Join us in our adventure around the world. Be informed about where we are and what we discover. In order to follow us, please insert your e-mail adress in the field below:
Kyoto is a very interesting city with a lot of ancient ('original') temples and shrines but for our taste a little bit too touristic, i.e. too crowded and too expensive. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our stay here, visited the monkey mountain, the Geisha district and the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine (with its thousands of vermilion/black torii gates).
After Kyoto, we travelled to Nara and discovered its UNESCO World heritage temples.
From there, our journey brought us to Osaka were we stayed the last days here in Japan.
We made a tour to Kobe (only 30 minutes by train from Osaka) and visited the surrounding areas.
We had the chance to witness the famous Danjiri Matsuri Festival in Kishiwada. This festival is held in autumn (late September or early October) since 1703 and consists of pulling the up to 5 tons heavy wooden carts ('danjiri') through the sometimes very narrow streets of the city. The carts have elaborated carvings on them and each carpenters guild is responsible for the maintenance of their carts.
The particular of this festival is the speed at which the wooden vehicles are pulled. Townspeople say that every year at least one person dies and various others are wounded. We saw three casualties on the street enclosed by people who tried to help them get back on their feet and heard not less than a dozen of times the ambulance sirens.
After watching this entertaining festival, we decided to participate in a pub crawl to celebrate our last days here in Japan.
We enjoyed every single moment here but we are also glad to continue our journey. The strict rules and obedience of the Japanese people (and on the other side the demand to obey to those strict rules too) can be quite restrictive. But you can't claim a good organisation and clean cityscape without having a strict regime to maintain this public order.
Next destination: South Korea :)
The entrance to a saloon in the famous Teramachi Dori shopping street with Japanese lanterns.
The entrance gate of one of the biggest shrines in Japan, the Yasaka shrine, in Kyoto's Geisha neighbourhood Gion.
Work in progress: Our 16 Euro tough 'cock leg' on the grill (because again we didn't understand the Japanese menu). You could literally taste the carcinogen while eating it.
The famous view on Kyoto from the Iwatayama Monkey Park.
The wild monkeys seem very relaxed but they can get quite aggressive if you stare too long at them.
The garden of Tenryū-ji, an oasis of idyll, situated next to the bamboo forest.
To protect the idyll, a newly placed sign prohibits the (not only in Japan popular) hunt for Pokemons.
This scene could also be in a coal mine underneath the earth.
We were exhausted after climbing up the mountain through the thousands of torii gates at the Fushimi Inari Shrine.
At the top, we could admire the stone memorials.
In Nara (the second important historical village of Japan after Kyoto) is a big park where more than 1200 wild deer live.
They are still 'wild' but familiar with humans and while begging for food (visitors can purchase 'deer-crackers') they bow in front of you, nudge you with their nose or if you don't respond, they start eating your cloth :)
The deer are considered as being the sacred messenger of the gods that inhabit the shinto shrines. According to local folklore 'Takemikazuchi' (the god of thunder) came from Mount Mikasa riding a white deer.
Todai-ji (one of the Seven Great Buddhist Temples in Nara) hosts the world largest bronze Buddha statue (17 meter height) and is the world's largest wooden building (even though the present reconstruction of 1692 is only two thirds of the original temple hall's size).
Not all the Japanese people follow the strict rules or were those tourists from China? ;)
The streets are crowded with people during the Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri Festival in Osaka.
The (dancing) position on top of the carriage is reserved for a local carpenter and is considered as being a great honour. Inside the carts, a group of young musicians sing and play during the whole way.
People believe that gods and spirits inhere the danjiris.
Underneath the city of Osaka lies a kilometre-long network of underground shopping streets.
Our first hitchhike experience:
We waited for approximately two hours next to the driveway that leads to Nagoya (our first station to get to the Japanese Alps, two and a half hours away from Shizuoka). The only one who picked us up were two security guys from the Highway patrol! They escorted us to the next Seven Eleven shop and asked us kindly but firmly to continue our hitchhiking from there and not from the interstate anymore.
We were not far from giving up when a nice but slightly timid couple saw our paper sign and decided to give us a ride to Nagoya. They couldn't speak a word of English but with the help of a Translation-app we managed to communicate.
Surprised by this act of kindness, we decided to continue our hitchhiking. The only problem was, we didn't know where the driveway to the Alps was, so we asked a taxi driver to show us the best spot. Unfortunately his spot wasn't the best and nobody picked us up. After waiting long hours, we abandoned our initial plan to hitchhike and finally took the bus.
Bottom line: Fun to experience but we decided that it isn't really our thing, because we neither have the required patience nor want to spend an endless amount of time next to a busy street.
So we arrived by bus in Hida Takayama where we stayed in a lovely Japanese Guesthouse, the cleanest and best organized hostel so far.
We explored the region by bicycle (that we rented in the Guesthouse). Hida Takayama offered some fine ancient temples, a 1300 year old ginkgo tree, a lot of hot springs and spas in the surroundings, and the Hida Minzoku Mura Folk village (an open air museum with more than 30 traditional farmhouses). We degusted different kind of Sake (but we still prefer the wine made out of grapes) and tried some of the famous local sweets (most of them made out of sugared red beans).
Furthermore the Hida region is very famous for its Hida-Wagyu ('Wa' means Japanese style and 'gyu' is a word for cattle or cow). The most famous Wagyu meat is probably the Kobe-beef, but it is not the only A-graded Wagyu beef from Japan. We chose a traditional restaurant where we tasted this extremely tender, juicy (and very expensive) Hida-beef and it fulfilled all our expectations. The intense marbled outward appearance makes it very distinctive and the taste can't be compared to the meat in Europe. This could be due to the fact that those 'first class' cattles in Japan have a much longer breeding time and they are not fed pasture grass or antibiotics.
We are looking forward to discover Kyoto, Japans most famous city.
Thanks to Ayaka and Yusuke for their 3 hours lift :)
In Japan, the capsule hotels are very popular among business people. In Takayama we had sort of a capsule bed, but fortunately a little bigger than the traditional ones.
It felt like walking through a Japanese film set.
The art of coffee decoration is also mastered by the Japanese baristi.
The entrance to this traditional temple is paved with stairs made out of whole blocks of stone.
Street art animation in Japanese style :)
There was a temple-road next to the main street which allowed us to do 'temple hopping' :)
In Japan, every corpse is burned before being buried therefore they don't need so much space on the cemeteries.
It was forbidden to step on this ancient temple bridge....
....unfortunately we didn't understand Japanese.
The temples in the Japanese Alps exude more peace and calm than those in the crowded city. Probably this is due to the quietful natural surrounding.
Tasting the Hida Beef on a table grill with a tasty Japanese Beer.
Yeay...
In the Folk Village of Takayama everything looks picturesque.
We tried another local specialty: Eating a freshly caught fish filled with plenty of baby eggs. This is what happens when you don't understand the Japanese signs on the menu card.
Before immersing into our next adventure, we decided to take a break near the Mount Fuji.
We drove around the five lakes and hoped to get a glimpse at the majestic shaped mountain, but due to the bad weather conditions, our hope was in vain.
So we continued our way to Shizuoka (Shimizu) where we stayed for 10 days with the Mizukami family. Here we learned more about the Japanese culture and habits than we ever
could have learned by travelling across the island.
The family
consists of Taiki, his joyful wife Yukko, his outgoing sister Haruka,
his very active mother Akemi and his four lovely kids Yoshi (7 years),
Aina (5 years), Atto (3 years) and Kino (7 month). We helped the family with their daily routines and spend most of the time with Yukko and the kids.
While visiting an indoor swimming pool, we realized that the Japanese people have a quite different tradition in public pools than we have. We had to take of all our jewelleries and attracted attention with our 'short' swimming suits because the majority of the people wore full-body bathing costumes.
The following week, we got the chance to visit Yoshi's school and to assist different classes (language, mathematics, music and gym classes). Later that day, Haruka
introduced us to a journalist colleague of her, Takahide Suzuki, who
decided to emigrate with his wife Shizue to the Netherlands in late September. We spend a lovely
day together where we had some nice discussions about the cultural
differences and similarities. Takahide and Shizue initiated us into the
tea ceremony, told us tales from ancient times and guided us around the
city in their cabriolet during a sunny day near the Mount Fuji.
On Saturday Taiki decided to invite us all to a traditional Japanese restaurant where we ate a local specialty: Japanese Eel. The preparation of the eel couldn't be fresher than in this restaurant.
During the rest of our stay, we played a lot with the kids, baked delicious cakes and tried to help where we could. Thanks again to the family for their hospitality.
After our journey with the family came to an end, we tried to hitchhike our way through Japan. How this adventure ended, you will discover in the next blog post.
Gender segregation is a common topic in the Japanese culture. In traditional public bathes ('Onsen') for example, men and women are strictly separated, in the bus some seats are reserved only for women and in the metro (during rush hour) even whole wagons are forbidden for men.
Sipping tea like giants in a dollhouse (that is being run by some very nice sisters since more than 30 years)
Baking a chocolate cake with the kids. Meanwhile Atto uses his binoculars to observe Estelle.
'Cruising down the freeway in the hot hot sun...' (OMC - How Bizarre)
Having a Japanese business lunch.
Shizue and Estelle while eating a shaped green tea ice.
A 'Saturday afternoon eel lunch' in Shimizu.
Warning: Graphic Video (but the eel died for a good cause)
The next movie star in the leading role....
...of the film 'The giant in the land of the dwarves' :)
Next to the Buddhist shrine are the portraits of the ancestors of Taiki's family. In traditional houses, people have a Buddhist as well as a Shinto (traditional indigenous Japanese religion) altar. On the floor of this room you can see the Tatami mats. People often refer to the dimension of this mats to calculate the surface of a room.
In Japan, pupils have to learn three different writing systems: The phonetic lettering system 'Hiragana' (46 characters), the syllabic writing system 'Katakana' (48 characters) and the (from the Chinese adopted) logographic characters of ''Kanji' (more than 40 000 characters). Most of the time, adults mix the three writing systems and include often the Latin script/alphabet too.
Collective warming up of the three second grade classes with the help of classical music.
In Yoshi's private school, the pupils can choose between learning violin or cello (the 'solfeggio' lessons too are included in the school time).
Eating lunch from our Bento box that Taiki kindly prepared for us.
Kids in Japan learn very fast to be autonomous and to function in a collective system. In school they have no cleaning lady but they have to clean the classroom/floor by themselves. They have no waitress but instead they are responsible for the distribution of the lunch.
Enjoying Japan's green summer in the countryside.
Happy family, part two ;)
Wondering how many Japanese people would like to be as free as this bird....
