Ok! I’ll be writing this travel journey together with Evelien Koenders. We’d like to share our trip to Japan with you through texts, pictures, video’s and maps!

Today’s planner:

13:15 from Schiphol to Moscow

19:00 from Moscow to Tokyo narita airport

Looking forward to it!

We arrived in Japan!

After the worlds shortest stop in Moscow, we continued to the second step of the travel trip: 9,5 hour flight to Narita Airport.

We discovered Evelien shouldn’t eat dairy products, because she is lactose intolerant. And no this was not discovered before attacking “MILK FLAVORED” ice cream.

Second discovery! I look severely depressed after only a tiny bit lack of sleep! Don’t get near me.

Fun fact! The flight passed over lake Baikal, which is Russia’s biggest lake! It’s twice as big as Belgium! Source: Russian Airplane Documentaries. Now you know.

Step 3: getting to Hiroshima by train!

After our landing we went off to a JR-east ticketstand. Here we got our bullettraintickets. We got clear instructions, we had to transfer trains 3 times.

Everything in Japan is clean, clear instructed and organized. Our seats in the train were reserved in such extend. We knew exactly where our train cabin would stop before the actual arrival of the train.

At terminal destinations of the trains. You need to wait before you can enter the train. A man turns all the trainseats into the direction where the train is headed. All the seats are cleaned and the floor is vaccumed. Completely normal for Japan.

Bless Evelien! She had everything organized! All our documents were in her hands. She was in touch with the renter of our accommodation in Hiroshima and she has the balls to talk Japanese to anyone here! I slept without worry through most of the train trips! Haha!

It took some real effort to sleep from 12 till 7 seven in the morning for the both of us! When I woke up I thought: great! I fell asleep so shortly after going in to bed. I check my phone and the time says it’s 2:11 AM.

“Oh..”. So we try again I guess. Once again I fall asleep pretty quickly. I wake up again and check time. 5:16. Jeez. It took a bit longer to fall back to sleep. I must say I’ve never stepped out of bed at seven so happy and awake! New experiences am I right.

We did some groceries, had breakfast and afterwards I was really glad to see Evelien deeply asleep on the bed. I woke her at 11 with the idea that she should be able to sleep again tonight.

Hiroshima peace memorial park

We headed to the Hiroshima peace memorial park. It was really impressive to walk along side the river and realizing that not that long ago this whole city was in rumble because of an atomic bomb. The peace memorial center is exactly centered on the hypocenter of the atomic bomb explosion.

On our way we saw a peace memorial sign. It was build at the spot where an all girl high school used to stand before the atomic bomb fell. 517 girls with the age of 13 to 16 had all perished there.

Every morning at 8:15 exactly, a feep loud bell rings through the memorial park. With the text “may the sound of this bell reach the whole world with the sound peace”.

The museum itself shows pictures and stories of the people who got wounded or killed at the exact moment. Family or friends tell what they spoke about with there loved lost ones before the bombing and how they found or found nothing of them.

It’s horrific and sad to see all these images that are shown. The atomic bomb in Hiroshima fell at 8:15 on the 6th of august in 1945. 350.000 precious lives were lost that day. The heat in the hypocenter of the bombing reached between 3000 to 4000 degrees Celsius. 160.000 people died right away. 140.000 lives approximately were lost due after effects of the radiation and wounds caused by one atomic bomb.

Although this tragic event happened not that long ago. It’s nice to see how great Hiroshima is doing right now. Along the river we saw many fish and crabs. There are also a lot of different birds around and lots of trees and flowers are blooming. Especially the park which is centered in the middle of the atomic explosion is filled with pretty trees and flowers. It shows hope and also peace which the Japanese really want to bring over through the museum and memorial places.

After we drew drawings at the river after lunch, we went back again to the peace memorial park of Hiroshima. Here an elderly couple talked to us. The questioned is if we believed in world peace and god.

They happened to be Japanese Johovah withnesses. We talked a lot about faith and the Bible but also about the bombing, the Second World War and peace. The woman told us that she had lived in Hiroshima her whole life. Her aunt was a victim of the all girls school that had perished during the bombing. They were really polite and also recommended some sightseeing spots in Hiroshima. It was really impressive to hear such a personal story from a Hiroshima citizen after our museum visit.

Miyajama Iland and her tori gate

The 27th of juky 2018, Evelien and I got ready to head to myanama ilsland or also known as Itsukushima shrine and her tori gate. It takes up to 55 minutes to travel to this island. This island is know for one of the largest tori gates in Japan. The tori gate stand at the beach and is 16 meters high and 24 meters wide. \240

Many tourist are attracted to this spot. Many foreigner tourist as well as Japanese tourists. The gate was build in 1168 and still stands beautiful in the water during the high water tide. When the tide is low,you are able to walk through the tori gate on the sand of the beach.

The tori gate stands a few hundred meters away from a huge shrine, know as the Itsukushima shrine. It’s still in use by Japanese people. With this I mean, you are not only able to visit the shrine as a tourist. But actual priest and other “holy” Japanese people still use this shrine for ceremonies and other faithful happenings in the shrine.

As we walked through the shrine, there where inhabitants dressed in white traditional clothing, who were cleaning or helping out tourist, doing ceremonies or writing holy calligraphy in small books (which is very common in shrines in Japan.).

On the island we first encountered deer who walk freely across the island and aren’t afraid of people at all. You can watch, per and feed the deer.

Although it was 35+ degrees and very hot, we were very amused with sight around us. After we visited the tori gate and the Itsukushima shrine, we headed in to the fortune shrine which is basically a small museum with many historical pieces from the old Japanese times. We saw samurai swords and armor, scrolls and painting from long ago.

Afterwards we returned under the trees, close to the ferry, where most of the deer are. We tried to sketch them in our sketchbook. We had an amazing day. The hot weather made it a bit heavy though. When we returned to the main land with the ferry, we had a traditional Japanese meal. It was a great day.

Meet the locals

Back in Hiroshima we went to the small bar we had been going for the past few days. The first time was the day if our arrival. We met Tetsu there. He is a local resident of Hiroshima. He is the owner of the small bar that we visit every evening.

He always greets us wholeheartedly when we come in. After 11, everything we order is on his costs. Hè is 47 and opened this bar 5 years go. He is very friendly makes an effort to communicate with us in English with a little bit of Japanese.

Today we brought our cards with us. As we played a game, many costumes were watching us play this card game. We invited 3 other men at the bar to play a card game with us. We continued to play till 1 am. We laughed a lot. It took a bit of effort to explain the Dutch game “Pesten” but it’s basically uno, which is known in Japan.

We had great conversation about, equality, discrimination, America the difference between Japan and the Netherlands and Europe,, politics in Europe and Japan and feminism.

Upcoming typhoon

Tetsu warned us about a big upcoming typhoon, which will cross the 29th of July. It was nice to have a local who can translate the news on the tv. He said there was going to be a huge typhoon and we have to be careful.

We told him we don’t have any experience with typhoons and that we were unsure what to do. He told us the typhoon should come over Hiroshima at 5 am till 8 or 9 am. He told us to stay way from the windows and to stay inside. Evelien and I agreed to ask the locals around till the 29th what to do. It’s a bit scary to be honest but also a bit exciting to experience a typhoon.

Tetsu really tries to comfort us. We asked how many typhoons he had experienced I Japan throughout his life. His answer was 3 to 4 every year, but this is a very big one. Don’t be too afraid though. He showed us a map on his phone and the direction of which the typhoon is headed to. “It will be alright” he says. It’s also early in the morning, if you’d like to, you can wake up earlier to move with your stuff deeper in the appartment away from the windows. If it gets really bad, you can move to the bathroom, which is supposed to be the safest place in the appartment.

He also told us that the Japanese buildings are build to take a few natural disasters, because they happen so often in Japan. Although Evelien and I are a bit afraid, we remain calm and wand wish to get more informed throughout the upcoming days.

Hiroshima Castle

Evelien and I woke up rather late today! Partly because yesterday continued till late in Tetsu’s bar. We walked along the beautiful park which is located at the side of the river, this very long yet small park ends with the Hiroshima peace memorial park.

We bought our lunch in a 7-Eleven store. These small stores have everything. From smoothies to all different kinds of buns and cookies, rice balls, whole Japanese meal sets, noodles, ice coffee, regular coffee, warm snacks and all different kinds of hometools. Like I said: they got everything you need. You can even prepare your newly instant noodles in the store! Very impressive.

As we continued our walk to the Hiroshima castle, we came across a huge line of people, it could be 80 meters long. As we walked further, we discovered that all these people were standing in line for the swimming pool. There were 5 people at the doors to let people in and out. This went (of course) impressively organized. We had a laugh because to us it looked really odd.

We ate our lunch in a beautiful park, but we got desturbed by many ants. They walked into my shoes and onto our legs. They bite as well, not anything painful though. Evelien had a brilliant idea: keep moving your feet so the ants won’t be able to walk on us. This went great until I crushed an ant and made it crippled for life. Yes I felt really bad. But it’s just an ant? Well now it’s just a crippled and and it’s my fault. Evelien had a great laugh though.

We walked to into the gates and the gardens of the Hiroshima gates! The castle and it’s ground are surrounded by canals. Take a look at the pictures, it’s beautiful! I didn’t expect to enter a museum of 4 floors when I walked in the castle’s tower. We learned about the “medieval ages” of Hiroshima. The castle was build in 1589 and was completely destroyed on the 6th if agust 1945 due the bomb. The Japanese have rebuild the whole castle with every little detail!

Evelien also thought me how to properly use the shrines services. There was a beautiful shrine on the grounds of the Hiroshima castle. We washed our hands, made a wish and had our fortunes told. Evelien’s fortune started with “quite good” and some very assuring words. Mine started with “very good” but continued with you will feel uneasy all the time. I also should stay low with love and it’s better to shut my mouth or lose my tongue. We laughed so hard because I started of with very good! But I think the translater made a mistake hahaha! It also said “childbirth: easy, it will be very easy for you” this also wasn’t great news to me. “Should I panic now? Or should we first buy a pregnancy test?” We had a great laugh and hung the fortune papers onto a fence, which is the proper thing to do at a shrine.

Update on the upcoming typhoon

As I had already announced, there is a typhoon coming over Hiroshima. For us this will be around 4 á 5 AM and for everyone in the Netherlands and Germany at 10 á 11 PM. We aren’t scared and we hope you aren’t as well. The Japanese are very calm. We asked many questions about what to do. After the answers they repeated. You don’t have to worry so much, it will be alright! Really! And we believe them. We have a whole plan as well and we bought lots of food and water, a tip from my dear mom! Typhoon are still quite unpredictable there is even a chance that the typhoon will not go through Hiroshima.

The plan:

We will wake up when the storm is supposed to hit at 4 AM.

We will move our stuff the the kitchen, which is further away from outside.

If the storm is really bad, it might cause the windows to pop, so if that bad we will go inside the bathroom.

We have lots of water, food, games and WiFi.

So don’t worry! We will be playing games and watch some anime together in our very small bathtub! Sounds cozy right? We are looking forward to it!

We had set alarm clocks at 4AM and 5AM to check on the weather. Everything was fine though when we woke up. My mother had sent me an article which said the expected time of the typhoon hitting Hiroshima had changed to 10AM.

So we slept a bit longer and checked again. It rained a bit and the sky was cloudy, but that was about it. Later we heard that the typhoon had it Nara instead. Nara is a beautiful place and capital city of the Kansai region in Japan. We hope to visit this place when we are in Kyoto. It’s located 5 á 6 hours away from Hiroshima.

The typhoon jongdari happened to be an odd one, because at this time of the year the typhoons are supposed to move from west to east and this one moved from east to west. It had also weakened to a tropical storm and would be likely to move to Tokyo.

Long story short: we were more than fine today! All the weather did here was being a bit cloudy and a little bit of rain. We remained inside today to be rather safe than sorry. We watched some cartoons, did some sketching and basically took it easy and chilled all day.

Tomorrow we will wake up early to visit a old town nearby Hiroshima!

Our last day in Hiroshima

We woke up a bit late. Due to lack of sleep. The idea was to go to an old town. However, when we woke up, we noticed that the travel time would be 2,5 hours to get there and 2,5 to get back.

So we changed our plans and headed to a shrine in a small village nearby. What we didn’t know was that this town is very steep!!! So even though the whole limb was about 1.100 meters long. It was quite difficult. It was totally worth it! The shrine is known as the little gem of Hiroshima. It really is! The place was in the mountain and every view was beautiful.

We walked to all the little spots and all the way up! It was stunning! We didn’t regret our descision to change our plans!

We took of around 13:15 and came back around 17:30. At the end of the shrine stood a beautiful tea cafe, owned by an elderly couple. Especially the woman was very talkative and really nice to us, even though our Japanese language is not that great. We had crushed ice with syrup and oolong tea.

When we were back at our little appartment, we headed out to get dinner in the little restaurant at the ground floor, underneath our appartment. None of them speak English and we all had a great laugh when we were ordering our food. Because we didn’t really get eachother, but at least we tried.

After dinner we went to tetsu’s bar, for the very last time. We had a lot of fun and stayed till late! We thanked him and told him we were glad we had met him. He told us he felt the same. We laughed a lot and talked till late in the evening.

Tomorrow we will have to wake up early to leave Hiroshima. We will head for Kyoto tomorrow. Time passes so fast! We had a lot of fun in Hiroshima!

We went to bed quite late, so waking up was a bit difficult. Especially when you have to leave your accommodation before 11 AM. Let’s say that after a couple of snooze hits our phones quit trying? Or maybe we got used to their noise?

As I opened my eyes all peacefully I reached for my phone. And that’s basically were the peace ended, because the time read 10:45. Don’t worry! It seems like we haven’t forgotten a thing and we walked out at 11:05. It was just a bit stressful and also completely stupid of us.

On our way to the Hiroshima trainstation in the streetcar. A couple other tourists walked in. A wonan asked in English if she had to buy a ticket or if that’s something you pay for later. Evelien knew the answer and so she told her, also most folks in Hiroshima don’t speak English.

Then I thought “o hey, this woman sounds so Dutch”. I asked and bingo! She spoke about everything she had seen and she recommended lots of things, explained lots of things and gave us lots and lots of tips. Very talkative. At some point she left the streetcar and I looked to Evelien. Her look in her eyes said enough. I tried not to laugh. But I couldn’t help it. It really seemed like the Dutch woman thought we just hopped on a plane and had no actually clue what we were doing. It also was a bit ironic because she was talking so loud, which is normal in the Netherlands, but in Japan it’s very rude to speak that loud in any public transportation. By the way, the woman had good intentions and we are aware. It’s just that it was bit like a lecture filled with common information.

We bought brunch at 7-Eleven and reserved our train tickets. \240I think we traveled about 4 hours by train. We had to switch trains twice m. Actually three times, we took the wrong train by accident at some \240point.

We arrived around 4 PM at the Sakura guest house in Kyoto. It’s a hostel with two very kind Japanese people managing it. One young woman and a man somewhere above 45. It’s hard to guess the age of the Japanese. They have so few wrinkles!

Our appartment is nice and I’ll gladly show some pictures when I have solved my phone’s storage issue. We have a balcony and even a washing machine! For ourselves! I was really impressed. You can also eat in the hostel for low prices. Or get the small stove and pans out of the shelves which are supposed to be for all the guests their use. There is also free hot and cold water.

We had a nap, a nice shower, washed our clothes and had dinner downstairs. They even switched the channel to an English transformer movie on tv. The hostel owners are really nice and we have once again everything we need!

Today was a great day! We woke up around 8 and we headed for Kyoto’s city to do Some sightseeing! Kyoto is the oldest place around in Japan with lots of historical places. There are over a 1600 shrines/temples to be found. It’s also very touristic. There are tourist busses everywhere around the city!

The silver pavilion

We first went to the silver temple or Ginkakuji. It was build in 1482 by an important Japanese man called Ashikaga Yoshimasa. He build it as an retirement villa. It later was used as a zen temple. It was beautiful! It has traditional small old buildings and a big garden. In between the ponds and the paths are small places with gravel. There are special sort of broomsticks which are used to make beautiful patterns in the gravel. It takes hours sometimes a whole day to make those patterns. It’s meant to be some sort of meditation to be here now in the moment.

Philosopher’s path

Right next at the Ginkakuji lays the philosopher’s path. The path is a small stone path next to a pretty canal lined with beautiful trees, which happen to be Sakura trees (cherry blossom trees). It’s about two kilometers long and is famous because japans most known philosopher, Nishida Kitaro, used to walk this path every morning.

Honen-in Shrine

At the end of the philosopher’s path, we followed a sign which read Honen-in shrine. We came across two huge stairs which walked steep on the foot of a mountain. They weren’t long but the hid the beautiful Buddha shrine beautifully between the trees.

The garden is covered in pretty moss. It has ponds, small stone bridges, a main hall and a black Buddha statue of Amida. The temple was build in 1680 to homer Honen which was the founder of the Jodo sect,

Yasaka Shrine

Evelien and I didn’t have a map of the city. So we hopped on busses in the hope it would go in the actual direction we wanted to go. So this sometimes went well and sometimes not that great! Hahaha, we had fun though.

Kyoto has a lot of shops where you can buy and immediately wear kimono’s. We weren’t interested because it is really hot and kimono’s look like you will melt away any second. The city is covered with tourist who do wear the kimono’s and this once again looks beautiful.

The Yasaka Shrine is a Shinto shrine and the main shrine of the Gion district in Kyoto. It is really big and has impressive traditional buildings. It was filled with tourists in traditional clothing.

Geisha

Evelien and I were lost multiple times in Kyoto. Never really for long and it was fun because we came in less touristic places.. So as we walked through a small street without anyone in it, we were trying to get to the center of the Gion district which is the oldest part of Kyoto. I looked around to get what I was seeing. I wasn’t paying much attention on the empty street. I heard Evelien say softly “holy shit...”. I replied with “what?” And looked forward.

In front of us walked a Geisha. This is truly the most rare sight to see as a tourist in Kyoto. Evelien hadn’t spot one in her visit last year. She looked beautiful with her hair perfect and traditional. Socks with wooden sandals. White make-up covering her face. Red lips and a beautiful kimono. I did a small bow and said konishua to her. I wanted to ask if we could take a picture. Evelien poked me and said: they aren’t allowed to talk to us. “Then it’s probably rude to just take a picture, let’s not!” \240As I did my ridiculous small bow and hello, she showed a small smile. This was really amazing! It was short. But we were hyped all day about it!

Geisha are Japanese women who study the tradition of art, dance and singing. They have a unique look with their traditional clothing and make-up. They are only to be found in Kyoto, especially the Gion district. All though some people think they are prostitutes, they are not. Some were a long long time ago. But today they are high class entertainers who don’t get married and are raised to be geisha women from a young age and remain Geisha for life. There used to be a lot of Geishas, but now there are only a few hundred. So to come across one on the streets of a city with a population over a million is truly rare!

Gion

When we walked into the Gion district you instantly felt and saw the difference with the rest of Kyoto. The houses were smaller and made of wood. Because it’s really popular with tourists we decided to wander in the smaller streets between the houses. There it was quiet which made it feel like you went back in time.

Dinner with Taru & Miyoko

Before we went to the dinner with Taro an Miyoko we went back to the guest house to freshen up. With the directions he gave us we were able to find the house quite quickly. There we were greeted by Taro and Miyuki and were guided to the living space where the table was set up. We waited for the other quests to start the cooking lesson. We met the other three guests which were a family who came from switserland but who originally lived in Israel.

After getting to know everyone we started cooking. Here we learned the tips and tricks of the Japanese style of cooking. We made the mackerel set (or Saba set) where we prepared everything in the original style. Here we also learned that Suzanne can make eggcelent egg rolls, pun intended. It was so much fun as we talked and joked a lot with the hosts and the other guests.

After the cooking we went on to eat it, and I don’t want to brag but it was amazing! After dinner we enjoyed some home made Sakura mochi with has sweet red bean filling and some green tea. Taru and Miyoko has such great hospitality so it will be an experience we will never forget. We also got the recipes so prepare yourself, we will make it once we get back!

The 2nd of August 2018

Nara

We have been to Nara, the place of the pretty deers and shrines. We took by mistake a local train which took double the time to arrive in Nara. But we were able to see a beautiful scenery along the way so it wasn't that bad.

When we arrived we took the bus to Nara park. There were a lot of people, as usual, so we quickly dove in to a art exposition. There they showed how students of Tokyo university maintained and replicated the famous statues that were located around and in the shrines in Nara park.

After that we went in to the great Buddha temple where huge statues of Buddha where displayed. You could also see a miniature of the temple ground of how it used to be. We got the calligraphy from the temple and moved to the upper parts of the park, where it was a lot more quiet.

Suzanne bought a lot and I mean A LOT of cookies to feed the deer. With that we were able to make up close pictures of the smaller deers. We visited some other shrines and temples located on the park grounds and finished the day with a beautiful view of Nara at the highest part of the park.

Osaka

After we went to Nara park we decided to have a meal in Osaka. When we arrived we were back in the busy city life of Japan. Lights and people everywhere you could look. We went to the famous Glico sign where we decided to have some conveyor belt sushi in a shop Evelien has been to last year. We had to wait in line, which is always a good sign in Japan, before we could enter the restaurant.

Once we sat there we started eating our bellies full! Suzanne learned a valuable lesson; never eat sweet raw shrimp ever again!

After dinner we wandered a bit more through the lit canals and signs before we decided it was time to head home.

It was so busy in the metro that we were all stuffed like a can of sardines. We could laugh about it and thankfully we only had to travel in that for 8 minutes. At least we had the real Japanese train experience.

We went to the supermarket to get some water for the next day and went to bed.

All in all it was once again a great day in Japan!

Fushimi Inari

We walked past all the remaining torii gates until we finally reached the top! There we were able to take a picture and walk aaaaaall the way down to the shrine. We ofcourse collected another stamp from the shrine and looked in the neighbouring shops. We also found the first takoyaki which Evelien really loves.

Tip: if Evelien is ever angry or sad, feed here these!

After the long day we decided it was time to go back to the guesthouse. There we were able to eat dinner and watch a movie in the cafe of the guesthouse.

We finished our day and went to sleep.

It was once again an eventful day with a lot of nice experiences.

4th of August 2018

Sightseeing in Kyoto part 2

10 point for us because we obtained a Kyoto tourist map! Today we went sightseeing again in Kyoto! It’s so immensely big. I still try to comprehend how large the city actually is, didn’t succeed so far

First we would like to visit the bamboo forest, which is located north-west \240 We know this now thanks to the map! The place where we we hopped of the bus was beautiful! There was a river with a stone bridge and on both sides mountains covered in trees.

We had a beautiful walk along the river side. At the end we went steel up some stairs which leaded to a small Buddhist temple. A kind monk immediately offered is a glass of water. Later on we saw the monk on our way back. We were talking with two girls who were also looking for the bamboo forest. He helped us, he had an English local self drawn map with him. I guess he does this more often! A very kind man he was!

Next up: the golden temple of Kyoto! Even though Kyoto has over 1600 temples. This one happened to be very very popular. Now we know why. It was truly beautiful and we get why it was overflown with tourists. It was very worth it to visit even though it was crowded.

Next one! Ryokokokuzan-Honganji temple! Who comes up with these names right? This temple is located in the center of Kyoto. It’s a 5 minute walk from the Kyoto station. It was huge! And once again so gorgeous. We weren’t allowed to make pictures inside the temple. We had to take our shoes of and we walked on the old bamboo floor. It was covered in wooden carved sculptures with gold. Oh it looked so fancy!

We accidentally ended up in some Japanese hipster restaurant. With only ten tables available and everything reserved, we could have a seat at 19:15. At that moment it was 17:00. I laughed at the friendly waitress and said noooooo thank you! We can’t wait that long. As we were ready to stand up. She asked if we could please wait 5 minutes. She said if we were okay to eat at the bar. This was no problem because from the bar you sat across the open kitchen! Cool. By the way, when we walked in there were only 2 other customers. All other tables were reserved?! Crazy really. I wanted to be adventures and ordered something funky looking hipster version of a popular Japanese dish: yakisoba. I regretted it. It tasted just as funky as it looked. Bless the lord for Evelien Koenders who seems to be able to eat everything (EXCEPT FOR MILK!). We switched seats after my face revealed to Evelien that I wasn’t enjoying my funky hipster meal. We had a laugh.

Sidenote:

Evelien is basically my food taster. When there is something new. She tries it first. Then she says it’s good. (Now I’ve learned she always thinks the food is good). Then I try it.

Sour plums. (Zuurpruimen hahahahah)

We were offered a Japanese dish! No clue what it was Evelien ate one of these small dark purple shiny things. Fearless. She nodded. Hmm. Sour plums. The barman smiled and asked if she liked it. Yes! She did. So here I go. Completely scammed by Evelien’s neutral looking face. I put it in my mouth. I always thought I could handle sour things. My face has never created so many wrinkles. My eyes and lips were shrinking away from my face. Meanwhile Evelien and the barman couldn’t laugh any louder I suppose.

5th of August

Osaka

We decided that we would take a easy day today. Meaning we got to sleep a little longer and there was no rush. After some debating we decided to go to Osaka again, but jow during the day.

We both wanted to look for some clothes and just stroll around. We arrived at the main station in osaka and took the metro to Namba, where also the infamous Glico sign is located.

There we saw a idol group performing. Imagine a canal with on one side a dancing idol group and on the other side grown men (age 30+) dance the girly dances with the idols. It was pretty amazing to see.

We wandered through the endless shoppingstreet/market and looked around a bit. Suzanne found a beautiful Bordeaux red skirt and a fitting shirt for the outfit. Evelien found not much later some pants and a blouse with pugs on them. We went into a big warehouse where the mission was; get a makeover for Suzanne (and maybe buy some make-up). Suzanne succeeded and bought some foundation and lipstick.

After that we decided to go back to the guesthouse for dinner because we were to tired to eat in some restaurant.

We were glad we could take it easy for a day and shop for ourselves a bit. Once again, it was a hot but good day in Kyoto.

Otsukyo

Today we took another laid back day! Waking up late in the morning. Long showers. Our idea was to go to a town nearby Kyoto to do some sightseeing and to sit in a park so we could both do some drawing.

Evelien did some research and so we went to OtsuKyo. A town only 11 minutes away from Kyoto by train. It was around 38 degrees again. We saw a beautiful shrine and we visited two parks who were a bit disappointed.

OtsuKyo is located at the shore. So we had a little walk along the sea by the harbor. We took a moment to stand in the water with bare feet. That was nice. Afterwards we went to a cafe. This cafe was part of a big hotel which happened to be owned by a Belgium man. Or that’s what we assume. They had all sorts of common beers like Duvel and Leffe. We had a coffee and a view over the sea.

This was our last day in Kyoto! Tomorrow we will head for Tokyo.