Spring is filling me up with ideas and inspiration, and I like it. There's nothing like seeing a place through someone else's eyes to make it seem new again - Annamama came to Japan to visit me a couple of weeks ago, and having spent ten consecutive days teaching someone to say arigatou gozaimasu TO NO AVAIL I now feel a lot more justified in being proud of my own language skills. Incidentally, it's funny how quickly you get used to peeing in a glorified hole in the ground... I may have forgotten to warn my mother about that one (though she was a big fan of the ones that shoot water and heat the seats and blow air about and generally act way over-friendly for a toilet that you've only just met. Japan, can't you just compromise? Why is it always "shit in a pit" or "SPACE TOILET"? Middle ground, Japan).

But there were new-to-me bits, too. The tame deer on Miyajima Island? Who gives a crap about culture, there are tame baby deer to cuddle. Seeing maiko - and people dressed-up-as-maiko - in Kyoto (the girl in the purple kimono is named Makino, I'm told by the internet). And then... Tokyo DisneySea, because I'm obnoxious, okay. Um, how about I just don't have a job and travel around Japan taking photos of food and shopping instead, are we all cool with that? Awesome.

...I recognise you can't always take ten days out to tour the country and get fat whenever you need inspiration. But that's why Pinterest is a thing.

Three more things inspiring me right now!

• Cinna in the Hunger Games. Totally inspiring me to buy that gold eyeliner crayon from Harajuku Topshop (don't judge me for going to Harajuku... and then going to Topshop. I ain't seen the inside of a Topshop for nearly a year, okay). So fierce. So fabulous.
• Sakura! Predictable Anna is predictable. I may or may not have filled my suitcase with sakura syrups and jams and petals and salts and sugars and wine. I may or may not be planning the Most Epic of Cherry Blossom Flavoured round-up posts later this week. And by 'may or may not', I mean I definitely did, and I definitely am.
• Team Starkid's new Batman musical. Not so much inspiring me not to wear trousers, since given the option I never wear trousers anyway. But certainly giving me the most flawless justification for it: 'If I were to wear pants it would decrease my crime-fighting ability by 20%!'

Share the things that are inspiring you at the moment?