Getting to know Bali: the south

Have you ever wondered what does it feel like to wake up in the middle of the jungle?

Well, let me tell you: it’s noisy!

Around 5am birds started chirping all around our villa, and when I say chirping I mean they started blasting the equivalent of birds metal songs!

Then a rooster took the lead screaming repeatedly it’s good morning.

If that wasn’t enough, our private pool went on causing a small but noisy waterfall to come out from a bamboo fountain.

Despite the experience was anything but quite, the result was beautiful.

Once awake I proceeded to prepare a hot tub for Sara, who was still sleeping.

Petals bath

Hot tub with flower petals

Waiting for her to wake up, I explored the property. There are 3 private villas, each one with private swimming pool, but all shares a big pool with a waterfall.

The shared pool

Right after Sara’s bath a waiter brought our breakfast. (He had to come 3 times to bring everything we ordered!)

We had to order last night, and we didn’t realise how much we ordered.

Benedict egg and bacon

Scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausages

Omelette with ham

Fruit porridge

Pancake with banana and Nutella

The food was amazing!

Everything, from the omelette, to the pancakes, to the benedict egg, to the fruit porridge tasted great.

We barely managed to finish everything, and we decided to reduce the amount of food for tomorrow breakfast.

Here’s a small video of our villa

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We felt totally recovered from our flight, so we headed out!
Yesterday it was quite scary for us to not be able to withdraw any money at the airport, so we went for an ATM hunt around the hood. Finally we were able to get some cash and buy a sim card! We feel less lost now 😉 (Apparently for some reason debit cards and some credit cards don’t work at the airport, come prepared).

Reassured from finally being millionaire (we withdraw 2millions rupiahs, which is around 140€) we decided to get a taste of the famous Jimbaran beach.

On the way there we witnessed the wilderness of the people driving here: helmets are purely decorative, there is no limit on the number of people a mere scooter can host, driving holding ladders, doors, windows, or with a long rope hanging from the rear of your scooter is totally fine.
We also noticed that every single building has in front of the porch offering of food and flowers. It’s actually pretty difficult not to step on those little poaches of food,while wild dog appreciate them.

Once we got to the beach we got two deckchair, towels and bottles of water.
In itself the beach is nothing special.

Jimbaran Beach

A long strip of sand, free from umbrellas or crowds. Battered by small waves, this is great place to have fun with a bodyboard. Just be careful as the sea bed is full of rocks and pieces of coral.

After swimming and chasing waves, Sara got a refreshing coconut at the little kiosk just behind our chairs.

Happyness in Coconut shape!

Also on the beach there was a small offer basket!

Offering baskets

In the early afternoon, we went back to our villa, where we enjoyed a swim in the shared swimming pool.

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After a short shower we got ready to visit the Pura Luhur Uluwatu. This is a Balinese Hindu water temple located on the top of a cliff in the south west of the island.

To get there we got helped by Eka, a guy working in our resort, whose brother’s a taxi driver (or something similar). For just 450k (around 26 euros) he brought us to Labuan Sait beach an then to the water temple.

The Labuan beach is very nice… Especially if you are a surfer! The beach in itself is nothing special, but its waves are quite famous in the area among surfers.

The way to get there was pretty tough. We had to walk down around 500 steps passing through a Crack in the rock.

Narrow passage through the rocks

Panorama of the beach

The rock carved by the constant waves

After this short break we went to the temple.

It was nice to see kites very high in the sky, they are said to scare the devil and they are also closer to God.

I don’t know what we expected, but for sure we found some new friends! (Monkeys)

Monkeys!

To enter the temple we were forced to wear a sarong, a kind of pareos.

Crossed the entrance we went directly to buy the ticket for the fire dance, as our driver told us they would finish very soon.

That done we went exploring. The temple is actually a complex of buildings built on top of a cliff. The shape of the cliff allows the visitors to enjoy a beautiful view on most of the temple itself and the ocean below.

At 6pm we went to the amphitheatre to see the Kecak, the Fire Dance.

The place was overcrowded at the point that the performers had trouble moving on the stage.

The arena reasonably full

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Nonetheless the show was amazing. The dance is accompanied by a choir of around 20 men. Actors dance at the rithm of this repetitive cacophony.

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Almost at the end of the performance people started to leave, creating a queue around and in front of us, not being able to see anything anymore we were forced to leave as well. That was annoying but leaving before we avoided most of the traffic on the road going back to Jimbaran.

In just 40 minutes we were back to the villa, and I took the chance to have another swim in the shared pool.

A short shower and we were ready to reach the restaurant we booked for dinner.

I’ll let the photos talk.

Welcome snack

The restaurant patio as seen from our table out in the garden

Chicken appetizer

Duck and mushrooms appetizer

Shrimp appetizer

Smoked duck

Lobster, prawn, and shrimps

Everything was good. From the appetizer to the main course. Smoked duck, chicken, lobster, prawn, shrimps, mushrooms… All tasty. I tried a glass of local white wine and it was good too, despite a little too sweet.

The atmosphere was romantic and quiet and after paying the bill, less than we expected, we went for a walk on the near beach to digest the awesome dinner.

Full moon in the clear sky and the soft crush of the waves on the shore, we walked our way home for a well deserved sleep.

A day in the clouds

The alarm went off at 4am this morning, everything was already packed so we simply refreshed ourselves and after the speediest checkout we were already in the taxi!

The heat wasn’t that bad, just 35°C around 5am. We spent an hour or so strolling and relaxing in the airport before heading to the gate. As our last stop here, we found the airport to be fascinating and it can be also very cheap if you know where to look 😉

Now it’s time for our 9hr flight, and sitting in the Emirates air fortress, we felt quite pampered.

We where given two sleeping kits, as for all the long haul flights, with ear plugs, sleeping mask, socks, etc.

This time Sara wanted to try a different menu, so instead of light diet meal she went for a hinduist strict vegetarian menu. Here’s what we got for breakfast and lunch.

On the other hand, Antonio went with the meat menu. You can’t go wrong with what you already know.

Pic colazione sarà

Between meals we spent time watching movies, TV shows, playing games, and sleeping.

Gomorra on air

There’s plenty of things to do at 10 thousand meters above sea level. Especially bothering other passenger, asking them to make way to go to the toilet 6 times. Well, it’s a way like another to make the time pass by.

At 20:30 we touched Bali.

The custom were very fast and soon we got our luggage, ready to step out and enjoy Indonesia. Little we knew that troubles were coming.

In Bali the use of credit/debit cards is very limited, so is suggested to withdraw money as soon as you land from the ATM in the airport.

Unfortunately our debit cards (V-Pay, from IngDirect), just don’t work. And here I would like to make a point: it’s been our entire fault for this problem. You must never travel outside Europe without checking beforehand if the country will accept your credit or debit card!

We spent an hour fighting a legion of illegal taxi drivers, trying to get us on their taxi, while wondering how to get to our hotel without any cash.

In the end we managed to call the hotel, thanks to the helpful personnel of the airport, and arranged for them to pay our taxi once we got there.

Mind that you should never use the taxi of the wannabe taxi drivers screaming in front of the airport. Go for the official ones with the logo on top of the car. Don’t get fooled!

After 15 minutes stuck in a traffic that reminded me of Naples with a bit of Bagdad mixed in Italia, we reached the hotel. Or should I say the Villa?

Well, I’ll let you all judge by the pictures that I’ll post tomorrow.

Living Dubai

So the day started off quite slowly, we overslept and had really salty and fat breakfast at the hotel.

Antonio took the courage to step out of the hotel to withdraw some money, as we were informed that not all the taxi driver accept credit cards: even though the temperature was higher, the humidity wasn’t quite as much as yesterday night.

After a short ride taxi in a city without traffic we reached the Dubai Mall, and, after 5 minute walking inside we got to the entrance of Burj khalifa.

We went up to the top of the highest building in the world at the speed of 7mt per second!That’s 124 floors in barely 60 seconds…

The view from up there is absolutely astonishing. It’s unbelievable to think that this humidity collecting monster was built in just 5 years.

All around us the desert surrounding some of the most impressive buildings we’ve ever seen, and the Persian gulf.

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We then descented for over 120 floors and used our Burj tickets to visit the aquarium inside the mall. Yes you got it right. Inside the shopping mall there is an entire aquarium that spans 3 floors.

Sharks, mantas and sting rays welcomed us posing for some nice pictures.

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Also other creatures were kind enough to allow us to snap some other pics and videos!

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Overall it was a nice experience and the Burji Khalifa is definitely a must if you visit Dubai! Since my foot was crying for some rest we decided to stop for lunch in the mall’s endless food court. We enjoyed some delicious Lebanese food at Karam.

Filled and amazed by the food, we decided (Sara decided) to enjoy some of the mall shops and buy something more loose and fresh. Then we headed out (takes a good amount of courage) to look at the fountain and the pool surrounding the mall.

There a soft breeze allowed us to stay more than 5 minutes before finally taking cover under some artic AC. As we walked towards the metro at the second floor of the mall, we started to notice more and more people staring at Sara’s legs. Here’s her inappropriate outfit:

After 15 minutes of walking up and down we reached the metro and went straight to Al Fahidi district taking the red and the green lines. The textile souk awaited Us!

We were welcomed by a horde of merchants trying to put kefiahs over our head while yelling at us “Shakira” and “Jack Sparrow” (???). Maybe it was simply because there is a lack of tourists in this season, but they were way too much pushy! You could clearly notice they were triggered when our distance from them reached <10m, they all took their red and white scarves prepared to put it over our heads.

Regardless of Antonio speed I managed to stop his run to enter a silent shop, whose owner was really kind. We managed to get a good price for two gifts, halving his first request 🙂

We were really close to the creek so, following Lonely planet tips we chose to take a local wooden boat (Abra) to tour the creek and then be dropped off at the gold district. Abras are used by locals to hop from one side to the other of the creek, and are usually fully loaded. But if at the port they notice a group of tourists they will offer the private tour option. The boat tour costs 120 AED (roughly 30€), regardless of the number of people renting it. We took the boat for ourself. After all it’s our honeymoon!

The tour was very nice, allowing us to see the old price of Persia style buildings from the water side. A gentle breeze framed it all to be a very nice experience overall.

The Abra driver dropped us off at the gold district where even more scarves were ready to be thrown on our heads. Since it was around 3pm, the heat was close to unbearable! We promptly took cover under some of the market shades while searching for an atm and a taxi (credit cards are not very used here). On the way to the hotel we were surprised by the fact that even bus stops have AC!

Finally some real rest! It’s pool time! We quickly washed our sweaty belongings and went to the rooftop of our hotel.

We swam a little before the staff brought us some nice typical food and drinks, together with a thank you letter.
Thumbs up J5 Hotel apartments!

Our flight tomorrow is pretty early, so we will try to catch some sleep now. See you in Indonesia!

First steps into the Middle East

Here we are again! (hence the name we chose for this blog).

This time we decided to unwind a bit and take a break to relax after our big day. The wedding day itself was dreamlike, but it took us some good organization and patience to prepare everything to the smallest detail!

But it’s entirely thanks to the kind presents from our friends and guests that we were able to take this trip 🙂

Unlike our Japan trip, this will be a very improvised one. Since I broke my ankle and had surgery exactly two months ago, we were not sure we would be able to take the flight and enjoy the trip without using crutches! Luckily, thanks to daily rehab session I’m almost able to walk normally so we decided to jump into this adventure.

Our super idea was to book our flights in order to have a day stopover in Dubai and then spend 13 days between Bali and Lombok.

Little did we know about what Dubai was saving for us in July… So we packed some essentials in a small luggage and with two very small backpacks we were all set to go!

The flight from Bologna to Dubai was rather smooth with the entertainment system surprising us with some pearls like 2048 (best way to make 6 hours literally fly).

As always Sara wanted to play hard and ordered a light and very sad meal, while Antonio had a real one. Emirates still proves to be the best so far for us!

After 6 exciting hours of feeling inside a washing machine on steroids, we finally got to see the shimmering lights of Dubai. It’s a real shock when you realize in how short time all of this was built.
To think that almost 20 years ago here was nothing but desert and few buildings out everything into perspective.

After landing we proceeded for our first time to the exit rather than a connection flight, and after some of the quickest visa control ever, and being offered some free ice cream from the Emirates staff, we found our shiny luggage waiting for us.

“Nothing can stop us now! Let’s head out and seize the night!” said the energic Antonio before smiling to the last airport crew member.

Then in happened. Imagine falling face first into hot tub. This is what we felt when we stepped out of the airport.

We were warned about what was waiting for us but never could have we imagined the humidity to be that bad!

We were escorted to a taxi, while we noticed that nobody really had our same difficulties to breathe in the 34°C. The taxi took around 15 minutes and brought us to the J5 apartments. The hotel is very well located and the staff is professional and friendly.

Since it was around midnight we decided to go for a walk to grab some water for the night… Once out we decided to explore the hotel surroundings, aiming at the creek. We didn’t get that far and walked back to o the hotel. This was the result of 30 minutes of walking at 1am in Dubai.

This was a total shock! But tomorrow we are planning to go to the world tallest building and to visit Dubai aquarium in the mall. I don’t think I’m prepared for the 46°C awaiting for us…

I’m Kobe and Himeji, rags to riches

A few days… months… (ok let’s be honest we have no idea when this article will be posted) have passed since our last blog post: the last hike in Hiroshima and the early start of that same day left us without energies to write anything.

We may be a little late, but we are back on track!

After leaving Hiroshima, we arrived in Kobe around 8pm, so we left our luggage in the tiiiiiny hotel room we’re lucky enough to find, and went for a quick walk on the city.

Luxurious hotel room

Kobe is an industrial city, so there is not much to see here, but we wanted to walk a little and grab some dinner. After a quick research, Kobe’s China town looked as a good option to spend the night.

Red pavillion in China Town

Since it’s one of the most attractive parts of Kobe according to various websites, we expected it to be nice. Instead we found a lot of shops selling the exact same things. We took a random pair of cute buns, one sesame and one with meat.

Cute buns

We weren’t really satisfied but after all the hiking we needed some rest and went back to the hotel.
No alarms this time, we woke up smoothly 🙂 After the experience of the previous day, we didn’t want to go back to the city, so we took the first train to Animal Kingdom. Ok, this may seem like a waste of time. Why should we visit a zoo while in Japan? Well, first of all the reviews on TripAdvisors seemed so nice; as second point, little fluffy animals all around!
We had to go.

Animal Kingdom is located on Port Island, just in front of Kobe. It is mainly situated in and around a greenhouse and hosts mostly bird and small animals.
It is also house of the Shoebill Stork, the meanest looking bird on Earth.

Shoebill Stork

All the animals living here are so accustomed to humans that they let you get closer and touch them, taking food from your hands.
Some of them are indeed acting a little weird…

Whatcha loooking at mate?

No point in writing about the place anymore. Let the pictures speak for themselves.

After this stinky experience, we headed back to Kobe center to have lunch and fly away to our next stop. We are in Kobe, what shall we eat in your opinion? Meat of course!

We were afraid of using TripAdvisor also for this occasion, since we learned that most of the reviews are made by americans who have definitely a different taste from ours. During the short metro trip from the Zoo to the center we dived into a sea of traveller blogs to find some recommendation to find the authentic Kobe meat. We discovered that the real restaurants usually have a specific certificate on display:

There are many myths and rumours surrounding this kind of cattle: farmers are said to sing, massage and even serve the cows Japanese ice cold beer. While most of those rumours seem not to be true nowadays, there are still some farmers that use these techniques in order to relieve stress, which may toughen the meat. To obtain the certification however, there is no need to massage the animals!

As you already know this kind of beef is extremely expensive and, even though we knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, we were not willing to pay with our kidneys. We found what seemed to be a good compromise, Steak house Kobe. Described as a tourist conveyor belt where the waiters treat you as a bag of money, it serves the authentic meat in a fashionable way.

Kobe beef cuts

Kobe beef cuts

We waited for a very long 5 minutes interval (hunger cramps kicking in) and the waiter called our name and brought us to our table. Each table is basically a grill with seats all around, where the guests are served at the same time; a professional-personal chef is ready to explain the cooking process and cook in front of you!

Table, cook, and grill.

Table, cook, and grill.

The meal consist of a veggies side dish, various sauces, fried garlic and the mouth watering kobe beef.
This meat is amazing. The best cut is fat, but melt in your mouth as soon as you put it in.
Pointless to try describe it. You should taste it yourself to understand.

Kobe beef closeup

Despite not being a huge portion, the meal was more than enough to calm our appetite and leave us satisfied.

After this culinary experience we went back to the station to catch the train to our next destination, Himeji. This was the last Shinkansen we took during the trip.

The plan for Himeji was quite simple: as we didn’t have much time to spend around, we focused on the main attraction, which is the world famous castle, designated both as a national treasure and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A view of Himeji’s Castle from far far away…

What is truly amazing about this castle, as well as its breath taking facade, is the fact that it is Japan’s best preserved feudal castle. One of the few castle that didn’t get destroyed by fires!

To better enjoy the visit we decided to take advantage of a free tour guide. This service is offered by Japanese who loves to meet international people and gives the chance to have a truly immersive experience visiting monuments and historical places.

We meet our guide right in front of the entrance of the castle. @@@@@@ looked extremely friendly and willing to share his passion for Japanese history and architecture.

Viewed from the outside, the castle keep appears to be five stories tall but the castle is actually six stories high (and has a basement), with the top floor housing a tiny Shintō shrine.
While showing us all the peculiarity of the park around the castle he explained its history, how it was built, why, who were the multiple owners. Even the military defensive architectural advantages, never used as the castle never got attacked, were part of the exhaustive explanation we got from our guide. The sharp curves after the first gates, the narrowing walls, hidden holes in the walls and ceilings (used to throw rocks and arrows), and steps with different dimensions, were all tricks made to slow down possible attackers while giving time to the defenders to hit back, and hit hard!
Walking us inside the castle @@@@ took a path which allowed us to admire better angles of this marvelous construction.

Starting from the roof, which tiles are painted with #######, he indicated us the statues positioned on top. The shachihoko decorations, which adorn the highest points of the castle towers, are on display. Shachi are imaginary beasts with the heads of lions and the bodies of fish.

Once inside is hard to believe to your own eyes. The entire building is made by wood. No iron pieces, no nails, only perfect woodworking joint. To make the idea better, in 2009 a huge 5 years restoration work started. The entire castle was dismantled and then reassembled. During this procedure every damaged or decaying piece was replaced to maintain the original design.
Carved in the logs parts of the great puzzle, are well visible patches of colors different from the original wood. These shapes are places where the workers removed ugly knots in the wood, replacing them with more aesthetic fruit or fish shapes.

Once out the castle we went right to the Kokoen Gardens
Treno per himeji
Himeji castle e guida
Kokoen gardens
Back to the station, weird groups performing.
Back to Osaka, airbnb and quick walk in namba

Hiroshima

On the previous post we left the calm of Koyasan for Hiroshima.

We arrived at the train station that the sky was still bright, so, once left our belongings in the hotel, we went for city tour.

Random statue found in the city

As we had planned to visit the Peace Memorial Museum the day after, we decided to go and check the Hiroshima Castle.

Hiroshima castle

It was rebuilt in 1958, as a replica of the original. Now serves as a museum of Hiroshima’s history before World War II.
The park surrounding the castle contains also another historical landmark: the Hiroshima Imperial General Headquarter.

Remains of the Imperial General Headquarters

This site was left as it was found after the bomb. Literally nothing left…

Sara trying to help to preserve the garden

Despite having these rests, the park is really beautiful and well kept. In this park there is also a tree which survived the bombing, despite being less than 800 meters from the hypocenter.

Walking away from the park, we started looking for a place where to have dinner. We wanted to go to Hassei, one of the best reviewed Okonomiyaki restaurant in town. Unfortunately it was closed for a private dinner.

We fell back on Micchan, an Okonomiyaki chain which was just a couple of hundred meters from Hassei.

The cooking procedure is the same we saw the last time in Kyoto, but here the grill was much longer, and the place was big and ventilated enough to avoid our shirts to smell like cooked stuff.

Multi ingredients Okonomiyaki

Food here was much better than the one we had in Kyoto. Hiroshima truly is the capital of the Okonomiyaki!

 The upcoming day we planned to wake up early in the morning, so we aimed directly to the hotel to get some rest.

Good morning world! Today the sun shines and we are going to rock the day! That’s what you usually say after a great sleep. Our hotel has the hardest beds we’ve ever sat on, and I’m pretty sure that many people which are used to “fall” over the bed have broken their bones. I swear, the futon is waaaaaay softer! 

Anyways, after reading online that the Miyajima trip can result in a feel-like-a-sardine experience when going after 10am, we planned to go there either with the first ferry leaving the pier or the second. The second sounded better. Our 4+ alarms started their drill at 5:30 am, and after a few snoozes we were finally rising from the rock hard bed. We crawled to the station as the city was silently waking up, and after locking our backpacks in one of the key lockers we reached the pier with a short trip of metro. 

In Japan there are two things you never have trouble finding: restrooms and coin lockers. Either their bladder is really small or the gallons of green tea they drink has a very diuretic effect!  As for the coin lockers you can find them at any train station, regardless of its size. The lockers usually come in 4 sizes (S~XL/400¥~700¥ per day) and they have a fixed rate around the country. Both our big backpacks fit well in a medium size locker. 

Back to the trip. Our ferry was almost empty, and we were the only non Asians on the boat. Ha-ha! 
The trip lasted just 10 minutes, and we arrived around 7:30 am on the island. 

We are on Miyajima

We walked down from the pier towards the main shrine, and had a few deer encounters on the way. These little guys wander in the streets not giving a duck about cars or people. They are actually cuter than the ones we found in Nara. 
When we went into the main shrine, it was actually us and the monks. The shrine is named Itsukushima, which is actually also the name of the island. The latter is usually called Miyajima since in Japanese it means shrine island. 

When we arrived there was low tide, and the whole shrine was actually resting on wet sand/mud. It was a nice view, but we decided to reuse our tickets later to see also the high tide version where the shrine seems to float on water. 
While sitting on the shrine’s “pier” we spotted an horde of tourist arriving, and promptly stood up to go enjoy another temple nearby. Daisho-in.

The entrance of this temple is full of statues covered with hand knitted hats of scarfs.

We wondered in the temple alone. No other tourist were there, and we could really appreciate the quiteness of the place.

There was a cavern in the temple with a lot of lanterns hooked on the ceiling. In the darkness of the cave, it seemed unreal.

Walking away from the temple we bumped into another collection of statues dressed for winter…

We didn’t plan on going up the mountain Misen, but we had the best experiences walking in the nature, and the sign said 90 minutes for the trail, so we went.

We wondered if that timing was in monk-minutes or lazy-tourist-minutes. Anyways, after just 10 minutes walk we encountered a wild deer who didn’t like the tourists which populate the pier. 

Luckily, the timing for the hiking trail was estimated for lazy tourists, and the whole path took us around 70 minutes. 

On top of Mt Misen there is a lover sanctuary, and also a flame that is said to be 1200 years old… 

Climbing for 5 more, we reached an observation deck. The view was mesmerising, but we heard a scream faaar far away. We were hungry (what a surprise). Let’s go catch us some food! We descended down another trail, where we encountered many people struggling to get up. It was surprisingly pleasant to be greeted by anyone we met by a simple “konnichiwa” or “ohayo”. 
We checked some places to eat but they all looked too touristy. Miyajima is particularly famous for a leaf shaped sweet and oysters. Neither of us like the latter, so we went for the sweets. It was obviously filled with red beans, but it tastes so good! 

I’ve also read some good reviews about an okomiyaki place, so we went there. Yesterday we thought to be eating the best okomiyaki ever, but this one was off the scale. The place is called Okomiyaki Kishibe, it’s a very small room with an old cute lady cooking and another on helping. We were the only non locals among the 10 clients. We tried to write down all the steps to recreate the recipe at home, but some of the ingredients were mysterious to us. Anyway the hiroshima style okomiyaki consists on different layers of noodles, cabbage, egg, batter and pork. 
This awesome experience costed us just around 10 euros each, including two beers (which account for most of the receipts here in Japan). When we stood up we felt all the weight of the previous hike, and all our muscles were suddenly crying aloud.

Before leaving we went back to the water shrine to see how it looked with water under its feet…

Definitely something else!
We rolled down to the pier and took the first ferry to Hiroshima. 

The JrPass I’m Hiroshima allows us to make use of a bus service with a funny name and a chubby deer mascotte: Meripuru~pu.

Using this bus we reached the Atomic bomb dome, one of the buildings that didn’t vanish with the atomic bomb explosion.

It looked like a skeleton, and even being very close to the hypocenter, most of it’s walls are still there. 
We then went through the Children’s Peace Museum, and the flame of pace together with the cenotaph for the victims. 

Then it was the time for Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum… The museum is informative, and the first part is “lightweight”. As you move forward the museum gets more and more real, and Sara had goose bumps for the whole duration of the visit. 
After this kind of experience it’s inevitable to ask to ourselves how and why weapons like that keep being tested.

For respect we didn’t​ snap any pictures inside the museum.

We left the museum and went to catch our bus, as we were running late for the Shinkansen to Kobe. On the train we realised we didn’t have accommodation. We we booked the hotel in Kobe we selected the wrong date. So we had to find another while going there.

With some luck we did find a room in the APA hotel, just few minutes walk from the train station.
But this is another day story…
Thanks for staying with us, and see you tomorrow for another post.

Koyasan by day

The futon was confortable and the room was warm. Sleep should have been easy.

Sara slept like a rock, while thanks to my allergy I spent the night sneezing and abusing of Rinazina.

As a result, when the time to wake up came, Sara jumped off the bed, ready to attend the morning prayer. I decided to stay in bed to get some more rest.

Later Sara told me that…

… the pray was interesting. We poured incense over a bracier. While the monk recited mantra ringing a bell once in a while. The fire ceremony was cool too, as the temperature in the temple (around 6 degree).

As soon as Sara came back to our room a monk brought breakfast.

Vegetarian breakfast tofu based

Most of it was tofu. If you’re not fond of it it looks dubious, at the touch feels like a sponge, and tastes like plastic.

The rest was vegetarian. Luckily I had a couple of Honey Dorayaki to save me from starving.

We packed our stuff and left the everything at the monks until we were done exploring Koyasan.

We went back to the cemetery. It looked nothing like the night before. In bright sunlight all the shadows hiding object from our view, left space to a lush forest.

Cedars trees in the Koyasan cemetery

Enormous cedars trees, some of which older than 500 years, flank the path tanking the peregrine to Kobo Daishi mausoleum.

Under the trees and among the tombstones there are thousand of little statues, many of them wear handknitted hat. One of them was even abused with makeup…

Lipstick and foundation…

Going forward we entered the sacred part of the cemetery, where taking pictures is forbidden. The air you smell here is different from the previous area. You can feel the religiosity of the place with the monks attending at the ritual in the temple and a group of peregrine chanting some kind of mantra.

Here is where Kobo Daishi body is resting in meditation since 835. His followers believe he did not die. Instead he will wake up when the next Buddha will come. 

After stamping Sara’s collection book we walked back to the city to visit the other main temples and attractions.

Entrance gate to Kongobuji

Next stop Kongobuji, the headquarters of Kobo Daishi before he went to sleep.

Internal Rock Garden

We walked through many rooms, learning about Kobo trip to China as an ambassador, and his comeback to Japan as a Teaching monk.

A room with all the shoji (sliding doors) painted in golden colours

We were even offered a tea in one of the biggest room of the house.

The room where we enjoyed our free tea

Traversal section of a tree cut when was around 700years old

Most notable thing in the house is the rock garden. This place is a buddhist garden representing two dragons (the big black rocks) coming out from a sea of small white rocks.

Daigaran pagoda

Next to the headquarters is situated the Daigaran complex. As everything in Japan, the original buildings in this complex were burner down or hit by lightning, more than once. 

Konpon Daito

The Pagoda especially was destroyed several times because struck by a lighting. I can understand why, given the 4 meters copper flagpole they put on each rooftop.

Main gate of Diagaran

The access to the other buildings was  subordinate to a offer of some hundreds ¥. Problem is, nobody was there to check. But everybody was giving exactly what was written on the paper… Amazing how people here are so respectfully.
Following are the description plates of a temple, a Pagoda and a gate. Here you can see how all those building have burned during the centuries. Like this tree most of the Japanese heritage ended up in the same way… 

Last thing on the list was the Daimon gate. This huge wooden structure got fire only a couple of time and was rebuild recently at two thirds of the original dimensions.. Still, it’s massive. 

Daimon gate

Walking back to our temple to take back our laggages, we stopped a couple of times to buy some suovenirs. Thanks to this we lost the bus I planned to take to the cable car.

Fortunately there was a second bus just 15 minutes later.

On the bus we met another Italian couple who, like us, decided to spend a couple of week traveling all around Japan.

View from the train

We talked and shared our experiences during all the cable car and the train back to Osaka. There we exchanged numbers and parted. 
It was nice to meet you Laura and Roberto!

In Osaka we took the Shinkansen to Hiroshima, the next stop of our trip.
This is enough to for today.

See you tomorrow with the updates regarding Hiroshima!

Spiritual experience in Koyasan

Kyoto is a wonderful city. Our 4 nights there were amazing, but today we are going to take a break from the hustle of big cities.

We are going to Koyasan this afternoon! 

Since our train is at twelve, we went exploring just a bit more of Kyoto before leaving.

After checking out from the Airbnb in Gion, we walked once again to the Nishiki Market. It was as cool as yesterday, just less crowded.

From there we walked north for 30 minutes, to reach the Imperial Palace.

The park around the Palace

Kyoto has been the capital of Japan for more than a thousand year, from 794 to 1868, and it’s palace is massive. We took a guide who walked us around the buildings showing us gates and gardens.

The palace external walls

The imperial palace structure is truly massive! Well, at least this  reconstruction. Because, guess what, also this building was burned down by a fire. Not only the palace, but two third of Kyoto were destroyed in the fire!

One of the internal gates

Our guide told us (but I couldn’t find the information anywhere on internet so I won’t consider the statement 100% reliable) that the fire was started by a servant who was cleaning one of the gate, and decided to kill a caterpillar using fire.
The gate were (and still are) made of cypress wood, which is great for building as it keeps away termites and ants, but is soft wood, which means it catches fire easily.
So basically our friend servant, shot a caterpillar with a bazooka in a armoury. Pretty sure if she survived the fire, she got  killed by a mob right after.

Back to the palace.

As it was rebuild in the seventeenth century, they made it earthquake proof.

One of the pond in the palace

All the building’s pillars rests on “unattached” stones, so the building structure is elastic enough to survive the shake without breaking.
We also learned that in Japan South is considered good luck. For this reason the emperor room faced south.

On the other hand, for some reason, north east is considered an unlucky direction. For this reason castles had the corner facing the direction cut and a tower with a monkey positioned on it. A monkey is a like a lucky guardian.

The emperor personal garden

Another thing we learned is about the family crest. Each Japanese family has a crest, which can be a flower, an animal or an insect. This symbol is passed by the father to his sons, while the woman will adopt her husband’s​.
After these interesting lessons, we had to leave and run to Kyoto central station or we would have lost the train.
Once again we had to take the Shinkansen (Nozomi N700). It took only 18 minutes to take us from Kyoto to Osaka.

Once there we bought our lunch to consume on the second train that would take us to our final destination.

Bento lunch boxes

Colorful and tasty

In Osaka we also bought the Koyasan World Heritage Pass, a ticket that allowed us to travel to Koyasan, use the cable car, take any bus we wanted, and go back the day after.

Leaving Osaka for Koyasan by train is like leaving behind the modern world and jump into the past.

View from the train

From the train windows you see the city making space to the countryside. Then without noticing the train is climbing its way among the mountains, on claustrophobic narrow iron bridges with rocks below. It is beautiful.

Then comes the cable car!

The cable car

1020 meters to climb in 5 minutes, going 10 km/h on a 30° slope. Basically a damn slow take off.

Almost vertical….

Once we got up there we reached our host by bus.
Did I mention that we stayed in a Temple for the night?

This kind of lodging is referred to as shukubo, and in Koyasan 52 out of 117 Buddhist temples offer the possibility to stay overnight, pray with them in the morning (6 am) and have traditional Buddhist vegetarian dinner and breakfast (this type of cuisine is named Shojin Ryori). 
Thats right. In Koyasan many temples offer the opportunity to spend one night as their guest, experiencing:

  • Tea under the Kotatsu
  • Onsen
  • Ritual dinner
  • Ritual morning prayer
  • Ritual breakfast

Our room with the kotatsu

The room was great. Two sets of paper sliding doors, creating the illusion of privacy, welcomed us in a spacious squared room. The floor was obviously tatami, and another sliding door made way to a closed balcony with a great view on the internal garden.

The view from our room

As we enter our room, a monk brought a streaming teapot, and explained the temple rules.

The onsen was available to use only between 4pm to 9pm, dinner would be served at 5:45, and the curfew set at 9pm.

We decided to enjoy the onsen before having dinner.

The water wasn’t as hot as the one we experienced in Takayama, but we enjoyed the bath nonetheless.

Before going back to our room we decided to wander around the temple and take some pictures in the gardens.

A walk in the garden

Selfie in the garden

Staring st the Koy fishes

We went back to our room just in time for the monk to come back with our dinner.

Vegetarian dinner for two

It was a lot of stuff! Rice, tofu, miso soup, fresh veggies, tempura veggies, soy noodles & carrots, sweets and fruit.

When we were done we called the monk who promptly took away the remains of our dinner and prepared the futon beds.

Not tired enough, we decided to go out and explore the close cemetery, Okunoin (奥の院), the largest in Japan, with over 200,000 tombstones lining the almost two kilometer long approach to Kobo Daishi’s mausoleum.

Walking in the cemetery at dusk

We entered the cemetery that was still day, but when we went back it was pitch dark, so dark we took the wrong way and lost the last bus to the city (7:30pm). We had to walk back to our temple, and the easiest way was a long walk through the cemetery to the city. Luckily all the lanterns were lit. 

The feeling of walking among all those tombstones, and statues, and lanterns is hard to describe.

You walk in religious silence, trying to catch any sound coming from the surrounding forest, while  keeping your eyes peeled to see what hides behind the darkness. 

Walking in the cemetery at night…

On the way we met other people walking, and even some organised groups, guided by monks.

We arrived at the temple tired and cold and literally jumped under the Kotatsu!

Just th le time to warm up our feet and we moved in the futon.

Tomorrow morning we are going to assist the ritual Buddhist morning prayer, so alarm set at 5:45!

Wish us luck, and see you on our next post.

Living Kyoto in Gold, Silver and Green.

Do you know that feeling when you are comfortable and warm under the blanket, while outside is raining and the weather channel forecasts more rain, wind and temperatures drop, and you don’t wanna leave the bed?

Ok. That was us this morning! But we had a perfectly planned itinerary and could not avoid the fact that we are here to see places, not to laze in bed.

The first step to take to fight laziness is a good breakfast. Red beans dorayaki (I’m starting to hate them) and a lava-hot coffee.

Second step is to take a scorching-hot shower.

Filled and washed, we took our umbrellas and went out. With the map at fingertips, we took the bus from Gion to Ginkakujimichi. As we left the bus we smelled something familiar in the air.

Few meters away lied a bakery. The first real bakery since we came to Japan. We just couldn’t resist and bought a couple pastries.

Satisfied, we walked the 5 minutes to the Ginkaku-ji Temple, also known as the Silver Pavilion.

As the temple is located far from the city center, basically up a hill, we had the idea that it would have been a quiet place where to admire some Zen Buddhist culture.

We were so wrong. The place was invaded by a multitude of Chinese tourists. I admit that I’m always critical with people that instead of enjoying a place they are visiting, spend their time screaming to their friends, laughing, taking tons of selfies. You can do that in you village you ducking duck!

If you add to the horde rain and umbrellas, which made you bump on somebody with every movement, you have the perfect recipe for a stressful day.
But we didn’t give up. We tried to enjoy the visit.

Ginkaku-ji is a Zen temple established in the 15th century by the then Shogun. Despite the common name is Ginkaku-ji, it is formally called villa Higashiyama.

This is the place where the modern Life style of the Japanese started.

Even now the Higashiyama and Zen culture can be seen here.
After spending almost one hour walking among ponds, moss and drysand gardens we decided to move to the next daily attraction.

After the Silver Pavilion, we went to the Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku-ji.

Kinkaku-ji is a shariden, a Buddhist hall containing relics of Buddha.

The garden and buildings, centered in the Golden Pavilion, were said to represent the Pure Land of Buddha in this world. In 1994 the entire area was registered as a World Cultural Heritage Site.

Here the crowd was even worse. Despite the building is amazing, the only place where to admire it is a small area on the other side of the pond surrounding the building. Useless to say that we couldn’t even move, less take decent picture.

And we were lucky. People said that on sunny day the number of visitors is at least triple… 

Tired to fight with other tourist we decided to move on, and took the bus first and a train then to the Bamboo Forest, in the area of Arashiyama.

On the way there we bumped into a charming temple complex.

Arashiyama is close to the forest in the north west side of Kyoto. The atmosphere was so quite that we (almost) forgot the chaos of the morning.

Together with a random German couple we met, we walked into the Bamboo Forest.

This place was so beautiful. If you have seen the Chinese movie “House of Flying Daggers”, you will understand the beauty expressed by a bamboo forest.

Pictures just can’t explain how amazing this place is.

Time flies when you’re having a good time, and we had to go to Nishiki Market,a narrow, five block long shopping street lined by more than one hundred shops and restaurants. Do not forget the one single temple lost among the shops…

Here Sara decided to try some creepy food…

This poor mini octopus was not only boiled (probably alive) but his head was filled with an egg…

Poor thing.

After Nishiki, we took an overcrowded bus to Kyoto station to book the ticket for tomorrow Shinkansen.

We could have done it tomorrow morning, but better safe than sorry.

As we still had our daily pass we took the last bus of the day to Gion, our district. Looking for a place where to have dinner, we decided to go for Gyoza.

We found a small restaurant, with only three tables and some seats in front of the counter. They only served two kind of gyoza, but they were super tasty.

Leek with garlic or ginger. They may not sound good, but believe me, they tasted amazing.

Walking back we found a nice bridge just a couple of hundred meters from our place.

We had no idea there was a river so close… 

Tomorrow we will spend almost 4 hours traveling to our next destination: Koyasan!

So, better sleep and get some rest.

See you with our next post.

Nara: Temples, Deer, and Mochi

It’s Nara time!
We woke up early, and had a quick breakfast at home. We ate some fish (custard cream filled taiyaki) and our beloved Hachimitsu dorayaki.

Diabetes here we come!

After just two big as hell coffees we were ready to rock! We took again advantage of our JR-Pass and headed to Nara with a local train.

The trip was short, around 40 minutes, but it was very long for our inner peace. Since we arrived in Japan we slowly adjusted to its calmness and silence. The train to Nara was a nightmare that brought us back to the noisy trains we are used to in Europe.

This city is a must see for every traveller, so there were no locals on the train, just screaming children and loud tourists.

Good mood, good mood… We can still isolate and forget the noise, since we are going to visit the oldest existing wooden building and pet some stinky deers! 

After 40 stressful minutes we got there.

Some history: Mostly known for its friendly (sometimes overly attached) deers, Nara is Japan’s first permanent capital and was established in the year 710.

As we got off the train we went straight to the information center to collect a map, hear some suggestions, and plan our day. The girl who attended us was very kind and suggested us also some unbeaten tracks.

Who said deer are friendly?

Our first goal was Kofukuji Temple, founded 1300 years ago. Just aside the temple there is a big five story pagoda, symbol of Nara.

I’m no photographer

It was built 600 years ago, and since then it was burned down only five times. Japanese buildings have really a bad relationship with fire, since each temple was either burned down or struck by lightenings. 
Since they heard us arriving, they decided to pack the main building for restoration to keep us from looking at it (we are used to this by now). 

We then went to the next stop. On the way there we spotted our first herd of deers!

First encounter

As we rightfully thought, they stink. A lot!
But they are so friendly that you forget after a while (not really, but still…).

“What do you have there human?”

It is ok to pet them, as soon as you keep everything that can be chewed far from their snouts. Maps and tickets included.

Curiosity: Do you know why there are so many deer in Nara?

According to legend, when the shrine was founded a mighty God was invited to the opening ceremony. The God is said to have come to Nara riding on a white deer. Since then, deer have been respected and protected ad Divine messenger by local people.

Dribling among the deer we arrived in front of Todaiji temple. Here we met a volunteer guide who walked us from the external gate to the temple.

The external gate, which name is Nandai-mon, was destroyed (what a news) by a typhoon during the Heian period.  Rebuilt in 1203 the Great South Gate is the largest temple entrance gate in Japan.

Lantern between the gate and the temple

Todaiji temple is famous for the massive golden statue of Buddha hosted in the Daibutsuden Hall.

Todaiji temple

The hall burned down “only” two times, destroying ​the statue, as a result of war.

Front view of the Buddha

The actual structure was rebuild in the 17th century and downsized to two thirds of the original size. Walking among the tourists crowding the wide area in front of the Buddha statue, we felt the greatness of this place, which is the largest wooden structure in the world.

Side view

The more you know…

The hands’ position of Buddha have a special meaning: the one raised up means “Come to me” while the other stands for “And your wishes will come true”.

Just behind the Buddha, there is a column with a hole on its base. This hole, is said, is as big as a nostril of the Buddha statue. Devoted Buddhists can earn enlightenment in the next life by crawling through this symbolic nostril.
Obviously we didn’t try. The queue was mostly made by children or skinny teens. I suppose we won’t be enlightened in our next life… Too bad.

Just outside the temple was placed a statue of one of the disciple of Buddha. It is said that he had great magic power, but he liked to show off and ended up being banned from the temple.

The magic disciple

Legend tells that if you touch the statue where you feel distress or pain, all your pain will disappear. It’s been almost a day since I tried it and still nothing happened. Should I call the customer service? JK…

Next we walked to the Kasuga Taisha shrine.

Some of the 2000 lanterns

This temple is the living proof that people don’t learn from their mistakes. Since we are here we learnt that basically every temple or shrine or castle has burned down at least once since its opening.
Well, this shrine has approximately 2000 lanterns.
Of those with candles inside.

Exactly: fire!

What the hell was wrong with 1000 years ago Japanese architect?

Very carefully we walked away from this fire hazards to go have lunch.

On the way we stopped to feed some deer and try to take a selfie with one of them. 
We realised that these deer are assholes. They learned from Japanese tourist to lean! That’s right. They come close to you and bow their heads, asking for food… adaptation instinct at its best.

We choose one of the many tourist trap to eat something.

Beef for me, chicken for Sara

It wasn’t bad at all, but the waitress looked no more than 10 years old. It was quite uncomfortable.
To conclude lunch we approached the most famous mochi maker in Nara, Nakatanidou. They are well known as they are the fastest mochi pounders in Japan.

Freshly pounded mochi

Basically they make the dough and start pounding it, in front of the tourist, with two wooden hammer inside a bowl shaped tree trunk. When the dough is well smashed, one of the guys starts slapping it, while the other tries to hammer his friend’s hand.

The super tasty red bean fill

The process is fast, impressive, and hilarious as they scream rhythmically while hitting the green slime.
You can watch a video on YouTube of the entire process here.

The mochi here are superb. If you come for the show, you stay for the food.
As we were planning to leave, we saw an Owl Cafe. We didn’t go in Tokyo, as we felt like it was the worst kind of tourist scam. But we won’t be able to see something like this anywhere else, so we surrendered.

BEST DECISION EVER!

I won’t write anything. I’ll leave the pictures talk.

After that overload of featherly sweetness, we took the train back to Kyoto. At the central station we bought the bus pass to tomorrow visits.
Kyoto has a special ticket that allows people to take every bus in the city, anytime, for 24 hours with a single 500¥ ticket (less than 5€). Perfect for our needs.

We are going to make good use of it, since the forecast for tomorrow says that it will rain the whole day… 

After a mandatory stop at 7eleven, we searched for a place to have dinner. 

Since we arrived in Japan Sara has been mumbling about getting some teppanyaki. It’s a style of Japanese cuisine that uses an iron griddle to cook food.

We found a teppanyaki restaurant, 鉄板居酒屋 祇園てなもんや, with good reviews close to our apartment, so we gave it a try. 

The place was small, crampy, and smelled wonderfully of grilled food.

It is run by a couple and most of its customers are from overseas. As we entered, all the chairs (16 in total) we taken so we had to wait 10 minutes outside.

Totally worth it.

We had gyoza, grilled beef, grilled veggies, and an okonomiyaki each: with pork for me and shrimps for Sara.

We sat in front of the griddle, so we could watch the entire cooking process.

What at the beginning looked like a mess, becames a tasty botch.

Highly recommended!
Once again, as we hit home, Sara fell asleep right away. So sweet…

Tomorrow is gonna rain. We’re gonna make good use of our bus pass.
That’s all for today.
See you tomorrow for another post!