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I’m Kobe and Himeji, rags to riches

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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

Koyasan by day

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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!

Living Kyoto in Gold, Silver and Green.

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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

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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!

Shirakawa-go & Takayama 

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Hello again! We had such a great sleep tonight and we were totally ready to start our day with a superb breakfast.

The hotel provided not only a nurse style nightwear for free (will add a picture soon), but also a typical Asian breakfast. We were fooled by the idea that the hotel had a continental breakfast, so we were ready for croissants and fruit. Instead, we arrived in the hall and, after being welcomed repeatedly by the staff by the now familiar “irasshaimase”, they served us Miso soup and rice with fish. The complete menu consisted of rice with seaweed and close-to-embryo formed fished, tofu with more seaweed, pickled veggies and miso soup with seaweed.

Our superb breakfast…

We are in Japan, we have to accept the fact that sweets aren’t part of the typical breakfast! Antonio was so so so happy about the meal that he held a grudge for a mere hour, until we reached the station and got some pastry covered in gold leaves, a speciality of Kanazawa, and a coffee from Starbucks.

Golden pastry

We had to spend one and a half hour in the station, so we reserved the seats for the tomorrow shinkansen and arranged some lunch (we bought some rich bento for around 1500¥ ~ 13€ for both).

Sushi fo lunch!

The bus for Shirakawa-go was not-surprisingly in time, and by the time of expected departure all the passengers were on board and their luggage meticulously ordered in the bus trunk. As the clock of the bus switched from 11:09 to 11:10, the driver turned on the engine and we departed. Perfection. (we had to film that, darn).
The bus trip lasted around 1 hour and entertained us (especially Antonio) with plenty of nice landscapes, ranging from rice fields to snowy mountains. We also have to get used to the driving direction here in Japan, the whole trip felt so strange!

Entertained Antonio

Shirakawa-go is located in a valley, surrounded by Alps like mountains covered in snow. The feeling, coming from cities with spring-ish temperatures, was to step in a 18th century’s village in the end of Autumn.

The houses here are shaped as praying hands with a thick roof made of straw. The shape is due the necessity of standing the huge amount of snow that falls in this region in winter.

Typical house​ in Shirakawa-go

As we got off the bus we decided to climb our way to the viewpoint, a 15 minutes walk uphill with the backpacks on our shoulders.

Shirakawa-go view from above

The struggle was totally worth! The view from up the hill was breathing for both the village below and the surrounding mountains covered in snow.

Hungry, we decided it was time to consume our well deserved meal. We choose a panoramic place were other people were taking pictures, to sit down and eat, but a guy, probably working in the local cafeteria, came to us telling that we could not eat there. 

Other people around us were chewing what looked like food, but he didn’t hear any reason. Jerk. We had to move and eat somewhere else. Luckily, that didn’t mine our appetite.

Bon apetit

With our bellies full, we descended to the village. Going downhill was much easier and took almost half the time.

On the side of all the roads in the village, runs a canal collecting the water coming down from the mountains. What surprised us was the fact that despite the water was cold, the canals were packed with fishes.

The canals are also used to provide water for the paddies (rice fields) that are everywhere in the village.

View of a house with a paddy on the side

Walking among the houses we found some of the scarecrows used in the paddies. Sara decided to see if she could start a carrier as one of them. I think she’s not bad at all…

Can you find Sara?

Many of the houses in Shirakawa-go can be visited paying a small admission fee of 300yen (~3 euro). We decided to visit one which was set as a museum.

Harvesting rice 1 0 1

Inside we followed a path explaining the rice harvesting procedure and the process of making Shirakawa-go building’s straw roof. There was also a room for the tea ceremony and a connection corridor with the close by temple.

Tea room

The last thing we wanted to visit before leaving for Takayama was a temple, but it was closed. 

External torii of the temple

As soon as we jumped on the bus, Antonio fell asleep again, together with most of the passenger. Thanks for the company…

We arrived in Takayama that the sun was still up, so we run to our sleeping place to leave the backpacks and went visiting the old town.

The old town extends between the Miyagawa river and a smaller one that merged with it. Along the river there are marvellous Sakuras still in blossom. We took the chance to take more pictures. 

Sakura tree on the river

Another sakura tree

In the district of Kamininomachi, we visited the main street packed with tourists walking in and out the numerous old shops. Also here, on the side of the road was running a water canal with water so clean you could drink it.

Old town district

Tired of all the mess, we aimed for the northern part of the city, where all the temples and shrines are located.

The entrance to the temple district

We liked this area more than the old town: torii, gardens, temples and graves (yes, there are also cemeteries), were all well kept.

How do you even grow something like this?

Except for another guy walking his dog, we were the only ones walking there. So quiet…

Temple with garden

Sunset on Tokayama

We ventured in a cemetery in a forest and found a dog/frog/something statue, watching over the graves.

A guardian statue

Tired and hungry we decided to walk to a restaurant suggested by a girl we met at the local tourist information center.

On the way we saw more Sakura trees in blossom. Such an amazing view…

Sakura tree in blossom

Finally we reached our restaurant: Kyoya. Here we had a taste of the superb Hida beef, and other delicatessen.

Dinner for 2…

The table had a grill in the middle. The waitress brought the meat raw and we had to cook it by ourself. 

Cooking Hida beef

3000kcal later, we were able to leave the restaurant and walk home. But we didn’t go too far that we walked into another beautiful Sakura. We just couldn’t pass by without taking a picture.

Sakura by night

Our place was a Ryokan, sporting a private onsen. We then decided to take advantage of this and have our hot spring experience. Unfortunately no photos are allowed inside, but trust me when say I wish I could do this everyday!

We were also given a yukata to wear during the night and for tomorrow breakfast.

Wearing a yukata

Time to sleep now. Tomorrow’s breakfast is at 7 o clock.

Good night everyone.

See you at the next post!

Kanazawa: the Golden Marsh

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We finally left Tokyo.

It actually took a while… Even riding the Shinkansen, which cruise speed tops 300km/h, after 20 minutes from the window sit we could still see Tokyo buildings.

After a while they made space to a different landscape.

Despite going so fast, you can barely feel it. The ride is smooth and quite. The seats are wide and comfortable, and you have a lot of room for your legs.

Leg room on the shinkansen

From the window, despite the crazy speed, we admired many different landscapes, from the farms around Tokyo, passing through forests, to the snowy peaks of the mountains surrounding Nagano. The trip took 2 and a half hours with 3 stops: Nagano, Toyama, and finally Kanazawa.

Kanazawa train station is quite big, despite the city is a small one. 

Arc in front of the station

After identifying the tourist center we took a city map and booked the bus ticket for Shirakawa-Go, tomorrow’s destination. Then we walked to our hotel, the Toyoko-Inn, checked in, left our backpacks, and went visiting the city.

Omi-cho Market

Hungry we aimed directly for Omi-cho Market, a smaller version of Tokyo fish market, and grabbed some crokketto for lunch.
Kanazawa is well known in Japan for the gardens tradition, for the ninja district, and for having the only active Geisha district in Japan, together with Kyoto.

The latest was the first thing we went visiting. On the way to it we had to cross a river. We took the chance to wander on its banks and on the close Kazua-Machi district.

Kazua-Machi district

The Higashi Chaiya-gai is a beautifully preserved historical area with many two stores wooden buildings, with narrow streets cutting the area horizontally and vertically.

Most of the buildings, once tea houses where wealthy customers would be entertained by geisha, have today been converted into restaurant or souvenir shops. Only two tea houses are still open to the public during the day.
At the north end of the district, is situated the temple district. We didn’t venture further than the first one, as there are more than 50 temples in this area, and we only had one day to spend in Kanazawa and many things to see.
Next we went to the Kanazawa Castle. First we walked aimlessly around taking pictures, but then we decided to go looking for a tour guide.

We were lucky twice as the tour was free, as the guide was a volunteer, and because the guide was the sweetest woman you can imagine. She walked us around explaining the history and curious facts about the castle, making jokes about the fact that while European castle used to throw boiling oil to invaders, Japanese castle had to rely on rocks only as it was quite common for a castle to catch fire, given the building material.

Kanazawa castle main gate

The Kanazawa castle was so lucky in the past that had one of its sentinel tower annihilated by a lightning strike, and cought fire burning to the ground, but hey! It was never assaulted by an army!
Of the original castle only a gate and a storage building remain. All the rest, by the way, has been reconstructed exactly as it was with the same technique: no nails were used. The entire structure is a huge amazing jigsaw puzzle.

The guide took us also to the Kenroku-en gardens, which are the most beautiful gardens we have ever seen.

Sakura in Kenroku-en gardens

Statues and sakuras, ponds and hills, also a small island shaped like a turtle, which together with the crane is the symbol for luck. 

Statue in Kenroku-en garden

The level of cleanliness and cure was astonishing. Workers were even picking out brown moss from the ground by hand. Crazy yet amazing.

Lone tree

We said goodbye to our guide and hurried to Samurai Nomura house, in the samurai district. 

A road in the Samurai district

Despite the entrance fee was higher than usual (500 yen or 4,5€), we didn’t regret paying for it late.

Nomura house internal garden

Internal gardens, live tea ceremony, letters and sword belonging to the most famous samurai in the history of Japan.

Nomura house

Walking away from the samurai district we ended up in Katamachi, which is the shopping district. It seemed quite unusual after seeing all the previous historical places. We even found a hedgehog cafe!
Next we went looking to what was called the Ninja Temple. No ninja there… Only a big closed wooden house. Meh…

Evening came and found us hungry. We stopped in ８番らーめん 犀川大橋店 for a cup of ramen and walked back to the hotel, passing along the river.

Ramen noodles

We even found a small temple on the way.

After a hot shower we ate some poop-shaped sweet. Very tasty 💩

Tomorrow morning bus to the samurai village! Stay tuned for the next post…

Back in Tokyo

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As we reached Shibuya Station, we made our way to our new Airbnb place. The first impression was “let’s run away from here” but we gave it a chance. Thinking about it now, we should have done it.

The place was not really clean, to use a euphemism. The room had a couple of mattress put on the floor with a plaid on top of each, instead of a blanket. But we were definitely too tired and hungry to argue. We left our stuff there and went looking for a place where to have dinner.

There was a place we wanted to visit since we arrived in Tokyo: Genki – sushi. The name was quite explanatory. One of the top ranked cheap eats in Shibuya according to TripAdvisor. Nothing could have prepared us for what awaited us.

The place is one of the best engineering work of this century, where the performance indicator is the amount of human interaction needed to perform the task of feeding some hungry humans. They minimised this value, building a snake-shaped restaurant where each person has more or less an A4 paper of room at his disposal to consume his meal. 

The three food railways

Here comes the fun. The food is not served by employees, but using instead a three level magnetic operated rail. Basically, the customer orders his meal from the tablet located on the A4 paper sheet space he got assigned, magic forces materialise the slices of fish over the rice and promptly the food slides in front of his face (followed by a funny 8bit song). Overall it was a fun experience for us as we felt part of the Tokyo soul depicted in the documentaries. But we wanted more. 
After reading some articles about Tokyo nightlife we decided to take a peak at Roppongi. It was described as the most alive part if the city during the night, but none of the authors of those articles were probably non-American. 

As we took our first step out of the metro, we felt something was strange. Apparently the metro train was actually a modern piece of technology that teleported us straight in the heart of Brooklyn. Hookers, bouncers, and hip hop blasted from most of the clubs. Walking on the streets we were repeatedly asked in an native Bronx slang to “join the party”.
After few days of complete peace of mind we felt not safe anymore. We walked fast in the direction of the Tokyo tower, which was visible above the buildings. In 10 horrible minutes we were out of Roppongi.

Tokyo tower as seen while walking away from Roppongi

We kept walking for another 15 minutes and reached the Tokyo Tower. It looks a lot like a downsized Eiffel Tower, but with all the tall buildings placed all around, it has something more than its bigger version.

Tokyo Tower from below

After taking a couple of pictures we walked to the closest metro station and went back home.
We woke up quite early as we wanted to visit an Owl Cafe. Unfortunately when we got there it was still closed. We then tried to book the entrance in the number one Owl cafe in Tokyo, but there were no available ticket until the coming Sunday. No owls for us… Instead we made do with a more modest program: we went to visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, a free alternative to going up the Tokyo Tower.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

From the 48th floor we looked down on all the expanse of Tokyo. It is amazing how wide it is. We couldn’t make out the edge of the city. On the same floor where the observatory is, we found a souvenir shop. We were quite impressed to find panties for plastic bottles. Japan weirdness hits once again.

Breathtaking view from the Government Building

Higher than the surrounding skyscrapers

As lunch time was approaching we went to Ikebukuro, at 鳥良商店 南池袋店. For the first time since we were in Japan we didn’t have to eat prokaryotes! Here we ate chicken, both fried and grilled, and it was super tasty! Highly recommended!

Super yummy lunch

Done with lunch we walked to the local Pokemon Center. We didn’t really like it as it ended up being just an overpriced shop.

Charizard, Pikachu and… Saramon?

The only good point was the luxurious toilet next to it. We made good use of it…

The toilet controller

Relieved of our weights we took the metro to go visit the Imperial Palace. It was a delusion. We could not enter (nobody actually can) and as we were taking some nice photos of the sun setting over the palace garden, we were asked to leave.

Sunset on the Imperial Palace’s garden

We decided to pay another visit to Harajuku for a quick walk and visit some souvenir shops. As we were there we took another crepe at the same place where we did the first time we came here. After that we transferred to Akihabara to spend the evening.

Best crepes in Harajuku

Dwelling in Akihabara we saw a lot of maids on the road running away from anyone who was trying to take pictures of them.

Mega electronics shop in Akihabara

We decided to pay a visit to Don Quiote, a store selling everything, from food, to electronics, to sex toys… Here we found a plushie of a cat so detailed it had a butthole. Pure gold!

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Tired, we went back home. On the way we decided to eat something, so we hit 7eleven and bought some sushi, cold hamburger and a “piadina”.

Tomorrow we will take our first Shinkansen! Can’t wait to ride the famous bullet train.

Stay tuned for the next post.

Glimpses of Tokyo

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Sure enough, we woke up. Thanks to the 2 alarms, plus 2 backup alarms, plus a snoozed one, we unlocked the “You didn’t oversleep” achievement!

We took our time to pack our backpack again, and went out to have breakfast… at the Tsukiji Fish Market. Before you ask, yes, we had breakfast chewing sushi, sushimi and other similar things… so much for our Italian background.

Before going we left our baggages in a locker at Shibuya Station: only 500 yen (~4.30€) for an entire day (24 hours). There are lockers in all the train station and are used by tourists as well as local people.

Free from our burden we made our way to Tsukiji: from Shibuja we took the Yamanote line to Shimbashi. From there we walked 15 minutes and got there.

Tsukiji outer fish market

Tsukiji is the biggest fish market in the world. People come here as early as 3 in the morning to bid on tunas, and more than 65 thousand people work here.

Just think about it: an average Italian city’s population works everyday in a fish market…

It is divided in two district: inner and outer market. The inner market is where the fish is sold in batches and the tourist are not allowed to enter until 10 AM. This is due to the fact that people walking around aimlessly may be dangerous for both themselves and the weird, totally safe “carts” that dwell in the area. The so called “turrets”.

Tsukiji three wheels cart

The outer market, on the other side, is open as early as the tuna bidding is over. It is basically a maze of narrow streets which run between shacks. Every shack is a small shop selling everything concerning fish, vegetables, fruit, dried food, and knives… I was so tempted to buy a personal forged and engraved one.

Ok. Back to food. We tried some delicacies while walking around the other market: first we got a couple of squid and octopus skewers, then we went for steamed dumplings.

Super tasty fried octopus and squid

Steamed dumlings

Then we saw some people lining outside a still closed sushi shop. We decided to line. Around 10AM it opened and we were allowed in. We ordered a combination of sushi, made just in front of us by a laughing, happy old man, and took a couple of plate from the conveyor belt.

Almost-alive-fresh sushi 🍣

When we felt satisfied we went out and kept walking.

After a while we encountered a little shrine on the east of the outer market.

Here Sara participated in the washing hand ceremony, and rang the bell wishing for something.

Small shire in Tsukiji

Soon after we went inside the inner market, being careful to not being run over by the “turrets”.

It is a true fish market, where fish is cut alive, made in pieces, boxed and sold. No place for weak of stomach.

Tsukiji Fish inner market

We didn’t spend too long here. The workers were already washing the tables and packing their stuff. No point in staying there too long.

We decided to visit Ueno park, as we read that the Sakura blossoming was still going on there. Well, it wasn’t a complete lie: we found two trees (in a entire park) with some pink petals on its branches. So much for full blossoming.

Firts blossomed sakura

Anyway, Sara looked enthusiatic. After all we came here for this, mainly.

Inside Ueno Park we went visiting the Toshogu Shrine, which was close to a Pagoda

Ueno Park Pagoda

Leaving the shrine we met a loud, huge, and friendly crow which landed on a lantern “Craacking” to the passerbys.

This fella here was bigger than a cat.

Going back to the park we found the second Sakura tree and asked someone to take us a picture (yuuu).

Picture under the Sakura

After this emotional Sakura adventure, we went to Asakusa. We decided to walk in the city instead of taking the metro, and we found some beautiful and characteristic views.

This intersection looked like a still image from an Anime

When we got close to Senso-ji we were so hungry that decided to have a cheat meal: melon pan with vanilla ice cream and a portion of caramelised apple pie. To be sure if they were tasty I had to try  both before handling them to Sara.

Melon pan and Apple pie

In Senso-ji we visited a Buddhist temple were we got a journal were to collect the stamps from all the temples we are going to meet during our journey.

Buddist Temple

Next to the Buddhist temple, stands the Senso-ji temple.

Senso-ji temple facade

Hanging at the entrance there is a huge lantern-like-thing.

Going east from the temple we walked through Nakamise, a street full of souvenirs and snack shops.

Nakamise

Last thing we visited today before living Tokyo was Shinjuku Gyoen. We should have come here before… This park was full of blossoming Sakura.

And not only those. Japanese garden, Taiwanese pavilion, ponds… It was beautiful.

Japanese Garden

Taiwanese pavilion

A duckload of Sakuras

We finally had what we came looking for.

Especially Sara…

…

Unfortunately we came here too late. The park close at 4PM so we were forced to leave.

We went back to Shibuja to collect our backpacks and had a coffee at Starbucks, with view on Shibuja crossing.

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After 10 minutes of rest, we took the train to Kamakura, the next destination of our trip!

Finally Japan!

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Not much to say about the flight from Dubai to Tokyo.

The airplane was huge. Two floors full of smelly, tired looking people. Personally I slept most of the time (after spending one hour playing Zelda). Food was served twice, at seemingly random times, fucking up completely our already messed up biological clock.

Finally we landed! Narita Airport! The gateway to our Japanese dream. And the portal to another 30 minutes wait, among an horde of equally smelly and tired looking peasants.
Doesn’t matter. We can stand everything now! 

We are in Japan!

And we can’t wait to take advantage of a toilet and, hopefully, have a shower.

Getting ready…

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First thing you wanna do when you travel sporadically is plan everything.

And when I say everything I literally mean everything.

Fortunately Sara graduated in the end of February (she got a perfect 110/110 cum laude in computer engineering), leaving her plenty of free time to plan this trip. 

We created a map on Google MyMaps with all the potential cities we may touch during our vojage. In a text document we shared our finding regarding each City, places to visit, hot spot, tourist traps and so on.

These two documents were followed by a time plan reporting the exact days spent in each City, the address and Google Maps link of the sleeping place and the name of our host, if any.

TripAdvisor forums were a big help to find the best areas where to sleep, enjoy nightlife (which we are aiming to experience at best :D) and be easily connected.

We spent time searching for the best places to eat and sightsee, exploiting our JRPass as much as possible. We decided to get the JRPass after checking this website, which is extremely useful to verify whether getting the pass is actually worth when compared with buying single ride tickets. This website together with hyperdia are the two most useful websites to get infos for traveling by train in Japan.

Using Google sheet, we created an easy to understand timeline to better plan the movement between cities.
After days of feverish research we came up with a map, which we called Golden Route, showing all the places we are going to touch while traveling around Japan.

We won’t bother you with the packing process as there are thousands of website explaining how to do it…

Sara’s “exploded” bag

Our bags and backpack all packed and ready to go!

With the baggages ready the only thing left to go was ride to the airport! 

Shameless selfie…

Ahoy Captain!

An easy 3 hours drive took us to Bologna airport.

After a quick lunch we are ready to board for the first stop of our vacation…

It’s boarding time!

Looks like here in Bologna Emirates needs their customers to take a bus to board the plane. Well, SELFIE TIME!

Riding the bus…

Boarding!

Finally on board. Row 49. On the airplane tail. Not too bad.

Ready to fly!

Time to switch off the phone. Next update in 7 hours from Dubai!