OK, I've been travelling Japan for the first time in my life at the
aforementioned date (precisely 07.04-18.04 ^_^) together with two
friends of mine, Linda Chui and Derek Ingles. [missing a good shot of the two
as a link here, but they'll pop up on a number of pics later on ^_^]
We started our trip in Kyoto after one night in Tokyo, arriving in the old
capital, which is full of old castles and temples and thus the stereotypical,
but nevertheless very nice temple gardens.
We came to Nihon and especially Kyoto at a very nice time of the year,
when the cherry trees (Sakura in Japanese)
blossom. It's really amazing how many of these trees can be found
in cities that would otherwise be correctly titled as concrete wastelands,
though Kyoto is nicer and has more parks, castles, etc. than others.
The Japanese celebrate this time of the year with a festival called
Hanami, where people sit under the blooming
trees, eat and most of all drink and get quite drunk. Since "free" nature
is a bit of a rare resource in the big cities of Nihon, the place you
see in the picture sells places under them trees...
These cherry blossoms kept us company (gee,
who would have thought at this picture that Linda and Derek will marry
in October 1997? ^_-)
when we went to our next stop, the hot spring ressort Hakone near Tokyo.
(this was near the Pension Okada, where we did spend a very good time)
As mentioned Hakone is a hot spring place, relatively close to Fuji-san,
so there a number of vulcanic activities in the vicinity, including these
hot mud pits (some with poisonous gases, warnings
only in Kanji ^_^;; ^_-) among really hot sulphurous springs
in which a local delicacy, hard boiled eggs
are prepared
which have a darkened/blackish shell and are in the paper bag, just to be eaten
several minutes later. Also note the heaps of snow, down in the valley the
trees were blooming and up there it had snowed a lot (yuki da! ^_-).
And as the Hakone area is so close to Tokyo and touristly well developed
(though gaijin seem to be quite rare ^_-) a rather typical kitsch thingy
like this ferry in the form of a pirate ship
was to be expected. ^_^
The pension Okada featured "roten buro", that's outdoor hot spring baths and
on our way to them we happily noted that the ever present
vending machines (in this case the beer
one ^_-) were located just outside of our rooms! The nightly buzz thus was
comfortable to achieve, though a tad more expensive than the machine outside
the pension. ^_- :P
We did meet up with two friends for some nice hot dips there, too. Miho
Nishida, who organized the whole Hakone trip (domo arigatou!) and Chris
Drome, a student from Canada (lucky SOB, get's to live there ^_-). I'm sure
you can guess who is who on this picute.
(a picute is a picture of a cute, or at least includes one ^_- :P)
When we returned to Tokyo one of the more memorable events was a visit a
Chris Drome's tiny apartment, were he served us
delicious food and drinks (mabu tofu for the main
course ^_-), so I couldn't stop myself. ^_^
But Tokyo (or japanese in general ;-) restaurants do hold a lot of
delights for their customers. If the prices are
listed in Kanji, this is obviously not a tourist trap aiming for gaijin. ^_-
I also have a confession to make, I ate the 2nd and 3rd hambuger or my life
in Japan, alas just because it really did taste quite a lot better than the
"Maku Donarudo" (Kana for McDonalds ^_-) burger I tried at age 15. ^_-
This miracle burger was a Mosburger with
Teriyaki sauce! ^_^
Well let me finish this report with some rather typical impressions of
Japan, actually this case it's Tokyo famous red light district in Shinjuku,
Kabukicho, though there are very little red
lights. ^_- Actually I never felt safer than in Tokyo, at least as far as
big cities are concerned. Another typical thing for Japan are the really
amazing numbers of vending machines, often in
clusters! Also a common sight in the urban Japan
are rather short pants or
skirts, the later example including the
omnipresent vending machines. ^_- Oh, and of course you can't miss the
favorite past time of millions, the noisy and confusing
pachinko (the place is only so deserted because
this picture was taken early in the morning, just after they opened). ^_^
