Author: bthangover

How Friendly Fukuoka has been treating me lately

The first semester at Kyushu University has finished so I am officially halfway through my exchange year here. Time really flies. I haven’t posted in a while. I have been busy with joining a Japanese laboratory and writing my bachelor paper. But besides that I have of course been traveling around as well and there are many interesting things to tell you all.
Here’s just a taste of what I’ve been doing; meeting my host family, spending christmas in Korea with my laboratorium, going to the post-apocalyptic island of Gunkanjima, doing two presentations about my bachelor paper, first time visit to Bali, staying in a temple on Koyasan, seeing a maiko performance in Kyoto, braving the crowds in Universal Studios Japan, snorkeling, holding back tears at the Atomic Bomb Museum of Nagasaki, staring at the gorgeous sea of Okinawa, shopping fukubukuro in Tokyo and much much more.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that I am doing great. Friendly Fukuoka is still as friendly as ever.
From now on I will update you guys a little bit more with that I have been doing. A post about a camping trip in Kyushu has been waiting for a few weeks to be posted so that one will be up first.

Friendly Fukuoka – Kimono Parade, Lantern festival, Rice harvesting, and Picking Oranges.

Hello everyone!

I finally started properly working on my bachelor paper and I attend seminars regularly for ISP, which means that I regularly move between two campuses of the uni. So I am flying around  Fukuoka just to be in the right campus on time for the different classes and seminars. But this also means that I am even more busy than before, so please excuse my late blog this time around! A lot has happened this past month, so I will sum up the most important moments. There are lots ad lots of photos so enjoy!

On saturday October 18th there was a parade of women dressed in kimono, which is of course something we all wanted to see! So I went with a group of friends to the place of the parade, and there I unexpectedly met a friend from my home university! She was there for the Octoberfest, so after talking for a while we said our goodbyes. After the kimono parade, accompanied by traditional music also played by kimono wearing women, we went to the lantern festival. The station and a lot of temples near the station were decorated with a sea of lanterns and it was so gorgeous. This is one of those situations were pictures speak more than words I think:

The next day we went rice harvesting in Arita. We all worked together to cut the rice and then we had to put all the rice in a sorting machine which takes the grains off the stems. The important thing to remember when you cut the rice is to keep your thumb up otherwise you can say bye-bye to your thumb. Since we were a big group so we were done quite soon with cutting the whole rice paddy. After our hard labour we were rewarded with the best barbecue possible. There were local grown vegetables and local meat of the highest quality. I am seriously not kidding when I say these meats are sold for a close to a hundred euro when you get it at the supermarket. And I have to say, it was the most delicious meat I ever ate. 
The farmers were also eating with us and were really nice. They also let us drink some sake made with the same kind of rice we just cut ourselves. It was definitely something! Afterwards we went to Kagamiyama (Mirror Mountain) in Karatsu where we had this wonderful view on the coast of Karatsu. The only downside of this place; SPIDERS! everywhere! And not those cute little ones, but huge ones with black and yellow dangerous looking colors. The fun part of this was that we had to hike all the way down the mountain through the forest, knowing these things were everywhere around us. I’ve had better times in Japan haha.
As if this day wasn’t tiring and impressive enough it was also the birthday of my dearest friend, so afterwards it was party time!

The next weekend we went plucking mikan, which is often translated as orange but the size and taste actually reminded me of mandarins, on saturday. It was not a JTW trip, but a private trip organized by a church group and I got invited by my friend. It was really nice because we went to the place by car and it was a while since I had a drive. I don’t know why, but sometimes there is something really relaxing about driving around with friends and just looking at the landscape. Anyway, the group was really mixed with very young children and elderly people and any age in-between, from all different countries.

At the place where we went plucking the mikan I was overwhelmed! The place was so big and it was beautifully situated in the mountains. The fact that it was a rainy day made the place even more beautiful. And mikan trees reached as far as the eye could see. We each got a plastic big which we could fill with as many mikan as we wanted. All the while tasting them of course! They were sweet and delicious. The trick is to find ones that are a little bit soft. Personally I preferred small sized ones with a dark orange color because they were nice and sweet. After we were done plucking them we all ate self made lunch together and moved on to the next place; a flower exposition at a temple.

Friendly Fukuoka – Nomikai, Game Centre and Oktoberfest

In the morning we had classes; ‘Miyazaki Hayao’s World’ and a gender class. Both or very interesting classes, especially the last one where we discuss a lot about gender roles and other things both in Japan and our home countries. After the classes my friend and I did some groceries and ate lunch together before preparing for a nomikai (drinking party) in the evening.

This was a rather funny evening because in the same room as ours was another party. It was a huge group of Japanese girls and boys around my age, or a little bit younger. The party was a birthday party for one of them who became ‘legal age’ which means that they can finally drink alcohol. So drinking is what they did, a lot! And not just normal drinking, but they were singing special drinking songs to encourage the people drinking to down their glass in one go, or they played drinking games. Anyway, they became more drunk as the night went on and they were so noisy.

I never knew Japanese could be this loud, we couldn’t even normally talk to each other. But that doesn’t matter because it was a lot of fun to see them enjoy themselves and the atmosphere was really good. When the JTW students also had had a few drinks it didn’t take long before the whole room was in chaos and everyone in the room started to drink and talk with each other. When it was time to go we had to pretty much run back to the station to catch the last train home, but it was worth it.

On Tuesday the typhoon that had caused some storms during the week already passed Fukuoka and most of the storm became quiet except for some cold winds. After classes we went to the popular スシロー again. I didn’t eat much sushi, but instead I enjoyed the cheap desserts there. Afterwards we went to take a look at the halloween costumes and did some shopping in a nearby shop. One by one people went home but my fellow Dutchman, my Filipino friend I decided to stay and go to the game centre. There we played some dancing games, which were quite difficult, and took purikura. Taking purikura with a boy is really interesting I have to say, and the results were hilarious. I just love Japanese game centers. They just have the weirdest games and there are usually many people so it feels very lively. The game centre back home are in the downfall, if present at all. Although with all the machines screaming at you it can be quite overwhelming as well. Actually, my ears start to hurt after a while.

The purikura machine that we used used the Dutch word ‘mooi’. Coincidence? I think not! It was fate that we chose this machine hahaha.
Oktoberfest started on friday, and of course we wanted to take a look there. I am not much of a beer person but I was curious to what the atmosphere would be like and that they would be selling. I didn’t even buy one beer (they were really expensive anyway), but I did buy some food that I shared with my friend. We tried pizza, garlic bread and a waffle. Except for the waffle all the food was really good! I was contemplating to go there again next week just for the food, but in the end I didn’t haha. Anyway, there were German performers there and the crowd was so into it.

It was an awesome atmosphere. People were singing and dancing and we joined them. We were there quite late so sadly it was already the last performance of the day. Even though we weren’t drunk we could still appreciate the lively and happy atmosphere and it was funny to be dragged into dancing the polonaise by some random people. I really liked experiencing Oktoberfest for the first time, even though it was a Japanese version of it. Afterwards the party was not over so we moved on the a bar for nomihoudai. I talked a lot with some people I hadn’t really talked to before, so it was nice to get to know them better. Some people decided to go to clubbing after the nomihoudai was over, but I wanted to go home because Oktoberfest and drinking in a bar was more than enough for me. Some people were very drunk so we all walked all the way back to the dorm with our bicycles at hand. And the dorm is actually surprisingly close to the city centre by foot.

Friendly Fukuoka – Nakasu Matsuri, Momochi Beach, Canal City and Showa Style Pub

On friday there was a matsuri, Japanese festival, going on in Tenjin. It’s something that most of us had always wanted to see, so of course we couldn’t skip it! During the day I didn’t do much though. So in the evening a lot of the JTW students and students went to the matsuri. During these festivals a portable shrine is usually carried through the city to the main shrine. Usually men do this, but this was a special matsuri where women had to carry the shrine. They wore some special traditional attire that I had never seen before. They looked so cool. When they were carrying the shrines they were shouting in unison and they looked so bad-ass. On the shrines there were standing four girls to encourage and keep the pace of the shouting and walking.

After they were gone some Japanese girl group gave an performance. It was funny to see because it’s such a typical Japanese thing to have crazy fanboys shouting and dancing with their lightsticks to a group of too cute underage girls. When they were gone a group of young taiko drummers gave a performance. And man, they were so cool! I wished I was that cool at that age. They played very seriously with a cool posture. When they were finished another group of drummers came up, but they also did some traditional singing and dancing along with the drumming. It was so beautiful, and very traditional. But during their performance we left to get food. We went to a pretty expensive izakaya but didn’t drink this time around. After dinner we moved on to karaoke (oh my god, maybe I am addicted), but only for an hour. After another satisfying evening we biked back to the dorm and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

Cute little boy!

Saturday we finally went to the beach! There are a lot of beaches in and near Fukuoka and I had been looking forward to go there since, well….. since the day that I knew I would be going to Fukuoka. It took us a while to go there because we went by bike, but during the ride there we saw a lot of Fukuoka which was a big advantage. I really need to go exploring by bike more often because there are a lot of nice places to discover here. The beach itself was very big and with the pier it really had a wow-factor. 

Sadly there was a typhoon on its way to Japan so the wind was very strong so it was too dangerous to go swimming. But the water surprisingly warm despite it already being october and the strong winds. I think it was even warmer then the water in Italy a few weeks back. I keep thinking about the sea and how badly I want to swim there! So instead of swimming we just stood there in the undeep water and got splashed by the high waves so my one of my friends and I ended up being soaked by the water anyway. No need for swimming. Most people felt cold because of the wind (which wasn’t that cold to me). I could have spent hours there but they wanted to leave and get lunch, so that’s what we did. We went to some Udon place and after that returned home with full bellies and a little bit tired.

Another day of classes on wednesday. They were just introduction classes though so I don’t know about the real deal yet. In the evening there was a lunar eclipse going on so we went to roof of one of the uni buildings to watch it. It took a long time, but it was beautiful to see. Someone brought a telescope too so we could view the moon in detail! Being there was really fun because it was my first time going up a rooftop here and the airplanes heading to Fukuoka Airport were so close to us! The whole moon-watching on a rooftop scene was just something really special in my opinion and it all seemed so Japanese to me, like I was in a Japanese movie or cartoon or something. And I got to talk to my friend Japanese friend who wants to go to Leiden University next year.  But all that moon-viewing took long and we were really hungry afterwards so we hoppe don our bicycles and headed to スシロー, the conveyer belt sushi place it talked about in the post about my first week here (I think).

a friend took these photos with his cellphone

Thursday I didn’t have class because the only class I wanted to attend got cancelled. So we went to Canal City. It is a big shopping centre, but we didn’t go there for shopping. We went there for the food and the decorations! As the name says, there is a small canal in Canal City. There is also some greenery, statues and this time of the year a lot of Halloween decorations. It is really pretty and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shopping mall like that. There is also a cinema, planetarium and a theatre, so I am sure I will be going back there to check them out. We ate at Gindaco, a place that specializes in takoyaki. For my Dutch family/friends; they are basically savory poffertjes with squid in them and mayonaise instead of poedersuiker. Now you might be wondering, why does someone who hates seafood eat squid-hotcakes? Because they are freaking delicious of you take out the squid! I took out the big pieces of squid and gave them a friend, and what’s left is a delicious, hot, savory mini-pancake. It is sooo good, just like okonomiyaki.

Spiders!!

Are you sure we are in a shopping mall?

Making hotcakes?

Nope, it’s takoyaki!

First robot sighted!!

Fukuoka~

In Solaria Plaza I waited for my Japanese friend who I hadn’t met in two years. She lead me to a place where we would eat, but first we took purikura together (You know how I roll). Since she has a Japanese cellphone she can download the photos, so I can finally show you what purikura looks like, to give you an idea. She picked out an izakaya in Showa style. Showa is a historic period from the 1920s to the 1960s. The place was filled with old posters, food containers, lanterns, old tvs. The decoration was spot on and the atmosphere was just right. It was small but cosy. The prices are really cheap for an izakaya and they sell some popular dishes from that time. The yakitori for example was only 52 yen which is not even 40 eurocents. They even had some fried cheese dish which was so good and reminded me of kaaskroketten. I miss cheese! But this place has some awesome fried cheese to curb my cheese cravings. With one particular dish that a client ordered the whole staff started singing some song in really loud voices, it really added to the atmosphere of the place. And the staff was very friendly too. I think it is the best place that I went to so far. I am very thankful to my friend for introducing me to this place and the fun evening we had.

heavenly cheese on a stick.

And some purikura for the curious people;
Basically a photo machine which makes your eyes big and skin beautiful, and afterwards you can decorate with a lot of cute and weird things. Decorating is the fun part!

There’s already so many pictures and writings in this post that I will stop for now ! 🙂 Next week’s post will be more toned down as I had some quiet days when the typhoon came.

Friendly Fukuoka – Ryumon Falls, Aso Farmland and Kumamoto Castle

This will be a long post as it covers the first field trip and the opening ceremony of the Fall semester. So I apologize in advance for the many photos and long texts! Hang in there 😉

On sunday morning we gathered at the International Student Centre. We were going by bus on a two day ‘Welcome Trip’. The highways in the city are built up high, very different from those back in the Netherlands which are just ground level, so we had a nice view over the city and the sea on one side and mountains on the other side of the city. What a view. I can’t believe I managed to go to a beautiful place like this and felt very lucky.

After a fun but also slightly sleepy bus ride we arrived at our first destination, Ryumon Falls. At these waterfalls usually a shinto ritual takes place, which is the ritual of purification. The thought is that by standing onder the falling water your impurities will be washed away along with the water. But the stones are very slippery and dangerous so we weren’t allowed to climb them. We could go in the safer part of the water, but it was crowded and with my camera I didn’t want to take the risk. It was a beautiful place in the nature and it oozed tranquility.

We ate lunch in a restaurant near the waterfall. It was traditional style; we had to sit on the ground and the food we ate was some kind of soup with noodles, smoked fish and unidentifiable vegetables. The restaurant was very quaint and cute and it was nice to experience a real rural and traditional place like this.

And some photos made by the staff and friends 🙂
Selfie stick!

We then continues our bus ride through rice plantages, quaint villages and way up to the mountains. The nature in Kyushu is so impressive, it feels so organic, like it has been like this for thousands of years. The second place we visited that day was Kokonoe suspension bridge, which is the biggest in Japan according to our teacher. I never walked on a suspension bridge like this. The fact that it slightly swinger from left to right was interesting. Not for the faint of heart though. The views were spectacular as was to be expected. On the other side of the bridge some of us ate some soft ice-cream. It’s not as good as the ones back home, but they are delicious anyway and ice-cream is always welcome. One of my friends brought a ‘selfie-stick’ with her. It’s a trend in Asia lately, but I never saw one in real life. And it is actually a very useful thing! Making group pictures has never been easier. After this trip I am convinced that I should get one too…

At the end of the day we went even further into the mountains until we stopped at our ‘hotel’. It is a facility that belongs to our university with sleeping rooms, a gym, conference rooms, a cafetaria and hot spring baths. Soon after we arrived we had another short information session until dinner was served. We got some curry with rice and fried chicken. It was an easy meal but I really liked it. I just love curry. In the evening we had free time! I had an appointment with one of the professors about my bachelor paper, but after that I want to the gym. It was just a big sports hall just like back in elementary and high school. We played badminton, basketball, volleyball and things like that. It felt good to do some exercise after all those days without any exercise and eating a lot of food. And the reward; soaking in a hot spring bath. At first I wasn’t sure about going because it is scary to be naked in front of strangers. But I just went at a time when it was quiet and together with a friend we said we just look away from each other haha. But it wasn’t all too bad!

After a relaxing soak in the bath we went up to our rooms and chatted for a while until the other came back from the gym and the bath. We then gathered with a big group in the hallway and played games and chatted until late in the evening. It really felt like a bonding trip. And the hotel had great wifi so I finally got the chance to Skype with my parents, even though it was just for a short while and it was a chaos with all the noise in the hallway. But it was such a fun evening.

Next morning I had to get up early even though I hadn’t slept at all. There was just so much noise and it was hot and generally I can’t sleep well with a lot of people around me. But I wanted to make this day another good one so I ignored the fact that I was dead tired. After breakfast and packing our things we continues our trip. We went up the mountains again to go to Mt. Aso. On the highlands of Mt. Aso we got of the bus. The first thing we saw there was a performance by a monkey. The monkey was so cute, but it was also very sad to see. It was so scared and confused. But moving on…. There was an awesome view over the valley beneath Aso. There is a lot of farmland there, and you could see it neatly divided in rectangles of all the same size. As someone from the Netherlands, mountains and views like this still impress me endlessly. After a bunch of group photos we headed to the valley of Aso.

There we reached Aso Farmland which is basically a huge supermarket complex with ‘local products’. I was expecting fresh fruits and vegetables, but it was the typical Japanese sweets and other products packed in their pretty packages. These packages are so gorgeous but I was hoping for fresh products. They also sold some ice-cream and other home-made products though. I went to take a look at the cheeses (I miss cheese!) but the prices made me want to cry. Everything was too expensive there so I didn’t buy anything in the end.  When everyone was back in the bus we headed to Kumamoto, for the castle but first lunch! The lunch was really nice and we all got a mini-stove which was so cute. And again it was kind of a traditional lunch which was nice. What was even better; the focus was on meat and not fish this time.

With our bellies full we made a short bus trip to Kumamoto Castle. This castle was on my bucket list for Japan, so I was happy to go there! Sadly we only had an hour there so we kind of had to rush through the place. What makes Kumamoto Castle so special is it’s black exterior. The rest, well, I wouldn’t know well. I didn’t pick up much information there because I didn’t have time to read the information signs. Instead, just enjoy the photos 🙂

Friendly Fukuoka – First Week

Hello everyone!

I am starting a new series on this blog about my life as an exchange student in Japan. I joined the JTW Program of Kyushu University in Fukuoka. I will stay here for ten months to study (and party ;)). I wanted to start this series mostly to let everyone at home know what I am doing here. But I hope that I can inform my international readers about the fun and fabulous Fukuoka. And I can use it in one of the classes that I intend to attend which requires to keep some kind of diary about my life here. Now that’s what I call three birds with one stone! I am calling this series Friendly Fukuoka because the people in Fukuoka are known to be very nice people and until now it has proven to be true 🙂

So I took a direct plane by KLM from Amsterdam to Fukuoka on the 22nd of September. Ten hours later I landed in Fukuoka Airport in the morning. My first challenge was to catch a taxi to Hakata station to go to my hotel. There were different kinds of categories, like deluxe and standard taxis, so I was kind of confused which one to take. But I ended up fine and well at my hotel near Gion station for a reasonable fee. It was way too early to check in so I just left my luggage and went to the shopping malls around the station. This was not the best idea ever because I already bought some things within an hour of being in Japan. After a few hours of wandering around and having a drink in a cafe I could finally check in at the hotel. Now I was hoping to take a rest and get ready for dinner but I couldn’t get my suitcase to open! I spent an hour trying different ways to open the lock and in the end I just tried every single code possible from 000 to 999. Luckily it opened somewhere in the 200’s.

I then had to rush to get ready because my lovely Japanese friend came to pick me up for dinner with a few of her friends. We went to an izakaya which is a Japanese kind of bar where you can get some drinks along with a range of small dishes. We had things like yakitori, sashimi, pizza, salad and more. The nice thing about these small dishes is that you can try a lot of different foods. It was really nice to meet an old friend and make new friends on the first day because I immediately felt like I belonged here and didn’t feel lonely at all. I also got to drink some wonderful umeshu again, which is a sweet plum wine and I absolutely love it. But I hadn’t had sleep for more than 30 hours and had a small jetlag so soon I grew tired and speaking Japanese after a break of almost four months was a little bit of a challenge. One of the friends, another old friend of mine, was late and came when we were just leaving. He has a car so he brought us home by car, so nice. I had a lovely first evening and these nice people set the tone for the rest of my stay in Fukuoka.

The next day I met my Japanese friend again when she picked my up at the hotel to move my luggage to the dorm. I was finally moving in! I had to fill in a lot of documents and then had to check my room for abnormalities. Besides a moldy fridge and a chair that’s had it’s best years my room is fine. There is a lot of closet space and I have my own tiny bathroom, which is really convenient. There is a desk and a bed where I sleep on with a futon, Japanese style! It’s a very boring room but slowly but surely I am decorating and filling it with things I bought at the hundred yen shop. Those shops are awesome; you can find almost anything and everything costs maybe about 0,80 euro cents. So I ended up with a lot of useful and cheap things. Going there is a little bit addictive though because everyday I think of something that I need and then I go there and come back with a bag full of things.

This is also the day that I met my tutor. She is a sweet girl who will help me with all kinds of difficult things like paying bills at the post office, getting a phone or registering at the ward office. I had plans to meet up with my friend from Belgium who was traveling through Japan and was in Fukuoka at that moment. My tutor helped me to go the place where we would meet, the aquarium! Marine World is an aquarium in the suburbs of Fukuoka, about an hour away from Hakata station. When my friend arrived we said goodbye to my tutor and went to the aquarium. It was not the biggest or most beautiful aquarium I have seen but it was fun. Sadly I forgot my camera so I had to make do with my iPhone.

We first ate something in the restaurant from where we could see the dolphins. And then we watched all the fish, penguins and sea lions. The seals were so cute! They kept looking at us and swimming towards us, such curious animals. And we could also feed them 🙂 We then went to my friend’s hotel to take a shower (because it’s so hot and humid here) and dress up. We met the Japanese friend who helped me with moving in the morning, and another old friend of ours. We had another night of drinking and eating delicious food at an izakaya. Really, the food and drinks are great and there is so much variety, so you can never get enough of izakaya. It was nice to meet them again and catch up. The Japanese girls had to work the next day though, so we said goodbye to them after going to the subway station through the pouring rain. And we went to karaoke until end the night with some singing. Because I mean, we’re in Japan after all.

I stayed at my friend’s hotel where we talked until deep in the night, or morning, and had to get up at 10am to go back to my dorm. There we had to gather with a group of about 15 students and a few tutors who would help us to apply for residence cards and register our addresses at the ward office of Hakata. This was the first time meeting some of my classmates and we had to wait very long at the ward office so it was a nice opportunity to chat with them and get to know them. They are all awesome and sweet people and I know I’ve already made some friends for life. After the whole thing was finally finished I made some plans with my classmates to meet up in the evening and eat together.  I then went to meet my Belgian friend one last time before she would leave for Okinawa (and after that back to Belgium). We ate some cake at the hotel restaurant and took purikura (photo stickers) at an arcade hall. Time was quickly running out and I had to say goodbye to her. When I came back to the dorm I bumped into a friend from my university back home. She’s staying at the same dorm and uni, but is in a different program. I invited her to dinner with my classmates. We all went to a shopping mall near the dorm and ended up eating soba noodles in a restaurant there. It was nice to have some more bonding time with them and I think by then we were already friends haha.

On the friday I went shopping at the hundred yen store with my new friends, because we all needed some essential things like cutlery, cups, bowls, dust bins and what not. We also took a quick look in the arcade hall there and took purikura. We had to hurry back though because in the afternoon we had orientation day at the university. Basically it is just a lot of information being told in a few hours. It was tiring but important. And because we all don’t like to be alone we went to dinner again with a big group. This time there were even more people than the day before, some who I hadn’t met yet and there were also some of the tutors going with us. We went to kaitenzushi, which is basically sushi in fastfood form. A conveyer belt runs along the tables and on this band theres all kind of sushi which you can take from the belt. You pay by the amount of plates you have. It’s quite cheap, about 100 yen per plate and there’s vegetarian options too.

The saturday was a day off before our Orientation trip around Kyushu in the weekend. The girls and I went to Hakata in the afternoon for some more shopping. I needed some things from the electronics store and we also went to the hundred yen shop again because the one at Hakata station has a bigger collection than the one near our dorm. We also bought snacks for the weekend trip there. We also played some games at the arcade hall on the top floor of the electronics store. The electronics store we went to is Yodobashi Camera and it is huge! You can find almost anything there. So I usually go there when I need something for my computer, camera or mobile phone. The collection of iPhone 5 cases is the most extended one I’ve seen so far, so I have bought a pretty Japanese iPhone case. In the evening we met op with Carol and went to eat at the top floor of the station’s shopping mall. The restaurants there looked so nice, but the prices were too high. We ended up in a ramen restaurant where the prices were very reasonable. I tried tonkotsu ramen which is a specialty of Fukuoka. It was super delicious and I can recommend it to anyone!

That’s it for the first week ! I wil tell you about my orientation trip and the rest of this week in my next blog 🙂

Japan Trip, First day in Tokyo

Hey guys! So here is the long promised post ! I couldn’t post earlier because my dorm in Japan didn’t have internet until today >.< Yes, you read that right, my dorm in Japan! A bit more than a week ago I arrived in Japan and since then life has been chaos. A fun chaos. So I will use this blog as a kind of diary and way to keep my family and friends back home up to date. In between I will also continue to write about my previous travels. So I hope to see you around! And now for the story…

After a lovely week or so it was time to leave Kansai and head to Tokyo. We went by one of the slow bullet trains, which takes about four hours from Kyoto. I was a little bit sad to say goodbye to wonderful Kyoto. I really fell in love with this city. But going to Tokyo was also very exciting. When we arrived at Tokyo Station the chaos began. We had to go to Ikebukuro, a ward in Tokyo, but had no idea where to take the train. After a while we found while navigating our heavy luggage through the crowds. Arriving at Ikebukuro the crowds were still there, but it felt slightly less chaotic. It was a little bit difficult to find our hotel, but we found it eventually. We were quite worn out by then. Osaka and Kyoto are big cities too, but nothing really quite prepares you for the overwhelming mass of people and size of Tokyo.

Ikebukuro is quite a lovely ward to stay in. It isn’t as crowded as Shibuya, Shinjuku and Harujuku. But there is still a lot of shops and restaurants. There is also a nerd town like Akihabara in Ikebukuro, but more catered to girls, mainly focusing on boyxboy stuff. I didn’t know that while we stayed there and didn’t come across those shops, so I can’t tell you much about it. But for those interested in those kind of things, now you know! Basically, Ikebukuro has all the perks of a big city without being as overwhelming as some of the other places in Tokyo, and there is variety even within this ward.

It was around afternoon when we were done checking in and putting our luggage in the room, so we wanted to go somewhere. We were so excited to go to Kiddy Land, a big toy store in Omotesando, to buy cute Rilakkuma and San-X goodies, so we made a plan to go to Harajuku and adjoining Omotesando. I don’t know how we did it, but we managed to get off at the wrong stop and had to walk a while from who knows where to Harajuku. But lucky for us; our good sense of direction led us to Harajuku eventually! Again we were overwhelmed by all the shops and people and colors. It was very nice to see but we were so dumbstruck that we didn’t even enter a single shop. At the end of the street we debated whether to eat something. I said ‘We are in Harajuku so we should try a Harajuku crêpe don’t you think?’ and that’s what we did. I have no regrets. It might not be actual Japanese food but they are damn good and it’s just something that you should eat when visiting Harajuku. I had a crêpe with whipped cream, cheesecake (yes, a slice of it!) and chocolate sauce.

We then moved on to Omotesando, full with brands that we can’t really afford, but it’s nice to see. And the street is beautifully lined up trees. It is also very bright and the stores are pretty and not just tall grey buildings. So it is very different from most of Tokyo. In Cat Street, which is also a cute little street, was the temporary Kiddy Land Store. There are also many fashion shops in this street, so it is worth checking out. But we just went wild in Kiddy Land over all the Alpaca plushies, Mamegoma notebooks and Rilakkuma stickers. But prices are steep and this was another case of being overwhelmed by all the choices, so we each bought a notebook and decided to come back another day when we were more calmed down. For those interested in Kiddy Land, it is back on Omotesando Street now.

This is a pretty short post because half of our day was spent on the train. Also, I didn’t really take many photos in Tokyo. It just felt kind of weird taking photos in the middle of busy shopping streets. I didn’t really like all the grey buildings of Tokyo anyway, and photos of shops didn’t really interest me either haha. Looking back now I should have taken more pictures! But the few I had got lost anyway, so sorry for the lack of photos this time. If my friend sends her photos of Japan to me I will look for photos that I can include in this post 🙂

Notes;

  • Shinkansen travels fast and pretty comfortable
  • Try to take as little luggage with you as possible when traveling around by public transportation. We learned that the hard way.
  • The bullet trains don’t have a lot of space for suitcases. We left them in the front of the cabin.
  • Ikebukuro is a nice base on Tokyo
  • Go to Harajuku for fashion and fun shops
  • Harujuku is almost always crowded though!
  • Give Cat Street a try also.
  • Omotesando is upscale and beautiful, but with all the high end shops you will probably end up just window shopping
  • Kiddy Land is heaven for character goods! Their new store just opened so check it out for all the cute stuff of characters like Rilakkuma, Mamegoma en Sumikkogurashi.
  • Eat Harajuku crêpes! Even though it’s originally a French food, they are pretty damn good in Harajuku too.
  • If you like purikura this is the place to go. There are special shops (usually in the basement) full of purikura machines.

Small hiatus, back very soon!

Hey guys!

As you may have noticed I’ve been on a small hiatus. That’s because I am in Italy for two weeks! I am here to enjoy the cities, landscapes, pool and to rewind. So I didn’t bring anything to distract me, like my stuff for my blog. I really want to enjoy and focus on this vacation which is the first real one after more than a year. But my vacation is slowly coming to an end so I will be back with a new post about Japan this week 🙂

See you then!
Sacha

Low Budget Japan – Tips and My Budget



Many still think that Japan is an expensive country to travel around. And they are partly right; in comparison to other Asian countries it is one of the most expensive countries. Accommodation is something that will set you back quite a bit and transportation can be costly. But those people also don’t know that you can eat lunch or dinner for 400 yen ($3,86) if you want to, explore the gorgeous cities and even some temples for free and that you don’t have to take an expensive shinkansen train to travel from city to city. My friend and I didn’t really travel budget friendly during our first trip in Japan, so don’t be scared when I show you my budget. It is just an indicator of what we spent and I will give you some tips to make your trip even cheaper.


Normally I am not very meticulous with my budget. Yes, I want to travel cheaply and I will stay in hostels and take the cheapest bus, but I usually don’t write down everything I spend. But for this trip I wanted to have a clear image of where my hard earned money went (I saved money for a good four years to finance this trip, but as a fourteen year old kid you don’t really have a royal salary). So this was the first and last time I wrote down almost everything I spent, not always in exact number but globally. I actually think it was a good habit because it gives me insight in how much I spent that day so that I can slow down when I’ve spent too much or treat myself the next day when there’s money left. And it is great information for my future trips to the same place, or as information for other people, like readers of this blog. Maybe I should start writing down my travel expenses again from now on… 🙂

So here is a breakdown of my costs day by day, leaving out personal shopping expenses (those added up quickly!). Also, I will put some costs in the color blue, which means that I won’t be counting them for the total daily sum and daily average. Those are the activities that were very special and specific things that we did but that most other people probably won’t do when they are in Japan. The pink words are urls (links) by the way, you can click on them to get more information about that subject.  To give you a fair look on our normal daily costs of traveling in Japan I will count our expenses for accommodation, food, sightseeing and transportation.
The first day is only half a day because we arrived in Japan in the afternoon. 


Fushimi Inari Taisha and Gion and the cute streets in front of Kiyomizu are free to visit. Osaka Castle and the Golden Pavilion are also cheap sights to see.



Our Budget


  • Three metro rides ¥ 390
  • Airport Express Train ¥ 890
  • 7-11 dinner ¥ 360
  • Boat ride ¥ 1700
  • Hotel ¥ 4725 ————- + ¥ 8065
  • Four metro/train rides ¥ 980
  • breakfast ¥ 450
  • Kaiyukan Aquarium ¥ 2000
  • Family restaurant curry dinner ¥ 500
  • HEP Five Ferris Wheel ¥ 500
  • Browsing the HEP Five shops – free
  • Hotel ¥ 4725 —————— + 9100
  • Four metro/train rides ¥ 790
  • Breakfast ¥ 450
  • Lunch ¥ 120
  • Okonomiyaki dinner ¥ 1850
  • Osaka Castle ¥ 600
  • Museum of history ¥ 600
  • Hotel ¥ 4725 —————- + ¥ 9135
  • Train/metro rides ¥ 1000
  • Breakfast ¥ 282
  • Lunch ¥ 600
  • Dinner theme cafe ¥ 1000
  • Takarazuka theatre ¥ 8000
  • Exploring Takarazuka streets – free
  • Hotel ¥ 4725 ————– + ¥ 7610
Cute streets of Takarazuka – free

Kyoto Day 5

  • Osaka-Kyoto train ¥ 590
  • Kyoto-Fushimi return ticket ¥ 510
  • Breakfast ¥ 350
  • Fushimi Inari Taisha – free
  • Matsuya Dinner ¥ 400
  • Hotel ¥ 4000  —————– + ¥ 5850
  • Breakfast & Lunch ¥ 890
  • Nijo castle ¥ 350
  • Baskin Robbins (dinner) ¥ 446
  • Train ¥ 1080
  • Metro ¥ 520
  • Mika Nakashima Concert ¥ 6800
  • Hotel ¥ 4000 —————— + ¥ 6700
  • Geisha makeover ¥ 9975
  • Breakfast ¥ 300
  • Transportation ¥ 2000
  • McDonalds dinner ¥ 600
  • Hotel ¥ 4000 —————— + ¥ 6900
  • Breakfast ¥  400
  • Silver pavilion ¥ 500
  • Kiyomizu ¥ 300
  • Lunch and drinks ¥ 730
  • 7-11 Dinner ¥ 300
  • Kpop Concert ¥ 9500
  • Rented Bicycle¥  1000
  • Hotel ¥ 4000 —————– + ¥ 7230
  • Breakfast ¥ 290
  • Lunch ¥ 300
  • Dinner Lotteria ¥ 600
  • Golden Pavilion ¥ 400
  • Ryoanji ¥ 500 
  • Ninna-ji (Goten) ¥ 500
  • Rented bicycle ¥ 1000
  • Ryokan stay ¥ 12000 —————- + 15590
Day 10
  • Bullet train ¥ 9800
  • Breakfast ¥ 450
  • Harajuku crepe ¥ 470
  • Walking around Harajuku and Shibuya – free
  • Family restaurant dinner ¥ 860
  • Metro ¥ 800
  • Hotel ¥ 4416 ————— + ¥ 16796
Busiest intersection in the World – Shibuya – free






Day 11

  • Breakfast ¥ 300
  • Metro ¥ 1240 
  • Hello Kitty Land ¥ 4000
  • Lunch ¥ 110
  • Dinner Yoshinoya ¥ 330
  • Hotel ¥ 4416 ————– + 10396
Day 12
  • Breakfast ¥ 400
  • Transportation ¥ 1000
  • Exploring Yokohama – free
  • Hotel Party Entrance ¥ 1000
  • Dinner MOS burger ¥ 750
  • Hotel ¥ 4416 —————– + ¥ 7566
Day 13
  • Breakfast ¥ 340
  • Lunch mister donut ¥ 320
  • Dinner Princess Cafe ¥ 2500
  • Walking Through Akihabara and Ginza – free 
  • Metro/train ¥ 800
  • Hotel ¥ 4416 —————— + ¥ 8375
Day 14
  • Breakfast ¥ 360
  • Lunch ¥ 445
  • Hawaiian Tonkatsu Dinner ¥ 900
  • Transportation ¥ 1000
  • A day in Shibuya and Korea Town – free
  • Hotel ¥ 4416 —————- + ¥ 7121
Day 15
  • Breakfast ¥ 440
  • Disney entrance ticket ¥ 5300
  • Churro ¥ 300
  • Dinner ¥ 1100
  • Transportation ¥ 780
  • Hotel ¥ 4416 —————– + ¥ 12336

Asakusa – free




Day 16

  • Breakfast ¥ 380
  • Streetstall Manju ¥ 80
  • Visiting Asakusa – free
  • Harajuku crepe ¥ 460
  • Dinner MOS burger ¥ 750
  • Transportation ¥ 1100 ———– + ¥ 2270
Which is a total of ¥ 141040 for 16 days.
That means an average of ¥ 8815 per day, or $84,71.

That is quite a lot of money, double or even triple the budget of the average backpacker in Asia.
Do take in consideration that no expenses were spared for this trip as I had saved for this for many years I wanted to make a dream trip out if it by doing everything I wanted to do, no matter how expensive. Trips to amusement parks are expensive. We stayed in private ensuite rooms (but some of the cheapest available) and even treated ourself to an expensive stay at a traditional ryokan. Together with bullet train, a lot of metro rides and renting bicycles the expenses packed on quickly. That also means that this budget has some potential of getting better!


ranging from 200 yen to 500 yen


Tips


Tips for lowering the budget:
  • Stay in hostels. You should be able to find something decent for around ¥2500. In Tokyo it will be a bit more. Another way to save on accommodation is by reserving a room on airbnb. This website lists rentals, like rooms or whole houses, put up by private people. These are aimed at the travel community and are rated by people who stayed there in their reviews. It is possible to find some gems for cheap on airbnb. You could also try couch surfing, which is free and a great experience. I did this in South Korea and made some awesome friends and had unique experiences this way, and all for free !
  • Buy breakfast at a convenience store. We did this everyday and this is why our costs for breakfast are quite low. Two nice sandwiches are about ¥220 and a drink ¥120. Even cheaper would be to go to a real supermarket and bulk buy your breakfast for a few days.
  • Lunch for us ranged from ice-cream to street food to convenience store food or even nothing. These things are all quite cheap and were good enough for us because we are not big eaters. Lunching at a restaurant will be more expensive.
  • Dinner can be costly at some restaurants. Family restaurants are your best bet for a proper but quite cheap meal around ¥800. A meal at a fast food restaurant like McDonalds or MOS Burger is ¥600-700. But for the real cheapskates there is Matsuya, Yoshinoya and Sukiya where you can eat simple rice with beef or curry meals for as low as ¥300. That means dinner for only $2.90! Avoid expensive theme restaurants, foreign cuisine or other fancy restaurants.
  • Transportation is very costly. Try to walk as much as you can within a city so you don’t have to buy expensive metro- and train tickets or have to rent a bicycle. This will save you a lot of money. Moving from city to city will be the cheapest with buses or slow trains. The famous bullet train will set you back a few thousand yen, so avoid it if you can. If you want or have to take the bullet train, try to buy a special discount ticket, like the Puratto Kodama Economy Plan. You can find some more information here.
  • When in Japan you want to see some tempels and museums of course. These are not super expensive, but not free either (like in London). Tickets will range from ¥300 to ¥600. You can make it a cheap trip if you balance this well with free things like exploring different cities, neighborhoods or even some temple grounds like Fushimi Inari Taisha and Myoshin-ji. Amusement parks, concerts, a geisha makeover, tea ceremonies and other fun but unusual things are very expensive and are best avoided if you are on a small budget.
  • Shopping is rather expensive in Japan. You can find some great things and I really enjoyed shopping in Japan but after the trip I was broke because of it. If you have a weak spot for cute things, pretty clothes, cool gadgets or traditional Japanese stuff, you’d better avoid the shops unless you have got a big budget 😉 And if you really want to shop after all, try a 100 yen shop.
dinner



Low Budget Calculation


Based on the above tips your low budget day can look like this:
  • Walking and two metro rides +- ¥ 400
  • Breakfast +- ¥ 320
  • Lunch +- ¥ 200
  • Dinner +- ¥ 400
  • Hostel +- ¥ 2500
  • Temple visit +- ¥ 400
  • Souvenir/Other ¥ 500  ————– + ¥ 4720

That is only $34,50 a day! It is slightly more than the average day in South East Asia, but still very doable I think. It just takes a bit more effort in Japan to stay on budget, but it is worth all the effort because Japan is one of those countries you will never forget! And if you only just want to eat and visit temples, you can even scrap the Souvenir/Other part and go on a budget of $31 a day! And by couch surfing and not taking the metro, you can get an even lower budget. It’s all about creativity and sacrifice 😉 If you need some tips on (free) things to do in Japan, read my 101 Japan list. I will make a post about free activities in Japan in the future, see keep an eye out for that!


Now go and plan your trip to Japan !

Japan Trip; Golden Pavilion, Zen Gardens and More

Hello there! I’ve had a small hiatus of two weeks due to my broken hard disk as I told about before. I have been scanning every last byte of my computer and my families computer for photos. So I was searching and searching because without photos this would be a boring blog right? And I have found back a fair amount of them, but sadly I lost a lot of photos because my back up of them also got lost. Most of the lost photos are from my solo travels, which also means my Japan photos. Luckily there is social media where I had stored my most important photos so I can keep blogging and showing you about my travels, that’s a positive thing in this whole affair. It is only a fragment of what I could show (and the quality of the photos is also downgraded a lot from the originals), but something is better than nothing I’d say!

So I’ll continue writing about my trip to Japan for now. We checked out of our cosy budget hotel to spend one night a more luxurious yet homely ryokan. This ryokan was run by an old lady and her husband and they took great care of us. It was almost like doing a home stay but with the privacy of a hotel. The ryokan was located in a traditional house with a gorgeous garden (but I forgot to take a picture of that, oh my!) and a small spa bath. But it was still too early to check in so we left our luggage there and rented bicycles at the same place as the day before. The guy from the rental place recognized us and gave us a discount, nice! And today we visited probably the most famous place in Japan; the Golden Pavilion, Kikakuji. It was quite a long journey all the way to the north-east of Kyoto, but enjoyable nonetheless. As I said before, Dutchies on bicycles is like fish in the sea haha.
And lucky for us it wasn’t very crowded at all, so we could take our time and enjoy the reflection of the golden building in the big lake in all rest. It was a time to let the beauty sink in and become at peace. I can tell all about it, but photos beat my words.

Next is a place that is famous with enthousiast of Zen gardens, the Ryoanji temple. The place is known for the dry landscape solely made of pebble stones with a few big stones. Those big stones can not be viewed all at once; no matter where you stand, there will always be at least once out of sight. I think the surroundings were more impressive though. Because the garden is part of a small temple which is part of an even bigger garden. There was a big lake where I spotted cute turtles. And around the temple was a little bit of vegetation and decorations including a gorgeous wishing well. It was interesting seeing the dry landscape and this time I consciously sat down to only look at the garden and clear my thoughts. When you’re at a zen garden why not try becoming zen for a while, right? Until now the gorgeous gardens and temples had awed me and made me both amazed and calm. But this time I made a conscious effort to slow down and appreciate what I saw because a pile of stones doesn’t really give that wow-feeling sat first sight.

Turtles!

We continued our journey a bit more southward to Ninna-ji. It is part of the UNESCO Historic Monuments of Kyoto, just like the Golden Pavilion and Ryoan-ji we saw earlier that day. Taking that into consideration and seeing some photos online, plus the fact that it is close to Ryoanji, I decided to put this on my list of locations to visit for Kyoto. This is once again a massive place with several buildings and gardens on its grounds. We didn’t want to pay to enter every part of Ninna-ji, so we only entered the first part called goten, former residence of the head priest. You can walk around the hallways and look into the rooms. The interesting part is that the hallways are in the open air, so that outside and inside are connected to each other. This concept overflows in the garden which is also connected to the buildings and hallways. The garden is gorgeous and the harmony of outdoors and indoors is something really inspiring, especially for those interested in architecture (me!).

View when walking through the hallways

Not far away from there is Myoshin-ji. This is yet again a place with extended grounds, but what makes this place unique is that it is not located in the mountains but in a residential area so that temples and housed are kind of mixed together and that you will say locals walking around there. And visiting the grounds is free and you can ride around with your bicycle. So there we were, taking a ride with temples to our left and right. There was something really special about this place and just riding with our bicycle there that it’s got a special place in my heart. By the way, we might have done something illegal by bicycling there, so if you go there by bike keep an eye out for any signs that say it’s not allowed ! I didn’t take many photos here, and those I did take got lost, sadly.

After nomming away a delicious ice-cream we headed back early because we we exhausted after the concert of the night before and bicycling and walking all day. The guy of the rental bikes was surprised that we came back so ‘fast’. He couldn’t believe we went all the way to Kinkakuji by bike and visited several places there and biked all the way back before it was evening. What can I say, we are just super fast bikers ! Or to be fair, we are just good planners, fairly good bikers and efficient sightseers I guess haha. When we arrived at our room there was some warm tea, cold refreshing water and wagashi waiting for us, awesome. And they already put our luggage there for us. That is the kind of service I would always like. We reserved the family bath for eight o’clock. We had our own bathroom but the communal bath room has an onsen-like ofuro, which is basically an at home hot spring. So after washing ourselves we soaked in the hot water of the ofuro and slowly felt our fatigue and pains leave our bodies. It is such an relaxing experience. And this was a great alternative for visiting an onsen because it meant having the relaxation without being naked in front of strangers.

Notes;

  • Kinkakuji is the most famous sight of Japan. Who doesn’t want to see the mesmerizing Golden Pavilion?
  • June is a great time for visiting Japan if you like to avoid too many tourists and want to visit famous places in a relative quiet atmosphere. You should be aware that it is rainy season at that time, but you could be lucky like us and only have two days of rain and many dry days (with grey skies).
  • Zen garden equals Ryoan-ji ; go here for the epitome of dry landscape gardens
  • Like Japanese architecture and Japanese gardens? Visit Ninna-ji, more particularly the goten part of it.
  • Myoshin-ji is great if you like something different and a more residential atmosphere of temples. And it’s free to explore !
  • Visiting a hot spring (onsen) is something you can’t miss in Japan. Pamper yourself and relax!
  • If you don’t like to be naked in front of strangers, there are some onsen where you can rent a private bath. Or you can go to a hotel where there is an onsen bath included in your room or where you can rent a bath in the hotel.
  • Japanese sweets are called wagashi. They aren’t really sweet like Western sweets but very pretty. If you’re staying at a nice ryokan there’s a chance you will get some wagashi in your room.