The area we were in, Minami-senju was near Asakusa, which is famous for its temples. It was a 20 minute walk from our hotel, but because of the heat we took longer. At the temples, we got our future predicted. They have a special system for that, you insert 100 yen into a box, then take a… can with lots of small, numbered sticks, shake the can until one stick falls out, look at the number and open the drawer with the same number to get a note with your future prediction.

My note said several things, such as “the sick person won’t get better soon,” but also “travelling will be worrisome” so I was about to pee my pants because we would be flying soon… It also said that my “target deer was running very far away, no one knew it could run that far”, but in the end I would get it :D

The following day was our very last one… We weren’t sure about what to do, so we decided to go to Yokohama. In a CD store there, I purchased a very rare demo tape of Jinkaku Radio, which was super-expensive but completed my collection :D

So, the next day we flied home. First back to Russia where the people were very rude and everything was rather confusing, then back to Paris, and the day after, back to the Netherlands.

In the end, I had a great holiday. I definitely want to go back to Japan again, to see some more of the North, but also of Kyoto because I quite liked that town and there’s so much to see. I definitely do not regret spending so much money on this trip and I can’t wait until the next time…

During the last week in Tokyo, we didn’t find any interesting sightseeing things to do plus it was way too hot to really do something. So instead we went to a lot of concerts (in air conditioned venues!) We had already planned some of them before, but we went to other, small events at random.

While we went to a store in Shinjuku in order to buy concert tickets, we came across a huge advertisement on the wall, for host clubs. I was pretty amused by it and I think it’s an interesting concept: men that keep women company for money XD I guess it’s a typically Japanese thing, they even had catalogues and such, and I was very amused XD

Despite the heat, we decided to do a little sight seeing after all, and went to the palace. Seeing as you could only look at it from a distance, it was a little disappointing. The weather was really hot again, so with every step you started to sweat like crazy and all we wanted to do is to sit in an airconditioned room instead of walking around in the heat!

On the following day, we met up with some Dutch friends who happened to be on holiday there in the same period. We went to Comiket, this huge manga/anime convention-thing. I don’t know a single thing about anime or manga so for me it was rather boring. It was super crowded as well.

After five days in Osaka, I went back to Tokyo again. I had to check out at 10, and instead of going to Tokyo right away, I made a stop in Nagoya, and one in Shizuoka for some shopping. The reason why I came back after five days already instead of seven, was because my friend and I had been invited to a concert, seeing as we work for a website about Japanese music.

The following day, the concert was held at Tokyo Big Sight, which was a really big open-air place. Again, it was nice to see the fans, this time there was a girl headbanging on her knees at the floor, and we were afraid she’d split her head open on the concrete… Anyway, the band was Gazette, which never managed to impress me on recording, failed to impress me live as well…

On my last day in Osaka, I went to Kyoto. After wandering around for a while I went to the tourist office or something like that, where I bought a daypass for all busses for 500 yen, and I got a map of the city. Very nice, so off I went, to Kinkakuji, the golden pavilion. The building’s walls are actually covered in gold, while its little brother, Ginkakuji (the silver pavilion) is not really made of silver.

I noticed there was another foreign guy, he was alone as well, so I approached him and started to talk to him. It was a French guy who was travelling around the world. He just came from China and was in Japan until September or so. We decided to walk around together.

We went to the Ryoanji temple then, because the Frenchman wanted to check out the garden, which turned out to be a rock garden. Apparently you may decide what it means yourself… It was rather boring, but it was nice to sit down for a while. Gravel and fifteen stones.

Then we went to Gion, which used to be the Geisha part of the town. We had lunch there, and then we parted. I went to Ginkakuji, but when I arrived there it was almost 5 and it would close at 5 o’clock, so I decided not to go there and to go back to Gion instead to check out the shops.

The following day I went to another mountain, Koya. There was a special ticket offer which included a train, cable car and bus ticket, but unfortunately the ticket office was closed and I had to get all the tickets seperately :( The trip by train took longer than expected, for some reason I had to change trains three times… Also, at some point the train stopped and everybody got out for a smoke break…

Slowly the area became more rural and we were driving through forests. A while later I arrived at the last train station, and took the cable car up the mountain. Mount Koya is the center of Shingon Buddhism, a Buddhist sect which was introduced to Japan in 805 by Kobo Daishi. I went to the Okunoin Temple, which is surrounded by Japan’s largest graveyard. It was pretty huge, but unfortunately also pretty hot. I’m sure that the atmosphere would have been pretty… mystical in a different season but now it was just way too hot. Fortunately, a part of the graveyard and the temple were in the forest, so it was cooler there.

I wasn’t allowed to take a picture of the shrine in which Kobo Daishi, the founder of this sect, was enshrined. But it wasn’t that wonderful anyway XD After I visited Okunoin, I went to wander around the town, which had lots of temples and shrines. All of them were very beautiful, but often I had no idea wether I was allowed to enter them or not.

I went back to Osaka then, and I went to shop in Shinsaibashi. On the way back to my hotel, I took the wrong train… Which was the first time XD At some point the conductor was saying something like “blahblahblah Shin-imamiya, Tennoji”. Tennoji was where I had to get off, and I had no idea if they were saying “For Tennoji, change trains here,” or “This train will stop at Tennoji,” so I ended up in the wrong direction, and got off the train at the next station.

I switched trains then, and just to be 100% sure I did take the right train then, I asked a man who confirmed it was the correct one. Then, when I was standing in the train, he stood next to me and told me everytime “it’s five stations from here,” “four more,” which was very kind but very obvious XD I was happy when the guy got off the train at the next stop, but then another man took over, continuing to count down! He also told me how he travelled to Europe when he was younger XD

I had been intrigued by Miyajima ever since I read about it. The name means “Shrine Island”. It’s a sacred island, and considered as one of Japan’s three most scenic views. Also, I had read on some website that no one is allowed to be born or die on the island, so pregnant women or old people aren’t allowed! Lucky for me, I was neither 8D

The trip to the island took about three hours, I went from Osaka to Hiroshima, and from there I went to Miyajimaguchi to take the ferry to the island. The weather was really hot again, about 35 degrees. The first thing I noticed when I got off the ferry, were all the deer running around the island. At some point, I was eating a sandwich somewhere and the stupid deer were suddenly standing next to me and ate it! They also tried to eat my shirt, that was gross D:

So in the heat I went to the Itsukushima shrine, to take a look at the famous torii. I also took a look at the shrine itself, which was a pretty simple complex made of wood, but it was nice to see. After I had seen the shrines and such, I went back to the mainland. The only thing I hadn’t been to was the top of the mountain, but it was simply too hot to climb anything.

When I got back to Osaka in the evening, I went to Shinsaibashi which is a very long shopping street. It’s very narrow and it has a really cozy feeling.

During the second week of my stay in Japan, I travelled to Osaka with my Japan Rail Pass. The pass gives you the opportunity to travel with the JR lines across Japan as much as you like. I had bought one for all of Japan, for one week. My friend didn’t want to leave Tokyo, while I felt like it would be a pity to only stay in one town in Japan. So, after freaking out for a while thinking that I would have to stay in Tokyo, I simply decided to go by myself. The picture on the right shows where I travelled in this week.

Although travelling by myself wasn’t always fun, afterwards I was definitely glad I didn’t only stay in Tokyo, because Tokyo is a very bad representation of Japan. I’m quite fond of nature, and during this week I found myself on mountaintops, surrounded by forests and beautiful valleys, something I would have never seen when I had stayed in the grey Tokyo.

I travelled to Osaka with the shinkansen (super fast bullet train), which took me about three hours for 550 km. I took the subway to the area near my hotel. While I was still standing outside the subway station and just orientating myself, a guy biked past and literally jumped off his bike to help me to find the hotel. So, with his help I found it, but unfortunately the hotel staff was very unfriendly which was a big change compared to Tokyo.

The hotel was New Chuo, and it was quite cheap as well and my room was much bigger than in Tokyo and my futon was like, three times as thick, so sleeping there was very comfortable. Also, internet was free and there were three computers. All rooms also had a TV with video recorder and downstairs in the lobby there were videos. And of course a heap of porn videos that could be rented… For some reason the people liked to sit around there in their pajama’s as well.

In the afternoon, I went to explore the city, which was unfortunately a bit disappointing to me. I went to the Namba district but that turned out to be full with pachinkos and arcades only.

In the morning we did some laundry at the hotel and had something to eat from the supermarket, and then we went to Shibuya. That afternoon we would go to a concert that featured about seven bands, and because the events in Japan end so early, they start early too. In this case, the event already started at 4 o’clock, so we just wandered around Shibuya in the early afternoon before going to the Shibuya O-East.

My reason to go to this concert was because my favorite band Jinkaku Radio would perform, the only time I could go to their concert while I was in Japan. The other acts were okay to watch too, though during the concert of 12012, their fans started to become really violent and were pretty much jumping onto our backs…

Jinkaku Radio’s show was pretty great, they even played an unreleased song. Because I was pretty much the only foreigner and in one of the first rows, the vocalist even pointed me out during the concert, shouting “I am Japanese!” to me XD As if that wasn’t clear… After the concert, we went over to the merchandise stand where the vocalist was standing, signing autographs and such, so we got the opportunity to get an autograph and talk to him for a moment. It was pretty cool :)

 We decided to make a bit of a ‘relax-day’ out of this because it was damn hot, around 30 degrees celcius and my friend had these huge mosquito bites on her legs, really strange, warm spots.

We went to do some sightseeing, and on our way to Tokyo Tower, we first ran into a temple. I’m not entirely sure which one it was, but on the temple grounds, there were these small statues wearing little knitted hats. It turned out that these statues were for remembering the still-born and aborted children.

We continued to Tokyo Tower then, which is pretty much the same as the Eiffel Tower, but a tiny bit taller. In the building we found a few souvenir shops, which are surprisingly rather rare in Japan. I had a hard time finding postcards to send to my family… The Tokyo Tower wasn’t that great, even though it was hot, the air was grey and there wasn’t so much to be seen. Next time, I think I’ll go there by night, to see Tokyo by dark.

After Tokyo Tower, we went to Ueno, and ended up in Ueno park. The pond there was full with plants and you couldn’t really see the water at all. We lazed around on a bench for a while. In the evening when we made our way back, there were a lot of people dressed up in traditional wear, to see the fireworks.