For my last day in Japan the friend who picked me up at the airport when I arrived met up with me again to go to Enoshima, a small island located slightly down south of Tokyo and Yokohama.　

This was again a change of scenery, but before we got there we had to endure what was the biggest problem I had with Japan public transport during all of my stay. Apparently there was some suicide on the JR tracks leading to Enoshima which was why we had to take the trains of another railway company. It seems that the different companies cooperate if something like that occurs so we got a small ticket which enabled us to ride the different company’s trains for the same price as the JR lines, which in my case meant I was still able to use my Japan Rail Pass. Why changed trains quite frequently and after about an hour why arrived at the sunny seaside of Enoshima. The island is connected to the mainland via a small bridge so after searching for a post office to get some money we went there to have lunch at one of the numerous restaurants leading up to the mountainous area with the shrine of the island. The lunch was a first for me. Raw fish which at first didn’t look very tasty but turned out to be very delicious. I still don’t exactly know what I had eaten there, but it consisted of a large number of small (very small) white fish and something grey which was “fishy” as well. Very tasty.

We realized after we paid that our timetable was very strict as we had to head back by 6 pm to meet with the family I was staying with so we climbed some parts of the island’s mountain very fast and got a few looks at the beautiful scenery. I definetely have to here once more when I go to Japan the next time. For our travel back my friend chose to take a streetcar which ran through small streets and close to the seaside on a very old and narrow track. Again something you wouldn’t expect only an hour travel outside of a megalopolis like Tokyo. Back in the main city we fought ourselves through the rushhour traffic and ended up in Kitasuna where funnily enough it was me who had to take the lead as my host had been there only once by car. After meeting the family we all went to a sushi restaurant in the neighbourhood and had the best sushi I ever tried. Forget everything you know about the stuff you might get in Europe, the things you will be served in Japan are a completely different dish. The sushi parts are a lot bigger and so is the variety of what you can choose from. I had a few drinks at the restaurant, so after we paid (last order was called at around 8 pm) we headed bback to the house to down a few more beers there. It was a very nice farewell party for me and when I had to wake up the next day at a few minutes before 7 am my head was aching a lot.

The friend I had been staying with was kind enough to drive me out to Narita so early and from there on everything went smoothly. Although I don’t think I will get used to 11 hour flights. Arriving in Frankfurt and taking the train back to Cologne I soon realized I was back in Germany and this time it was a culture shock the other way around. While in Japan the people are encouraged to turn off their cell phones in the trains in Germany, although there was a sign saying you shouldn’t take phone calls in the train, everybody was talking very noisily.

Aaah, I’m looking forward to going back for a second time next year already. Thanks to everyone who made this trip and unforgettable one. I am really, really grateful. This was the best holiday I had in my whole life so far.

お世話に成りました！

I wouldn’t say I have seen everything I wanted to see in Japan, but today I took a little break from sightseeing and met up with a friend I met in Germany who now lives in Yokohama just to hang around for some time.

We were looking for some souveniers for my family so we took of to the fashionable district of Ginza and strolled through some of the huge department stores which are located around one avenue there. It was rather interesting to see that most of them were comparable to what we have in Europe, but then again the amount of designer stuff was a lot higher than at your average german department store. I didn’t find anything which fitted my needs so we went to Ueno first to grab something to eat. At a tempura store we sat down and had a delicious meal. After this we headed for Asakusa again. I have to admit that the place in front of the Sensoji temple is just a tourist rip off spot but there you had all the typical things tourists would bring home at one place so it was rather convenient to buy stuff there. I found a few things which might work and we sat down at a Starbucks store for the rest of the evening.

Arriving back at the house I got a very delicous dinner and again lots of beer and right now I’m preparing for my last day of the stay in Japan. Tomorrow my host’s family wants to take me to a sushi store to give me one last insight on a typical japanese lifestyle experience. I’m really ooking forward to it but before that I will meet up with the friend who picked me up at the airport one more time to hang around at some places I haven’t been to. It’S gonna be fun.

There’s not that much to report for today as I used most of my time going back to Tokyo via the route I came down south. The night at the hotel was short and although I was at the main station of Hiroshima rather early I had to wait for my train for another hour.

That is because the bullet trains have different classifications. The most modern and fastest one, the “Nozomi” train, leaves every fifteen minutes and doesn’t take too many stops. But users of the Japan Rail Pass are not allowed to travel with that train which is why they have to take the slightly slower and less frequent “Hikari” or “Kodama” trains. Because I had to wait I wanted to sit outside the station building for a smoke. That’s where a man of about 45 years approached me and asked for my time. He said he was learning English at an institute near the station right now and that he wanted to test his skills. So we sat down and had a 30 minute talk. He was really trying and although his level was still rather low I could sense that he was really giving it his all the whole time. It was a very funny and nice experience which simply rounded off a nice stay at Hiroshima.

I boarded the “Hikari” train to Osaka where I had to change for another “Hikari” to Tokyo. At Shin-Osaka (New Osaka) station I took the chance to grab something to eat. While in Europe most places at the train stations sell warm snacks like bratwurst or hamburgers, in Japan you get packed bentou, the lunch boxes every japanese worker and traveller loves and enjoys. They are rather cheap, but are filled with lots of fine dishes. Most of them have rice and meat and some vegetables. After I boarded the train I happily ate my lunch and waited for the arrival at Tokyo’s main station.

From there on I took the subway to a place where me and my host had got off twice and tried to find my way back to the house which worked out pretty well, although my luggage was rather heavy. My host had told me the evening before that her mother would be back at around 5 pm so when I arrived at around 4 pm I settled in for waiting about an hour. But it turned out her mother was back early and from then on I sat in the kitchen for the rest of the day and told stories of my trip to the south. The father and my host came back in the evening and we all had dinner together.

It somehow felt like coming back home and I really feel a little sad I have to leave in three days to go back to Germany. I haven’t made up my mind yet about what to do tomorrow, but there are still some friends I’d like to see before I leave, so there will be something to do.

It was time to say goodbye to the lovely landscapes of rural Kumamoto-ken today and head back for the busy streets of big japanese cities. Or so I thought. I headed for Hiroshima this morning and the friend who helped me out in Kumamoto accompanied me until we reached Hakata, the train station of Fukuoka.

From there the shinkansen only needs about one hour to reach Hiroshima and there I met up with a friend at the main station, who would help me out today. At first she invited me to have dinner and we walked to what looked like a huge shopping mal street with lots of restaurants. They had one street there which only featured okonomiyaki, the local brand of the popular kansai dish. In Hiroshima they add some noodles to the pancake-like style which is very very tasty. With a lunch like that we first went to the hotel (which is very cheap and spacy. I got a double room for the price of one) and from there one rushed to Miyajima, the picture postcard motive for all Japan tourists. Miyajima is a small island located to what I think was the west of Hiroshima. It’s a short train ride and then you take a ferry which only takes a few more minutes. Before reaching Miyajima Harbor the ferry takes a small turn so tourists can take pictures of the famous gate in the water. Although the sport is very famous there weren’t that many tourists on this day, but that might also have been because of the bad weather as it was raining from time to time. It has to be said that today was the rainiest day of my trip so far and the outlook for the baseball game in the evening looked rather dark.

But that’s another story. When we reached the shrine the flood was only beginning so we weren’t able to see the temple in its entire beauty, but it was impressive nonetheless. Because the whole island is considered a holy and sacred place, all inhabitants are considered sacred as well. Which is why, just as in Nara, there were a lot of deer on the streets. We took a walk behind the temple to a small park where there were no tourists at all, which was very nice as well. Going back we headed back to the main city.

Our next stop was a bit more somber as we visited the Memorial Park, the site of the atom bomb explosion. There is one building left standing was a memorial, the former Hiroshima commerce exhibition hall and the sight of the skeleton of the roof is very frightening indeed. I couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward. The whole place tself has a rather comfortable and relaxing feeling to it as it is constructed just like any other park. It’s set very beautifully with a river dividing the park into two halfs, but each time your view falls back on the ruins of the hall, you are reminded that this is no usual park at all. going down south a bit further we reached another memorial for a young child who died because of the radiation she got when the bomb exploded. Sasaki Sadako wanted to fold at least 1.000 origami paper cranes before she died, but didn’t mange to do so as she passed away, aged only 11. Her memorial is covered with paper cranes from all over the world as students from lots of different countries send the cranes to Hiroshima to be placed at the memorial.

From the Sasaki Sadako memorial the next stop is an eternal flame that will be put out once all atomic weapons are banished from the face of the earth. It lies on a straight axis which leads from the commerce hall memorial to the Peace Museum. The museum depicts every aspect of the atomic explosion and shows to the visitors what happened on August 6th 1945 and in the aftermath of the explosion. It’s rather depressing and uncomfortable, but on the other hand also encouraging as the message is that the whole wolrd needs to unite in its fight to banish nuclear weapons. Also my guide’s grantparents’ house was located only a few metres away from the peace museum which again was only a few metres away from the place of the explosion.

I left Memorial Park with a somber feeling only to replace with a more happy occasion as I was about to visit my first professional baseball game. The local Hiroshima Carp were to play the Yokohama Baystars and I was excited to see the new stadium. On our way we were asked by an american couple if we could show them the way to the stadium so they just tagged along and we had a little chat as we walked for a few minutes. After reaching the stadium, which in reality doesn’t look as impressive as on the screen, we headed for the main cheering section. We were a bit late so we missed the first inning in which the Carp already scored four runs. But we were in time to see them add a few more in the 2nd. The cheering section went nuts but was quited by the Yokohama relief corps afterwards. Yokohama was able to get some runs, but the Carp always looked like they were in control. A lone solo homerun to our right field seats was all they got in the 9th, wasting a chance with bases loaded earlier. The experience was very impressive as there was noise all around, but my biggest surprise came when we left. In Germany after such mass events there is always trouble getting out of the facility and back to the train station as there’s always tension in the air. Forget about that in Japan, everybody walks slowly and patiently until they reach the place they want to go to. It’s very nice to see things work out that way.

My guide was kind enough to take me back to my hotel and there we parted ways after a small conversation in front of a “conbini”. Hiroshima was a lot of fun, but although I will leave for Tokyo tomorrow I am looking forward to see familiar faces again. This one week trip was really great though as I was able to see a lot of different things which you simply cannot find in Tokyo alone.

The night was short for me, but not because I had to get up very earl but because I am not used to sleeping with a turned on air conditioner which is why I was rather drenched this morning. After a shower I headed for Tamana to meet up with my friend and her father who would accompany me to Kumamoto and show me around.

Or first stop was the old castle which dominates the city skyline from afar. It is said to be one of the three most beautiful castles and although, just like the castle in Osaka, it is a reconstruction because the old building was burned down during the civil war in the late 19th century, it still looks marvelous. Because of a change of winds during the big fire one part of the old still remains intact and can be accessed. Uto-Yasuga is a very big tower at one corner of Kumamoto castle and the guidebook states that its size can easily compete with some of the main towers of other castles in Japan. The wooden structure is very beautiful and although it was very humid outside again the air in the building itself was very cool and nice.

After the descent from the top we entered a rebuilt part of the castle which was based on archeological research. In the building a small film explained how the house was ressurected in only ten years, in fact t was finished only last year. From there we headed for the main tower which has six floors and was flooded by tourists from Japan and Korea. Actually there are a lot of Koreans touring Kyushu, perhaps because it is so close and can easily reached by plane or ship. Inside the main towers there is a small exhibition explaining the building stages of the fortress and its last days during the civil war. From the top you have a brilliant view over most of the city.

After climbing back down we took a completely different road heading for an okinawan event which was taking place on the outskirts of the city. The father of my friend was, as it seemed, acquianted to one of the organizers so we all went in for free. He paid him back though with lots of alcohol as he had bought a bottle of sake during a small walk through a shop in the center city which offered all local products, from sweets and vegentables to sake and craftwork. The festival was rather small, but a lot of the visitors had already sat down in front of the stage and were waiting for the show to begin. The culture of Okinawa is completely different from the main land (as is the language) which is why the people on the main islands of Japan take so much interest in it. The music itself is very soothing and warm and always reminds me of the ocean, although that might be because I hve sen so many japanese TV dramas set in Okinawa which re always accompanied by the local sound.

While staying at the festival area we drank a lot of alcohol so at one point I went off to grab a soft drink somewhere. I got into a small conversation with one of the vendors who thanked me in english. So when I told him that I was from Germany he was eager to learn the same words in german and once again offered his gratefulness to me in the myther tongue. That was rather funny.

In the evening back at the train station in Kumamoto we all went to have some of the local speciality, ramen. Those noodle soups were not unknown to me as I always thought of them as a very typical japanese dish. But I was reminded that Kumamoto was famous for its ramen so I was eager to try it out. The one I got was very tasty and gave me back some of the energy for the trip back to the hotel.

Tomorrow I will go to my last place on the trip, Hiroshima, were I will hopefully (if it doesn’t rain) go to visit a baseball game for the first time in my life.

I left Kyoto this morning to head for the biggest island in the south of Japan, Kyushu. The shinkansen terminates at Hakata, the station of Fukuoka, in the north of the island, and to get there I had to change trains at Shin-Osaka station. Because I was only scheduled to have a 12 minute stop there for the changeover I though I might be in trouble, but because of the convinient signs that help everyone at the station, I was waiting for the train longer than expected. The travel from Hakata to the small city of Tamana was only a piece of cake.

Kyushu really is something different. Of course Fukuoka is just like any other big city in Japan with big buildings dominating the skyline, but the further you go away from it you enter a completely different world. I thought I had experienced the japanese countryside at Nara, but this was even better.

A friend of mine who I got to know through a japanese internet community and her father picked me up at the station, which wasn’t very hard as I was the only foreigner to get of the train there. In fact, I guess I was the only foreigner on the train at all. After a brief stop at my friend’s workplace (a photo shop) with some coffee and a cake, her father decided we should set off for Mt. Aso west of Tamana. At first I thought it would ba small trip to some mountain, but it turned out to be a 2 hour journey through a beautiful landscape with lots of farms, smal houses, middle school baseball club kids running for training, a takoyaki shop on the roadside (where I finally tasted my first takoyaki) and a very impressive sight of a still active volcano.

Mt. Aso, r Aso-san, as the japanese call it, is located west of Kumamoto. The landscape reminded me a lot of the german mountain areas which stretch thrugh the center of the country. Not as high as the Alps, but very impressive and very green. That’Ssomething which struck me on first sight: although I was so far down south (in fact the farthest I had ever been in my life) the landscape was completely different from what you get to see in the mediterranean area in Europe. It looked a lot more like Germany, hadn’t it been so hot.

The slopes up to Mt. Aso were breathtaking as was the changing scenery and all of a sudden we ended up driving right into hell. When we arrived at the parking lot at the panorama platform the alarm for an increased amount of Co2 were ringing and people were kept from going to close to the crater. They have four different levels of alarm and we just happened to be on time for the highest level. But my friend’s father told us not to panic and just wait for a few minutes. The smell of the sulfur from the crater was slightly sickening and a lot of people were coughing because of it. There were warnings all around (you even recieved pamphlets on your way up at the checkpoints when you were going to the mountaintop) that people with asthma, bronchus disease, heart diseases or similar sicknesses should refrain from going all the way up.

The father was right in that things would clear up so after a few minutes of waiting we were able to take a look for ourselves and I have to admit that it was very impressive. A huge lake of emerald green water with smoke rising from it filled out the crater and even though we were several hundred meters above it you could still hear the boiling water down there. I read several times that looking done a crater feels like looking at the gates of hell, but I never fund it to be so true. Watching those natural powers was very humbling. The last eruption dates back about 20 years and Aso is still an active volcano so it might happen again soon. I am happy I didn’t have to experience that first hand.

On the way back down the valley was drenched in the light of the setting sun making it a wonderful sight to behold. I guess I was so happy to this because I hadn’t been out of Cologne into the nature for such a long time. On our way further down from the mountain we came across a honey producing farm in which the customers where able to taste a few ofthe products. I never imagined there were so many things you can make out of honey. And the bees they had there were just plain frightening as they almost three times as huge as the ones we know in Europe. All the way back I kept on talking to the father and although I didn’t understand everything he said I felt we had a pleasant conversation about japanese history and german movies.
We drove back to Tamana where the father dropped us off in front of his friend’s izakaya where we stayed to grab a little to eat. The place was very lively but that might as well have been because of the big arty of young people in the tatami room in the back who were shouting very loud the whole time. At around 9 pm we set off for the train station where I boarded the express line to Arao, where the friend had booked a hotel room for me. Things went very smooth as I just took a taxi from the train station, although the walk might have only been a few minutes, BUT, I would have wandered into the wqhole different drection, so the 500 yen cab ride was well spend.

Tomorrow me, the friend and her father will go to Kumamoto city to take a look at the castle and some other things. My guidebook tells me that Kumamoto has a lot of german features so I am excited to find out about them.

After strolling around the streets near to the central station in Kyoto I headed for some of the better known tourist spots. The only problem is that most of the sites are located on the outskirts of the town which males it very difficult to see a lot in one day. And keep in mind I was still hurting from wandering all around Osaka yesterday, so this became a test of endurance.

The first place I wanted to go to was the Fushimi-Inari shrine in the southeast. This place is most famous for the enormous amount of gates built right into the forest. Apparently the god of the shrine is believed to bring good fortune in business so the gates have been donated by people in search of fortune for their shop or business. I read somewhere that it was only a ten minute footwalk from the central station, but that turned out to be a misunderstanding. It took me around 45 minutes to get to the shrine, passing train tracks, a sports festival at a school and finally a temple area which began to stretch out right next to a loud street. Tofukuji is a very nice place and stretches over a huge area. At some point I wasn’t sure whether all the buildings belonged to the temple or whether they were simply normal houses of people. Whatever they were, the sight was very beautiful. I passed a lot of huge gates, crossed a bridge in what looked like a park area (with another bridge crossing the same valley-like setting slightly higher than the one I took) and went back to the street going parallel to the train tracks which led to Nara.

I finally reached Fushimi-Inari through a side gate after seeing a lot of flags with a fox on it on the street I had been following. The fox is the animal which is worshipped at Fushimi-Inari so it’s basically everywhere. The main buildings look like any other shrine but once you climb up a little into the forest you enter the vast amount of gates set up one after another. At first I went through a set of bigger gates which then led to a junction which divided the way into two smaller archways. The feeling was a bit strange as it felt slightly claustrophobic walking through the red posts, but after a short time I reached an open space with a few buildings on it. To my left another, this time again bigger, archway was opening up which I used to climb down again from the mountain.

After reaching the train station for Kyoto I was a bit startled that even japanese trains can have a delay (which in my case were only 3 minutes, but well…). Back in central Kyoto I bought a day pass ticket for the subway and bus service (1.200 yen) and set off for Kinkakuji. I wanted to take the bus, but the quques were so long I decided to go down stairs to enter the subway which took me to the old imperial court. But that site is closed to the public and only the northern area is accessible so I went west for the old shogunate castle Nijo.

Nijo is a lot smaller than the imperial court, but impressive nonetheless. I entered it through the main gate and went inside taking off my shoes at the entrance (something, just like in Nikko, is an impossible task to do for foreigners). The halls and rooms had a lot of explanations in english and some even contained figures of the personel which used to live her, giving a very thorough impression of what it might have looked like 400 years ago. The house was huge and it took me some time to walk through it. Each step made a squirking sound which is intentional as it was used to recognize intruders back then. Going out into the hot sunlight again I walked a little bit through the castle garden and then headed for the bus stop to finally go to Kinkakuji.

Travelling by bus in Kyoto is rather easy as the streets are organised like a chess boad and the station names usually consist of the street the bus is currently driving on and the street the bus is crossing. At Kinkakuji the expected hordes of tourists flooded the area so it was easy to find the entrance right away. Here as well a broad forest way leads up to the entrance and after a light turn to the right you stand in front of the most photographed building in Japan. Of course, there were a lot of people taking pictures today as well, and count me in. The sight is very awesome, a golden building on the banks of a small lake with the mountains in the back. This might sound a bit cheesy and a lot like a postcard picture, but when you stand in front of the temple in person it’s very impressive indeed. Behind the temple and the lake, a stone stircase leads up to a second level where there is a second, smaller lake with a couple of other buildings near it. The walk through the area is short, but the admission (400 yen) was worth every yen.

After going back to the inner city I decided it was time for something more contemporate and so I searched for the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Mangas might be one of the main things that get people interested into Japan today as they are sold all over the world and the corresponding television series are kid favourites everywhere, I guess. The museum itself isn’t as impressive as some might think, but that’s because it’s not normal. You enter and then hve the chance to dive into a lot of books, just grab the one you like. Yes, set in a former elementary school the yard can be used just to lie down there with a book and read for hours and hours. They even have a section fr foreigners where mangas in all kinds of languages are stored for your pleasure. The lady at the admission was even apologizing that they only had so little variety of german books. But, she reminded me, the museum was open until 8 pm and the admission was valid the whole day. So if I left I could come back anytime and read something more. I didn’t go for reading and instead walked through the building which had permanent installations explaining the evolvement of manga culture from the 18th centry until today, but also special exhibitions of Bome, a figurine artist (they displayed a huge number of female figurines) and of sketches done by Miyazaki Hayato of Ghibli studios. Definetely worth the visit.

I got hungry after leaving the museum and searched for a small shop in the inner city labyrinth of shopping districts and small streets. I settled for katsu donbori at a small price, which wasn’t special, but very tasty and satisfying, giving me strength to walk around some more.

I then headed back to the central station to buy some stamps for postcards but on the way I recognized the battery of my camera was running low. Had I gone to the hotel to recharge it it would have been to late to go to other places. I tried to find a bus to Ginkakuji, a temple in the east of the city, but when looking at the timetables I saw it might have become very hard to come back easily, so I dismissed the idea and really headed back to the hotel. A little rest would be fine as well, after running around for such a long time during the past few days.

So tomorrow I will head out down south a little further. A friend informed me this morning that she found a hostel for me somewhere near Kumamoto and we will have the chance to go for a little sightseeing on Sunday.

And now I will turn my attention to the last innings of the Softbank Hawks vs Nippon Ham Fighters baseball game which is shown live on TV.

I had been looking forward to visiting Osaka, but right now I just don’t remember why. Maybe it was because of the local baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers. Maybe because of the food as the city is known as “Japan’s kitchen”. Maybe it was because everybody told me that the inhabitants of Osaka act a lot like the people in Cologne. I have no clue. So I set off this morning trying to find out what it was.

I could have used the shinkansen to go to Osaka quickly, but I decided to take the normal JR trains. The system is quite simple, you just go to the platform which shows the city you want to go to. What’s difficult is finding out which train is fast and which one is a local one, as there are always two platforms for one direction at bigger cities. A lot of lines end at Kyoto station, so I had to sort out which was a fast train and which a slow one. When I boarded the train standing to my left I askd a woman sitting there if the train was going to Osaka, which she kindly confirmed. So I took a seat and waited for the departure. But after a few minutes she told me the train on the other platform was a faster one, so I jumped out and boarded that one. After only a few minutes I was in Shin-Osaka, the new part of the city. At the tourist office I got the maps I needed and headed for the subway.

A friendly person from the underground company was so kind to help me getting a one day pass at a machine, reminding me how lucky I was, because it was “No my car day”, a day that is held each month so the people of Osaka leave their cars at home and use the subway. Because of that day the pass was 250 yen cheaper that the usual 850 yen. I entered a subway and took of for Tennoji, one of the famous temples of the city.

It has to be said that today was one of the hottest of my trip so far. Up until now I always had cloudy weather and although it’s always very humid it wasn’t so hot. But today the sun was burning which made me drink a lot (which means a lot of stops at vending machines to grab something cold to drink. Tennoji was bustling with activity as it was celebrating the autumn equinox with a small fair in the yard of the temple. A lot of people were there, although I didn’t se many tourists. The smell of food was in the air and every no and then you could hear a temple bell. Although it was rather crowded it wasn’t hectic at all.

I walked around the area for some time and then set off for Osaka castle. The fortress was usually built in the 16th century but was destroyed quite a few times. The building we can see today is a reconstruction dating back only a few decades, but it is very impressive nonetheless. The castle is surrounded by a huge park with water all around the main castle. Because the area is so huge the visitors were spread out all over the place which didn’t give it the crowded impression I had at Tennoji. There is a small tram going around the park which I passed one time and it was filled with school children who greeted everybody with a loud “hallo” as they passed them. When I waved back some boys shouted “Boston! Boston!” because of the cap I was wearing. Although I replied with a “sou desu” I guess they mistook me for an american tourist. I wandered around a little bit more but didn’t tke the time to enter the castle itself, because everybody I talked to said that it wasn’t as impressive and that I should rather go to Himeji, the prototype of japanese fortress architecture. But a) I didn’t have the time for that and b) Himeji is under construction until 2015.

From Osaka castle I went to Sumiyoshi-ji using a very old but beautiful street car which went through some “un-tourist” parts. Arriving there the streets were completely without tourists which came as a surprise to me as the shrine was mentioned as one of the big must sees in Osaka. It’s pretty and beautiful, but the main attraction, a huge bridge leading up to the main entrance, was unfortunately under construction. I wandered around for a few minutes and then set of to find a place to get something to eat. I searched around the train station and found a small soba shop in some side street of a shopping district. The food was very good, but was even better was that the woman tending the store was so kind to explain to me where to buy some Hanshin Tigers merchandise. When I told her that I was a fan she begged me to cheer for the team. They really like their Tigers in Osaka.

Before I went to the goods store I took a small detour to Dotonbori, the lively shopping district in the suth of Osaka. The area reminded me a lot of the trendy parts of Tokyo, although everything looked a bit older compared to the capital. My feet were really hurting at the time so I headed for the Hanshin department store to buy the Tigers stuff. The goods store on the 8th floor wasn’t as big as I expected, but I was able to get a cap, a happi coat (light summer coat) and a jersey. While looking for the right size one attendant there was kind enough to help me and when I paid three people send me off with a nice “arigatou gozaimashita”. I guess it’s very seldom they have customers coming from Germany.

At the train station I took a local train back to Kyoto and on the way back to the hotel I grabbed a bentou at a convinience store. The man behind the counter was even kind enough to heat it up for me, something I wasn’t used to.

Speaking of bentou, the culture of fast food is a lot different here from what it’s like in Germany. In Germany you have the usual burger franchises (which you get here as well) and greek and turkish stands. But here you have a huge variety of food and even the convinience stores which might sell frozen pizza in Germany, have a huge selection of bentou. Bentou usually includes rice as a sidedish and some meat or fish as the main thing. They come in all sort and forms and colours and hadn’t it been for the lettering I might have bought something else. So I just went for looks, but it was tasty as expected.

Tomorrow I will go around Kyoto and see wat I find here. I guess I won’t make it to all the important places, but I will try to se as much as I can.

I woke up early to catch a train to Nara, the old imperial city south of Kyoto. As I wrote yesterday it’s very easy to travel by train, so I injstantly got my express train from Kyoto station to Nara and was there after around 40 minutes.

Although it was still early when I left the air was already very humid. Japanese people might say that it was fresh, but to a european guy who is used to cold weather this was just of taste of what Japan might be like in the summer. When I arrived at Nara I had to wait for a german friend who is studying in the small town of Tenri, just 15 minutes from Nara by train. Tenri has one of the top sports universities as she told me, but she hasn’t joined a club until now which is why she had time to meet me today for which I was very grateful.

As soon as we saw each other at the station we set off for the temple district in the northwest of the city. Which simply meant, follow the other tourists. And boy, there are plenty of them in Nara. Not only gaikokujin, but also a lot of people from other japanese cities come to visit the small town. And small is the right word. Although Nara might be considered a city by western standards, compared to Tokyo it’s just a small town in the countryside. Which means that there are only busses and no subways, so we decided to spend the day walking to explore the city. Our first destination was the Todaiji temple which is the world’s biggest wooden building. It also houses a gigantic statue of Buddha which you might have seen on pictures but when you stand in front of it it looks even bigger. Of course this aso being one of the world heritages the place was crowded, but not in an uncomfortable way.

The area where the temples and shrines are situated is very green, you might call it a huge park. What makes it special is the deer (japanese “shika”) running around there. The animals are very tame and friendl, they only want some food which can be bought everywhere and is called deer crackers (“shika senbei”). So the scenery looks like this: there’s tourists crowding the streets and sometimes they sit down for a picknick on some lawn and between them there are always “shika” walking around freely. It gives the whole place a very soothing and relaxing atmosphere. I usually don’t like those hippie-esque phrases like “being at one with the world”, but this place felt a little like it.

From Todaiji we went on to some other shrines and temples, the biggest one being the Kasuga-Taisha shrine which is buried deep down in the forest with alleyways of lanterns leading up to the main area. One hall of the shrine is being renovated right now, so the sight wasn’t as pretty as at Todaiji, but although this shrine was smaller it was impressive nonetheless. The deep red colour of its buildings stood out from the green of the woods surrounding it. Also it seemed like a lot of tourists stopped walking on further after reaching Todaiji so the other shrines and temples weren’t overflowing with people which was also very nice.

From there on we set out to find something to eat, but in the main shopping district we couldn’t decide on a shop, all of them being quite expensive by the way. So we decided to search for a place to eat while taking a walk to some other locations on the eastern side of the town. While walking we somehow lost our way and ended up walking through a neighbourhood which didn’t have any restaurants but offered a nice view of country life in Japan. We stopped at a supermarket to grab something for our empty stomachs so I got my first taste of japanese bentou, packed boxes with readymade food which are way better than the usual shockfrosted stuff you get in german stores. It was so satisfying we weren’t even able to eat the dessert we bought.

After walking around for quite some time we got back on track and set out to the site of the old imperial alace of Nara. Right now you can see only ruins but they are rebuilding the main assembly hall at the moment which will be finished by 2010. It’s an interesting to approach archeological sites. Where in europe everything is being left as it was found (with minor replacements here and there) at Nara the completely rebuilt a building which of course gives a better impression to people not familiar with the subject. It also meant they erected the hall in the middle of nowhere. The whole site is one big field in which the people of Nara seem to look for some time out from their wrk, go out jogging or just play guitar and sing as one young man did in front of the construction site. With the sun setting over the mountains in the background everything – as always – seemed very relaxing and peaceful and in absolute harmony.

We returned to the train station from there and parted ways. When I got into the rain I had the chance to get a glimpse at two slightly annoying things. One being noisy tourists. What looked like a school class, judging by their accent from Australia, occupied most of the car and was really noisy. Acroos the aisle from me there was a japanese woman sitting who looked very uneasy clinging to her cell phone the whole time. The other thing was an overprotective japanese mother who had her children wear mouth protection and was checking her perhaps 6 year old daughter’s temperature the whole time. The daughter wanted to sit in my section, but was called over by her mother right away. Not that I mind, anyway.

So Nara was a lot of fun and a whole different experience from the 1 mio+ cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. Tomorrow I will set out to one of those molochs again though as I head out to Osaka, Japan’s second biggest city. I hope to find some Hanshin Tigers merchandise there.

Just as a reminder be sure to check out the flickr site to find the newest pictures I took.

Today I set off from Tokyo to take a one week trip around the south of Japan which will first take me to the old imperial city of Kyoto and then to Nara, Osaka, Kumamoto and Hiroshima. I have to admit I was slightly nervous before leaving my host’s house as this is the first time I will embark on a journey completely on my own. But up until now it turned out everything went fine so far. I will stay in Kyoto for the next few days and then leave for Kumamoto and Hiroshima on the weekend. Both Nara and Osaka are so close that I will make day trips to those cities.

My host and her younger sister were so kind to drive me to Tokyo station so I didn’t have to got through the crowded public transport of Tokyo. Although there is a national holiday today it surely would have been very crowded. When I was dropped of at Tokyo station I searched for the ticket counter to get a reservation. Ravelling with the Japan Rail Pass is very easy as you just have to show it when you enter the platform and then you are fine. If you like, you can get a reservation for a seat on the shinkansen, the world famous bullet train. This works so easy because the long distance train system is also organised like the public transport. There are gates at the train stations which give access to the JR area of the station. Think of London or Paris with those gates where you put in your tickets and enter the platforms. At those points you just show the Rail Pass to the person standing there and you are fine.

So I got myself a reservation for the next shinkansen to Kyoto and entered the platform. It’s devided into the respective doors the train will have. With the reservation you get the information which seat you will have in which car. So you just go to the number which is your car and wait there until the train arrives. People will actually line up there like waiting for the bus. Once you enter the train everything is very comfortable. The seats and the footroom are huge, there are two seats on one, and three seats on the other side with an aisle in the middle. When the train gets going you don’t realize how fast it is. Top speed must be something at around 300 km/h which lets the scenery fly by. In just a mere 2 hours and 45 minutes I reached Kyoto station.

The first difference to Tokyo was the weather as it was even more humid than in the capital. Apart from that the first impression wasn’t that exciting. So I hurried to get a hotel room and ended up at a JR travel agency bureau. The woman there was kind enough to get me a cheap room at a business hotel right next to the station. Unfortunately only after I visited the real tourist information bureau I found out that there were other opportunities which might have been even cheaper. But this way it’s most comfortable for my day trips to Nara and Osaka as I just have to fall out of bed (literally) to get to the train station.

After I left my luggage at the hotel room I left for a small tour of the city (which would take me around 4 hours, all by foot). I got a map at the tourist information and decided to check out a few things around the hotel. I first went straight up north through small and narrow streets. In this Kyoto is completely different from Tokyo. True, Tokyo also has small streets and Kyoto has big ones, but here everything has a slightly different touch to it. As my guidebook told me Kyoto was spared from allied bombings during the 2nd world war and although there are quite a few new buildings the aura of the old and narrow streets still feels very nostalgic and historic. There’s one thing now which at some times ruins the wonderful impression. In Japan cables are not dug into the ground but are going overhead so the whole sky is filled with cable strings, whoever knows what they are good for. I have no idea why that is done, but me and a friend were guessing it might be because of the dangers of earthquakes (which, by the way, I haven’t experienced up until now, knock on wood).

I saw on my map that two temples were close to the train station so I was searching for them a little bit and ended up seeing something which looked like a gate. The sight was not very impressive, but the closer you got to the gate, leaving the small street further and further behind it, the bigger it got. I was standing in front of Nishi Hongwanji, one of two temples close to the train station. I have been to Nikko, so the sight of a temple wasn’t as new to me, but seeing something like this when you are only used to european churches is always exciting. What’s always interesting is that the places are very tidy although there are no garbage cans or ashtrays. The main hall of this western temple was huge and the place was set up in a very harmonious way. Although there was a huge street going past it the noise wasn’t as loud inside.

I took a few snapshots and tried to find the eastern counterpart of it. Again walking through narrow streets things felt really calm and quiet, hadn’t it been for the humid air which was lying heavily on the city. Higashi Hongwanji was under construction, unfortunately, but the sight was impressive nonetheless. From there on I decided to walk a little bit towards the city center, which, as I found out, isn’t as different from Tokyo, at least on the outskirts of it. The streets are flashy and loud, there’s music coming from almost every store, the boardwalks are crowded and the only thing missing are the huge video screens. It has to be said though that in Kyoto you come across a lot more tourists than in Tokyo. Maybe that’s because the city is only one sixth of the size of Japan’s capital.

I walked until I reached the Kamogawa, the river which divides Kyoto into east and west. From there on I followed the river on the other side to get back to the train station. Arriving there I headed for some gyudon chain store and had something to eat, something I hadn’t done all day. I searched desperately for some small local Ramen or Soba store, but maybe my Kanji reading is still to weak to find one. The food was decent but not thrilling and because it was cheap I haven’t any complaints. After walking around the train station area for a few more minutes I got back to the hotel and asked for an internet connection which the friendly person at the counter gave to me. He was quite talkative for a japanese person and was very interested in where I came from. When I mentioned Germany he was thrilled and started talking about football, mentioning Ballack and Klose. Seems like the japanese like the German team just as much as the Germans.

Tomorrow I will leave early for Nara where a friend of mine is spending a semester abroad right now. Nara looked fine when I first saw the town in a japanese television drama and it’s alo an old imperial city and was the first capital of Japan over a thousand years ago (albeit for only 75 years).