Japan trip: Part IV - Kyoto

Time: 14.03.2015-05.04.2015
Three words about Kyoto: Temples, traditions, geisha
With Kyoto I have the biggest problems because I lost the notes I made about it. Should not trust technology so much.. but I'll try to recall as much as I can. Thank Gyoza, that Yanne sent me 30 pages to print out about plans that she wrote. In addition, this might be one of the longest posts about the trip...

22.03.2015
We arrived at Kyoto around 6 am and we spent hours finding a place that would be opened for breakfast. After walking in circles for 3 times around the station we found one place that had curry - the best thing for breakfast. As we were not able to go immediately to the place where we were supposed to sleep, we put our things into lockers -  they are one of the most convenient things while travelling - they are rather cheap and help you a lot. Though seeing signs "Do not leave dead bodies/ human body parts into the locker!" is rather creepy.

We went off to discover the beauty of Kyoto's temples. This is the part of the day were I could mess up the order of places we went to because we visited so many temples that all places are mixed up in my head. Some smaller temples and shrines I already managed to forget entirely.
We used a lot of public transport and especially buses, because all Kyoto is covered by it and the day ticket is not expensive - almost the only place where transport was cheap.

We decided to go straight to Kiyomizudera-Gion area. Once we got off from the bus we actually managed to go a bit wrong and instead of going straight to Kiyomizudera we visited few other temples which names I could not find anywhere and took photos of Jishujinja shrine without knowing it. Kiyomizudera temple was one of the most stunning temples for me. It lies on a big area, is really huge and has stunning views. Even though, half of the temple was under constructions and sakuras did not bloom there so beautifully yet I still really liked it.
On the grounds of Kiyomizudera is the Otowa Waterfall. Its water is divided into three separate streams and there is a belief for every stream that drinking from it either causes longevity, success at school and brings fortune at love life. But be sure to not drink from all three because that is considered greedy and might bring bad luck. Most of us wanted to go drink also, but the waiting line for it was at least one hour, so we decided to move on. We also visited Nishi Otani cemetery that is one of two oldest cemeteries in Kyoto.

We walked on Higashiyama district that connects Kiyomizudera and Gion and maybe it was also the moment when we visited Gion area overall. Gion is really famous geisha district and we managed to see real geikos and maikos and also fake ones. How do we know that it was a fake one? well - she was European model. In Kyoto this is definitely the place to see the old traditional side of Japan.
We continued our walk to Ryozen Kannon temple, that has one of the biggest Bodhisttva Avalokitesvara (Kannon) statues in Japan. It is a war memorial temple commemorating the war dead of the Pacific war. The statue of Kannon is 24 meters (80 ft) high, so you can already see it from a far. We passed Kodaiji temple and walked in small bamboo grove that was outside of the temple grounds and took us to the mausoleum for Hideyoshi and Nene. Kodaiji temple was established by Nene after the death of Hideyoshi. The temple rally continued with Chionin Temple which is one of the most important Buddhism temples in Japan. It has the biggest Sanmon, colossal main gate, and the largest temple bell. USA-Japan collaboration movie "Last samurai" one scene was filmed on the stairs from Sanmon. Sadly big part of the temple was also under constructions, so we managed to see only some of it.

Our tour continued with Shiorenin temple where we actually made a stop to finally sit and rest our legs. We just saw a glimpse of it outside because our legs were still sore from climbing Mt. Tenjo the other day and now walking all day long. After we had gathered enough energy, we walked to Heian shrine. I must say that in reality they all are rather close to each other, so walking is the best option, but we just had already rather long day behind us. Heian Shrine was build in 1895, so this year it became 120 years old. Sadly we did not manage to visit the garden behind the shrine that is said to have most of Heian's beauty. But we did manage to see more geishas who were surrounded by enormous group of people taking photos. There have been many complaints about this subject, so when you see one geisha then please remember to act politely and do not stop them for hundreds of photos - their job is not to be models for tourists.

The time had passed already into evening so we had to go back to the station to collect our bags and drive 35 minutes back to north to find the place where we were supposed to spend the night. We found it again via Couchsurfing, but it was more like a Sharehouse. The name of the place was Factory. It is basically on the bank of Kamo river. The owners were really cool guys and it was perfect environment for artistic people. They played guitar and piano, there was art on the walls, one of them studied philosophy and they liked Beatles and European classic literature. Even though the rooms were really messy, it was really enjoyable for me and Yanne to stay there. Yanne spent most of the evenings talking to them. I wish I could meet them again. I even started to think about going to Kyoto University of Art and Design and start living with them, thank Gyoza that I came to my senses after leaving Kyoto.

23.03.2015
We started our day with a walk to the Imperial residents in Kyoto. There we saw basically nothing because everything is surrounded with big and high walls that do not allow you to see inside. Nice thing was that sakura's were starting to bloom so there were some trees already totally pink.
We walked around the area and managed to find one big store that sold all kind of things, so I finally got new batteries to my camera and I could take good photos again. All of the day was cold and from time to time it rained a little bit. For a moment there was also a threat of thunderstorm. We spent a lot of time near to Kamo river, crossing it from weird places and eating our breakfast/lunch kind of thing bought from Lawson on the riverside.

We decided to find Nijo castle that has nightingale floors and stunning paintings. Nightingale floors are floors that make a chirping sound when you walk on it. Nijo castle is one of the best examples of it. They serve the security purpose, so with creaking sound people will know that there is an intruder. Actually Chionin temple has also nightingale floors. In Nijo-castle it is not allowed to film or take photos, though sometimes you just happen to notice later that the camera around your neck had been filming all the time - wish I could say it wasn't me. The paintings there are currently being restored. The ones we managed to see were astonishing - really detailed with great colors and gold.

Already the gates to the Nijo castle are one of a kind thing to see - it is almost totally restored to its original colors, making it one of the most colorful gates. In Nijo castle there are more buildings and despite being in the center of Kyoto, the area is rather huge.
I bet all of you know that in Japan it gets dark really fast so by the time we finished with Nijo it already started to be the time where you have to say goodbye to the sun.

We wandered around Shinkyogoku-Teramachi and Shirakawa. Teramachi and Shinkyogoku are popular shopping streets in Kyoto downtown. Near to them is also Nishiki market that is really famous for its goods. Sadly by that time most of the selling-points in Nishiki market were already closed. It was interesting area as the streets are rather small and crowded. Walking in these streets we managed to see many things including Minami-za theather that is one of the most famous kabuki theaters in Japan. We had a plan to go watch one kabuki performance, but because we had one less day due to Kawaguchiko-Kyoto bus, then we had to exclude it from our plans. Shirakawa area runs down the Shirakawa Canal and we saw a lot of night life there. So many young people everywhere. The Shirakawa Canal is lined by willow trees that make the scenery magical during the night.

As the last place we visited  Gion shrine, also known as Yasaka shrine. I do not even know why we did not visit is the day before. We had walked by it several times and passed by it with the bus, but we were waiting for a moment like that night. As the sun had set and the shrine was illuminated with lamps. Yasaka shrine is huge and contains many many different small temples. There is a temple almost for anything. For some reason, most of us ran to the temple of love to get blessing and good luck in love life. Hmm.. until now nobody of them has received that luck.. Maybe it just takes more time. But I was fascinated by the statues - there was one temple where the guards were really angry looking kitsune (fox) behind the ware-box. In the temple dedicated to the God of Horse were big life-sized statues of horses. During the night everything looked really spooky and stunning at the same time.
We decided to end our day after Yasaka shrine, because the clock was really late and we thought that we should spend a bit time with people in the Factory too, where we spent another night. It was night full of long talks and self-made pear liqueur.

24.03.2015
With 3rd day in Kyoto we knew that we have to go and see the Golden temple (Kinkaku-ji). The day before we already heard from the locals that in reality it is just a temple that is golden and nothing more and to be honest then that's exactly what it is - just a golden temple. It was filled with tourists taking photos that you can find from every calendar about Japan or if just google it. It was actually really difficult to take photo of it without any people standing in front of you.  Of course it is beautiful, but you can just walk around it and the garden is not so interesting. We visited many different small temples that in the end started to look all the same to me.

We took our trip to Arashiyama bamboo forest. Despite seeing awesome photos online, I was a little bit disappointed by the real thing. Also, we did not have any luck with the weather so it was mostly raining and really cold, which also caused my photos to turn out soulless weird colored mess. I believe that on a sunny day it would be nice to walk around Arashiyama, but this day it was too freezing (says person who is having a summer at 14 degrees today) .   Arashiyama area is situated in the Western Kyoto on the banks of Oi river.

Because the day was cold - I do not get enough of mentioning it - we took a bus to the other side of Kyoto to get warm. We decided to visit Ginkaku-ji temple also known as Silver Pavilion in the East Kyoto. We thought of visiting it the next day, because we had plans to spend more time in Arashiyama, but the plans changed all the time. I liked the Silver Pavilion more than Golden temple, even though the Silver Pavilion has nothing to do with silver and has never been covered with it, it was still much more interesting. Mostly because it had amazing sand- and moss-garden. I am a big fan of Japanese gardens so it was more than awesome place for me.

We also went for a walk on Philosophy path and searched the Honen-in temple. The weather had actually got warmer, so it was okey again to walk for a longer period. My thoughts about Philosophy path.. hmm, it is a path next to a canal. Well it was okey, but I do not imagine myself there clearing out my head with all the houses and people surrounding me. Though when we went off the path, more up to the mountain then we found some really cool places. In addition we finally found Honen-in temple that looked almost forgotten by everyone, because we were the only people there.

Once again the clock was already showing evening time and we had to start going back to our sleeping place. This night we did not sleep in the Factory, but we spent night at one young student's apartment. He was studying law and you could actually notice from the way he acted and talked that he was actually son from a rich family, so called "young master". He was really great and interesting person with a wide horizon. He was the host with whom Chris felt most comfortable with. We also went to the bath house! The traditional Japanese bath house and this experience was totally awesome. If you think that bath house is just a place where you go, get naked and wash yourself and go home again, then it is not correct. Bathhouse can contain also different baths - this one had warm bath, totally hot bath and then reaaallly cold bath, in addition they had a sauna. It is also a place were people come to communicate. There were so many women coming, already knowing each other and talking about their everyday things. I liked the place, even though it was kind of weird to actually see that the place was like taken out of manga - the entrance and the "changing room" are separated only with a curtain, the wall between females and males is incomplete as there is around 1 meter free space from the wall top to the ceiling, so you can hear everything. Of course, as we already had gotten used to it, there were also people interested in how and why we were there. I just love Japanese people.

25.03.2015 
After nice waking up, we went to eat breakfast. I actually do not remember anymore what we ate, but I think maybe gyudon. I think you have noticed that I have hardly mentioned any food during the previous days - most of the time we bought something from Lawson or 7Eleven and ate it. After finishing the breakfast and saying goodbye to our host, we took our bags, rode to the station and once again put everything into the coin-lockers - gyoza how I miss them now. The plan of the day was to arrive to Osaka by the evening. It is around 25-30 minutes ride with a train from Kyoto to Osaka.

So at first we rode to South-East part of Kyoto where the Fushimi-Inari Taisha is. The place is famous for its thousands of torii gates. To hike all the way up the mountain and back takes around 2-3 hours, but I must say that we dropped this plan after spending 1,5 hours hiking up and covering just 1/3 of the distance. In addition to torii gates, there are thousands of kitsune statues as fox are believed to be Inari's messengers. Inari is Shinto God of Rice and obviously this shrine is dedicated to Inari.

It is definitely one of the must-visit places, but also be careful when you go there. I managed to lose my people again and I ended up wandering around for good 15 minutes hoping that they had taken the same path. Even though there seems to be one big rode up, there are actually many places where to go. When we were descending from the mountain we pumped into Yanne's friend from Sendai who was showing Kyoto to his friends. Neither of them knew that the other is in Kyoto and visiting Fushimi-Inari Taisha the same day. You might think that the world is big and there are so many people, but life still makes you see the same faces :)

After spending already half of the day there, we rode back to the station, bought tickets to Osaka and waved good-bye to the most beautiful city we visited in Japan. It is weird to think that even though we visited so many temples and shrines, there were more temples and shrines left that we did not have time to visit. But my trip in Japan continues with next post already in Osaka! 

Japan trip: Part III - Kawaguchiko

Time: 14.03.2015-05.04.2015
Three words about Kawaguchiko: onsen, nature, Mt.Fuji!

19.03.2015 
We woke up really early to go out and catch our bus to Kawaguchiko. If you do not know where this small town is then it is situated only 10 km from Mt. Fuji in the area of 5 lakes on the shore of Kawaguchiko lake. Before bus we managed to eat curry for breakfast. It definitely became my favorite Japanese food.

Even though I had just said to Yanne that I want to talk with her face to face and hear about everything, I ended up sleeping 10 minutes after sitting into the bus. I am just terrible in moving vehicles. When we finally arrived to Kawaguchiko it was cloudy and raining. For Kawaguchiko we had promised ourselves to spend a bit more money and sleep in onsen with traditional Japanese dinner and breakfast. We dropped our bags into ryokan (the traditional hotell) and went to find a place to eat some lunch and see the city. We managed to see a bit of Mt.Fuji, but really only a bit. In addition, my camera battery died totally and it was impossible to reload it as the Japanese plugs do not support the charger and I did not have adapter to change it. We had adapters for phones and laptops, but for some reason they do not work on the camera battery recharger. So for few days I had to depend on my phone camera. The day continued to be really cloudy so we preferred to go back to onsen and enjoy the natural hot water bath outside. I must say that it was actually really difficult to stay there for a long time even though I am used to being in sauna.

excuse our appearances

After onsen we dressed up and went to eat traditional Japanese dinner shabushabu. It was the only day we ate shabushabu because in most places it is really expensive. Our table was just full of food and everything was so delicious. Of course we found out that most people went to eat dinner in their everyday clothes and once again we became photo-models for some Chinese men (Gyoza it sounds so wrong). Even though we had plans to go again to the onsen or do something fun, everybody fell asleep as soon as they touched their futons.
There actually was one thing that turned all our plans up-side-down. We had plans to leave Kawaguchiko the next day with night bus to Kyoto, but all the bus tickets were sold out. That meant that we had to spend one more night in Kawaguchiko or find another way to go away. But the thing was that our budget did not allow us to spend another night in ryokan. 

20.03.2015

We woke up to receive great news. Hirotaka-san on Couchsurfing had replied to us and allowed us to stay at his place for the night. He was from the neighbor city Fujiyoshida that has one of the scariest roller-coaster rides in Japan. But we had to spend the whole day until we went to his place.
We started the day with enjoying traditional Japanese breakfast knowing that we will not get more of it. The day was less cloudy than the day before, but still we did not see Mt. Fuji, because it hid itself into to the clouds. Because there were signs that transport to the next station on Mt. Fuji has been cancelled due to bad weather and road condition then we did not even think of going higher to the the Mt. Fuji. We decided to take a bit smaller mountain and we started climbing Mt. Tenjo. It was really nice workout and it was actually more difficult than I had thought.

In Kawaguchiko there is also a really "nice" folk story written by famous Osamu Dazai about a tanuki and a rabbit - I truly hope that my future children will never hear it. In the meanwhile I will tell you another story that became the joke of the trip. I have a friend who had asked me to bring him a souvenir - "The most pointless small thing you can find in Japan!". What the ramen would that be? Basically I spent all days searching for pointless things until in Kawaguchiko near a children playground I found small shinkansen. Of course I did not take it with me then, I put it on top of one post so everybody could see it from far and the rightful owner could have it back. But there was also small promise that if we happen to come back to this place and it is still here, I will bring it to him. Well, in the end of the trip he got his shinkansen that for some reason got baptized as a tractor..
But back to the trip itself. After coming down from Mt. Tenjo we decided that it was not enough walking and we started going to Fujiyoshida on foot. It was really weird road and for a long time we were not even sure if it was a right place. Compared to Tokyo it was really under-developed country-town. We stopped for a while in Book-Off and I bought "Ranma 1/2" music CD-s - something that you do not find so easily.

Suddenly we had already reached Fujiyoshida and we had to wait for hours in the train station, because we were exhausted. We met our host Hirotaka-san who is originally from Shizuoka. For a while we had a plan to hitchhike to Shizuoka and from there to Nagoya and then to Kyoto. In a way I still wish we had tried it, becuase NEWS was having concert in Nagoya during the same dates, but we had to neglect this awesome plan, because we had too much luggage to hitchhike and the weather was really cold. Of course we also wanted to go on NEWS concert, but we did not get tickets. As foreigner it is not so easy to get tickets and they got all sold out (Yanne could even write a post about how difficult it is). Hirotaka-san was just few years older than us and living alone in a small apartment. It was a miracle that we all fit into his place. Before going to sleep we went to eat sushi in real sushi place and visited one old and rare temple on the top of a mountain close by. It had an amazing view to the whole city. If you ask what made this temple so rare, was that it had a old stage that most temples do not have (or something like that was what Yanne explained to me). After this long day we went to Hirotaka-san's place, watched the final episode of "Second love" with Kamenazhi Kazuya in the leading role and spent the coldest night (at least for me) during the whole trip with 5 people sleeping in less than 10 square meters. But I am so thankful that at least we had a place to sleep and Hirotaka-san was an amazing host.

no buses going further up

21.03.2015

When we woke with still cloudy weather. They say that if you stay in Kawaguchiko it is impossible to miss seeing Mt. Fuji in its full glory, but this is exactly what we were facing - three days on the foot of Mt. Fuji and we had seen only glimpses of it. But we did not let our mood fall and we started our day with eating local Fujiyoshida udon. I cannot exactly say what made so much differnet from other udons, but I can say that it was delicious as hell. I love going to places where the local people eat and I have a feeling that this place did not have so many foreigners coming there so we had a lot of eyes on us. As if I do not feel awkward enough to eat while people are looking.
We went back to Kawaguchiko because our bus left from there, but we still had the whole day to spend. What to do when your on budget-trip in a small town where you have already seen almost everything and it is freakishly cold outside? Well, you just go again to ONSEN! The thing is that it is quite expensive to spend the night in onsen, but it is rather cheap to just use it. As Kawaguchiko has a lot of onsens, then there is a big variety to choose from. We picked out one where the onsen was on 7th floor. It had both inside and outside bath and we ended up staying there for hours! And most of the time all alone. I think we stayed there for 3 hours and only on the last hour there were other visitors too. I felt like a newborn baby after coming out - skin so soft, cheeks like roses and all the tiredness was gone.

In reality you should see Mt. Fuji inside the heart..

 Another thing that actually happened was that Mt. Fuji had decided to forgive us and show its peak. I was speechless when I saw it. White symmetrical peak that is so high that I understood that for the last days the area I had searched the top from was actually only 2/3 of the mountain.  But you want to know a bad thing? We were still in onsen, naked, we did not have any cameras with us to take photos and it is not allowed to take photos in onsen. So we can just say that we actually managed to see how high Mt. Fuji is, but not to prove it with a photo. In the end we took the night bus to Kyoto that was so horrible that my sister felt like suing the company for taking so much money with so low quality. I must agree because even I had very difficult time sleeping. Seats were told to be separated "room" which meant that seats next to windows had curtains and the middle seats had to suffer from all the light in the bus; plug-ins to charge phones were only near to the toilet and it was only one plug-in extension; For the first 1,5 hours the bus-driver had to comment almost everything he did and overall there was very little room for everybody so in the middle of the night I had to stand up from my seat to let some people pass. Oh did I mention that the drive was 8 hours long? yes, I agree that maybe I am too spoiled with buses in my country that already for 2 hour trip have all kind of entertainment, comfortable seats and plug-ins for every seat.
But just like this, we finally managed to reach our next destination: old city of traditions and culture - Kyoto! but about this already in a next post!  

Japan trip: Part II - Tokyo

Time:  14.03.2015-05.04.2015
So once we arrived to Japan, we spent first 3 days in Tokyo. If I have to say my impression about Tokyo with 3 words it would be - busy, crowded and entertaining. Three days and limited budget are not good companions to have in Tokyo.

16.03.15 
We woke up in our really cool backpackers place in Asakusa, Ueno and booked it for another night. We went out around 11 am and I must say that at first I could not believe that I am actually in Japan after all these years. The weather was amazing, of course due to the fact that my own country is rather cold at the moment! Especially interesting was to buy onigiri for breakfast (~120¥) that made me understand that I should start studying Japanese again, especially kanji.. thank Gyoza that we have Yanne for that. But already on the first day I noticed something really annoying: a lot of Tokyo girls like to wear wear too big shoes so the shoe is always falling off. It made me go crazy - I am big fan of high heels, so wearing high heels and not being able to stand properly in them is unacceptable for me and definitely not cute.

For the first thing we went to Meiji shrine. Here I mention that transportation is the most expensive thing in Japan, so we ended up using most money on that. In addition, we had to make calculations about which train or subway tickets we need and which are cheaper. Basically, if you have another train line ticket for a right train line, then you do not have a ticket. Why cannot they make system where all companies use one system in one city? It is really complicated to understand what I am talking about, but once you experience it, it makes your head explode. Or maybe I am just used to system back at home where things have made really easy?

But back to Meiji shrine. Meiji shrine is built in 1920 for emperor Meiji and his wife after their death. I think I do not have to talk about the background and things more, if you want to read it - Google it! I liked it because when you are on the shrine grounds then you do not feel that you are in Tokyo.. and definitely not in Shibuya. We also took our luck there, because this is one thing that you definitely want to do. Even though they have it in English also,  I took in Japanese. The translation is "Open heart is just as inspiring as morning blue sky".

Next we went to Yoyogi park to see plum blossoms as cherries were not blooming yet. I must say that for me almost everything that blooms is beautiful so I enjoyed it much. But even cooler was to see "obaachans" with their doggies. So called "obaachans" are elderly women whose children have grown up already and now spend time dressing up their doggies and taking them everywhere. (of course there are some who prefer cats).  

After enjoying time in a bit more quiet area we decided to go to crowded Harajuku. I actually believed that it is much bigger, but in reality it is more like bunch of small narrow and crowded streets, full of small shops, purikura and Johnny's... and crepes. It was interesting to see, but I am not a person who would enjoy this - the good thing with travelling: you discover new things about yourself. In Harajuku we also had our lunch - Ramen!!  In the end ramen and curry became my favorite foods.

Suddenly it started to rain, so it was not so good anymore to go around the town. We went to Mandarake - it is Yanne's one of the favorite a manga shops. Well of course I found there a lot of things with Johnny's and I almost ended up buying Massu's uchiwa, but as it does not replace real him, then I just took a photo with it. (Notice: Doing it actually in the store is not welcomed!)
The weather got even worse so we decided to take the crowded train and go back to hostel.

17.03.15 
On the second day we took direction to Imperial Palace, but before we went to Zojoji temple and Tokyo Tower. Zojoji is Buddhist Temple, It is the Great main temple and six Tokugawa shoguns are buried there. In addition there are many Jizo statues and at the moment they were all dressed up and had wind whirls. As there was some kind of event going on, we did not stay there for long.

I did expect a little bit more from Tokyo Tower, because they had taken Eiffel Tower for example and Eiffel is amazing up close with all its details, but Tokyo Tower.. :/ sorry, but it is just a tower made of metal painted white and red. We did not go up, because we already heard that it is impossible to see Mt. Fuji, because there was this weird clouds in front of it. But we ate crepes and did not let our mood down. Crepes are one thing that Japan has done really great! French crepes are not nearly as great as Japanese. I had this crazy idea to find one viewpoint to Tokyo Tower that was used in "Hanawake no yon shimai" and believe me - IT WAS DIFFICULT TO FIND! but we more or less found it  I hope :D During that time we also met with one American who was working in Japan, but his knowledge about Japan was almost not existing at all, but we all have one weird memory to remember.

Finally after a long walk we arrived to Imperial Palace, as Yanne said to me before "we can laugh or cry how less traditions and culture is kept there". There really is not much to see, You can go and see the garden and some buildings, but nothing impressive. We decided to go to Akihabara, but as non of us is so into games and technical things we did not stay there for long. Of course we managed to see many maid cafes and middle aged men going there. Did not expect it to be so famous. AAA I forgot about AKB O.o They are everywhere.. just everywhere.. and mostly without proper clothes. I think the company should be rich enough to finally put some clothes on them!

We went back to the hostel to take our bags, but as I had neglected my university work for 2 weeks, then I still had to make at least one assignment before forgetting that I should be in university. 

This night we were going to spend CouchSurfing (I just love that site!) at Ichiro-san's place. While we were trying to reach his place we stopped in Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to see the night view of Tokyo on 45th floor. The view was truly amazing, but I did not like the fact that they had made inside of the floor as a shop with a lot of lights that all reflected on the windows and made the view less enjoyable. In addition, it is not so comfortable to be in place like that with really big bags. But while we were coming from there I saw a guy who looked like Massu - he had outstanding fashion sense, red hair, but he also wore face-mask and a cap... and a skateboard...

Ichiro is a really great Japanese guy who works in Shinjuku, owns a house and has a plan to host at least 200 couchsurfers - if I remember correctly then we were somewhere in 90ties. We made a lot of origami at his place and we found out that my sister Chris is hopelessly horrible at origami O.o Made me even think that we are not sisters at all.  

18.03.15 

It was the last day in Tokyo for us. We started the day with going to see the almighty Tokyo Sky Tree that we had seen almost everyday from far. Already when we walked out of the house, the sky was very foggy and it stayed the same when we arrived to the Sky Tree - this means that paying a lot of money to go to the viewing platform is just a waste of money as you will not see anything. We decided to take a walk and go to Asakusa.

In Asakusa we spent time in Asakusa temple where for the first time we became the "sightseeing" instead of the temple - we ended up being photographed for so many times in Japan that we even thought about making business with it. We saw a lot of plums blossoming in the park - compared to sakuras they blossom sooner and longer. This day we went back to Ichiro-san's place sooner. We went with him to Odaiba - we actually had left it out of our plans before because of lack of time, but he took us there with a car. It is awesome feeling to see Tokyo at night and especially drive in a car at night. It makes you feel that you are in sci-fi movie or in far far future.

Odaiba was wonderful. All the views, students practicing dance or just hanging around. Of course this was the first time I managed to lose everybody while I was fighting with my camera which decided to get low battery. For the first time in my life I felt really lost - exactly the right time when to mention that my phone was the only one working in Japan and I had forgot to ask Yanne's or Ichiro's Japanese phone number. Thank Gyoza that they happened to notice short after that I was missing and came to find me. We went on to see the life-sized Gundam model that made quite a show. Standing in front of it made me feel reaaallly small.  And Yanne got to kiss at least somebody..

But this was it for our days in Tokyo and  next day we headed toward Kawaguchiko to stand close to Mt. Fuji, that put a curse on us, but about it in a next post. 

Shooting Sekai no hate made ITTEQ!!!

There is one dark secret that I have not told you yet. It is that half an year ago during January 2015 I had an awesome experience with Japanese television, when I was able to help "Sekai no hate made ITTEQ" crew on shooting special in Estonia (yep, my country). I did not want to write about it before it aired and I was kinda hoping to receive photos before making a post, but I guess I will end up waiting them forever.

Who does not know, then "Sekai no hate made ITTEQ" is travel variety on Nippon TV (NTV) that airs every Sunday. There are around 10 famous people as Becky, Imouto, Kawai-san, Morisanchu (currently - Miyazaki Masayo, Kurosawa Kazuko, Kawamura Emiko, Yashiro Yu) and Tegoshi Yuya (From my favorite band - NEWS). I was able to be part of Morisanchu filming. But do not think I was just spending time with the crew without doing anything - it was a lot of work - callings, communicating, searching, few hours of sleep and full week with the crew (lucky I did not have lessons then) and even before and after that week I had to communicate with participants inside Estonia. At first I thought it might be difficult to get in contact with people, especially because there were things that I knew nothing about, but it ended up being much easier. I must say that I enjoyed every minute I spent on it. So let's go to the details by days, but there are still things that I keep for myself :P One more thing before I start: The temperature stayed between -4 to -9 Celsius every day, so it was not so cold, but cold enough if you have to stay outside most of the day.

Day 1.
This day was really short for me, because Director Nagata-san and European coordinator Paola-san were the first ones to arrive and they spent the day with other local assistant in the other part of Estonia. I only met them for a dinner to talk. I must say that we did talk a lot and also about why I love Japan etc. I understood that I am even able to understand some Japanese when somebody is talking - surprising :D

Day 2.
We met already in the morning and director assistant Funaki-san, cameraman Chiba-san and his assistant Hirose-san had arrived. When I met them everybody already knew my love for Johnny's. Embarrassing! Gomen Tegoshi for not being my ichiban, but I know a lot of personal things about you now. But also Sorry Tegoshi-fans, because I cannot tell you these things. I am a person who respects idols having personal lives, so I will bury these secrets with me. All I can say that from everything I heard, he is really really really really nice guy. Maybe next time I have possibility to work with him.
First days were location hunting - meaning that we went, checked the places and made first shootings. We went for winter windsurfing, fire-brigade and to one sushi place.
As every day was hectic and there are things you never see coming. As having a wrong location.. This happened to fire brigade as there are more than one place offering sauna in old fire-truck. What a luck that my country is small and a lot of people are really kind and are willing to go with the flow.
We finished the day at one sushi place called Sushiplaza. It is the best sushi place in Tallinn, but they serve really western and really interesting sushi. Of course we had to try the ones that seemed the most weirdest.

Me - totally not ready to be also in front of cameras

Day 3.
It was actually my birthday and a day when I had exam. Still I went to meet them at 9:30 and we had another day of location hunt and some shooting.
First we spent time in the Old Town which meant of course shooting. This morning I was actually revising my exam questions a bit too, because I had to remember just 90 questions and answers. If you wonder what exam I had then it was psychology.. Why interior architect learns psychology? it is important to understand the client, the work relationship etc.  Anyways, I had to leave for some hours to make my exam and everybody wished me luck. It feels great to hear "Ganbatte kudasai!" in real life. Of course I ended up getting perfect score. Sorry for being out of ItteQ-topic for a moment, but I just wanted to share my thoughts that I discovered during the exam. My exam-question was about motivation, goal-keeping and achievements. As it was oral exam then professor had the chance to ask extra questions in addition and then she asked about me - if I am motivated and do I feel that I accomplished something already in my life? And then during that 5 seconds I had before answering I thought "Today is my birthday. I am 22 now. I am helping to film ItteQ. I have blog that has troubles, but there still are people who read it. I have seen the world. I am going to Japan in spring. I am studying the one thing that my heart wants. I have friends and family that I love. I know who I am and what I want and I am willing to grow everyday" and I answered "Yes, I do believe that I have accomplished some of my life goals already". I think that understanding this knowledge was the best birthday present for me this year.  So my readers too. please from time to time think about what great things have you succeeded in :)
But back to the topic. After exam I joined the crew again and we went to other places in Tallinn to shoot the beauty of the city. Then we went to Snowpark to check if the slope is good enough for filming. It ended up being higher than we expected, but other slopes were not high enough. But our logistics were a bit off, as usually with filming you cannot predict if some place takes more time than first expected. For the final thing for the day was sumo club where Baruto basically started out. At the moment it is a sumo club which students are European champions and one even World Bronze. I think that there will be a lot of talk in the future about them too. As you see, then Estonians are really good at sumo. Sadly we did not meet Kaido Höövelson (real name of Baruto) this time, but I have met him already before.
During the drive crew got to know that I have birthday. Everybody were surprised that that I am so young and despite having a birthday I had an exam without being nervous and spent the whole day with the crew. Well, in the end birthday is just a day when you add up one number on your age, but the life goes on as day before.

Day 4.
This was the day when  actresses Miyazaki-san, Kurosawa-san, Yashiro-san and assistant Sugihara-san arrived. Of course me being a fan of Massu was the first thing they got to know about me and then I learned that Kurasawa is a friend of him... KYAAAA!! For some reason this seemed to be most important or the funniest fact about me to share. They all the time managed to talk about it right as soon as I arrived. My little heart hopes that this small talk reached him too.
But Morisanchu is truly amazing. They are all so nice and friendly and even though their English is not so good, it was really enjoyable to be with them. I had to drive all day in their car and they gave me Japanese snacks.
We started with shootings at winter windsurf and spent a lot of time there. This was one thing that never aired in the episode. This was the day when I had to bring lunch from a close food place and I think I never forget the waitress face when I entered only and placed a order for 12. In Estonian language 2 and 12 start the same, so at first he typed in only 2 and I had to correct: No, I said 12, not 2. Well, the 2 workers had at least something to do for a while.
After half day there we rode out of town to shoot fire-brigade sauna. It was so funny that I hurt my stomach. In addition there are the only scenes where you can actually see me O.o Thank gyoza that I had good camouflage in really light-color winter jacket (The only blonde on the photo).  I also had my 15-minute fame in Estonia as there were 2 TV-channels, newspaper and local radio who wanted interviews. Already few hours later when we were back in the city, eating dinner at one Korean restaurant, I got calls and messages "How the hell did you end up doing these kind of projects?!" from my friends. Well, what to say - I am a girl with many projects and sometimes I forgot to make public announcement about them.

Day 5. 
It was the last day for me, because on their last day they did not need me as the shooting took place on the other side of my country and they had another local assistant there.
This day also Kawamura-san also joined us, but in on camera only in Snowpark.
On this day we filmed the opening in the Old Town. It is so funny how during winter there are not so many people, especially so early in the morning. but the few people how were there were so curious and came to talk - the moment when I had a lot of explanation to do in Estonian and Russian and translate it into English/Japanese. In addition, we had a bit of time to make souvenir shopping and take photos together. Sadly I do not have the photos and I have not seen them.

We went on with shooting at Snowpark where we made Shovel Racing. We asked "one guy" to show us how to do it and say some words about it. Now half years later I can thank ItteQ for making me now one awesome guy who is good friend of mine. In secret I can say that we happened to meet again few weeks later in a club and I hope he likes also to have a friend like me. In addition, I can say that for some reason in the final production his name seems to be Paul, but in reality they referred to him by his surname that sounds the same as Paul in Japanese. His real first name means something very valuable. If any of the readers and ItteQ watchers happen to get a crush on him then write me and I will give his real name and you can contact him on Facebook :P To give some good words about him - he is snowboarder, football player, loves to travel, open to adventures and single! Oh, I just love to mess with him :D

The last place to film was in Sushi Plaza, but this also never made the cut in the episode. From that filming I understood that Estonia is full of young successful people. That gives me hope for the future of my country.. forgive me for not staying here!
After we finished we went back to the hotel and went to eat at restaurant next to hotel and then was my time to say goodbye to them. Even though I was sad that it was over, I felt really happy and satisfied. I definitely got more than just an experience to help filming crew - meeting those amazing extraordinary people, getting to know behind-camera actions and getting memories for a life time. In addition, if you think that it is easy to be spend time with world famous actresses and official filming crew and be 100% professional without any fan-girl feelings, then you are wrong! I was fighting with my inner fan-girl all the time and every night when I went home I was jumping up and down from happiness and screaming like 4-years-old girl over fluffy pony toy! My year had a perfect start and I will not forget it.

If you want to know the outcome of the shooting then this episode aired on 15.02.2015. Sadly I was not able to see the it on time, but I found it online some time late. As you all can see, there where parts that were cut out of the real thing as winter wind-surfing and eating sushi and more scenes were from the last day when I was not there, but it all makes me really really happy.
Even though I have watched it over and over again, I still get butterflies when I watch the episode :D
If you really want to see the episode then here is the link (NO ENGLISH SUBS! and Morisanchu part starts somewhere around 20+ few minutes)

If you ask me, how did I first got to this opportunity at all, then I can only answer that sometimes luck smiles to me :D KIDDING! Just my country is really small and right people happened to know me and Yanne with our knowledge of Japan and Japanese (but she is in Japan, so unfortunately she was not able to participate). But how ItteQ found these people who contacted me? Easy - all mighty Youtube and crazy videos are all that they need :)

This is my "Short" story about ItteQ. Once again: ItteQ crew, HONTONI ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU~~!!