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.

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

Osaka Day 1

Three metro rides ¥ 390
Airport Express Train ¥ 890
7-11 dinner ¥ 360
Boat ride ¥ 1700
Hotel ¥ 4725 ————- + ¥ 8065

Osaka Day 2

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

Osaka Day 3

Four metro/train rides ¥ 790
Breakfast ¥ 450
Lunch ¥ 120
Okonomiyaki dinner ¥ 1850
Osaka Castle ¥ 600
Museum of history ¥ 600
Hotel ¥ 4725 —————- + ¥ 9135

Takarazuka Day 4

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

Kyoto Day 6

Breakfast & Lunch ¥ 890
Nijo castle ¥ 350
Baskin Robbins (dinner) ¥ 446
Train ¥ 1080
Metro ¥ 520
Mika Nakashima Concert ¥ 6800
Hotel ¥ 4000 —————— + ¥ 6700

Kyoto Day 7

Geisha makeover ¥ 9975
Breakfast ¥ 300
Transportation ¥ 2000
McDonalds dinner ¥ 600
Hotel ¥ 4000 —————— + ¥ 6900

Kyoto Day 8

Breakfast ¥ 400
Silver pavilion ¥ 500
Kiyomizu ¥ 300
Lunch and drinks ¥ 730
7-11 Dinner ¥ 300
Kpop Concert ¥ 9500
Rented Bicycle¥ 1000
Hotel ¥ 4000 —————– + ¥ 7230

Kyoto Day 9

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.

Japan Trip, Exploring the Temples of Kyoto

Originally my friend and I had planned to take it easy this day and visit different temples by bike. But we messed up the date of our concert so it turned out it was taking place on this day. This meant that we had to go to Osaka in the afternoon and visit all the places we wanted before then. The route we planned out was to start at Ginkakuji (Silver Pavilion) and go through the Philosophers’ Walk and Nanzen-ji to end at Kiyomizu-dera.We rented some bicycles in a shop a few streets away from our hotel. On our way to Ginkakuji we had to go uphill first. As Dutch people we are very used to use the bike and felt in our element, because what they say about Dutch people is true; we ride the bike a lot and there are bicycles everywhere. The only problem was the (seeming) lack of rules for bicyclers in Japan and lack of bicycle paths. Most of the time we just rode on the pavement and sometimes on the road. There were a few bicycles paths though. Another problem for us was the humidity and heat, but that was a factor during our whole trip.

So from the bike shop we started cycling towards the Kamo river and made our way to the North alongside the river which was really relaxing. For some reason walking or biking alongside rivers or the seaside equals vacation in my head so I finally had a feeling of being on vacation at that moment. The rest of the trip was vacation too of course, but sometimes it didn’t feel that way with our full schedules and being in the big cities most of the time. I grew up in a small city at the seaside and always went to the beach in the summer and even on vacations abroad with family we would usually go to the beach or a lake and just relax. So that’s what vacation is like for me, being near the water. Big cities will never really make me feel that way. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy my trips to big cities or places far away from the sea. On the contrary. It is so different from what I’m used to that I almost want to see and do too much in a short amount of time and usually wear myself out, thus not getting the feeling of a ‘vacation’ but more of an ‘exploration’.

There were a lot of people strolling along the river and some other bicyclers too. Some people were fishing and others just sitting and enjoying the view.
Next time that I visit Kyoto I will definitely rent a bicycle again to ride along the Kamo river again and take more time for it. And maybe prepare a picknick too!
After a while we left the river behind to make our way up the hills towards the Silver Pavilion.
We had to search our way through a residential area but we found the pavilion pretty quickly. The entrance tickets for the Silver Pavilion are gorgeous by the way; it is a big piece of paper with gorgeous calligraphy and red stamps.

The pavilion itself is a nice piece of architecture. Sadly it is not covered in silver like the name suggests. Because of delays of the construction during the Onin War it just never happened. But the most impressive part of the pavilion is definitely the garden. When you enter there is a small stroke of rock/sand zen garden, the rest of the garden is covered with lush green trees and flowers. I think it is the most beautiful Japanese garden we encountered during the trip. I can tell all about it, but I think the pictures will speak for themselves.

When we finished a little photo shoot of the garden of Ginkakuji we continued our trip on the bicycle in the hills of west Kyoto. The Philosophers’ Path is near Ginkakuji and I saw some nice photos of it and read about it in a guidebook or online, I can’t really remember. We tried to find it but got lost and decided to just make our way to Nanzen-ji. We then encountered the Philosophers’ Walk by chance, but weren’t aware of it until after a while. I thought it would be a nice path between trees and a small river, which it was, but the canal, not river, was dry and there was a road next to it where we were riding, so it wasn’t as ideal as I had pictured it. And the path itself was closed off. So it isn’t really worth going all the way there to see it, I don’t know why people actually recommend seeing it except when the cherry blossoms are in bloom.

Nanzen-ji took a bit of searching before we could find it. It is in a big ‘park’ with other temples (sub temples I guess). It was nice walking around the park and taking photos of the temples, gates and a such. But honestly, we had no idea which one was Nanzen-ji itself. And we didn’t have the time nor need to pay to visits the actual temple grounds, so we just stayed in the park for a short while for some photos and then continued to our final destination; Kiyomizu. That was quite far away and Kiyomizu is high up in the hills so we were getting tired by then. After a while we saw a pagode peeping above the roofs of houses on steep hills and figured that had to be Kiyomizu-dera. The streets around Kiyomizu are quaint little streets with traditional shops and houses, but they are very steep and very busy so we walked the last part with our bicycles at hand.

Cute bird decorations on a fence

Kiyomizu is famous for the wooden balcony and the three water streams. Apparently, the veranda is build out of wooden pillars without using a single nail. With the amount of people that stand on the structure every day that amazes me! From the balcony you have a nice view of the lush hills behind the temple. At this time of the year, June, they were bright green. From the other platform you can see Kyoto city far below. You are up quite high here! Making our way down, the temple is built on different nights of the hills, we could some a little bit more of the nature and small statues with red clothes on. They are statues devoted for miss carriages, children who died and abortions. It is a little bit sad, but I think the clothes the statues wear are cute at least. Once your down it is time to drink from the famous water streams. One stands for wisdom, the other for a long life and another for health. You can only chose to two of the three, otherwise you are too greedy. There is usually a long line to be able to drink from the streams, but we were lucky and the line was really short when we arrived. There is no indication of which stream is which and actually you only drink from one of them, at least that was the case for us, but it’s the thought that counts. I have to say, the water was delicious and refreshing. Did you know that you can even buy a bottle of Kiyomizu water?

We had a little bit of time left so we browsed some of the shops near Kiyomizu before bringing back the bicycles and refreshing ourself for the concert. And then we once again went to Osaka. The metro to Osaka Dome was so busy that this time we were sure that the concert was today 😉 The concert we were attending was the ‘Seoul Osaka Music of Heart 2011 Fighting Japan’. It was a concert with many different Korean artist to raise money for the victims of the disasters of March 2011. We were barely there or a TV crew came to us and asked us to leave a message for 2PM. We were so taken aback by the sudden approach that we didn’t really know what to say. By then we were still not used to the attention for us in Japan. There were different stands where you could buy merchandise. Weirdly enough, a lot of stands were missing. We bought something at the 2NE1 and B2ST stands, but 2PM, MBLAQ and many more didn’t have a stand. After buying the merchandise we began searching our seats. And man, the arena was huge! So it wasn’t an easy task. When we finally found out seats we discovered that they were very far away from the stage. Normally this wouldn’t be a big problem but with an arena this size the artists looked like ants somewhere far away. Very disappointing. Luckily there were big screens and the atmosphere was great and hearing the songs (sort of) live was also really nice. On the screens they would play these really cool introductions of the bands and they also displayed cool backgrounds that changed for each songs. And there was even fireworks, fire and glitter bombs, or whatever you call them.

The artist that played were:

MBLAQ
4MINUTE
T-ARA
BEAST
U-KISS
F.T.ISLAND
IU
F(X)
2NE1
2PM
TVXQ

They were all artists that I loved at that time, so I couldn’t be more happy. I have followed MBLAQ and BEAST since their debut and they are my favorite boy groups at the moment. 2PM was my favorite back then and I was looking forward to them the most together with 2NE1. 2PM didn’t fail me and 2NE1 blew me away, energy level max! The surprise of the evening was U-KISS because they did way better than I had expected. IU is the best singer ever but sadly for her they had some problems starting the music to her song. I am not really into girl groups with 2NE1 as a definite exception, but I do like F(X) too and they had a energetic performance. T-ARA and 4MINUTE have some songs I like, which they performed so I was happy with that. But I don’t like their new songs so I don’t really listen to them anymore. The same goes for F.T.Island; they have a few nice songs which they luckily played, but the rest of their songs don’t really interest me. The big performer of the night was TVXQ, obviously. I have never been a huge fan and after they split into two groups I became even less of a fan, but the duo Changmin and Yunho have some great songs and their performance is top notch. I think 80% of the fans came to the concert for them and almost everyone was wearing TVXQ scarfs and the venue was glowing in red lights, the color of TVQX.

All in all, it was an awesome concert. Very tiring but we saw many great performers. They emptied the venue section by section so we had to wait very long until our section was allowed to leave. And after a sleepy train ride and cup ramen it was time for a bed.

Notes :3

Bicycling in Kyoto is quite a challenge but well worth it
Kamo river is the perfect place to spend your free time; stroll, bicycle, picknick, fish or just relax at the riverside.
Despite being a big city there is a lot of nature on the hills surrounding Kyoto. The grounds and gardens of temples and castles are also full of greenery, so nature is never far away in Kyoto.
Want some peace and quiet? Go to one of those Japanese gardens.
If you have a tight schedule like me; take a breath. Realize that you’re on vacation and do something that makes you feel that way. Enjoy and relax!
If you’re looking for a gorgeous place to photograph or as a backdrop for a photoshoot in Kyoto; go to Ginkakuji/Silve Pavilion! I regret not taking a ‘selfie’ there. Fushimi Inari Taisha would be another great place
The Philosophers’ Walk is not really worth visiting except during Cherry Blossom season
Nanzen-ji has a nice park with sub-temples. I can’t comment on the inner grounds though.
Strolling through the cute streets near Kiyomizu-dera is recommended. They are photogenic too.
‘Jumping off the balcony at Kiyomizu’ is a famous Japanese proverb. Don’t do it though, it’s really deep!
Don’t be greedy, drink only water from two of the three streams at Kiyomizu.
Don’t go to a concert in Osaka Dome unless you have good tickets or enjoy watching the concert on big screens
Taking photos at concert in Japan is not allowed (so no photos alas)

Japan Trip, Geisha Make-Over

When I was planning my trip to Japan I was hoping to see a geisha or a maiko, apprentice geisha, somewhere. The best place to do this in Kyoto is Gion, a traditional neighborhood with tea houses where geisha still perform. But, for some reason, my friend and I didn’t really have the time and forgot to go there which I really regret. But we didn’t have to look far to find geishas. Because we turned into them ourselves! Well, we had a make-over to become a maiko, to be precise. We chose maiko above geisha because geisha have a very simple make-up and sober colors, while maiko are colorful and wear a lot of accessories. Information about these dress-ups are quite scarce, especially about personal experiences, so I hope I can provide a bit more information for those interested.

I had made an appointment with the studio Yume Koubou a few weeks before going to Japan. Yume Koubou is a studio that specializes in these geisha and maiko dress-ups and also organizes walking tours around town in combination with a make-over. We just opted for the make-over and photoshoot.
We booked for 11AM so after sleeping in we started searching for the studio. Yume Koubou has several locations in Kyoto, so you can chose the place which is most convenient for you. We chose the studio near Kyoto Station. But before heading there we had to search for a 7-11 to get some cash, because other convenience stores don’t accept our cash cards and Japan is still very much a cash orientated country.

Inside the studio we checked in at the reception and were led by a lady to a make-up / changing room. It is basically a big room where you first need to change into a white undergarment which is shaped like a kimono. Then you put your stuff in a locker and seat yourself in front of a mirror, which were just like at a hair dressers. There were two ladies helping us. One of them did the make-up while the other one dressed us. They didn’t speak much English, but enough to make us understand what was going on. First the make-up lady put our hair in a hair net. She then alternated doing both our faces; making our faces white and drawing eyebrows. And of course the gorgeous swallows tail in the neck. The eyes and lips take a lot more time and concentration so she did these separately for us.

So while she was doing my friends make-up I had to choose a kimono. There were three racks full of them, in any color imaginable. All of them gorgeous. It seriously took me ten minutes to choose, but in the end I chose a mint colored one with pink cherry blossoms. The staff girl then started dressing me, and man, it really takes a while to put a kimono on! And many many layers. It starts with special socks with only two toes, then some more undergarments, a kimono, obi (belt) and some more pieces for the belt and a lot of folding, pulling and pushing. Once it is done it feels really tight and quite heavy too, but it looks stunning. The finishing touch is a wig with accessories that you can also choose. And some wooden sandals of course.

When we were both ready we headed to the studio for photos. The photographer gives you really precise directions on where to look, how to stand and how to put your hands; everything is explained. This is a good thing because I had no idea what to do and the pictures turned out really good because of the directions. A downside is that you don’t have a lot of freedom. When you are posing there are different kind of props like parasols, fans and such which they will hand to you. I am not sure if you are free to switch and chose yourself. I just let them do whatever, it was all beautiful in my eyes anyway. And then lastly the shoes of doom were presented. They were geta (wooden sandals), but of scandalous hight. All I could think while wearing them was ‘Just don’t fall over’. It was kind of scary, but I turend out fine, luckily! Lastly they took a photo of us together. In total about 20 photos.

In the hallway there is a cute little setting of a traditional Japanese background where we were free to take pictures with our own camera. So we had a little photo shoot of our own. When we were ready we were stripped again from our layers of kimono and put our normal clothes back on. Near the lockers are some mirrors and cleaning products to take off the make-up, you don’t want to walk around town in jeans and a white face with red lips.
Back in the reception we had to choose what kind of ‘set’ we wanted. Or we had to choose when we entered, I don’t remember exactly. But choosing a set means choosing whether you want the photos to be printed and sent to your home, them to be put on a CD or some other options. We chose for a CD set and were handed a pretty bag which included a CD, the bill and a card with our photo on it.

It is an expensive thing to do, around 10,000 yen for our plan, but really fun and unique. The photos turned out great and I was really happy with it. And the whole experience was great. If you hesitate to try it, just do it! Even though it is expensive you will be more than happy with the results. I haven’t regretted doing it a single second (okay, maybe for a few seconds while wearing those ridiculously high sandals).

In the afternoon we went back to Osaka again, for another concert. By now Osaka was our most visited place even when staying in Kyoto. When we arrived at Osaka Dome, a huge stadium used for baseball, but occasionally also for events like concerts, we were quite shocked by how big the place is. But the weird thing was that there were no other fans on the train and when we stepped out there was nobody and no sign of a concert. Surprise; There was none! We had mistaken the date and the concert was the next day. So it was a afternoon wasted on the train. But at least we could catch our breath and we just had to make up for the time lost on the next day.

And now for something that is kind of off topic; my external hard disc broke. I had a lot more pictures of the photo shoot and some I made with my own camera, but they were on my hard disc and I can’t acces them now. Luckily I have them backed up on another computer, but that one is still in my room in Belgium. Anyway, what I want to say is that 1. More photos will be added to this post soon 2. Always back up your HDD and have photos saved in more than one place 3. Preferably back up your photos online so you can access them at any time.
I lost some photos that I hadn’t backed up yet, which is really unfortunate, but thanks to Facebook and searching through my parents’ computer (which took a long long time) I found a good portion of them back. The sad thing is, the reason why my HDD broke is because I was literally about to back up those photos for when something were to happen to my HDD when I picked up my HDD and dropped it. The irony. Anyway, I hope you guys learn from my mistake!

Notes;

Don’t forget to visit Gion when in Kyoto
When you spot a geisha though, there is always a chance it is a tourist who did a make-over similar to what I did.
Yume Koubou means ‘Dream Workshop’. Nice name for a studio
Don’t be held back by the price to do a maiko/geisha make-over. It is worth it.
Make sure your bank card or credit card works in Japan. My friend and I had a Dutch Maestro card, which only worked in the 7-eleven, not Circle K or Lawson or other convenience stores. It also worked at most banks. But 7-elevens are generally easier to find so we usually opted for that.
The Japanese word for convenience store is konbini. Could be useful to know.
Back up your photos online too. It’s easier to acces them from other computers. I learned this the hard way.

Japan Trip, Nijo Castle and Japanese Concert

In the afternoon we needed to be in Osaka for a concert, so we decided to visit only one place today that was nearby our hotel. Or so we thought…. We went there by foot because we like to walk (you can see a lot) and it should’t be far away. But our still feet ached from the day before and our destination, Nijo Castle, was further away than we thought. But hey, at least we got another good work out, saved money by not taking the bus and we got to see the neighborhood.

Before we entered Nijo castle we were asked for a picture by a group of students. By now we were used to getting interviewed and photographed by students, it felt like we celebrities or something.
It is allowed to walk around inside the castle, but with your shoes off. This castle is very different from the one in Osaka though, which had many floors (so was very tall) and was colorful. Nijo castle only has one floor, but has more ground surface. And it is mostly colored white with wood details, so it is sober. The big and lush garden makes a big contrast with the plain building. One interesting detail really stuck with me; when you walk around inside the building the floor makes squeaky sounds. This was a defense mechanism against intruders. It was really funny to hear the creaking footsteps of all the tourist. Other than some beautiful wall paintings there wasn’t much to see inside the castle. The garden is much more interesting. It is the prime example of a lush Japanese garden. It took a while for us to walk through the whole garden (and find our way back) and at the end our feet ached. But it was worth the visit, since it was our first visit to a real Japanese garden.

Castle Moat

I just couldn’t get a nice picture of the gate

The castle

We had to head back to our hotel to drop off our stuff and go to Osaka for a concert. On the way we stopped at Circle K for some food. While we were there they were having a special promotion for the new album of Super Junior. My friend and I were both big fans of them at the time so we ecstatic. All the drinks included a sticker of Super Junior, there were even cakes and other foods packed in Super Junior packages and if you bought a certain amount of products you could get file maps with their picture on it. There was even a Super Junior surprise bag; the bag (also with super junior pictures on it) contained some Japanese candies and some other stuff I can’t remember. Anyway, if you are a fan of k-pop, keep your eye out for promotions in Japan 🙂 I will also write about Shin Okubo, Korea town in Tokyo in one of my later posts for the k-pop fans.

So later that day we were reunited with lovely Osaka city again. Our destination was Hyogo Performing Arts Centre for a concert by Mika Nakashima. Initially we bought tickets for a Namie Amuro concert, but it was cancelled so we opted for Mika Nakashima instead whom we both like but don’t know very well. So we didn’t really know what to expect. Anyway, before the concert we needed to wait for about two hours so we sat outside and looked at the people there. I don’t whether if it is a thing Japan, but there were a lot of people juggling, playing with the diabolo, dancing and such outside of the Performing Arts Centre.

The concert itself was more in a theatre kind of place where you would normally watch an opera, so it was quite an unusual setting for a j-pop concert. But it turned out that it wasn’t your typical j-pop concert as Mika Nakashima doesn’t really do all those cute dances witch cutesy songs and weird costumes and there weren’t ten thousand fans waving with lightsticks. It was more of a down to earth concert in a small venue and her voice sounded awesome in that theatre like venue. Her voice is just as good as on her CDs. Too bad the instruments were a bit too loud to hear her well. The fans were still your typical Japanese fans with their lightsticks and little chants to the songs. It is nice to experience it because that is something you definitely don’t see in European concerts. At the end of the concert she couldn’t stop thanking her fans and she was even crying. You could tell she is a very genuine person which is really nice. We had a positive experience at this concert.

Late in the evening we finally arrived in Kyoto and hadn’t even had dinner yet. So when we walked by the Baskins Robbins we just had to eat some ice-cream. We had heard a lot about Baskins Robbins so we had been eyeing the ice-cream shop since yesterday. And we were on vacations, so why not eat ice-cream for dinner right? There was a promotion where you’d get the third scoop for free, so we each got three flavors. I can say that hype about Baskin Robbins is a valid one. It id quite expensive, but just as Ben & Jerry’s the ice-cream is stuffed with delicious things and there are many yummy flavors to choose from. Plus the ice-cream pies are so cute! We didn’t try them or take photos of them, but I did make photos of them when I was in Korea (Baskin Robbins is a Korean store), so I will show them in the foreseeable future.

We finished our day with some cup noodles. Ice-cream doesn’t keep you full for long after a day like that. Or maybe we just wanted to eat noodles, whatever. Which reminds me, we didn’t even eat any really ramen during our trip!

There are still a considerable number of traditional houses in Kyoto, calles Kyo-machiya. There were several near our hotel, nice! Sidenote, I love machiya and am almost a machiya-specialist haha.
The squeaky sounds at Nijo castle are cute
Lightsticks and fans chants are really funny and kind of weird when your are not used to them
A Japanese concert is a nice experience
The concerts are well organized and usually you have a seat number; they even put chairs with numbers in the standing areas.
Even though it was rainy season we barely had rainy days. It was just cloudy and usually there was a gray sky. It was still hot and humid though.
Baskin Robbins is yummy!
Late night noodles are a-okay, even on vacation
K-pop fans will be able to get their k-pop fix in Japan if you put some effort in it. Think store promotions, concerts and festivals, Korea town in Tokyo, big music stores, and the likes.

101 Things to Do in Japan

So it’s your first time going to Japan, but you don’t really know what you can do in Japan. Or it’s your 5th trip to Japan, but after visiting Kiyomizu-dera and Tokyo Tower you just don’t have any inspiration anymore. Then this is list is for you! It is inspired by my first trip to Japan, my future exchange year in Fukuoka and my never ending bucket list.

General places

(Après) ski (Party) in Hokkaido
Exotic getaway in Okinawa
Exploring temples in Kyoto
And especially make sure to visit Fushimi Inari Taisha in Fushimi
Get your Chinese fix in China Town of Yokohama
Crawl through the huge Buddha of Kamakura
Shopping in Tokyo
Eating lots in Osaka
Go to historic Nara
Enjoy the multicultural Nagasaki
Visit Japan’s most beautiful castle in Himeji
Enter the Buddhist world of Koyasan
Be amazed by the black castle of Matsumoto
Relive days gone by in traditional Takayama
Learn about the unique architecture of Shirakawa houses

Traditional entertainment

16. Attend a tea ceremony
17. See a maiko or geisha dance
18. Attend a Hanami party (cherry blossimg viewing party)
19. Try Ikebana
20. Relax in an Onsen (hot spring bath)
21. Transform into a geisha
22. Go on the 88 Temple Pilgrimage
23. Indulgence for a Kabuki performance
24. … and Sumo of course

Modern entertainment

25. Sing karaoke
26. Try your luck with a UFO-game at one of the game arcades
28. Get creative with purikura, cute photo stickers
29. Get your light sticks out for a Concert
30. All-you-can-drink party at an izakaya, Japanese bar
31. Drop your jaws at the extravagant musicals of Takarazuka
32. Eat Korean hotteok pancakes in Korea Town, Shin-Okubo
33. Take a river cruise in Osaka or Odaiba, Tokyo
34. Go to the 7/11 at 3AM
35. A night out at a Host- or Hostess Club
36. Fashionista time in Harajuku. Or eat crepes.
37. Go deaf at a Pachinko parlor

Enjoy nature

38. Photograph the gorgeous colors of koyo, autumn foliage
39. Catch some glowing fireflies or screeching cicadas
40. Light up by watching the Firefly Squid
41. Smell the lovely lavender of Furano in summer
42. Explore the Gyokusendo Caves in Okinawa
43. Gaze up at the Wisterias of Kawachi Fuji Garden
44. Bathe with monkeys in the hot springs of Yamanouchi
45. Climb to the top of Mount Fuji
46. Search for princess Mononoke in Yakushima
47. Dive the wonderful underwater world of Okinawa
48. Enjoy the view of terraced paddy fields

Special places to eat

49. Pet cute animals at a cat- dog- or owl cafe
50. Feel like a true geek at a a geek cafe
51. Nomming at a yatai, food stall
52. Live a Japanese fairy tale in the theme cafe of the Bamboo Cutter
53. Become a true Princess at the Princess theme cafe
54. Catch your own fish at Zauo cafe
55. Mysterious ninja restaurant, Ninja Akasaka
56. Find your dream robot girl at Kabukicho Robot Restaurant

Festivals

57. Watch stars on Tanabata Star Festival
58. Play at a matsuri (Summer Festival)
59. Enjoy students’ creativity at a bunkasai, a cutural festival
60. Be amazed by the snow statues of Sapporo Snow Festival
61. Party with demons at the Oni Fireworks Festival in Hokkaido
62. Stroll through fields of Sunflowers at Akeno Sunflower Festival
63. See the historical parade of Jidai Matsuri
64. Dance with the Awa Odori Dancers during Obon Matsuri

Famous sites

65. Appreciate Japanese gardens, like Ritsurin Garden
66. Pose in front of the Golden Pavilion, Kinkakuji
67. And visit the Silver Pavilion As Well
68. Drink your portion of wisdom, health or longevity at Kiyomizudera
69. Buy souvenirs at touristy Asakusa
70. Calm down at the zen garden of Ryoanji
71. Admire Osaka Castle
72. Tokyo Imperial Palace
73. Remember how lucky we are at Hiroshima Peace Memorial
74. The largest wooden building in the world, Todaiji
75. Oase of peace in Tokyo, Meiji Shrine
76. Eiffel Tower’s red sister, Tokyo Tower.

Amusement parks

77. Visit Disney Sea Land, the only one worldwide
78. Feel like a ninja or geisha in Edo Wonderland
79. Get sick in one of the crazy rollercoasters of Fuji-Q Land
80. Watch fishies at Kaiyukan Aquarium
81. Become dizzy by the height of Tokyo Sky Tree
82. Act like a kid at Sanrio Puroland
83. Play in the first Universal Studios of Asia
84. Step into the Netherlands at Huis Ten Bosch
85. Water fun at Spa Resorts Hawaiian

Unusual places

86. Paradise for cat lovers, Tashinojima
87. Naoshima, island of art
88. Eerie times at the deserted island of Hashima
89. Site of Reversible Destiny, Yoro Park
90. Yunessun Spa, refresh yourself in a hot bath of wine, tea or Ramen soup.
91. Yum, Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum!
92. Farming at Pasona02, an underground farm
93. Creepie doll city Nagoro
94. Meguro Parasitological Museum, for people with strong stomachs

Accomodations

95. Release your inner monk during a temple stay
96. Get cosy and cramped in a capsule hotel
97. Feel the allure of traditional Japan while staying in a machiya
98. Treat yourself and stay at a ryokan. With private Onsen, just because you can.
99. You don’t need to be in love to enjoy the quirky love hotels
100. Go on the Cheap and spend a night in a Manga/Internet Cafe
101. Chilly stay at the Alpha Resort-Tomamu ice village

Japan Trip, The Mesmerizing Fushimi Inari Shrine and Kyoto Tower

After a few fun days in Osaka it was time to move on to Kyoto, our second stay for our trip. We dragged all of our luggage (bringing a big suitcase was not the best plan) up and down the stairs of the metro station, took the metro and transferred to the JR-Kyoto line for our train to Kyoto. During the ride we enjoyed the picturesque views of mountains and kids in school uniforms. We even saw a few palm trees. What I noticed is that Japanese rivers usually have broad river banks, that usually function as some kind of recreational spot/ park at the same time. You can see people picnicking, playing sports, kids playing…

We arrived in the huge train station of Kyoto. Seriously, it’s massive. There was even a orchestra with ‘Pirates of the Carribean’ music playing when we arrived. And when we went exploring further we also encountered a kimono exhibition and many shops and restaurants. Exiting the station we were met with the warm and humid weather typical of June (minus the rain) and it seemed more hot here than in Osaka. We hadn’t had time to drink or eat anything yet either. Luckily our hotel was quite close to the station and not difficult to find. Our room was tiny, but cheap and clean, and we enjoyed ourselves there. First we decided on our plan for the day, after that we headed to the 7/11 for breakfast sandwiches.
By the way, I plan to write about the hotels I stayed in at the end of this series about my Japan trip, for the people who are interested.

For our trip to Tokyo we wanted to buy discount tickets for the bullet train. So we searched trough the big train station for the shop selling the tickets, which was not an easy task. After asking several people we finally found it. The tickets we bought are called ‘Puratto Kodama Economy Plan’, it allows you to travel the slowest bullet train called Kodama. It costs 9800 yen, about 3500 yen cheaper than what a normal ticket between Kyoto and Tokyo costs for Kodama, and you get a coupon for a free drink, but we didn’t use it. The Kodama takes bout four hours for this route. Just be sure that you buy the ticket in advance!

After that was fixed we went to Fushimi, a small village with even a smaller station. But that doesn’t matter because it is home to the grand Fushimi Inari Taisha (Fushimi from now on). When you exit the station you are faced by a big red torii (gate), so it is hard to miss. We hadn’t entered the premises yet or we were being questioned by a group of school kids, this time about soccer. ‘We like Snidel!’, meaning Sneijder, was their conclusion. Then we finally got to explore Fushimi, undisturbed. I was amazed by the bright colors, thousands of paper cranes and cute fox decorations everywhere. Fushimi is known for the red gates, and seeing them in real life I can say they are mesmerizing. So great. But Fushimi has much more to offer; As I said before there are many pretty decorations and there is a hike along the mountain where you can enjoy the nature, traditional restaurants and a good workout of course! We were really beat after the ‘hike’ but it was more than worth it. It was my favorite place in all of Japan.

Sneaky shot of a Miko priestess

Love the colors

My favorite shot of the entire trip

Before going on the hike there is a small shop. We bought some amulets there for good luck, health for my grandmother and one for a healthy baby for my cousin’s pregnant girlfriend. This is also the place where you can buy prayer votives to write your wish and hang there so your wish can come true. We saw them near the entrance of the temple with pictures of bunnies and temples, but these were even better because they looked like fox heads. And you can draw faces on them!

traditional restaurant on the mountain

refreshment!

Inside the restaurant, you can sit in raised floors.

In the afternoon we returned to Kyoto. We thought it would be a nice time to visit Kyoto Tower to catch the sunset. There wasn’t much of a sunset to see because of the smog or clouds, but the view was good anyway. From the tower you can clearly see that Kyoto is surrounded by mountains. And in between the buildings and street you can see big patches of green which usually indicates a temple. There is also a restaurant in Kyoto Tower and we figured, why not dine fancy for once? But sadly the restaurant was closed. So we ended up at Sukiyaki, a cheap chain restaurants which serves good curry rice and gyudon for a low price. You get your meals so quickly there, I think it didn’t even take two minutes. So it was definitely not fancy, but budget friendly and easy. And we love curry a lot, so no problem!

This reminded me of the snake game on old Nokia phones ;p Taxi Snake!

Kyoto station is huge
Torii are a typical Japanese sight, and in real life they are just as grand as you’d imagine
Fushimi Inari Taisha is a must visit!
And don’t miss out on the hike
There are several restaurants and vending machines along the way, so no need to worry about dehydration.
Make sure you stay hydrated though! Especially in the humid weather.
Japanese grandmas and grandpas are so fit. While we were sweating and puffing, they easily passed us during the hike
The Japanese use cute napkins to wipe their sweat. It’s a good idea to get one too if you sweat a lot in humid weather.
Kyoto Tower gives a nice overview of the city
It is also one of the view tall buildings in Kyoto. There are not many tall buildings in Kyoto to preserve the traditional city scape and views of the city. There are actually many restrictions and different kind of zones when it comes to building in Japan, but I won’t bore you with that now 🙂
Go to Sukiya, Yoshinoya or Matsuya for fast and cheap food.
Curry in Japan is very mild

Japan trip, Takarazuka Theatre and Theme Cafe

Takarazuka is not the first city you think of when visiting Japan, but my friend and I went there for the Takarazuka theatre. This is a theatre with an all-female cast who preform musicals. I first read about this musical group in the manga ‘Japan Ai; A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan’, which I really recommend! It is a cutely drawn manga about an American(?) girl’s trip to Japan. So it is more of a guidebook / travel memoir in manga format with cute drawings.

One musical I am personally really passionate about is the Phantom of the Opera. My parents took me to the Phantom of the Opera performance in Antwerp when I was young and ever since then I have been in love with it. When I went to London two years ago I went to watch it again after all those years and I felt the magic all over again. Even when I listen to the songs at home I feel really touched. So when I heard that the Takarazuka theatre regularly plays my favorite musical it made me decide to visit the theatre during my trip to Japan to watch a performance. Unfortunately Phantom of the Opera wasn’t playing during my trip, but my friend and I went to another performance because we thought it would be a nice and unique experience anyway.

The theatre

Takarazuka is a city not far away from Osaka. We took the train and the scenery along the way was really lovely. The views alone are worth the train ride. Takarazuka itself is not a big city, but not small either. It has a nice atmosphere and has a Europe-ish vibe and has a lot of cute decorations throughout the city, like fountains, flowers and many buildings with orange roof tiles (just like at home in the Netherlands). And lots of greenery.

The fountain where we sat down to eat our breakfast

Do you feel like you’re in Europe yet?

The fan culture of the Takarazuka theatre is really big by the way. When we went inside the theatre there was a big fan shop and the fans went crazy buying a whole bunch of stuff like dvds of performances, pictures of their favorite actresses and cute keychains with more pictures. There are a lot of fans who go to every performance of their favorite actress and wait for then outside before and after the performance. But we didn’t see that. We did feel a little out of place because we were the only foreigners there and most of the audience was 40+ years old, but that wasn’t a problem really.

Lucky for us they were playing a traditional Japanese play, which is nice for foreigners like us 🙂 The play was called ‘Utsukishiki Shougai’, or ‘A Beautiful Life’. Even though we couldn’t really understand what they were saying because it was in Japanese, we could guess what was going on by the excessive acting, decors, music, dancing and so on. So no problem! But there was a lot going on so it was really complicated and I forgot most of it. The costumes were so gorgeous though.
The play took a while, but not as long as normal, so after the break another play called ‘Luna Rossa’ started. I have no idea what this was, it was just a lot of singing and dancing combining Egyptian, Ancient Grecian, Indian, western 80’s and modern backpackers elements. And this flowed into the finale where all the actresses put on costumes with huge feathers, a lot of glitters, walking down a flashing staircase and all I can say….. Wow! It was weird, over the top, but so special and entertaining. And most of all impressive.

Sneaky picture I took during the break

poster of the show we watched

In the evening I suggested to go to a theme cafe. I mean, we are in Japan after all! I read about a theme cafe called ‘Taketori Monogatari’. This is also the name of a Japanese folktale about a wood cutter who finds a little girl, moon princess Kaguya, in a hollow bamboo. I’ve always liked this story and princess Kaguya is usually gorgeously illustrated, so in combination with pretty bamboo this theme cafe must be good. And I was right. The interior was very very nice with bamboo and small ponds and even tables with benches shaped as a big cut bamboo. I am sad I didn’t take more pictures of it. And the waitresses wore colorful kimonos and white-red priestess robes. I think the only let down was the food itself. It wasn’t bad, but definitely not good either and for the price it was bad. Because theme cafes are fun but expensive so you would expect some nice food but that was not the case. Out dessert was quite nice, but nothing special. But the experience makes up for it, definitely.

I tried looking for some information about this cafe but I couldn’t find it and have the impression that the cafe is not around anymore. But a cafe with the same theme still seems to be in Ginza, Tokyo.

photo not by me

We are sitting in bamboo! (shot via mirrored ceilings)

With our cute waitress, wearing a mike costume. Blurred out my friends face because I am not sure whether she likes here face in in full size on my blog haha

Notes (^^)

This day we encountered squat toilets for the first time, but didn’t use them. Looks difficult.
Regarding toilets; The normal ones are so futuristic with all their buttons and functions. Looks difficult too.
Heated toilets seats are great
Musical lovers will love Takarazuka! I recommend it
When you don’t speak the language of the country your traveling you will get some surprise foods and drinks.
Pachinko is noisy! Extremely so!
So avoid pachinko parlors if your value your hearing/ears.
Try a theme cafe in Japan! Where else in the world can you dine with a vampire or ninja?