Japan trip: Part VII - Sendai and coming home

Time: 14.03.15-05.04.15

02.04.2015
Good morning Sendai! This was the day when Yanne started to receive new people into the dormitory and because our stay there was actually not allowed, then we decided to keep away, so we went out.

We had to go to Yanne's university because she had to sign another piece of paper that is so common in everyday life in Japan. On the way we stopped by Osaki Hachiman shrine which is one of the most colorful shrines in Japan. Shrine is dedicated to the kami Hachiman, tutelary god of warriors. Some business men were having a service, with high chance that it was connected to some kind of upcoming project or deal. It was really nice to see that old traditions are still hold.
We went on to Yanne's university where students were recruiting new members to clubs. There were so many students all around and for the first time I felt what means big university. I would like to remind you that Tohoku University is one of the biggest and prestigious universities in Japan and has ~17 800 students and ~1300 international students. So it was really interesting for me to be there. Both of my universities - in Estonia and in Portugal - are rather small. There were also some guys from one club who came to talk to us. They were really surprised to find out that Yanne is studying there.

Even though there are over 1 million people living in Sendai, it feels more like a country city. It is is weird especially because it is almost the whole population of my country, but it is true. You can feel it in everything - architecture, people, nature etc. Yanne can talk a lot about it.
We went to Sendai city center which is pretty cool, because in front of Sendai station there are pedestrian bridges. It was a nice day walking around.

We finished the day with going out with Yanne's friends. We went to nomihoudai and karaoke. "nomihoudai" is a place were you pay for time you spend there and not for the drinks. So advice - drink a lot and fast if you want to get drunk there for paying a little. It is really famous place for businessmen to go to celebrate things, so next table to us were businessmen. NOTICE: I do not promote alcohol drinking - alcohol is bad for your health and should be drank in right amount.
As I am not a big singer then at first it was weird in karaoke, but the easiest way is just to relax and know that a lot of people cannot sing but do it anyway. I was really looking forward to karaoke hoping that I could sing any Japanese song, for example some Tegomasu or NEWS songs, but as usually I am able to forget all the lyrics when I need to sing and I am unable to read kanji.. So only songs in English. I must say that it is rather easy to make a mistake with the right door in karaoke, especially when you have drank already. For me all the doors looked the same and I forgot to check before which was the right one. It was really great and funny day and I was really happy to see that Yanne has awesome friends there.

03.04.2015

We woke up rather late because of the previous night. It was our last proper day in Japan, but we spent it mostly in Yanne's dormitory repacking our luggage,so I do not have any photos from that day. We did go to the city for a moment just to eat and buy last souvenirs from Sendai, but that was it.

04.04.2015 

In the morning around 10.00 we took a bus from Sendai to Tokyo. I thought that it would be much easier to say byebye to Yanne, but I was wrong. Despite the fact that we talk every week and make at least 3 hour Skype-sessions, it was still really painful to leave. I would be a lie if I would say that I was not left in tears. Now all the bus ride to Tokyo seems like I was in another dimension. I sat alone and just watched the big snow-topped mountains going by as if saying "Your journey here has become to the end, remember every moment that you spent in the country you love". It was really weird feeling that I had in the bus.

In Tokyo we still had few hours to spend so we went to Shibuya park where people celebrated hanami. I was actually amazed! The whole park was filled with people, either groups of university friends, families, company colleagues. I know that I knew that it is something like that, but I did not think that there would be so big groups and so big party-ish thing. I have to say that in a way I also was embarrassed, because we did not put our luggage into coinlockers this time, so we were walking around the people with big bags and as Europeans we got a bit too much attention. There were guys inviting us for a drink and one drunk guy was asking email address to keep in contact. This was actually the moment when Chris discovered that she had lost her phone.. with high chance into Sendai bus. Thank Gyoza that in the airport I found it from my bag where Chris before put goods from the store. She had just accidentally dropped her phone there also.

Another thing that we managed to see in Shibuya park was traditional Japanese wedding. I think Japanese weddings are so beautiful and we saw exactly when they were taking wedding photos. Congratulations to newly weds!
Then the time came for us to take the bus to airport and fly back to Estonia. Just 12 hours on a plane to Paris and few hours to Estonia. This time the time difference was worse so I was able to sleep only little sleep and most of the time spent watching movies. From Asian movies I watched "White haired witch of Lunar kingdom". 

05.04.2015

Finally, back in Estonia I almost did not unpack my things because after 10 days in Estonia, I already went to Turkey for a week. Travelling at its best!

These were my 3 weeks in Japan and I hope you also enjoyed reading this. Hopefully I can make another trip to Japan in few years :)

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. 

Japan trip: Part I - the start

Time: 14.03.2015 - 05.04.2015
So the ones who are following me on facebook know that I had a trip to Japan to visit Yanne. I thought that I might write a bit about it.

The planning started already in September 2014 when I talked with my older sister and friend when we should go (lets call them Chris and Star). The final decision was from the middle of March until the first week of April, because then in Japan will be holidays between school years and Yanne can travel too, in addition Kris and Star can get vacation from work for a bit longer and I have one week holidays from university so I would not miss out much.

how to save money for Japan? not the fastest way..

Anyways here is the short over view how things went before getting on the plane with some money calculations in euro or yen..

September 2014 - bought both-way plane tickets (~600 euro)
February 2015 - bought both-way plane tickets to Okinawa (~113 euro) because why not??
2 weeks before - making final plans - Yanne went crazy with planning, so in the end I printed out 30 pages..
1 day before - packed my bag because my personal life took too much time to have time to pack.
Morning of 14.03 - arrived home around 9am because personal life is great and sleep is overrated (Not true!), so I put final things into bag, waited mom to arrive (she was basically keeping an eye on apartment for some time) and went to airport to have my flight at 15:10. The flight was Tallinn-Paris and then Paris-Tokyo for 11,5 hours. In Paris airport I found out that in Tallinn they made a small mistake and my tickets between Paris-Tokyo where almost cancelled. Thank Gyoza that we had time in Paris so they could fix it.

Finally at 23:35 the plane took off and I was flying toward the country of my dreams :)
I have a bad/awesome habit that on plane (and bus) I fall a sleep really easily, so I ended up sleeping in total 7 hours and from 4,5 hours that I was awake 2 hours I spent watching "Tazza 2 ~ Hidden card" ( TOP is soooo amazing - review coming when I am back from trip) and 1 hour on eating as we were given food twice.

So when we reached Haneda airport the time was around 20:00 on 15.04.15  and after almost half year I was seeing face to face my little sis again - yeah.. some tears were shred..

So we went on and found our hostel (around 16 euro) and as it turned out to be one of the greatest backpackers place we ended up staying there for another night, but about that in next post ;)

Greetings from Okinawa :P

again with ANNOUNCEMENTS!!

Gomen, Gomen! for not updating anything, but here are some announcements we want to give you!

More videos when Yanne has her first vlog from Japan! :) 

(DISCLAIMER: Video was filmed at night so we could not be too excited and loud and it was filmed with usual digital photo camera - sorry, for not having expensive tools to make videos)