While we were in Madrid, we made a side-trip to the city of Toledo. We went by train, which is about a 30 minute trip and then went to the city centre  on this touristy bus that had a great guide who spoke Spanish very clear so we could all understand him quite easily.

The city of Toledo is a lovely town with narrow streets with cobblestones. We visited the cathedral, synagogue and wandered around the picturesque town.

When my mom and I first started our Spanish classes in 2007, we jokingly said we would do a field trip with our group after a few years. In 2009, after two years of classes, we actually decided to book a trip to Madrid for about a week in October 2009. It was kind of funny, our group consists of rather different people, me being the youngest with 22 back then, the eldest being in their sixties and the others in between. Regardless of the age difference, we all got along great. We visited all the sights we wanted to see in Madrid, and made a trip to Toledo as well.

Here are the most interesting photos from Madrid.

Texel is one of the five Dutch islands in the North of the Netherlands. On this island, they had organized a sand sculpture event. My sister-in-law and I had seen some images of it and wanted to go there, so when we both happened to have a free day, we went to Texel. It took about two hours in total, by car and ferry.

The sand sculptures were nothing short of amazing, and afterwards we went to walk in the dunes and somewhat understood why people go on holiday on these tiny islands :p

I still had a few days left on my three-week JR pass and I wanted to make good use of it, so I wondered where to go. A friend of mine suggested I would check out some museums of artists I liked during my trip, and I thought it would be nice to visit the museum dedicated to Hokusai.

The museum ended up being in Obuse, a town about 250 kilometers from Tokyo which seemed like a good destination. So, I got onto the shinkansen to Nagano, and then on the local train from there. I had only been to the south/west of Japan before so it was nice to go up north for a change. At some point I dozed off, and when I opened my eyes again when we stopped at a station, we were surrounded by snow!

Hokusai Katsushika is known for his woodblock print series “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji”, amongst them the “Great Wave of Kanagawa”. The museum was very interesting and I particularly enjoyed seeing the very colorful Waterfall series and a few prints from the 36 Mount Fuji views.

After a few more days in Nagoya in which I visited Osaka and Takarazuka, I went back to Tokyo. There isn’t that much tourist-y stuff to do in Tokyo (at least not a lot that I haven’t seen yet and are interested in), so this mostly consisted of concerts, (CD) shopping, parties and other fun stuff. I did go back to the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa, which was somewhat near my hostel.

Senso-ji was the same as two years before, but the first time there hadn’t been so much stands around there. I of course went to the temple again where I got my future predicted by shaking the box of labelled sticks and read the corresponding note from one of the drawers. It predicted my future would be VERY dark, but the sick person would get better… Right.

I had been to Kyoto before, so this time I decided to go and visit Fushimi Inari shrine, which has a long path with torii’s leading up the mountain.

All the torii’s had an inscription on them. I wasn’t quite sure who donated them when I was there, but later I found out that the Inari is seen as the patron of business, and all these torii’s were donated by a Japanese business. I had been wanting to go there for quite some time (I think I saw the torii’s in a movie some time) and I quite enjoyed walking the mountain trials and visiting the small shrines.

Because I was in Kyoto anyway, I also went to a temple which was said to be known for it’s beautiful autumn foliage. Unfortunately it seemed I was too late in the season to see any of it (though it was quite warm on that day, I didn’t need to wear my coat while it was December), though the temples looked great anyway.

On that evening, my Nagoyan friends and I went downtown Nagoya and took a trip up the TV tower to watch the night view of the city.

Once back at my friends’ place in Nagoya, I spent the following days travelling the Kansai region with my train pass while she went to university. On the first day back in Nagoya, I decided to go to Nara. The town is almost 1300 years old and was Japan’s first permanent capital.

My timing was rather bad, plus I accidentally took the slowest shinkansen from Nagoya to Nara, so I arrived later than I was expecting. The weather wasn’t very great either and it rained some. I went to visit Todaji temple. It’s the world’s largest wooden building, and home of Japan’s largest buddha statue. So I walked to the temple, and got in just on time. The huge doors closed behind me when I entered the temple, we were only to exit and entrance wasn’t possible any more. The statues were really huge in real time, and quite impressive.

Nara is famous for its tame deer running around, and I spotted a few as well, they were very cute. I also took a look at the five-story Kofukuji pagoda, which was the largest that I’ve ever seen, I think.

After my stay in Fukuoka I went back to my friend in Nagoya. I left in the morning, and decided to get off the shinkansen in Hiroshima in order to see the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

The atomic bomb dome was very impressive, the structure of the building still standing. Because I’m a foreign person that is apparently easy to approach, this Japanese lady came up to me and started talking to me in English. I usually do not mind this but she was a bit wacky, really. She told me she was studying English because she would be visiting New York for two weeks in a few years, because she liked jazz and dancing so much… Later at the museum there were lots of school children and one of them asked me to answer some questions for his English school assignment, so I wrote down my answers.

Anyway, after the lady found someone else to bother, I went to the museum. It was really interesting, because here in the Netherlands we learn about World War II, but mostly from our own point of view. So basically I had no idea what had transpired in Japan around the same time. In the museum they showed a time line and explained what had happened when. There was a lot of information on the bomb as well, and of course the damage it had done.

It was really impressive, especially the stories from the victims. I couldn’t help to be very paranoid at the sight though, I really didn’t want to touch the stone that had been deformed by the radiation of the bomb and somehow I didn’t dare to eat there either, don’t ask me why… Later on the street car, I couldn’t help and look at the elder ladies and wonder if they had survived the bomb as well.

After visiting the A-bomb dome and the museum I went to downtown Hiroshima for lunch, which I had at a really cute Beatles cafe. In the late afternoon, I got on the Shinkansen again and arrived back in Nagoya some time later.

After spending the night in Kagoshima again, I took the Shinkansen back to Fukuoka, where I was to stay three for days.

I arrived in the afternoon. I had no clue where to go at first but an extremely nice guy helped me to find my way. A little later I arrived at the youth hostel, but it was locked. I called the people but they wouldn’t let me in because of some opening times that were not available on their website or anything so I couldn’t enter. It was really cold and it started to rain so I was really pissed off. I guess that kind of set the mood for my stay in Fukuoka because I somehow didn’t like it much. It even started to snow on the second day, which was really weird seeing as I had been in 20+ degree weather just a day before. The hotel receptionist was a really creepy guy which didn’t really help either.

I did meet up with a friend of mine from Kokura, which was great. Funny thing was that because of his piercings, some people stared more at him than me, the blonde gaijin girl. I also went to a concert again, this time as press for a SHERBETS live. The concert was really fantastic, and the aisatsu afterwards was pretty great as well.You can read my live report over here: SHERBETS Live in Fukuoka.

On the way back, I got a little lost at the Hakata train station, seeing as it’s basically two stations connected by an underground walk way. So, I asked a girl if she could tell me where to go. Instead of just giving me directions, she walked with me from one side of the station to the other one, on really uncomfortable high heeled shoes even though I said it wasn’t necessary. She spoke perfect English, and she told me I was only the second foreigner she had ever spoken to, so that was pretty amazing!

After three days on Yakushima, it was time to go back to the main land. The very nice hotel owner, Ken, dropped me off in Mugio, so I could see the Toroki no taki waterfall before going to the harbour in Anbo by bus.

Everything went fine so far. I took the bus from Mugio to Anbo, where I put my suitcase at the tourist information center and then went to the post office to get some money at the ATM. However, when I reached the post office, I noticed that my wallet wasn’t in my purse… So I went back to the tourist information office to see if I had perhaps put it in my suitcase, which wasn’t the case. So I panicked, because I was leaving the island in a few hours and my wallet was gone. I did my best to explain it to the lady at the tourist information center who spoke no English at all, and there was a man there who was very kind and got me hot cocoa. So,  the lady of the tourist information center called the police office for me to inform them my wallet was gone, and then the bus company because I was pretty sure I left it on the bus because that’s where I last used my wallet.

Not too long after, the lady received a phone call from the bus company to say that the bus I had been on arrived in Miyanoura in the North of the island, and that they had found my wallet! The only problem was, how was I going to get there? The man who had given me hot cocoa before told me he would drive me, which was so generous and kind that I didn’t even worry about driving across the island with a stranger. The man was an ‘eco guide’ which meant he took tourists on trips across the island. So while we were driving, he was telling me things “over there are those ruins, the island over there in the distance is Tanegashima,” and such things. His English was extremely broken but we managed to have some conversation.

Once we arrived at the bus company in Miyanoura, they gave me back my wallet. I was very grateful and relieved, so I thanked them all several times. All my money, cards, anything was still in there, although I wasn’t too worried about my cash as long as I had my credit card. So, after that the man drove me back to the harbour where I still had 15 minutes left before I could get on the ferry. I was really exhausted at that, and amazed and so thankful for the kindness of the islanders. I guess you can say that Yakushima and its inhabitants hold a special place in my heart!