Japan has not been on the very top of my list of destinations to see within the next five years or so, but when my friend Trond was planning a trip to Asia after his graduation I quickly played the "why not" card without much further do and put aside other potential vacation plans for the summer. We never really sat down to plan the trip and so the last week before leaving the research started for real and still has not stopped to be honest as we are going by a loosely sketched plan. I think it has worked wonderfully so far! With sketchy planning comes a bunch of unexpected events which I think only adds to the experience.
I arrived at Narita airport after a looong time on the road/up in the air. I had a really long layover in Copenhagen so decided to travel to the city to have a look around and met up with Mads for lunch. I plan to do the same thing with another friend on my way back. long layovers = great way to catch up with friends! From the airport I went straight to a hotel closeby that my mum dearly asked me to book for a smooth transition after the long travel. While waiting for the shuttle bus I met a Japanese family who greeted me in the friendliest way possible. After a 5 minute chat with the family of five, my bus arrived and when I got inside and we started moving, I politely waved back to the 10 cheerful hands that were frantically wishing me a safe journey in Japan. I think I kept smiling to myself for a few minutes thinking "what a wonderful first impression" of the people in this country.
I'm not much of a hotel-goer, in fact I prefer sleeping on other people's couches, but I have to say that swimming in the pool before eating a sushi roll and going to bed in the crispest white linen was the best therapy to start the next day without feeling excessively jetlagged. After stuffing myself with the buffet breakfast with both western and Japanese dishes I went back to the airport to meet Trond's friend Michael who was also joining the Japanese adventure. So day 2 began with more planning, acquiring our 1-week Japan Rail Passes (JR pass), de-jet lagging (i.e. napping) before we checked in to a hotel in central Tokyo where we spent the night before meeting Trond the following day.
After a lot of running around we eventually found Trond in the morning at Tokyo rail station. Once his JR pass was ready to go we jumped on to a train to Nikko, a small town of temples and shrines north of Tokyo. From the train station we took a bus to one of the entrances of the World Heritage Sites around the Toshu-gu shrine. We saw various sights at this complex including sculptures and ornaments that are famous icons in Japan. A few of these include a wooden reliefs of Nemuri Neko (sleeping cat), Shinkyusha (apparently the first illustration/carving of the three monkeys covering their eyes, ears and mouth representing the Buddhist teachings of 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil'), and two elephants carved by an artist who was only told what they looked like as he had never seen an elephant before in his life. d the tomb of Ieyasu, a Japanese warlord. Hardly any signs or descriptions were in english so Trond did the tour guiding by reciting his english audio guide. We carried our backpacks around this site and while it was a tough climb up the endless stairs to reach Ieyasu's tomb, the audio guide confirmed that Ieyasu indeed wanted his tomb to be located high up so that those who intended to visit were to climb the stairs slowly and steadily,preferably carrying a heavy burden on their backs ( probably doing some reflecting in their minds while climbing up?) So I believe we did the wee hike in the most appropriate way indeed! On our way down from the hill back to the train station we saw the reconstructed red bridge where the Buddhist priest who established the hermitage of the monks in Nikko is said to have been carried across the river by two giant serpents (according to the Lonely Planet guide book anyway :) in addition to this little account, I really enjoyed the clear water and serene sound of the stream before we walked down towards the train station to continue our journey back to Tokyo where we changed for our ride to Kyoto.
A five-hour train-journey later we gave the subway a shot to make it to the guest house that was located a pretty long way out from the city centre. It turned out that we had to walk for a few stretches in between changing subway lines to get to the right station which was not that tempting having carried those backpacks around for an entire day already, so we found a taxi and tried explaining where we wanted to go. The communication barrier was now really obvious but the driver was the sweetest man on earth nonetheless. He drove in the general direction that we were going to go and once he found the closest subway station to the guest house he went out of his way to find other Japanese people on the quiet suburban road (quite late in the evening) who could explain the remainder of the way. He called on a couple who came towards the taxi and Michael took out his laptop on the trunk of the car so we could show them a tiny map. They found the right direction eventually on their smartphones and even offered to walk us to the guest house. We politely rejected their offer as it was ridiculously close by. The taxi driver, eternally happy to have driven us to the correct place, probably did a happy dance in his head and thanked the couple a million times.
So we made it and checked in to a pretty basic room with two bunk beds. The guest house lady seemed a bit sketchy to begin with and had the weirdest little gadget that she used to accept credit card payments that was connected to her phone! Weirdness level: JPN right there...! (curiosities about Japan should be an entire blog post on its own....) We went straight out to get some food and the son of the weird lady took us to a restaurant nearby for some ramen noodles. The waitress was the cutest little human being and the guys both fell in love with her within seconds. The same way I fall in love with every kawaii (i.e. cute) child I see in Japan, which is also worth an entire blog post!
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