miles and it is so amazing to be able to see Osaka from up high, as there is so much to look at. Something I love about Japan is that you can never get bored of just looking around because everywhere looks so different and you will always have something to look at.

Cross Stitch Cult Shop Review

Hey guys, so today I'm going to talk a bit about a small shop that is run and owned by the lovely Aimee Wool called Cross Stitch Cult. The name is a slight giveaway as to what she sells on her shop but she makes incredible custom cross stitches and also has premade ones that she sells. I came across her Instagram when I saw others entering a competition to win a custom cross stitch, I never enter competitions as I never win but I decided to enter this one and I somehow managed to win! As you probably know I love Disney, so I asked her to create the cross stitch in the picture below for me. 

It came out better than I had imagined it in my head and it is now proudly sitting on a shelf that is placed beside my bed, I love it so much and it looks amazing in my bedroom. I am obsessed with her work and I plan on ordering more in the future as I have so many ideas as to what I want, mainly be Disney related but I'd also love a Studio Ghibli piece! She also uploads pictures of the progress she is making on a cross stitch and I loved seeing the progression of my custom piece as it made me even more excited than I already was to see the finished product.