Having seen enough of Tokyo for now, it was time to start our journey to Kyoto, Japan’s former capital city. Kyoto is best known for it’s enormous amount of temples and shrines. This, naturally, makes it an excellent city to show your mum the “spiritual” side of Japan. Mum brought JR passes with her, so we could travel there for free by shinkansen.

From Tokyo to Kyoto it’s about 3 hours by train, so we arrived fairly in time to be able to check out one of the temples near our hotel, Higashi Hongan-ji. This absolutely massive temple can be found near Kyoto station, and was very impressive by its sheer size. Although the main part is currently being restored, it was still a very impressive site to walk around. Especially the ropes made out of human hair (donated by believers to create the ropes used to hoist all materials for the original temple) kinda stuck with me…

The next day we decided to explore the Southern part of Kyoto first. Here, we ran into our first group of school kids, exploring the sites on a school trip. On such trips they get all kinds of assignments, one of them being to talk to foreign people. So there I was, answering them questions like “what’s your favorite food?” and “what kind of sports do you like?”

After the interview, we entered the shrine, which had a magnificent garden with it. While walking around in the garden, we found an upwards path, which led us to an area with a great view over Kyoto.

After leaving this one, we quickly continued on to the next. This shrine was a lot bigger, and more tourist infected than the previous, but the garden surrounding it was truly amazing.

We wandered around there for a long time, exploring every part of it, until we finally reached the superb bridge near the exit. If anything, it was the perfect Japanese scenery, straight from the movies.

Oh, and little did I know, my mum is a tree-hugger!

The last shrine we visited that day was complemented with a beautiful park area behind it. We had the feeling the shrine would be very nice to visit in the dark, so we explored the park and the surrounding areas of the shrine a bit, while waiting for night to fall.

Luckily, we were right! The shrine looked very nice at night.

Next up, was the royal palace. The palace is pretty much in the center of Kyoto, with a huge park around it. The park itself wasn’t very impressive (especially compared to the parks and gardens the other day), but it does seem like a park that’s more used by the locals. There were people hanging out, children playing, joggers, etcetera. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to go into the palace on our own, but had to join a guided tour. So we joined the herd, and were led around in about an hour.

After the tour, we went to the West side of Kyoto. No, we did not find ghetto there, we did find an excellent river and mountain area though!

We had seen on the map, that somewhere around there should be monkeys. So we went up the mountain in order to check them out. Unfortunately, the climb proved a bit too much for my mum, so I went up the mountain alone. Where I not only found the monkeys (no, I didn’t spank them), but a magnificent city view as well.

After the monkey mountain, we walked around in the river area for about an hour. Unfortunately, my memory card was full at that time, so I couldn’t take any pictures anymore. So you’ll just have to take my word for it, that it was an excellent walk, with some amazing views along the way. After getting back at the hotel, we quickly searched for a camera store, so I could buy a new memory card. After getting the new (8 GB!!) card, we had dinner in an Italian (style) restaurant, on the 11th floor of the station mall. Needless to say, the city view was amazing.

The next day, we traveled to Nara at a slow pace. Since we knew it was going to be our last city we’d visit and there weren’t that many sights to explore, we took our time. We arrived around 3 in the afternoon, checked into a hotel and started exploring the town a bit. While doing so, we quickly ran into the main attraction of the town (or at least the cutest), deer!

At that point I suddenly noticed a little red icon flashing on my camera, indicating it was about time to recharge the damn thing. Guess what I decided not to bring, because I was sure the battery would last the entire trip anyway… Luckily, we found a small camera store, where they provided a battery charge service. So I left my battery behind for charging, while we went back to the hotel to rest a bit. Two hours later I returned to pick up my recharged battery, which I of course had to test immediately…

No, the girl being cute had nothing to do with it, really! Anyway, the next day we spent exploring the temples and parks in Nara. Walking a lot up and down the mountain area surrounding the town. Running into deer everywhere.

All temples are very nice, but the main attraction is definitely the 16 meter high Buddha statue in the Todai-ji. This temple’s entrance is guarded by two huge statues. However, these guardians feel tiny in comparison to the huge Buddha inside.

As we entered the temple, we immediately noticed another typical Nara “sight,” school children! All running around, trying to complete all their assignments from their textbooks. This also meant we were constantly stopped in our tracks by groups of them, everybody asking us the same questions over and over (Holland, Ramen, Aikido, sure you can have my autograph). After a while, we started feeling like an attraction ourselves! But it was very fun to do, and we usually got nice reactions from the kids.

The last shrine we visited was very nice, and as it was located in the mountains, we had a great view over Nara there.

When we were on our way back, we stumbled upon a small garden, which looked very interesting. We entered the place, not really knowing what to expect, only to find the most idyllic garden yet. Postcard pictures all around…

We chilled in this garden for a long time, before we returned back to our hotel. Being all peaceful and serene from the garden, we were quickly kicked back into reality, when we entered a shrine’s central yard, which we needed to cross to get back. There were about a 100 school kids running around the place, and when they spotted us, it was a loud “GAIJIN” and they all came running for an autograph in their textbooks. Not being mean people, we ended up standing there, signing their books for almost half an hour. Now I know how a celebrity feels and I can imagine that if you have to deal with that day in day out, it gets a bit old .

The next day it was already Saturday. Since my mum flew back on Sunday, we had to return to Tokyo. So we hopped on the shinkansen again and traveled back to “good ol’ Tokyo.”

Back in Tokyo we had some excellent Sushi, and on Sunday morning I dropped my mum off at the airport.

Thanks for the visit mum, it was fun!

After our adventures in Roppongi, I woke up the next day feeling a bit fuzzy in the head, but luckily my hangover wasn’t severe. Maybe that was also caused by the fact that I only woke up around 3 o’ clock in the afternoon, but still no hangover is the way we like it! Michel also woke up a little late, so after breakfast brunch we headed out into town. It was time for me to finally get my grubby little hands on a Nintendo DS. They are sold for about 100 Euro around here, so I just couldn’t resist. Especially when Michel showed me the Japanese dictionary on his DS.

We went to Akihabara, of course, and at the huge electronics store Yodobashi Camera I found the DS I liked: Crimson / Black. Which basically means the cover of the DS is a nice shade of red (crimson) and the rest is black. So there I was standing in line, exited to buy my DS. At the register I requested, in fluent Japanese of course, the DS I wanted, and then it was time to pay for the thing. So I pull out my creditcard, only to realize that in this store they don’t want your signature, but you have to type in the newly introduced code to authorize the transaction. Of course I forgot this number, but fortunately I had just enough cash on me to be able to buy it, phew!

However, buying the software for my DS would have to wait a bit until we found an ATM suitable for European cards. After walking around in circles for about an hour, trying to find such an ATM, I finally got the brilliant idea to try a 7/11 store. These convenience stores are located everywhere around the city, and they sure live up to their name of being convenient. They’ve got an ATM that accepts European cards inside!

So now that I had some new cash, it was time to get my game. Or actually, my R4 card. The R4 card allows you to load music, videos and games on a micro SD card, and play them from the card. This way, you don’t have to carry around a ridiculous amount of DS game cards around if you want to vary the games you play while on the road. That’s my official reason I bought the R4, and I’m sticking to it.

In the evening we were both quite spent, so we didn’t go clubbing or anything, and simply stayed at home. Sunday I woke up quite late again, but I really wanted to do something touristy. So I went to the huge Meiji shrine near Harajuku. I knew temples close around 5 in the afternoon, but I decided to just give it a go. I arrived at Harajuku, quickly entered the park around the shrine, and tried to get to it as fast as I could. I almost reached the temple, when the announcement came, first in Japanese, then in English. But I already felt what was coming, I was too late, the shrine was closing.

I still went to the shrine, and managed to snap some nice shots of the area. However, I’ll have to go there again a bit earlier in the day in order to make some better pictures. Also, although the Meiji shrine is nice and impressive, it is also a major tourist attraction. So when I was walking around there, I saw souvenir shops and loads of gaijin walking around, which gave me not the serene feeling you’d expect from a religious area. It felt more like going to an amusement park or anything. Therefore, I’ll go and visit some of the smaller temples as well, when I get the chance.

Right now it’s snowing, so I’m off, trying to make some nice pictures of Tokyo in the snow! Oh, and class too, of course .