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Japan

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    • Day 51

      Tokyo

      March 27 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

      Endlich Sonne! Der ganze Tag war super schönes Wetter und wir haben einige Parks besucht. Leider sind die Kirschblüten noch nicht ganz da und haben nur wenige Bäume mit vielen Leuten gesichtet 😉 Die Kreuzung in Shibuya war sehr faszinierend und eine Pause in der Rooftopbar musste sein.
      Erstes Fazit: ungewohnt mit so vielen Menschen😝
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    • Day 3

      Tokyo day 2, part 3

      March 27 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

      We took the metro to the Skytree and spent ages trying to find the entrance. We could see that we needed to change our voucher for a ticket at 4pm so had a quick cheap meal of noodles in the food court of the Skytree complex. They were delicious although it will take a bit more practice to eat noodles with chopsticks!

      We arrived at the entrance to the Skytree at 3.45 and despite having skip the line tickets, found ourselves in a 30 minute queue to get the tickets. More queues later and we were at the first of the upper decks at 350m. The views were spectacular although sadly by now Mount Fuji was shrouded in cloud.

      We waited in another queue to visit the upper level at 450m high. (The Skytree is the new telecoms tower and, apparently, the tallest tower in the world.)

      After finishing viewing the sights e caught the lost back down and then a metro back to the hotel which took almost an hour. By the time we arrived back at the station or was dark.

      At the hotel we had a quick break before heading out for a drink or two and some food in Shinjuku. This was the Tokyo I expected to see with bright neon lights and lots and lots of people.

      Many of the bars in the Golden Gai area are small (and a little bit seedy) but we had an enjoyable evening with dinner Japanese style tapas and beers before walking back to the hotel for a night cap in the room. No wonder my legs felt tired after 24,000 Stroud and almost 13 miles walked!
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    • Day 27

      Day 26-27

      March 27 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

      Day 26

      A bit of an earlier start this morning when we clambered aboard the bus with our bags at 8am and headed towards Matsue in the Shimane prefecture. Hood up and earphones in I quickly went to sleep and after 5 hours we arrived in Matsue. Feeling a bit more full of life after a nap we headed to our hostel to drop our bags except it wasn’t open and we got no answer from the doorbell. We looked up the opening times and discovered we couldn’t check in until 5pm! With a failing sense of humour we walked back to the station where we saw some luggage lockers to dump our bags in but they were all taken! Feeling almost hopeless we asked information and they pointed at an office block. We wondered in feeling like we probably shouldn’t be in there but we managed to secure two lockers to get rid of our bags - finally!

      With a much lighter load we headed to Matsue castle and wondered inside. The castle had several floors connected by stairs that were almost completely vertical and very ancient as they creaked with every step! Feeling slightly uneasy we made it to the top and enjoyed the view back over the city. We spent the rest of the day exploring Matsue on foot.

      When it was finally time to check in we grabbed our bags and went back to the hostel and we were greeted by a very friendly Japanese lady who didn’t speak much English, the only English she did manage to speak was to introduce us to her cats, of which she has several in the hostel. To the point that she has fitted jail like doors to stop the cats from leaving their designated room. She struggled to tell us the time of check out but managed to explain that her cat had cancer hence why it was rigged up to an IV drip!! Honestly the most bizarre experience and Jacob and I now refer to her as cat lady.

      Day 27

      Today we decided we wanted to visit the old abandoned Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine which was one of the most important silver mines for over 400 years producing over 1/3 of the worlds silver at its peak! We took a train and then a bus and ended up in the absolute middle of nowhere. Clambering off the bus we walked through this tiny village where there is no signal and it barely appears on the map! Small wooden houses lining the street and everyone using bikes to get around instead of cars it definitely felt like we had gone back in time!

      After a 3k walk we made it to the silver mine shaft entrance! At the ticket desk the lady was thrilled to see foreign tourists and said she would give us a discount- obviously a rather unknown stop for the people outside of Japan! Set back into the mountain was the entrance to the mine, heads ducked we began walking through the tunnels winding our way through imagining what it would have been like to mine here for over 10 hours of the day! I suddenly stopped and pointed at the ceiling turning to jacob I asked “what is that”. Peering through the darkness jacob proceeded to explain to me that it was in fact a bat which only a few meters away from my face certainly made me jump!! Just when I thought the tunnel might swallow us up forever we reached the exit and began walking back through the village.

      Jacob then saw a sign for refinery and got very excited so we diverted off the path and began climbing up a hill, along the way we saw the ruins of the old town where the miners used to live as well as a few other shut off tunnels. We kept climbing up until we reached a bamboo forest where we started ascending some stairs that looked like they hadn’t been used in a long time and it probably should have stayed that way from how unsafe they felt!! Hiking through the bamboo forest we enjoyed the views back over the sites below but soon realised that it wasn’t worth the rather steep incline and doubled back just in time to catch one of the last buses back to the station and then headed back for the evening.
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    • Day 49

      Start Japanreise

      March 25 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

      Nach rund 9h im Flieger haben wir Haneda Tokyo erreicht. Der Start am Flughafen war etwas anders als erwartet. Statt der erwarteten Supertechnologien sind wir ca 45min auf der Suche nach Bargeld, Ticketautomaten, jemand der Englisch spricht und dem richtigen Zug. Immerhin war der Zug on time🙃 Heute hat es geregnet und haben deshalb den Tag in den riesigen Shoppingmalls in Ginza verbracht. Das Abendessen haben wir uns gleich um die Ecke gegönnt :)
      PS: bei unserem WC fehlt der Föhn😂
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    • Day 2

      Tokyo, day 1

      March 26 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

      After a bit of a queue for immigration (and Ed being questioned about his passport... Seemingly linked to the ones that we had stolen in Barcelona) we took some advice and caught the airport limousine (coach) to Shinjuku, the area that we are staying. Most of the journey was underground in a long tunnel! We eventually emerged into the open not far from the station.

      We got off the bus and walked, in the rain, the 15 minutes to our hotel, arriving at around 10.30am. Unfortunately our room was not available and so we left our bags and wandered back to the station area! It seems that almost everyone in Japan owns an umbrella. ☂️☔

      We explored the area for a little bit before stopping at an old pre war building for some food. The restaurant saw us sitting watching the chef cook the food and alongside tempura battered prawns we also had tempura battered vegetables, rice and some odd soupy things (which was tricky to eat with chopsticks!)

      By the time we finished it was still only 12.15 and so we found a bar to have a couple of beers in... Order at your table here! By now it was almost 2 and we were both flagging because of the long flight and sleepless couple of days. Do we walked back to the hotel and had a quick drink whilst the room was finished.

      Eventually, at around 2.30 we had a message to say that the room was ready and so we checked in to our upgraded room.

      We decided to have a nap and set an alarm for 4.30 so that we had time to wake, get showered and head to the 'social' that takes place each night. The alarm went off and it's fair to say that we were confused. Ed said that he'd realised that we'd missed the social 'last night' until I pointed out that he'd only been asleep for just over an hour.

      Anyway, we both had a shower to eat wake us up. Once done we took the lift to the 16th floor for some wine and canapes. This finished just after 6 and as we were both tired we decided to eat some of the room snacks and have an early night ready for the day ahead!
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    • Day 12

      Von Osaka nach Kyoto

      March 26 in Japan ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

      Nachdem der Regen aufgehört hat, holen wir unsere Koffer aus dem Hotel und fahren in aller Gemütlichkeit nach Kyoto. Die beiden Städte liegen mit einer Art S-Bahn eine knappe Stunde auseinander, wodurch man von der Entfernung eigentlich fast schon von einer Stadt sprechen kann. Osaka ist mit 2,7 Millionen Einwohnern die größere der beiden Städte, Kyoto hat nur knapp 1,5 Millionen Einwohner. Kyoto soll die kulturelle und historische Hauptstadt Japans sein. Wie sind gespannt.
      Mittlerweile hat auch unser Airbnb den Code für die Haustür übermittelt und so fahren wir bei mittlerweile wieder strahlendem Sonnenschein zu unserem nächsten Reiseziel.
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    • Day 13

      Kinkaku-ji-Tempel (Goldener Tempel)

      March 26 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 12 °C

      Zu Beginn des heutigen Tages gab es ein Frühstück in Bentoform, das wir nur auf dem Zimmer zu uns nehmen konnten. Und bevor wir mit unserem heutigen Tagesprogramm begannen, hatten wir schon mal den ersten Shop für Damastmesser aufgesucht.

      Nach knapp 1 Stunde abenteuerlicher Busfahrt sind wir beim Goldenen Tempel angekommen und dass wir uns nicht umgewöhnen müssen, hat es mal wieder in Strömen geregnet….anfangs…

      Zum Mittagessen waren wir in einem Sushi-Restaurant…und wir waren uns einig: es war lecker 🤷🏽‍♂️😁.

      Gestärkt ging es mit dem Zug zum Bambuswald…
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    • Day 11–12

      Unsere Gastfamilie

      March 24 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

      Nach vier mal umsteigen mit dem Zug sind wir mitten in der Pampa in Yoshinoguchi eingetroffen.
      Hier wurden wir von unserer Gastfamilie abgeholt. So eine leichte Anspannung in uns war doch zu spüren.
      Im VW T-Cross ging es dann in die Nachbarstadt nach Shimoichi. Und das, obwohl der Schwiegersohn bei Toyota arbeitet. Josiaki meinte aber mit einem verschmitzten Lächeln, er würde schon immer Volkswagen fahren. 🤫

      Am nächsten Morgen sind wir noch zusammen mit der Gastfamilie zu einer Kimonoschneiderin gefahren, wo Sabrina mit einem Kimono eingekleidet wurde.

      Das war eine wirklich tolle Erfahrung.
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    • Day 6

      Tokyo > Kamakura > Hakone

      March 24 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

      Today we left Tokyo but not before seeing the moving clock designed by famous director Hayao Murakami right in front of our hotel! We took a local train to Kamakura without our luggage which is already on it's way to Kyoto by hotel transfer (an amazing service - hopefully!). We visited Hokokuji Temple which has a great little bamboo forest, before checking into our hotel in Hakone and enjoying the private Onsen (a traditional hot bath) and making our Tatami mat bed for the night. VERY zen! 🧖😌Read more

    • Day 10–11

      Ankunft bei den Mönchen

      March 23 in Japan ⋅ 🌫 10 °C

      Nach Zug und Cablecar ging es mit dem Bus zu unserem Tempel, wo unsere nächste Übernachtung ist.

      Unsere Befürchtung, dass alles ohne Heizung ist, bestätigte sich Gottseidank nicht. Lediglich das Wasser zum Waschen war eiskalt (macht dafür aber glatte Haut).

      Im Zimmer wartete schon ein heißer Grüntee auf uns, bevor es im Kimono um 18 Uhr zum echt japanisch-veganen Abendessen ging.

      Erkenntnis des Abends: auch hier schmeckt Tofu wie Wellpappe!!!

      Nach dem Essen sind wir im Dunkeln zu einem Friedhofsbesuch aufgebrochen, dem größten und Heiligsten.
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

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