Sun - It Makes Us Happy, But We Don`t Know How To Use It Well.

I write this on my phone while on a 4 hour Shinkansen journey from Hiroshima to Tokyo...the last leg of my trip. I did start writing this in a tiny little note book i had, but then i remembered i still have the Blogger App on my phone.

So I've plugged my headphones in and i wanted to write a post on the sun, or rather the effects the sun has on our bodies.

Now a lot of people won't listen to my advice on suntans as im pale, but this is forced, I'm not naturally pale....

My eyes are green, my hair (naturally) is super dark brown with hints of red, which means, i actually take the sun pretty well, like my dad, i always had a great tan when we went away when i was younger. But from my super late teens early 20's i decided tans weren't for me, it didn't suit me, my style, who i am. And also i learnt a lot about what it does to your skin.

My mum burns, every time the sun comes out, know why, cos when she was my age, she didn't have the high factors we have now and she probably only ever used something stupid like a factor 10 tanning oil!! She's just come back from a trip with her bestie and sister from Italy. I skyped her while she was there and she had a bright red nose... So i said to her, how come I've been out in 25+ degrees for almost 2 weeks and I'm only just starting to get a little but of colour, you've been out 1 day and you're red....here came the "well we didn't expect it to be so sunny. we got caught out." 

She's turning 60 next weekend and i thought she'd have learnt by now.

I only 'have a go' because i want her to stay healthy!!

Its a known fact that once we burn we are always predisposed to burning in that place more than somewhere we haven't burnt before, so you always burn your nose, because you've burnt it before. The high points on your bodies or the bits that are usually exposed on holidays, shoulders, noses, heads. These need protecting so much!!

I will never use anything less than factor 50, i want the best protection for my skin, after all its the only one I've got. 

Most people think this is cos i want to be pale, a small factor, but wanna know how i actually stay pale, i stay out of the sun at its hottest, i sit under a parasol, or go to the bar or put a towel over me!! I avoid the hell out of the mid day sun!!

The girls i know who want a perfectly golden tan don't do anything to gain a long lasting, fairly "safe" good looking tan...

Want to know where that starts, exfoliate!! The sun is only going to hit the dead layer on top if you don't exfoliate, whats the point in that.

Second moturise (inside and out!!), if your skin is well hydrated your tan will last longer and not just fade as soon as you get home.

Third, the harder the sun effectively has to work to give you a tan, the deeper it will be and the longer it will last. So using a low factor, which is so fucking stupid, (apologies for my language, this really gets my goat!!) Will give you a superficial dangerous tan....

Now you might be lucky and the sun will never do anything harmful to your body...but if you're not so lucky and you end up having something cut from your skin because you didn't wear a high factor sun cream, and avoid the midday sun, you'll wish you had. I know people who's parents have had to have bits of skin removed because it was cancerous, and they wish they'd known more about the sun when they were younger.

There's so much advice all over the interweb on how to protect your skin please, i stress this, pleaseeeeee use it, and stop thinking that if you wear factor 50 you're going to stay pale!!

Being brown after going red might be "fashionable" but you wont think that if you end up with a chunk missing out of a shoulder....

Going on Holiday on Your Credit Card....

*WARNING*

This may offend some people....so if you feel you may be offended, you have two choices, read it and be offended, this after all is my opinion, not yours, and i am not forcing my opinion on you in any way, i am just stating it; or don't read it so you wont be offended...

In my opinion, people need to be offended more, it's totally ok to have a different opinion to someone else!!

Right on with the blog in hand.....

While writing this i am sat in my 5th Hostel after an amazing dinner in Hiroshima, Japan.

I have saved for this trip for years, also helped massively by the sale of my old car when i moved to London from the north!

I am not the kind of person who lives on their credit card, i mean, sure i use it, i use it monthly, but at the end of every month it gets paid off, i don't have a greatly paid job and i live in London so i know how hard it is to manage all the things in life i want to do vs how much money i have.

I was brought up with 2 parents who until i was in my late teens had never had a credit card, couldn't get one (unlike these days) so i was brought up to live within my means, and to this day it is still a thing my mum likes to throw at me every so often.

So i am struggling to see how people live totally outside of their means 11 out of 12 months a year. Sure unexpected things happen, but i always thought that's what savings were for?! I mean this trip has taken almost every last bit if savings I have so i know when i go home i'm probably going to have to miss out on a few nights out, a dinner here and there to start getting some money behind me again, for those unexpected things.

When i get home within a week i'll be heading off to Download Festival (woooo!!!), but that's been paid off for months and the spending money already planned within next months pay packet. Is it just me that forward plans??

I know so many people with overdrafts not paid off, from uni or just life in general, and they live inside them, until payday, when they're back in the black, then as soon as that's done, back into their overdraft.

But my bug bare is people going on holidays, or trips of a life time on borrowed money, sure i'm all for not being able to take it with you when you die, don't have savings and never spend them, but i don't want to live my life on someone else's money....just me??

Sure i wanna go on holiday all the time, who wouldn't, My friends have already asked me to plan a trip to Poland or Iceland this October, and i so want to go!!! but I've had to say that i'll need to check my funds once i'm back from Japan and Download Festival.

In my eyes...Cant afford it, don't go. Simple!!

Again, all my own opinion.

Keep it positive

Nessa

xx

Japlanning - So it Happened!! - First Update

As i type this i am currently sat in my second hostel of the trip, in Kyoto....


A little over a year ago i started thinking about the money i had in my savings account and what i wanted to do with it, i dont want a car in London so my next natural thought was, why not go traveling, at 28 i`m a little old to be starting....if you go by the whole "gap year thing" but you`re never too old to start anything!! Mental note to myself, please remember this!!

Being me, i procrastinated about it for months, and months till one morning i woke up at home in Yorkshire (I was back for easter to see my mum and Northern friends!) and i just booked the flights, done, dusted. that was it, no going back....  

Dont get me wrong, i wasn't scared of coming here, i wasn't scared of the flight, i wasn't scared of being on my own for 3 weeks, i can take all that in my stride. But I was terrified of spending this nice cushion of money i had saved and saved.... i was terrified of not having any savings after my trip! But the more i thought about it, the more i realised that i would miss out on so much if i sat on this money, as my Dad always said, you can't take it with you when you die!

So once i booked the flights, i had to figure out where i was going, i knew i wanted to go to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima and somewhere in there i wanted to go on a Bullet train!

Simple plan but it worked!!

So i booked 5 hostels, one in each place i visit. I`m hitting Tokyo twice, once on the way in and once on the way out.

I`ll do another post with my itinerary once i`ve completed my trip and where i actually visited...but so far 8 days into my trip, i`ve seen everything i wanted, and more!!

For now this is me saying, if you want it, go for it!! Life is too short, many of us have learned this the hard way, so if it makes you happy do it, dont worry about what anyone else thinks, or says, this is your life! and you are big enough and strong enough to go do anything if you put your mind to it!!

Keep it Positive

Nessa
xx