Last actual day in Tokyo

So today we slept pretty late again but I woke up again earlyer to eat breakfast and to take a shower.
Todays post wont be long since I am finding myself a bit tired and sick so we are just going to stay at the hostel. But I dont mind, since we have done all of our major sight seeing allready, there is not much left to see and moneys allready running short so it fits us perfectly to leave this day empty and just pack and have fun here with the other people of the hostel.
Im making rice balls and cooking again, and we have the conputers, TV, other people etc. to keep us company so we will not be boored to the least. See you soon.

All my love to all you who have been reading my blog and to my family.
Robert

4 Day in Tokyo

So today we woke up really late since we had no time set for our wake up. I believe it was something like 11a.m. when I took my shower after waking up. I then went to eat breakfast to the comonroom and let Kimi sleep. I went to tell him the time at some point and he said he would still sleep a bit so I decided to go to the Supermarket to buy some groceries. I allso bought some boxed lunches.
Kim had woke up and come up and was just about to go to the nearby convenience store when I arived.
We hade decided to explore the nearby areas of Asakusa more in depth so on we went.
We walked through a shopping street and saw the asahi beer building allso. We went to a small mall and then to a starbucks. There we decided that we really didnt want to do anything today actually so we went back to our hostel at 6p.m. already. There I made food and we stayed there watching movies and stuff. Pretty booring I know but we wanted to have a lazy day. -

Backlogg from the past few days here in Tokyo (1st day in tokyo-3rd day)

So when we woke up on the 13th we had in plans to go and see the Hiroshima castle. We went as planed to the JR Hiroshima station to put our stuff in coin lockers and as we were making our way to them we had a quick bite at Mc D's, or more commonly known as McDonald's. Well after eating we noticed that it was pouring bucketful's from the sky and we of course were like "Hell no, we ain't gonna go out there". So we bought the tickets for the shinkansen to Tokyo and meanwhile, since we had time, looked around the station building shopping mall and I popped into Starbucks before boarding the train. The train ride took a long time and we had to change trains at Shin-Osaka. Since it was so early in Tokyo we decided to find our hostel (sakura hostel, not an official YH). We then took and left our stuff in our room, took a shower and then we went to explore the nearby areas in Asakusa. We went by the supermarket to by some groceries since I had dictated that I would make tonight's food. I made the easiest thing I could think of so... Spaghetti with meat sauce it was :)
The day was not specially long this time but we decided that it would be ok since we are this time not on a schedule so no waking up times and such.
The next morning we woke around about 10 a.m. and ate some breakfast that we had bought from the store. From there on we ventured to Harajuku and from there to Akihabara.
In Harajuku we wanted to go and see the COSPLAYers that usually hang around this area. On our last trip we didn't see any since it was raining. (COSPLAYer = Costume players, people who dress up as characters from different mangas and such).
After seeing some and after walking around in the blazing hot sun, we took the train to Akihabara station. Akihabara is known as the electric town in Tokyo since it's a whole area focused only on electronics and electronic appliances. They even sell international models from Europe and USA in here.
It's also known for the maid cafes, to which we actually went to. It was called maidreaming and the theme was pretty standard, you were the master and they were maids who had to talk "like" cats. The experience was hilarious even though for me it was the second time, but still. Kimi was about to die of embarrassment of being there but he had himself wanted to see it and so I was only going along with his wishes.
My friend Kosuke and I had made some arrangements for this particular evening, we had planed to go to an izakaya. (Izakaya = japanese bar). We came back to our hostel and took a shower before meeting him at the kaminarimon in asakunsa. We then walked there and had a blast, we were also entertained by a drunk Japanese man in the next room who was yelling loudly.
We drank until pretty late and then walked Kosuke to his station. We decided that we would do it again the next day. We came back to our hostel and continued to drink with some Americans.
The next day I was surprisingly waken by Kimi who had woke up early to take a shower. We decided to stay up and go get some breakfast. Kimi had a bad hungover and he didn't feel so good at first. After eating I went to the supermarket to buy the next days breakfast since we were out of food. After coming back we headed for the Ueno park regions to go and see some temples and the national museum and to go to the zoo. I really liked the national museum but the thing I loved the most was the zoo, since I of course am mentally 7 from inside :) We saw pandas, alligators, elephants, giraffes etc. My favorite were the penguins. We spent a really long time around ueno so when we came back we had barely time to take a shower before we had to go, and we came late of course. But we went to Shibuya, a huge ass district in japan full of stores and malls etc. We met Kosuke at the hachiko statue (a statue of a dog) and he showed us the way to the place where we were going. Today we were joined by some of his friends.
So we ate and drank and had a fun time. We came back to the hostel later and then I had to come to the computer to update this blog. Sorry about the delay.

good night!

Miyajima island

We went today to the nearby island of Miyajima where we climbed on a mountain and other things.
We woke up and I immediately started to make my preparations as apparently Kimi decided to snooze for a bit longer. After finally waking him up we started to make our way to the nearby JR station to take a train to Miyajima-guchi. From there we had to take a ferry which also was operated by JR to the island. It was hot outside. The first thing that greeted us outside ferry terminal were dears, a bunch load of wild dears. They laid in the sun and walked around freely, unafraid of humans. I patted a few, they were so cute.
We walked towards the famous floating torii that was in front of the famous floating shrine of Miyajima. We had to go inside it, but because it's summer the water level is a bit lower so it didn't float, rather just stood on top of the strand. We continued to look through some of the other temples at the island, they were so beautiful and majestic.
I will not lie, we were sweating at this point pretty heavily because of the sun. We slowly made our way to the cable cars to take them to mt.Misen located on the island (highest peak at those regions). After taking the amazing rope way there we had to walk over 1 km to the peak in the blazing sun. We were seriously swimming in sweat. We passed through the temple of the eternal flame, the flame inside has burned for over 1200 already. It's said to have been lit by a famous Buddhist priest. It's kept alive by adding some lumber to the fire. We then continued past some magnificent rock formations made by nature. After the long and sweaty walk we reached the peak and the observatory from where you had a 360 degree view of the surroundings. I ate an ice cream at the observatory and let me tell you, ice cream has never, EVER tasted so good!! We stayed there for a long while because it was so windy. The wind felt so good.
After that we walked down to the cable car terminal and took it down from where we started to make our way back to Hiroshima's center. We took the streetcar and just went strait to our ryokan to take a fricking shower and a bath. I was so relieved afterward since I had had felt so awful in the sweaty clothes. We then went walking from our ryokan to the city center where we ate and then came back to our ryokan. It was so late already that we didn't want to stay long.
So now were back at our ryokan, Tomorrow we are going to see the Hiroshima castle before heading to Tokyo where we will spend our remaining five days.

Osaka->Hiroshima

Today we woke up ready to leave for Hiroshima!! We had washed our clothes yesterday so we had to pack them before we could leave the YH. The YH had been an awesome place to stay in and the beds were comfy. We left our key back at the entrance and said our thanks and left. We took the train to Osaka station and bought our tickets but before leaving Kim wanted to see the Pokemon center, of course.
- What have you done today?
- Oh nothing. Just visited the POKEMON CENTER !
or that's what I at least think was going through his head.
No but in all seriousness it was awesome to re-live my childhood by walking through the poke-center.
We then went back to the station to take a train towards Shin-Osaka where we would change to the Shinkansen Sakura. We were in good time at Shin-Osaka so we ate at the Lotteria and I went to Starbucks to take a coffee, Yummy!
It took only ~1,5h to get to Hiroshima with the express train. We arrived at 3 o'clock at the station and took the streetcar from there to Konami-cho where our ryokan was. The owner, an old woman, was SUPER sweet and kind. She made us feel really at home and at ease here in Ryokan Sansui. I put up the name since I really, REALLY !!! Like it here. The place might not look much from the outside but from the inside it's a normal ryokan. But what makes it really special is the owners ;) It is also easy to find and to get to from allover town.
When we had done our settling in, we left to see the A-Bomb dome and Peace memorial Museum and Peace memorial park. The dome is really a good reminder for what happened and the museum also makes a valid point. And the city of Hiroshima wrights every year a plead to U.S.A. to decrease and finally abolish their nuclear weapons.
I 'aint no hippie but I really think that the world could be a better place without the constant threat of a nuclear war. 1100 nuclear warheads are located in Russia alone, and it's currently (officially at least) the biggest amount in the world. This was a good visit indeed. And the personal stories and photos of the destruction really gave me something new also.

After the visit we went to the inner parts of the city to find the famous Okonomimura, a place with only Okonomiyaki stores, where we ate. [Okonomiyaki= a type of Japanese Pizza/pancake, containing cabbage, meat etc.] It was super delicious. Since we are in Hiroshima, they have their own style of making the Okonomiyaki, in Osaka they have also their own style which is also the most common since it's easy to make at home also. The Osaka or the "normal" Okonomiyaki is made essentially by simply mixing all the ingredients in to the batter. We then strolled down the big streets until we decided to take the streetcar back to our ryokan. Tomorrow I have planed for us to go to Miyajima. So for now good night.

Osaka sightseeing

So, finally our real day in Osaka begins. We woke up and went to the 7/11 to buy some sandwiches and beverages for our breakfast. We ate them near the stadium where our hostel was located. From there we then continued to walk to the Osaka botanical garden and museum of natural history. The garden was big and beautiful, I mean really big! The sun was blazing on the sky and Kimi decided to take his shirt off. We then wandered around for a while and rested at a rest stop and then continued via the rose garden to the museum. The museum was not so big but it was interesting and since the entrance fee was only 300 yen to get inside the botanical garden and the museum, we found this even more comforting. But as I said it was a good museum. Then we made our painful way to the station in the sun. We then took the Osaka loop line to go and see Osaka Castle. It was hot and the sun was blazing. We were so glad when we noticed that inside they had air conditioning. We looked around for a while and then we went back to the station and took the train to Namba station where we then ate at an Italian restaurant and after that we walked around the big shopping streets around the station like Dotonbori and Den-Den Town :) It was fun and we even saw some people from the local maid cafes trying to get some customers to come to their cafe. It was funny since they were in their whole get up. We walked around these streets for about 4-5 hours looking at stuff and browsing. It was fun.
We then taught about going to the Asian Pasific Tradecenter in Osaka harbor but on our way we decided not to go since we were afraid that we didn't have enough time to go there and then come back to our hostel, since it closes at 11 p.m.  So back towards our hostel we came. We arrived at the nearby station at somewhere around 8 p.m. and we then started our quest to find a place to eat. After a short while we decided on a ramen shop and went there to eat some ramen. [Ramen= Chinese noodles served in a soup with "add on"s] .

The staff were really friendly and very humble and it gave the perfect ending to this day. 

We then walked to our hostel to wash our clothes and to take a shower.  Now since I have written this I'll go get some sleep. Bye 

Kyoto -> Osaka

Today we woke up a bit... tired ? After yesterdays BBQ and beer consuming we were not so eager to raise up early. I took a shower and then we were of. We had to take our luggage out and go find a coin locker since the room was to be overhanded back at 10.00 a.m. So off we went. We took a quick bite at the Delifrance cafe and then went walking towards the nearest subway station. We took the subway towards the Kinkaku ji but since it does not go all the way to kinkakuji michi we had to take a buss to get there. The weather was just perfect and the place was just beautiful beyond belief! It was a lot smaller than I had imagined but still it packed the aesthetic punch that is so much talked about. We were sweating in the scorning hot sun when we started to walk down the street towards the city center. We found a small game store selling used games from days of old and also new ones. My friend decided that he wanted to find a controller to Nintendo 64 and to our surprise when I asked the man (in japanese of course) THEY HAD IT!! Man what an amazing and magical store and guess what, it was only 1500 yens (15 euros) and it should cost, as it is not manufactured any more, a lot more. So... Only in Japan moment number #109.
Any how, we then walked passed a JR station and decided to be lazy and just take the train to Kyoto station. Two older school girls at the station found us interesting apparently since they giggled and took photos of us and man were they embaraced when I revealed that I spoke Japanese.  
From there we went to get our stuff from the coin lockers and took the train to Osaka. It was no trouble finding the directions to the next train as such, but we, or should we say I, managed to take the wrong type of train. Instead of taking the local train we took the rapid which skipped a lot of stops, including ours. Well we noticed only after a good while so we had to take the local train back. What an amateur mistake to do. But it brought me memories from my last visit since it was the exact same thing that I did when I was going to my friends, Mihos, house. Saved again by the JR pass. 
Then we arrived to the right station and found easily our Youth hostel. My god it's hard to miss, It's in the fricking stadium!!! And the room we have is a really nice one, Pretty, clean, own balcony, Tv. Nice. 
I ate my bento that I bought from the 7/11 near the station. [Bento= boxed lunch]. 
Then we went for a walk around the nearby area and found a supermarket, hundred yen shop and other stuff. We came back only to find this place packed full of French people, apparently on some kind of training  camp.




Well we are going to take a bath at the public bath here. Nighty night.