Applying Project management practices and principles in our Japan 2024 holidays

Japan in the last decade or so, has been named as one of the top tourist destinations. Its hyper efficient structure and infrastructure, culture, way of life, amazing and unbeatable gastronomic offerings, tourist spots and the animes and manga culture which are some of its contribution to pop culture are some of the reasons why Japan has been consistently included in the "places to visit", "bucket list" of many people. 

My family and I finally made this dream a reality. We were fortunate to experience Japan and we just recently completed our 3 weeks holidays this summer of 2024. 

Are you aware that we started this Japan project as early as August 2023? In this post, I would like to share with you how I applied my professional and strong project management capabilities, modesty aside, in the plan, organization and execution of our Japan 2024 summer holidays.

Project Management Concepts and How they applied to our Japan holidays: 

1. Objective/Purpose: Every project has an objective and a purpose. It basically states the rationale why you are doing this project and what are your criteria for success. In our case, as we are not getting any younger (my husband and I are in our mid 50s and late 40s respectively); our objectives include wanting to enjoy Japan while we are still in the peak of our health as Japan will entail a lot of commuting and walking and doing a family trip of at least 15 days, so it must be during a period that my husband and I can go on a longer vacation leave and it must coincide with our son´s summer break. 

2. Constraints/Drivers:  As a family/team, we made a conscious effort to manage our Japan trip as a project. We started toying with the idea of going to Japan on summer of 2023. Our primary driver was time/schedule as we need to travel as a family and in a reasonable timeframe so we can explore the country. We mutually agreed that the best timeframe is summer although this means that we would need to ensure the scorching summer heat and humidity in Japan. As Japan is an intercontinental trip we thought of the duration; we planned for a 3 week time frame so we can have a good Japanese immersion and tourism exoerience. Summer is the best time as we, as a family, can go on a 3 week holiday (my husband and I can apply for our vacation leaves and my son is on summer break). Along with the time/schedule, it was imperative to manage our budget. Even if the foreign exchange (Euros to JPY) is good, we needed to make sure that our financials are intact and are not compromised. 

2. Planning and Prioritization: Japan as a country to visit is huge. And with a limited timeframe, planning and prioritizing the places to visit is a must. Even if you want to visit most of Japan, the limited timeframe makes it really complicated. During our planning stage, we bought a typical Japanese travel guide book to better understand the main tourist attractions and to plot our route. You can´t be going from North to South as logistically, it is complex. It is more sensible to move within the same direction taking advantage of the places that you would like to visit. In the end, as what most 1st timer tourists would do, we spent our 3 week holidays following this route: Tokyo - Kyoto - Osaka - Miyajima - Hiroshima and Tokyo. Prioritization is important to identify your primary considerations and along the way, manage the deviations during the actual trip so you stick to your priorities. Some questions that you may ask yourself include: If I have a limited timeframe in Kyoto, which is more meaningful for me to visit, is it the Fushimi Inari Toori or the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest? Or you can decide to visit both even if it means waking up very early in the morning and commuting. 

Another consideration is if you are traveling as a family is to integrate kid friendly activities in your itinerary.

It is important to note that together with the planning and prioritization, the components of financials and logisitics management come along. As you plan and prioritize, you start visualizing and including the logistics such as how to move around/commuting, accommodation, number of days and eventually, the financials/budget. Planning for your route and logistics will help you to manage the necessary advanced bookings.  I highly recommend to use a simple excel worksheet or a checklist (whichever works for you better) to document your plan and note the changes in the plan until you have a final version. Planning is a crucial step to see the potential over-all scope and cost of the trip.

 

3. Critical Path and Milestones setting: In corporate project management, critical path and milestones setting are important because identifying them affirms your key priorities, your "non-negotiables" and at the same time, leads to the completion of your objective. Our critical path includes the on time completion of city trips to ensure that the subsequent trips and accommodation are not impacted. Again, we listed all of these in our shared excel to visualize the completeness of our scope and the proper identification of our milestones. 

4. Stakeholders/Roles and Responsibilities: As we are a headstrong, bull headed family of 3 😁, we agreed that we will all play specific roles. These roles are important so we don´t boss each other around 😉, we listen to each other and we take into account each other´s preferences. Having a complete list of stakeholders, roles and responsibilities contributed to the completion of our scope and the management of our critical path. This is the distribution of our roles and responsibilities: 

• Dad is the sponsor. He approved our budget (and thank you so much Dad for the generosity) and our approach. 
• Mom  (I) is the project manager and the "mother packer". I ensured we stick to our gameplan, reminded everyone of our timeline and priorities and I made sure that our logistics and vendors, suppliers are all properly informed and engaged. As a "mother packer", I made certain that the essentials are packed in this summer trip. 
• Son is our architect/user. He made sure that his choices and decisions are heard and are properly fulfilled.
• Other stakeholders include vendors/platforms for tickets, tours, trains, transportation and accommodation. 

5. Risk Identification, Planning and Mitigation: identifying the risks or the scenarios that could go wrong helped us as a family to control them, assimilate them, conquer our fears and prevent them from becoming full blown problems. This maybe the paranoid in me, but it was useful to identify these risks so we can rule them. Some of the major risks that we identified and mitigation actions: 

• Risk of going overbudget/financial expense: Our mitigation action here is to reserve the earliest possible time with the belief that early reservation gives us some discounts and prior to the trip, we recover financially. On the actual trip, we kept a tab of our actual expenses on food and personal items.  
• Risk of getting lost in translation; language/communication barrier/moving around: Our mitigation action here is we enrolled in a crash course in Nihonggo to understand and speak basic Japanese phrases and better understand the culture. We also installed translator in our mobile phones and bought local SIMs which came in very, very handy to plot our actual routes. 
• Risk of danger presented by natural calamities such as earthquake, tusnamis and typhoons: This is absolutely beyond our control and unpredictable, but keeping it in mind made us alert especially in the last week of our holidays when a major earthquake rocked Kyushu and there was a warning of a megaquake. I think there is no mitigation for this but in the unlikely event that it happens, we prepared an emergency backpack containing extra clothes, shoes, food and medicine that we can easily bring with us should we need to vacate the building. 
• Risk related to health: As mentioned, my husband and I are already older and with somewhat health conditions. To mitigate this, we made sure that we made ourselves ready to combat the summer heat by wearing light, airy cotton clothing; we brought sunscreen, thermal water, umbrellas, caps and portable mini fans and lastly, we arranged our international medical health and travel insurance coverage. 

As a project and programme management practitioner, I am grateful and take profound pride in my capabilities and in my profession. At any given point in my personal life that I can apply the basics and foundations of servant leadership, project/programme management and agile foundations, I do it! And what a difference it makes!! 

Vacation is over and we are back to reality. But the beautiful memories of this recently concluded Japan summer holidays will definitely linger in our lifetime. 

Let´s continue to make a difference every day of our lives!! 

Snapshot of the shared excel file that we used to document our planning and prioritization: 

Japan 2024: Travel Tips and Guide in my optics as a tourist

Japan as a tourist destination has been the talk of the town. In this post, I would like to share with you our recent Japan trip, summer of 2024. We truly enjoyed our Japan summer holidays! It was magical and absolutely enchanting. I can say that it was indeed a dream come true. 

 

If you are planning for our trip/holidays to Japan, I hope this personal post will be useful to you; Japan in my optics as a tourist: 

 

1. My take aways as a tourist in Japan:  

• No metro nor train station is small in terms of crowd and of network. Even if we went to the suburds, outskirts of the city, the Madrid metro network and the passengers are still smaller compared to Japan. 
• Public transport infrastructure is efficient, easy, accessible. But while it is accessible and modern in terms of network, the stations are  not always PWD nor luggage friendly. You will have to locate the scalator or elevator if they are available or otherwise, you will have to carry your luggage via stairs 
• Regardless of the metro, subway and public transport that you have taken, expect to walk. Walking is essential to be able to see the city alleys, corners and visit the tourist attractions. 
• If you are visiting during summer, like us, HYDRATION is important. The heat is strong and humidity is high so you have a high feeling of suffocation. Water is easily available as there are vending machines and convenience stores in every corner, in every street. 

Snapshots of some of the convenience stores and vending machines that we have encountered in Japan. 

• Anywhere you go, food is great. This is one of Japan´s strongest points. You do not have to follow a bucket list to enjoy its gastronomic offerings. Even the mediocre izakayas, restos still offer really good food! And its value for money food!! 
• In our trip, we were able to debunk the myth that Izakayas are not tourist friendly. We were graciously attended to in all of the Izakayas that we entered! 
• Coffee shops have boomed in Japan 

Snapshots of some of the best food that we have eaten in the different Izakays and Coffee Shops 

• Japanese hospitality and tourism business can boast of a very respectful customer service  and treats the tourists well (no over pricing) 
• Japanese professionalism is commendable. Even the taxi drivers wear neat and crisply pressed clothing/uniforms. Even if there is a language barrier, the cashiers, the attendant, the service provider will explain and accompany with gestures their explanation to make sure that you understand their message. For example: opening a boxed item to ensure that it is not damaged, counting the bills that you paid and counting in front of you the change. 
• Garbage: There is barely available trash bins in public places and in the hotels/airbnb accommodation, litter segregation is a must. 
• Japanese fashion is amazing, bold and daring. Even if the beautiful Japanese women are wearing minimal design clothing, they have a strong sense of fashion. And the youngsters love to dress up!! 
• Japanese´s contribution to pop culture which the tourists and foreigners/globally have embraced: anime, capsule toys, claw machines, pet cafes, cosplay
• Travel light, minimal baggages to facilitate moving around and just buy an extra luggage when in Japan 

2. Our itinerary: We completed a 3 week holiday. We incorporated kid friendly attractions as we travelled with our 13 year old son. We did not go to DisneySea, Disneyland, Universal Studios, but instead, as requested by my son, we went to Tomica and Plarail shops in the Tokyo Character Street for a couple of times. We also went to the Studio Ghibli museum im Mitaka, Cup Noodle Museum in Yokohama and Cafe Plarail/Plataku.  

• Tokyo: we spent a total of 9 days in Tokyo, 1st leg was upon arrival 4 days and 2nd leg was prior to fly back to Madrid. In both occasions, we stayed in Taito, Asakusa.  
• Senso-ji temple and as it was summer we watched the light festival 
• Side trip to Yokohama where we went to experience the Cup Noodle museum experience 
• Akibahara (we visited this place 2x): A haven for character shops, capsule machines and specialized products on manga and anime
• Shibuya (we visited this crossing 2x). You will also see the monument of Hachiko on the other side of Shibuya 
• Shinjuku
• Ginza (we visited this place 2x). On Sundays, the streets are converted to pedestrian to give the tourists the opportunity to walk more freely
• Meiji Jingku temple 
• Mt. Fuji tour: you have to allocate a full day tour
• Tokyo Skytree 
• Cafe Plarail: plataku, a haven for all Plarail and train lovers kids and kids at heart 
• Mitaka/studio Ghibli museum 
• A walk in the sumida river 
• Ueno for shopping and for the Sanrio Giftgate shop 

Some snapshots of our Tokyo escapade 

• Kyoto: 4 days and 3 nights 
• Kiyomizu shrine and gion village 
• Kenji museum and Fushimi Inari shrine 
• Kinkakuji (Golden shrine/Pagoda), Arashiyama Bamboo Forest,  Kyoto city walk and Arashiyama Monkey Park

Kyoto Snapshots

• Osaka: Dotonboori Street
Osaka Snapshot




• Miyajima: Itsukushima Shrine. We were able to see the complete experience, from low tide in the afternoon, to high tide in the evening and early in the morning when we were able to access the shrine. We also stayed in a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese abode and we dove into the private onsen of the Ryokan. 

Miyajima Snapshots

• Hiroshima: 4 days and 3 nights 
• Hiroshima Downtown 
• Okonomimura: Okonomiyaki place in Hiroshima downtown
• Commemoration of the Atomic Bombing: Early ceremony at 9am, Children´s Peace Monument, Museum Peace Park, Lantern Festival during the evening, Atomic Bomb Dome 
• Hiroshima Castle 

Some snapshots of our Hiroshima visit

3. Packing Considerations:  

• Consider the season/weather that you will visit. Pack clothes according to the season. Summer is very hot and humid. It is strongly recommended to wear loose, cotton, airy clothes and shirts. Also, portable mini electric fans, umbrellas, thermal water, caps and sunscreen are very handy and helpful!  
• Pack comfortable, walking shoes. Forget about ballerinas, flip flop or heels. If possible, bring a couple of sneakers, rubber shoes so you can alternately use them. 
• Pack light as you will be mobile. You will move from one train to another, one station to another and one big city to another. 
• Typically, hotels provide toiletries and sleepwear/yukata and airbnbs/apartments provide toiletries. If you don not have special considerations, the shampoo, shower gel and conditioner provided are pretty decent.
• In our case, due to our health considerations, we have to bring our own toiletries.
• And if applicable, do not forget your medicines/vitamins/supplements and medical, travel insurance as you´ll never know when they will come useful. 

4. Practical tips and links to the services and platforms that we used:  

• It is advisable to have a local sim to avoid excessive roaming charges. We bought ours from the Haneda airport and they were reasonably priced and the staff were all friendly and accommodating 
• Suica card: this is a multi purpose debit card that can be used as a tap/transport card all over Japan and is widely used in the restaurants and convenience stores. Sucia card can be purchased from any station and can be recharged at any station, though only in cash. 
• If you are a resident of Madrid, please come and visit Naomi. She’s our tour consultant and helped us prepare by giving us an overview on the Japanese culture and habits. These are the links to her business: https://arganzueladigital.com/sakigake-madrid/ and her Sakigake Madrid Facebook page
• Klook app: travel, tourism guide which we used to buy Shinkansen tickets in advance and organize our unforgettable Mt. Fuji day trip 
• Nissan/cup noodle museum   Note: Reservation can be made 3 months prior to your scheduled visit.  
• Airbnb: Search engine for accommodation
• Mitaka: to reserve the studio ghibli visit. Note: Reservation is open only every 10th of the month, 10am Japan Time. Even if this is a very busy site, it is fast and efficient. However, in our case, we endured the 7 hour time difference; we were connected as early as 3am Madrid time to reserve our tickets. The whole transaction, from logging in to finalizing the purchase lasted a total of 55 minutes. 
• Hotel Mystays Haneda airport: overnight accommodation upon arrival as we arrived midnight 
• IP City Hotel Osaka: 

Just Show up: Faces and Stories of Courage

This is us. Our faces and stories of courage. 

Life has been unfolding on its regular pace, with all of its ups and downs, high and lows, triumphs and losses, energy and fatigue, laughters and tears triggering moments. Despite all of life´s happenings, the human spirit is heroic. 

As life´s events and circumstances take place in my very eye, I am in awe with man´s resilience, willingness to survive, capability to fight, hopeful faith.. heroic courage. And this is the focus of this personal post, an appreciation, recognition of the stories of courage that I have witnessed in the last months. 

Courage is defined as the ability to do something that frightens one; it is a manifestation of bravery or it is the strength in the face of pain or grief. It´s a trait that we display when the going gets tough, when we are outside our comfort zone, when we are facing changes and situations which are beyond our control.

And here are some of the worth mentioning accounts of courage that I witnessed these past few months. 

1. My Courageous Son: During school year 2023-2024, my son was in the sophomore year of secondary education. This was the first school year that he had real, serious, threatening challenges with his grades. With all of his hormonal/ puberty changes, very demanding and busy academic schedule and personal activities such as dental appointments and extra curricular activities, my son experienced a wild roller coaster ride of emotions. He had his fair share of fit of temper moments caused by longer hours spent on doing school activities and reworking on his assignments until the basic, minimum requirement is met. More than the moments that he had his outbursts, what struck me the most was my son´s commitment to turn the tables around to pass 2nd year middle school. His sense of accountability and responsibility was evident as he pushed himself to review and prepare for his exams and eventually obtain passing marks. He also improved the quality of his homeworks and assignments by paying special attention on the criteria, requirements of the teachers. My son also stepped up by accommodating our request for additional reinforcement, tutorial sessions on Maths. My son took to his heart our pieces of advice and the feedback of his teachers. He changed his review method by dedicating quality time on the more difficult subjects. He did his best to become more independent as doing his homeworks on his own increased his confidence and capability. Despite all of these difficult and confusing moments in his growing up world, my son just showed up. As a result, my son passed the sophomore year! This school year 2024-2025, he will be entering junior high/3rd year middle school! Congratulations, son! All of your hard work paid off!! I am the proudest as your mom! 

2. My Tenacious Husband: My husband is the most patient person in my universe, in my books. I am the sweetest person but in a split second, I am angry, I am pissed off with the slightest detail. My temper is outrageous. And my son acquired my personality, the mood swings, the temper, the outbursts. Our household is generally peaceful except on the occassional moments that my son and I exchange in verbal discussions. My husband is a very busy person. He loves his job. We are all professionals to the highest standards even if the situations are not the most likeable. Imagine my husband in a conference call and then all of a sudden hearing my son and I in a verbal argument in the background... Or my husband deeply focused on his job then all of a sudden, I barge into his home office blabbering about my thoughts, conversations with my family from the Philippines of which he didn´t have any idea. Most of the time, he would give me a blank look. Or that moment when all of a sudden, our son would go to his home office to seek help on some of his homeworks. As much as he would like to attend to my son, he can either be tinkering his laptop or in a conference call. My husband had his fair share of challenging personal situations, but he just showed up. One of the best showing up moments of my husband was when he took the initiative to retool, upgrade his skills. He was a pioneer in his team, organization to express solid interest on AI. He completed his post graduate, master degree on AI and that led to his new role as a successful Data Scientist! Way to go dad! We love you and I, your wife, am the proudest! 

3. My Strong Mother: My mother is one of idols. The other is my father :) My mother is a selfless, loving, hardworking, always present, generous and strong woman! Quick background: My mother finished her AB English degree but became a full time homemaker when my brother, her 3rd child was born. She is the foundation of our 8 member household (2 parents and 6 children). She lost her husband, our father 22 years ago and she made sure that my youngest siblings earned their university degree. I am proud and very grateful to say that my mother administered very well the financial earnings and pension of my father. Now my mom is in her early 70s, she is diabetic, with hypertension, had both of her eyes undergo cataract operation, had a foot operation and recently this Q2 2024, had a cyst removal which was categorized as a major operation. In all of these life changing, life threatening moments, my dearest mother just showed up. Prior to her operation, she was required to go through a series of medical laboratories and medical sessions with her cardiologist, general medicine specialist, nephrologist and gynecologist/surgeon. Those sessions, aligning the opinions of her medical team to mitigate risks during her operation seemed endless.With my mother´s can do, courageous disposition and the mercy of the Lord, her operation went well, the cyst was successfully removed and my mom is fully healed, though she still needs to be careful. She´s now back to her regular programming and she now attends to her regular medical appointments to monitor her diabetes. 

4. My headstrong friend: I witnessed a very good friend of mine lost her mother to cancer. Prior to her mom´s passing, my friend had to juggle being a mom to her son, delivering her work commitments and taking care of her sick mother. I kept in close contact with my friend. I wanted her to know that my prayers are with her and that I am around if she needed a shoulder to cry on. Her mother already passed away (and may she rest in peace). During the time that my friend had to take care of her mom while mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually preparing herself for the worst, my friend just showed up. It was a very taxing and sad period but with the grace and love of God which clothed my friend and her loved ones, they are getting by, Losing a loved one, death is an experience that you will never recover from. As the days, months and years go by, you go on with your life, the pain comes and goes but the longing for the departed loved one is always there. 

5. My lionhearted former team manager: I know that on a professional level, colleagues, people come and go. But when a colleague is asked to leave the company, is terminated without clear reasons, I felt the injustice. It was not my call, I am fully responsible for my actions but not on the actions other people.I trust that decisions were made based on criteria. My former team manager upon learning about his termination talked to us/his team and told us to move forward. Even if he was confused about the manner he was terminated, he took it with a positive, moving forward disposition. On the 1st week that my former manager was terminated, his father passed away. And during these difficult personal and professional moments, my former manager just showed up even if he was hurting. I sincerely believe that there is always a silver lining and that things happen for a reason. More importantly, life goes on. For sure, something good will come out of this as good things happen to good people. 

5. Our indomitable spirit (my siblings and I): I would like to dedicate my last account of courage account to the indomitable spirit of my siblings and I! We are 6 children who grew up in a working middle class family in the Philippines.I am very proud of my siblings. We have  collective unity, indomitable spirit, a life based on experiences and prayers that help make things happen even if they seem impossible. God has been and is very generous and good to me and my family. We lost our father at a young age, we have had our share of difficulties in life but we just showed up. I am very grateful that my younger brother´s resilience, grit for better opportunities paved the way for his work outside the Philippines. My brother´s focus, prayerful habits and strong desires and wishes were his partners in making this dream a reality. My eldest sister is like a second mom and a financial advisor to us. She is hardworking, devout and resolute. She mobilized us, her younger siblings to financially, spiritually and mentally prepare for our mother´s recent operation. Together with our youngest sister, they took turns in the conversations with the doctors and the nurses and providing updates to the rest of the siblings. All of these while both of my sisters were doing their daytime jobs and my eldest sister being a full time mom and homemaker. Resilience is evident as well in my brothers R&RB. We are living adult lives now. And even if there are not so good days at work, even if we are terribly exhausted, even if there seems to be endless activities to do, even when there appears to be seeming injustice or when days are good, we feel better, we just show up. It is our commitment to life, to our respective families, to our community and our love and gratitude to the Lord Almighty that allow us to show up, be good people and navigate through life. 

I know that these accounts maybe nothing compared to what the world is going through. But there are no small or big success and courageous stories. We all earned our spot and there is a place for everybody. These inspiring stories of courage are not stand-alone. They took place with the mercy, compassion, blessings, interventions and graces of our Lord. In this lifetime, it is imperative that we do good and we pray. For when man prays, God works! And whatever difficult situation, we are going through, just keep swimming, just show up. Always, the man who shows up, wins!! 

2024 Birthday Edition: Post birthday weekend in Barcelona and a side trip to Girona

My Barcelona trip for spring 2024 was planned with a very good friend of mine. But personal circumstances led to changes in our plans. In the end, my good friend cancelled her Barcelona trip, her Spain holidays to be exact. 

I decided to push through with my 4 day, 3 night extended weekend, post-birthday trip to what remains to date, my favorite city in Spain, BARCELONA!! This was my 5th trip to Barcelona so I decided to do things differently this time. 

Firstly, I would like to thank my generous friends, J and K, for hosting me in their beautiful mansion. They live in the city center, walking distance from the La Rambla which makes almost everything accessible. My good friend J also invited me to attend their Sunday worship which I absolutely loved. Even if I am a Catholic, I am very open to embracing and getting to know the different ways of praising and glorifying our Lord Almighty. Thanks J and K, for the beautiful experience. 

Secondly, I am writing this post to chronicle my beautiful post birthday weekend in Barcelona. I am not used to travelling by myself on holidays. All of my individual trips are business or work related. So this post-birthday trip to Barcelona was special because I spent my holidays in my solitary solitude and organized my itinerary on sites, places that I haven´t done before. I got lost, I had to figure my way on my own, Google Maps was my best friend, I ate alone and ate to my heart´s desires, walked alone, I meditated, I took all the photos that I liked. And yes! It was an enriching experience! 

And here´s how it went, which to date, a month and a half after, I still remember  vividly. 

My firsts: 

Monsterrat Monastery and the Black Madonna/La Morenita: This place is outside Barcelona main city. The most pragmatic way to visit this is through an organized tour which I reserved via https://www.klook.com/ and selecting the packaged tour of Montserrat Tour with cog wheel train from https://juliatravel.com/en/tours/?destinations%5B%5D=BARCELONA . This was so worth it and a dream come true. It was a well organized tour which started in the pick-up point in Estacio de Noord. The trip was approximately 45 minutes and upon reaching the foot of the mountain, we rode a cog wheel train which offered scenic views of the mountain and which took us to the monastery. The tour has a total duration of 4,5 hours including the travel time. But the highlight was being able to enter the church and see the Black Madonna/La Morenita. I did pray and asked for my wishes. At that time, I had a an earnest wish which was not granted to me but I know in God´s perfect time, my petitions and my prayers will be heard. 

The Black Madonna/La Morenita

Beautiful view of the mountain 

Afternoon sail/boat ride enjoying the coast of Barcelona: This is also reserved via https://www.klook.com and I recommend that you reserve ahead of time. While my afternoon boat ride was good, there were other choices such as yatch with jazz music which were already fully booked. This was a relaxing way to spend my afternoon. And I so loved this experience. 

Day trip, side trip to the beautiful, majestic medieval city of Girona: I wanted to do things differently this time so I researched for nearby cities worthy of a day trip from Barcelona and Girona was on the top of the list! Girona is a beautiful, small, quiet and quaint city which boasts of its medieval characteristics. I did not join any packaged tour for this trip. I reserved a train ride from Barcelona to Girona, approximately 30 minutes. I was not afraid to get lost in this charming city as there were a lot of tourists and is small, very manageable compared to Madrid, Lisbon or London. While it is famous to be a shooting location of Game of Thrones, there´s more to it than that. It is old fashioned, accessible, clean and enchanting! The walls and the streets are organized and spic and span. There is glamour and magnetism while walking on its perfectly gleaming cobblestone streets; it was really like a walk down memory lane. It is a hilly place so be ready by wearing comfortable clothes and your safest, lightest footwear! I was able to complete my day trip in a total 7 hours and I was able to: 

1. Walk, walk, walk and enjoyed every corner of the quiet city 

2. Enter and visit the Cathedral (there is an entrance fee but you can buy same day; no need for reservation) 

3. Enjoy the breathtaking yet simple view of the Eiffel Bridge and Onyar River 

4. Visit Arab Bath 

5. Explore the Jewish Quarters 

6. Go through various paths leading to Passeigh de la Muralla 

7. Spend a quiet recharge moment in Plaza de Independencia

8. Eat ice cream and buy chocolate goodies from https://rocambolesc.com/es/

9. And did I say, walk a lot? 

There were a lot of restos and coffee shops where you can enjoy the typical catalan dishes at affordable prices. 

One of the many uphills where itcan lead you to the best tourists spots. 

Arab Bath which has a very reasonable and economical entrance fee 

Facade of the Cathedral

From the other side of the Cathedral

The Onyar River, the colourful houses and the Eiffel bridge in a snapshot  

And these are my usuals, my go to places to visit which are a must in Barcelona: La Rambla, Plaza Catalunya, Barcelona Cathedral which has an entrance fee that includes the visit to the terraza, rooftop which is 118 steps but has a good view of the city, La Boqueria Market and the Plaza de Colon. As a bonus, if you would like to try freshly baked bread and pastries, please visit this Filipino owned bakeshop Forn de Manila Bakey Barcelona

It was a short but really a sweet holiday; a beautiful, memorable and gratifying way to celebrate my birthday and my life. I did miss my husband and my son but it was just a quick getway. Now, we are back together, snuggling and annoying each other. :) Thank you my Almighty God for the gifts of blessings, love and life!