In Yatta We Trust

We were supposed to see Mt Fuji in Hakone but it was raining pretty bad all the time there!

So instead we went to the Onsen, the Tenzan Tohji-kyô. There are thousands of hot springs in Japan. The onsens are public bath which uses hot spring to heat up the water. Some can be really hot! There are onsens for men, other for women, very few for both.

We had to go there, take a shower on a small stool between naked japanese guys and then you go in the different hot spring baths, each with its specific temperature. from freezing cold, to upper mega hot You just have a small "cache-bite" and that's all! freestyle! Anyway it was very relaxing!! and all that in the middle of nature! It was worth it!
Sorry for the fans, but we couldn't take pictures inside the onsen ^^

Kyoto! The former imperial capital of Japan, the city with 2000 temples! Don't you worry we didn't see them all! We kept some time for drinking and playing that stupid UFO game!

So what did we do in Kyoto? We visited tons of temples, that i can't even remember the names! We saw the Sanjūsangen-dō 1000 buddhas statues! We went to the imperial castle gardens. We ate yakitoris and drank sake all nite in a japanese rocknroll Jacques Dutronc fans pub! Even tough we had hard time findings bars. In Japan they are all on high rise buildings on different floors, so you can onlys see the signs when you are in the street, you don't know if they are good or dodgy.

So we spent our money in UFO catcher once again!

Another day, it was bike time! So my poor destroyed knee and feet could have a rest for a while! (don"t ever bring Converse shoes as your main shoes for a 3 weeks japan trip! or you ll die 3 times just like i did!)

We went to see the golden pavillon, awesome view! It's a temple cover with gold layer! it's real gold you know! and there is plenty of it!

At night we went to the pub ... again. No japanese people to be seen... oh it's Tuesday nite!

On the following day we headed to Fushimi Inari-taisha to see thousands of red toris aligned to form a path in the mountain. It's very... orange There is a strange feeling inside, like hypnotic, a very impressive place. A scene from Lost in Translation took place here.

We went to the Nishiki market, in the centre of Kyoto, a very colourful market with fresh fruits, vegs, fishes... We bought japanese kitchen knife there, the best in the world they say! They were even customized with our name on it!

At night we tested most of the bars that were in the Lonely Planet guide but they were empty most of the time, where are the japanese during the week!?

We went paparazzi style in Gion, the old geisha area of Kyoto, to try and spot geishas! We managed to see 2 or 3 but they were walking very fast and passing by small street to avoid the public. The ones we saw were probably just maikos, apprentice geishas. There are less than 100 geishas in Kyoto!

A lot more photos about Kyoto here and here!

After we gave up on the monk lifestyle, we took the shinkansen with our JR pass to get to Kobe fot the night!

Kobe is an harbor , not too big, a busy international city. There is even an old european quarter in the hill above the city, with very kitsch french and english shops and buildings!

We ate the world famous Kobe beef in a classy restaurant with a chef who was cooking only for us in front of our eyes! That was the best meal ever in Japan! The meat is so tender! It's crazy, it just melts in your mouth
The Kobe beef is fed with sake and beer and given a hand massage every day! It's very expensive but it was worse it! Oishi desu!

More photos about Kobe here and here!

Kōya-san is a complex of buddhist temples located at the top of a mountain in south kansaï.

We slept in a temple with monks! They wake us up with a giant bell at 6 am for the morning buddhist ceremony. The ceremony is very mystic: monks singing with their deep guttural voices, smoke of encent, symbals... it puts you in a morning transe. But at 6 am, at the top of the mountain in a big empty temple, its 5°C in the room, its not easy to be a monk!

The day after we went to visit a big buddhist cemetary, Okunoin Cemetery, with nice tombstones, statues... in an old cedar forest, that was a very nice walk.
We then visited a couple of other temple, one had a classical japanese garden, Banryutei rock garden, with rocks and small white stones, the largest in Japan!

To get to Mount Koya, it takes 2 or 3 trains that only locals take and a scary cable car to finish climbing the mountain. On the way back we walked down the mountain 40 min with our warrior bags!

...and we nearly get killed by a giant snake!

More photos about Kōya-san here and here!

Nara was the first capital of Japan. There are loads of georgous temples here...with their terrible guardians :

The Tōdai-ji is one of the oldest buddhist temple of the city and is the largest wooden building in the world!

Inside it there is a huge 15 meters high and 500 tonnes bronze buddha statue, massive! Funny fact: There is a hole inside one of the wood columns of the temple, its meant to be good luck if you manage to squeeze and to crawl all the way to the other side of the hole

We played with deer again, they were hungry for biscuits! and they follow you as a group everywhere:) Run fools!

We had Shabu-Shabu, its a japanese fondue with beef and vegetable. It's so good, you cook your meet and veggies in hot water and here you go! We were looked at by old grannies in the restaurant, waiting for us to make a mistake that was really funny. But we managed to look not so stupid! Oishi Desu!

We stayed in a classic japanese Ryokan (Matsumae)

More photos about Nara here and here!

Miyajima is an island of the coast, east of Hiroshima, famous for its temples and a big red tori on the beach.

You can see deers walking free here! They became our friends for the day

When we came up to the top of the mountain, there are monkeys! They tried to attack us, but some of them were nice enough to pose for us

The view up there is wonderful! ...exept when it rains!!

More photos about Miyajima here and here!

Hiroshima is a very attractive city, full of life and animation. Which denotes with its sad past. We visited the Bomb A museum and memorial for peace, sad but interesting. Grom touched radioactive stones by the way...

To put a touch of joy after this dark moment, we went to play UFO games (machine where you loose your money trying to get a crappy toy). Grom was a big looser in Hiroshima, he lost 2000Y trying to get a crappy pink shit from some manga he knew! I managed to get a maid in mini skirt on my first try with only 100Yens! Sugoiiiii!!

My biggest disappointment in this trip was about my feet!! i was wearing my converse for the all time, and this is not a shoe to be wearing when you walk like 10km a day! so my feet were like dying everyday, and i was fearing the amputation! at one point my knee got hurt as well and i had to walk like a zombie. So i tried to find shoes in my size (45Eur or 11US) but i think i must be some kind of monster in Japan, they don't have that size here!! We tried loads and loads of shops, with nice staff but they couldn't find my size. And they didn't have a clue of English too, they spoke like 2 or 3 words!! Even young people don't know much of English in Japan. It was not easy to get understood, so it can bring to funny situation sometimes

At night, we went to 2 pubs. Spoke to a depressed Steven Spielberg lookalike guy who paid us cheap japanese cognac. He sent us to Barcos bar, where we met 2 salary men : Mike & Keta. They were really cool and paid us tequilas sunrise while talking about frenchy-japanese stuff (Montmartre, sushis, samourai and red wine). Later Grom showed us his salsa skills with sexy Midori! Groovy baby!!

Stayed in J-Hoopers hostel, waking up was difficult!

More photos from Hiroshima here!

Went to see the most majestic feodal castle of Japan: Himeji-jô .... under the rain!

Terrible weather but the visit was nice. The castle is huge, made of wood and stone, it was built in the 14th century.


The city itself, is not very interesting, and not really worth staying for the night, thing that we didn't know
Anyway we could tried our first yukata in the hotel that evenning! very ehmm.... japanese !


We took the shinkansen to Hiroshima the next morning...

More photos from Himeji here!
to be continued...

Konitchiwa my friends !!

Time for me to tell you a bit about our crazy awesome trip to japan in april.

First Osaka! Osaka is a big city, young, busy, modern, crazy, lots of people everywhere, a good start for the trip Fashion is crazy here. For the girls: mini shorts, mini skirts, crazy haircut, long painted and customized nails, lots of different styles, from the classic salary girl look, to the excentric kogaru look (blond and taned).

Food was really good, we had sushi bar with octopus sushi! you pay by the plate, 100, 200, 300Yen the plate, it depends of the colour of your plate Of course the 300Y are better sushis, the price of your pile of plates rise quickly, so watch out! But still, its way cheaper than in Paris
We tried the Okonomiyaki there too, some kind of omelet with cabbage and eggs and sometime noodles. Someone cook it for you in front of you on your table, its really fun to see and really good!

We went to the world's largest giant wheel! Very kewl view of the city up there at night time!

We went to the top of a crazy scyscrapper to take a 360 look at the city. Went to huge mega shopping centre (for girls only!) ^^, kicked some ass at SEGA center.
Discover the pachinko: it's a slot game with iron ball (a bit like a flipper) each one of them make a loud noise, but they are hundreds of them in a pachinko room. You just cant stand here more than a minute, its insanely loud!! ...but they don't seem to mind seem to stay in these places for hours!
We tried the purikura, a machine that take photos of you and your school girl friends, that you can customize. Very girly kawaii thing, you only see girls in these stuff. It's very popular for the teenagers there. We got kicked out of some of them that were forbidden to guys

We stayed 2 nights at Carpe Diem House, a japanese style house with a nice garden.

Grom had his moment of glory speaking japanese a few times.

More photos from Osaka on my Flickr here
And all Japan's Grom photos here

to be continued...

Yattaaaaaa !!!

I'm back on track ! after quite a while of non activity, i bring my blog back to life for one of the biggest event mankind will ever live : my trip to Japan with my japanese assistant Grom !
From the 4th til the 24th of april, if you 're looking for me I ll be fighting some sumo or eating tons of sushimakisashimi stuff.

Below you can see a map of our crazy journey which i hope will be not as dangerous as the swedish one in terms of screwing things up... i doubt it ll be an easy piece of ramen to survive! but with our crazy strong skills in japanese and my white belt in tae-kwon-do, we will be able to hopefully see Tokyo at the end of the trip.

I dont know yet if i will be able to give news and photos live from there, but im sure the help of Grom's ipod touch and some hotspots ll do the trick!
Next news, on japanese ground... tchintchin o tabemasu ka!!

sugoiii!!!!!