Travelog for: Kazumi

Hello everyone!

Time to start my travelog. First I'd like to show you a bit of my home.

Here you can see me sitting on the shelf where Mum stores the books of her favourite author Isabel Allende.



This is Sammy, our cute big cat ... looking into the wrong direction :-).



This is what I see when I look out of the window on a cold and grey November day.



I like eating Asian food, these are Chinese noodles.



Here I am with a bunch of other TV's talking about our journeys and dreams of journeys to come.



Mum loves to write postcards and sometimes I help her. This card goes to Russia.



I'm also willing to help with household tasks.



Hope to find a nice host soon.

Kazumi

Hello everyone

Today I joined the other TV's visiting Heidelberg Castle. There are stairs which lead to the castle which is situated in the mountains over the city and we climbed them - about 400 I guess. Afterwards we needed to take a rest and took the chance for a group photo.



I had a look down to the city. It's a bit foggy up here as always during the last two or three weeks.



The castle of Heidelberg was built in the 13th century. For a while there were two castles, one situated a bit higher than the remains of the current one.  During the Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648) the castle was attacked and partly destroyed for the first time. In 1692 the castle was destroyed by the French and although basic repairs were made, the castle has basically remained a ruin since then. In the early 19th century a French count became interested in the castle and served as a voluntary castle warden. Between 1897 and 1900 the castle was partly reconstructed and became one of Germany's main tourist attractions.





Another look to the city centre, the Old Bridge and the river Neckar.



Bye, Kazumi

Today we said good-bye to Sooky. She spent two months in Heidelberg and will now travel to her next host. Have a safe journey.



Kazumi

Christmas time is coming. I had a nice first Advent weekend with the visiting TV's.





Bye,
Kazumi

Today an envelope arrived and we were all very curious about its contents.



So I cut it open.



First a lot of sweets fell out of the envelope and Remy was very anxious to eat them.



There was also a note which Ohkwari read to us.



Suddenly a cute little green rabbit appeared and we helped him get out of the envelope. He introduced himself as Králi and told us that this was his first journey.



I showed him around the apartment and we had a look out of the window.

Today we said good-bye to Remy who finished his Round Robin journey and will go back home how. Have a good journey, Remy.

Oh dear, Mum still hasn't found a host for me. That's really frustrating. One person she wrote to didn't bother to reply at all, so she sent a message to someone else yesterday. If this doesn't work out, either, she'll post in the forum. I'm so anxious to start travelling.

Well, today I accompanied Králi and Ohkwari. We walked along the river Neckar which was partly frozen, walked through a small nature reserve and passed the monastery Neuburg. It was still cold but not windy and we had lots of sunshine. Here are some impressions of our walk:

Nobody wants to host me, people don't even bother to reply. I'm so sad. Mum says they might think I'm too big. Okay, I'm a bit taller than the average TV:



But I hardly don't weigh anything and I can make myself very small:



I keep studying the maps every day and dream about the places I'd like to go to.



And I'm getting frustrated. No more patience. I've packed my bag and will leave without destination if no one wants me.



Okay, Mum calmed me down and promised to post at the forum immediately. But I'm staying close to the door ....

Králi, Ohkwari, Coco Presley and I spent the afternoon at the nature reserve Rheingönheim in Ludwigshafen. We saw deers, ponies, boars, peacocks and geese and had a great time.







When we came home I found a message that I'm invited to visit someone. Finally!!! I'm so excited. More about it in my next travelog.

Kazumi

Tomorrow is my big day. My first host lives in Torino, in the north of Italy, so we had a look where exactly that's situated. Then I tested my envelope which seems to be okay but I nevertheless hope the journey won't last too long.







Bye,
Kazumi

Hi Mum!

I finally am in Italy!!!! 
The journey wasn't too long, but I actually was quite scared as it was dark inside the envelope and there were a lot of weird noises outside... 
But at some point, I stopped moving and I saw I bit of light.

I became more and more scared, till I heard someone talking to me! It was a girl's voice speaking German and telling me everything was ok and I could come out.





First thing I saw was a pink, smiling bear. This is how I met Cessy! She's a ToyVoyager as well, visiting my new host Francy.





Right after, I saw a big-eyed penguin staring at me... then he said "Hello! My name is Wellington, what's your name?"

There also was a rabbit looking at me... they all had friendly faces, so I finally made up my mind and came out of the envelope! 





I also met my host, Francy, and showed her all the gifts I had prepared for her. And she really seemed to enjoy them, I'm very happy!   





Cessy introduced me to the whole family! I already had met Wellington, now I met Trifolo the rabbit and Tare and Orso and Ray... lots of people here, I already felt home!




I'm really grateful to Cessy for giving me encouragement, after such a long time waiting to travel, I was unexpectly upset when it finally happened! 





Francy, my host, told me that she really loves Japan, just like I do, and that's great because we can do a lot of things together!
We could also practise some Japanese language together... 

She already told me she has some Japanese stuff to do for me tomorrow, can't wait!

So, here we are! 

Today I woke up, had a quick breakfast and I was ready to go!
I was so curious about my first day in Italy! 





Our destination was quite near: the Oriental Art Museum!





Unluckily, we were not allowed to take photos inside... but we did steal some pics in the Japanese gallery! 











We spent quite a lot of time in the museum, and after we went sightseeing around the city a bit. We saw some ancient palaces and Francy told us that they used to be the residences of the Royal House of Savoy, who reigned over Italy from Torino itself!
She also told us something about those palaces being an Unesco World Heritage Site, but I'm not sure what this means... 








I will search something on the internet about them... 

Today I was quite bored. My host was out to work, and I had nothing to do, I watched some tv and chatted with my mates, but the time just wouldn't pass...

But then I had a wonderful idea: I decided to cook something for dinner! Something Japanese! 

First thing to do when you're cooking a Japanese meal is preparing the rice, I washed it and put it in the rice cooker to rest for half an hour.





Then I had to find something tasty to eat with the rice. I searched for the recipe on Francy's Nintendo DS... and finally I found something I had all the ingredients for: Nikujaga!








First thing to do is peeling the potatoes and cut them in cubes...






... then I had to cut the onion....





...and I put it in a pan with oil...





(the second pan you can see is dashi broth, I prepared it putting instant dashi powder in hot water  )

... then I added the potatoes an cooked it for a couple minutes (yes mum, I paid attention not to burn myself!)




Finally, I had to use the meat! Yummy!





It was quite hard to resist and not to eat it in the very same moment, but I did it! So, I cooked the meat pieces...




.. and added again the onion and the potatoes, and let everything cook together for a while






Time to add the dashi broth!





And now, nothing else to do but waiting...





Oh no, i was forgetting about the rice! Time to shut on the rice cooker!





Now, I have to add the last ingredients: mirin, soy sauce...








...and sugar! Ugh, it's almost finished...





just a few more minutes....



.... and it's ready!!!! Doesn't it look good??? 
Francy was very happy to have dinner with me when she came back home!





I hope you'll be proud of me mum!

We got a new travel mate today!

Here came BatGirl from the United States!








She looks friendly, hope it will be fun to have her here with us!

Hi Mum!

Today we went around Torino to show BatGirl around. This means I saw something I already had seen, but it wasn't that bad as I still hadn't had a proper sightseen yet!

So, I saw again the Royal Palace....





... and the Queen's Palace...





This one is new instead, and it looks quite stange, but beautiful! 








We also walked to the river, to see the Gran Madre Church, and to enjoy the breeze on the brigde... 








After all this walking, we had a rest in St. Charles Square, another beautiful and quiet place!








Torino looks like a nice place in the end