More than a week has passed since we returned home, and the next (and last) entry is long overdue. Yakushima’s beauty still vividly present in our minds, we continued our journey towards Okayama. As usual, the Shinkansen proofed itself as the best and most comfortable way of travelling through Japan. That’s how a train ride should feel like! Shinkansen time! In Okayama, we visited the black “Crow” Castle, where – thanks to a Japanese gentleman insisting we should come with him (contrary to other places, this is – mostly – not a dangerous thing to do in Japan) – we…
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Yesterday, it was time to say goodbye to paradise, when we left Yakushima and returned to Kagoshima via ferry. Paradise tried to make the departure easier on us by sending heavy rain and wind our way. On Sunday, we left Hirauchi and took an early bus to Anbo to enjoy some canoeing on Anbo river, which was quite pleasant. We’ve adjusted to life in Japan by now, not freaking out anymore whenever we have to leave our luggage somewhere unattended, and locking our doors becomes more or less optional. We also noticed our tolerance towards bugs and critters has significantly…
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On our way to Shiratani Unsuikyo After a relaxing, but short night at our lovely hostel in Miyanoura, we took an early bus to Shiratani Unsuikyo this morning – the magical forest that was inspiration to Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece Mononoke Hime. We hiked through the forest for 5 hours, and words will fail me to describe the beauty we witnessed. It was incredible. Magical. Little mononoke (spirits) everywhere, rotating their heads, sitting on moss covered branches, with Joe Hisaishi’s The Legend of Ashitaka playing in the background. In my mind, at least. We sat on San’s rock and looked into the…
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Greetings from paradise. It’s name is Yakushima, and it’s a little subtropical island located about 4 hours south of Kyushu by ferry. It’s where Miyazaki Hayao and his fellow animators from wonderful Studio Ghibli went to get inspiration for drawing the magical forests (and it’s creatures) of their masterpiece Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). And it’s so beautiful here, even without having set foot into the magical forests yet, we’re already suffering from reality detachment syndrome. Big time. Our tiny minds just fail to compute so much beauty. After leaving Hiroshima on the beloved Shinkansen, we spent half a day and…
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Several days have passed without writing anything. Sorry. It’s just that, when returning home in the evening, we’re always pretty beat from all the impressions and experiences we made during the day. Tokyo is an incredible city. It’s not huge, it’s endless, as we confirmed yesterday from the observation deck on the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. But let’s go back to Monday, when we changed our couchsurfing host and moved closer to the city center (only 20 minutes on foot from Meguro station). Before arriving at our new host’s place in the evening, we spent the…
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A lot has happened since I last had the chance to blog anything, so here’s what happened. Hikone’s mascot Hikone Castle After two incredibly wonderful days in Nara, we went to Hikone where we wanted to visit the famous castle, which was quite impressive. Again, we were more than lucky with our wonderful Couchsurfing host, Emily, who took us to a great little Japanese restaurant where we enjoyed delicious food and mouthwatering homemade yuzushu (liqueur made from yuzu fruits). We tried to give back a little by singing Happy Birthday in German to a Japanese lady very fond of German…
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A few days have passed without posting anything, so this is what happened. On Saturday, we visited Fushimi Inari Shrine, which was breathtakingly beautiful. We spent hours walking through the bright orange Torii gates. Again, it was so very hot and we suffered quite a bit, but it was so worth it. Definitely the highlight in Kyoto, sightseeing wise. And that’s saying something in this city. We sampled some Tofu ice cream (flavors: sesame and sweet potato – awesome!) and tried other Japanese sweets that I can’t remember the name of, sadly. The Torii Gates of Fushimi Inari Taisha In…
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Today’s our second morning in Kyoto, and before we take off to visit Fushimiinari Shrine (can’t wait!!), let’s look back on what we already did/saw/visited in this spectacularly beautiful city. On our first day, after checking out the location of our (very nice and nicely located) hostel, we went for a walk to Kiyomizudera Temple. Since there are literally thousands of temples and shrines in Kyoto, it quickly dawned on us that we would never be able to visit all of them, but we wanted to go to Kiyomizudera because of it’s location up on a hill, overlooking the city.…
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It’s 8:15 am on our second day at Osaka and almost time to go to the Museum of History to, wait for it, go and see an exhibition titled “Evangelion and Japanese Swords”. Like in EVA, our very favourite anime (probably the very best thing of fiction ever, if you ask us) ever made – and katana. In one and the same exhibition. It’s so awesome, we almost suffered a mental breakdown when we discovered the posters in the subway station. I don’t think I have to explain why we love Japan, now, do I, because if you know us…
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Jumeirah Mosque During morning hours of my last day in Dubai I visited Jumeirah Mosque where a British lady gave us a tour and explained a lot about the Mosque and Islam in general. It was a very interesting, although slightly forcefully cheery experience. Burj Khalifa After running around way too long in the burning sun, I returned to Dubai Mall to wait for my turn to go up the Burj Khalifa. Sadly, the visibility wasn’t all that great that day, but it’s still a cool thing being able to brag how I’ve been up the tallest building in the world. View from the…