I like to hear about travels

I'm off to Houston for a holiday in less than a month! I'll be there for about 2 and a half weeks.
I've been incredibly lucky with travels in my life, and I never take it for granted. This will be my second overseas trip by myself and on my own dollar (though having free accommodation with friends is a huuuuuuge help). All the rest were when I was a kid/young teen, so I was with family.
I think my favourite place that I've visited so far would be India, though I definitely wouldn't want to live there. The differences in culture, people and sights all made it very interesting. Less fun when in our last week we travelled around more and I got carsick, hahaha.
Second fave would be Japan. We stayed with a very traditional family, which is a big reason why I enjoyed it so much I think. Futons, miso soup and rice for breakfast, the interesting bathing, the strange (to me) house rules... they all were very interesting to me. I didn't always enjoy the breakfast soup, but that's part of the fun isn't it? Or at least it is for me.
The US I enjoyed for different reasons, mostly staying with friends and the events that happened (if everything ran smoothly I'd be bored eh?). As a country itself, it's similar enough to NZ that I got jolts when little things reminded me I was in a foreign country. Like driving around a corner into what my mind thought was oncoming traffic... before remembering it was on the opposite side of the road. So we'll see how it goes this time.

A lot of things have happened in my life lately. Kinda expected, that seems to happen every three years. Something I noticed in particular this year though: All the bad things were things outside my control, while all the good things were what I purposely brought about. Not sure what that says really... Probably sums up life.
That reminds me, I should redo my CV to apply for a new job. I've been regularly getting well over full time hours for quite a while now, but it'd be nice to have the security of knowing I'm contracted for full time. With some employees I've seen, if they managed to piss off management for whatever reason, suddenly they were cut back to their contracted hours and couldn't pay the bills. So. I'd rather not have to do that. Plus, I'd like to use my brain a bit more. My coworkers are starting to ask why I'm still there when they know I "could do better". Meh.

After I come back, I'm gonna start a beginner burlesque class with a friend. Looks like the beginners don't actually strip, but should be fun anyway. And here's the weird/funny part: 3 more friends, completely separate from us and without us talking about it, also signed up for the same class! Found out last night when one of them mentioned it to me.
The class prices are a bit steep, hopefully it's worth it.

Alright my chumplings, what have you guys been up to?