A very special Golden Week is coming to an end, but I had a great time over the past 9 days.  Sometimes during vacations I just focus on relaxing, but this time I wanted a healthy blend of relaxation and productivity, and I think it was pretty successful!  

First of all, spending time with my family is the most important thing to me.  I don’t get to see my son often due to my work schedule, but when I have days off I spend tons of time playing with him and bonding together.  During Golden Week, we went to the park, played baseball, played around at home, watched TV, and lots more.  We also went to the aquarium with one of my old friends who was in town!  I got to spend a lot of time with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time, too.  Again, due to my work schedule, it can be hard to get together with friends, but it was very satisfying to be able to do it a lot this week!

I also got to watch a ton of baseball.  I’ve commented a lot about how baseball is a major part of my summer every year.  My favorite routine in the summer in Japan is to wake up and watch baseball with a cup of coffee and some breakfast.  I did that just about every day during Golden Week!

My creative outlets are also very important to me, and I made sure I got a lot of music time in over the past week.  I listened to a lot of great new stuff and also played around in my little home studio.  It was a blast!  Writing music is a great way to relax.

I’m looking forward to getting back to work this week, but having weeks like this is very important to me.  I feel refreshed and very satisfied with a very productive Golden Week.