After one month of Tokyo, I was ready to discover the rest of Japan.
I decided to hitchhike from city to city but after a couple of hours standing at the entrance of the highway of Tokyo it was clear to me that Japan wouldn't have been the best place where to do it.
National flights are ridicolously expansive and Train tickets are damned expansive, so I opted for the cheaper night buses. This is one of the best companies: http://willerexpress.com/en/
First stop: YOKOHAMA
Very close to Tokyo, it is very similar to the capital but I think that one day trip is enough to visit it.
A must sight is the "Museum of cup noodles"
Momofuku Ando, with his creation, saved Japan from starvation during the II World War.
KAMAKURA
Wonderful little city 50km far from Tokyo, it is famouse for its giant bronze statue of Amida Buddha.
OSAKA
The paradise for japanese food
Osaka is famous to have the best food, i had to test it!!
Those balls the guy is serving are called: "Takoyaki", one of the most popular street foods. Inside the balls are hidden tasty pieces of octopus and you can choose the toppings you prefer; t's delicious...and cheap!
This is an "Okonomiyaki", another very milestone of the japanese street food. It's a very wird mix of ingredients but it works. Try it!
Gyoza!!
Originally from China, it is one of my favourite dish. If you love gyosa, Osaka is definitely the right place. In every restaurant you can have a big dish of it With less than 5 dollars.
Every street is so colorful that it looks like there is always a party running all over the city
THis is Namba district, centre of the centre of the city. The man in the advertisement is the symbol of the city
Another Symbol of the city is the Osaka Castle
The castle is just a reproduction of the original one that went destroyed through the centuries, infact it is so modern that it has an elevator to reach the top. Nowadays it is used only like a museum.
WHen you visit Japan You must try as many crazyness the invent as you can and one of these is the "Capsule Hotel".
A sort of grave for alive people with all the comforts: tv, ac, radio, alarm, towels, flip flop and toothbrush.
I have to be honest, It is better than what you can expect and it's definitely better than the majority of the places I've stayed in SOuthern east Asia.
....and then you find these shops...
....where you wish you could read japanese to understand!
NARA
The "deer's town"
Deers are the symbol of this green and quite town, they are thousand and they walk free around the city looking for food from the tourists.
Thousands of lanterns around the park of the city
Toda-ji Temple
Even if it's 30% smaller than the original temple, this is the biggest wooden building in the world
Inside it there is a 14m high statue of Buddha
One of the wooden columns of the temple has a tight hole and it says that if you can get through it you will be purified. Here
In Nara I was so lucky to have the best guides in town:
These 2 energetic women brought me to visit the best sights of the town expaining me also the most hidden meanings. Thank you very much!
One day in Nara is enough to see everything, now it's time for:
KYOTO, the city of the thousands temples!
It is so important, not only beacuse it was the old capital of Japan, but also because all its temples and monuments were spared by the 2nd WW bombings.
The symbol of Kyoto is with no doubt
"The Golden Pavilion" Kinkaku-ji
Every season it changes the "scenic denign":
all white for the snow in the winter,
red and yellow during the autumn and emerald green during spring and summer.
Kyoto is very famous also for its Zen gardens and the most important is:
Ryoan-ji Temple's dry rock garden
each rock is chosen to create the finest zen landscaping in the country.
Another Kyoto’s top sights is the "Arashiyama Bamboo Grove"
It is simpy astonishing and deeply relaxin
• A good tip: if you want to enjoy it at the fullest go in the early morning and not in the rush hours, you will avoid the horde of turist that will make noises and will ruin your pics!
Another very very beautiful and must-see sight just outside of the city centre is the : "Fushimi Inari Shrine"
Famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, dpnated by individuals or companies devoted to "Inari" God of rice. The trails of 4km lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari until the summit where there is the main shrine dedicated to Inari.
Watch me gasping while I climb the mountain of Inari
This one should be a fox..I guess. They are the messengers of Inari.
It is very rare to spot real geishas on the street but if you go to the "Gion", the only geisha district left in Japan, you could be as lucky as me to meet 2!!!!
Last stop in Japan: HIROSHIMA
Known for its dramatic history, the city was razed by the atomic bomb but during the past decades the city has been completely re-built up. Around the city there are evidences of the disaster caused by the war, like this building that became the symbol of Hiroshima.
The A-Bomb Dome, now symbol of peace, was located only around 160 meters from the hypocenter, everything around that area collapsed except this building that it is still there, standing in the middle of the new city.
Every year the schools from all around Japan come here in Hiroshima to pray for the victims and leave their colorful "Thousand Origami Cranes" to never forget them.
The cenotaph for the A-Bomb victims.
It carries an epitaph:
"Rest in Peace, for the error shall not be repeated"
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
This is the real size of the bomb
After an intense visit of the Hiroshima museum I needed something special to eat:
The "Okonomiyakimitsu", a sort of super tasty japanese omelette.
An Hiroshima pearl, not very known is: Miyajima.
It is an island famous for its huge vermilion gate located in the sea and the landscape completely changes by the rising and the falling of the tide. Unlikely I saw it during the low tide but it was wonderful anyway.
