Kyoto and Golden temple

Day 9: Kyoto again and Spanish omelet! Again!

Today we are going to Nara, but since our host, Shogo, is working till 7 pm, we have decided to visit Kyoto during daytime and then at night go to Nara.

After 9 days in Japan we kind of got tired of all temples and shrines, but we needed to visit golden temple in Kyoto, of course! This fantastic golden building, surrounded by Japanese garden was shining at the sun and was definitely worth visiting.

We took 1000 pics and went to visit another Kyoto area, Arashiyama, but this time not for the temples but for a bamboo forest.

Ok, we were saying good bye to Kyoto, and heading to Nara. This night in Nara, we cooked Spanish omelet again together with our host, who call himself Shoguito, plays guitar and sings songs in Spanish. Shogo was studying Spanish for 4 years at the university and then has been living in Mexico for 1 year, so he speaks a very good Spanish and besides has got kind of “Latino attitude”, not typical Japanese :-D

Kyoto and its Geishas

Day 8

We woke up late and then together with Saori took train to Kyoto. Arrived around 5pm we went straight to the Kyoto old city district, called GION, where from 5 to 6 pm you could catch geisha if lucky. Normally this hour geisha or maiko (this is a name for young girls who are preparing to become geisha), are going out to work.

Juli somehow had a wrong idea what geisha does…no, she is not the one who sells sex for money, normally geisha is paid to be a company, to maintain a conversation or serve the guests at the restaurant. They are educated to entertain people and especially are hired for the business meetings. Geisha services are extremely expensive, so it is also kind of showing your status to the partners.

Anyway, the Gion area was extremely nice, kind of old Japanese city atmosphere, you feel really like in a story about ancient time, geisha and samurais. We saw some geisha girls, took some pictures in a real touristic spirit and felt like mission was completed for today haha

Then we went to see a night view of the city, went through old streets with typical houses where everything was conserved in a proper and clean shape….well, like almost everything in Japan :-D

After cultural program we felt like having a beer, and since it’s so expensive in Japan (in any bar is 5-6 euro/beer and in convenience store 1 -1.5 euro/can), we decided to follow old tradition, buy some beers in a shop and drink them sitting on a bench just by the river. So we had a river view, cheap beer and good conversation :-D (the picture is called “Botellon en Kyoto” :-D)

We met Saori’s friend, Jun, and went to a sushi restaurant, where the price for any plate (2 nigiri sushi or 4 maki sushi) was same – 100 yen (80 euro cents).

We ended up with 10 plates/each and all happy and satisfied took a train back to Saori’s place.

Miyajima and potatos omelette

Day 7: Beautiful autumn in Miyajima

We woke up early and headed to Miyajima island, to see floating tori (the gate to shinto temple). After long way and 1,000 changes of trains and even ferry, we finally have arrived.

Even from the ferry, we could see the gorgeous red tori - what a beauty!


At arrival, just geting out the station, we saw deers everywhere walking around and asking tourists for food. One young deer just came and bit the Miyajima map I was holding in a hand. It didn't get scared and just ate the whole map, while I was struggling to take it from the cheeky animal :-D


The island was coloured in yellow and red, we saw many temples, surrounded by small gardens and the sun was shining the whole day, leting us make the best pictures :-D



One of the buddist temples has a whole alley of small buddha sculptures, each Buddha was protecting different areas: health, money, kids, etc and people visiting temple were leaving coins at the sculptures, to ask for protection and good luck. Juli started wondering how much money actually they were leaving, counting yen - and in conclusion we have agreed that this probably wouldn't work in Spain, since money could disappear very quickly :-D


In case you are wondering - he didn't take the money, I didn't let him haha

So this nice and sunny day has finished with the perfect sunset.

I was enjoying my new camera, as you can see and using its "sunset" option :-D

After long way home, we have arrived and decided to cook a spanish omelette for our gorgeous host Saori. Juli was a trainer and she was a great listener and poser :-D


Saori is a great host and a very lovely girl. She has the sweetest dog in hte world, called Vanila, and it seems that we go to the same hair stylist :-D

How to fix a Sony photo camera in Tokyo

Day 6: Akihabara, best sushi restaurant in town and way to Osaka

Next day we went to Tokyo station to leave our bags in coin lockers, then directly to Sony Service center in Akihabara. When I showed the girl the problem with my camera, she told us to expect a moment and went to show the problem to the specialist, somewhere behind the reception. She came back within 10 minutes and said that he has opened and cleaned it and the spots have disappeared now - so the problem solved! :-D

To test the camera we made a picture of her, here she is! :-D

After sovling our problem we went to Akihabara where we agreed to meet Naoki (remember, the guy who showed us Kamakura?). He had a meeting in town, so he looked very cute and serious :-D

Juli wanted to buy a small notebook, but they are terribly expensive in Tokyo and besides that, its difficult to find a pc with english operational system or english keyboard. So we didn't find a netbook, but instead I saw one photo camera and fall in love with it :-D

This is the model is Canon Power Shot SX200 IS. I asked the girl in the shop, how much it will cost me together with 4GB memory stick. She said 27,000 yen (200 Euro).

We went to have lunch with Naoki first (by the way, sush restaurant he took us was probably the best sushi place i saw in my life and cheap too),
and then finally decided to go back to Akihabara. On the way we stoped at internet cafe and saw that I got Australian visa - so now we needed to celebrate and have decided to buy this camera! :-D

Going back to Akihabara, same shop we asked a guy again how much is camera and 4GB stick, and this time he said 29,000 yen. After discussing with him a bit, he agreed to keep the price girl gave us before and Naoki made a conclusion: " Probably he is Chinese", he said, "He has no pride and I don't like his way to treat customers". (again japanese - chinese tension :-D

So camera was bought, and we went back to Tokyo station, took the high speed train (shincansen) and same night arrived to Kawachinagano (Osaka region). Saori, our host, has picked us up from the train station and we finally had access to internet to update this blog :-D

The world of freaks and geeks

Day 5: Harajuku and Akihabara

We woke up after crazy Halloween night and left to Harajuku, where in weekends you can meet strange dressed people, dancing and performing - kind of freak meeting.

Harajuku is a very vivid district, full of shops, young people and you can see all around the "high class" lolitas and fashion victims :-D


We arrived a bit late, but still saw some of "concert players" how they are called here in Tokyo (cosplays)



After Harajuku, we went to Akihabara, which is huge electonic district in Tokyo where you can find all latest models of everything which has a plug :D Electric city looks impressive, however prices are pretty high, so don't expect to find another Hong Kong here :-D



We had a little problem with our camera, there was some dust inside and this dust appeared as blac spots on pictures. We thought that in Akihabara they can fix it, but everybody said that we need to go to Sony Service center, since the camera is Sony. Sony office was already closed and we decided to come back tomorrow to try fixing the camera.

Tokyo night fever - Halloween

Day 4 Part 2 - Halloween

In Tokyo Halloween is like carnival in Barcelona. A lot of people partying whole night, wearing costumes. It’s a huge party and lots of fun. People take pictures on the street with strangers wearing different costumes, all smiling, happy and half drunk and with a great imagination for costume creation :-D

So, so far our costumes for this night are following:

- Me – a black witch (I decided to stick to reality haha)

- Juli – face painted as Paul Stanley from KISS

- Diego – wearing a goblin mask

- Naho – pink haired “slutty” girl (or as she said Chinese prostitute – here you can easily feel a tension between Japanese and Chinese

So we take a train, using not valid JRP again :-D, meet CS-ers, paint Juli’s face and drink beers in Shibuya, which is the most famous party area in Tokyo.

Actually Naho’s costume could be a regular base clothes in Tokyo, the only different would make her pink devil corns :-D

Shibuya is marked by its famous Hachiko cross, the busiest cross in Tokyo.

Among CS-ers we see Elizabeth, some familiar faces from Nabe home dinner and Michiko, a girl we met in Barcelona, when she was traveling around Europe.

After beers in Shibuya we take a subway and after 2 stops get out to discover some new area of bars and pubs. The curious thing about this area, is that 15 bars have agreed to promote it, during 1 month starting with a Halloween night, offering 2 free drinks to each person who comes there wearing costume in the Halloween night. We couldn’t believe it. How it can be possible, that a group of 200 people (we were approximately group of 20, but when we got there, we saw much more people) gets 30 drinks for free, during 1 month? Yes, it’s possible!! Naho, Diego and other couchsurfers together with a crowd went to Halloween parade, making a circle around the area and then getting back to the initial point. Me, Juli, Michiko and Elizabeth went meanwhile to grab something to eat. After having some nuddles (soba yaki), we met them getting back from the parade, and organizers started to give everybody coupons with freed drinks.

On the left you cans see Bar’s name and then 2 squares mean 2 free drinks! (in Spain I guess they would get broke, since whole town would be there that night haha). As you see we didnt succeed in drinking it all, but since its valid for the whole month of November, we are tihinking to pass by last our last night in Tokyo, 7th of November :-D

After 3 hours drinking bloody maries, vodka oranges , gin tonics, beers and other, we became friends with one of organizers (he is dressed as woverine), drank half of his bar and got some promotional t-shirts, so the evening was pretty successful haha

I was dead tired (3 days with no sleep), but after getting some Japanese energy drink and then a coffee, I kind of recovered and kept drinking free drinks (how could I miss it :-D

Ok, it’s time to catch the last train and get back to Shibuya and go dancing. Naho and Diego and a couple of couchsurfers decide to go to some posh club, where a shuttle bus can take you for free from Shibuya. The problem is that the line for the bus is HUGE and can take may be an hour waiting, besides, the entrance in the club is 4,000 yen (28 Euro) and no drink included. We decide that for our budget is better to stay in Shibuya and we go with 3 more couchsurfers to a small club with music, free entrance and friendly prices.

The bar was ok, we stayed a bit, then went out to a convenience store, bought instant noodle soup and prepared it in the store (in Japan everything is perfectly organized, you can even get hot water in the shop and prepare noodle soup by yourself there) and couple of beers. Juli was hungry so he ate the soup, then we drank the beers and went back to Shibuya cross, making pictures with all curious characters on our way.

Later met Diego and Naho, went to some italian- japanese family restaurant and had a soup at 5 am in the morning and finally went back home to get some sleep :-D

It was a very long and crazy night, great fun, and I got a feeling that we really felt Tokyo vibe – CRAZY!!

Expenses control

• Beers: 1500 yen (11,45 €)
• Face painting: 298 yen (2,27 €)
• Food (noodles): 800 yen (6,11 €)
• Energy drink (which btw was a bomb): 196 yen (1,50 €)
• Coffee: 130 yen (0,99 €)
• Beers and noodle soup at the convenience store: 700 yenes (5,34 €)
• Restaurant at 5 am in the morning, before going home: 650 yenes (4,96 €)

Fuji san

Day 4 (Part 1)

Mount Fuji and 5 lakes (Fuji goko)

We leave half of bags at Heath and Jim place, since we don’t need to travel with all the baggage and they kindly agreed to keep the bags for couple of days and go to Hilton to meet Diego and Naho.

Starting from this night we stay with Diego and Naho at Diego’s place, then on 2nd of November we leave to Osaka, Nara and Kyoto and back to Tokyo on 7th night. On 8th night we take flight to Australia.

Naho and Diego pick us up at 9.00. Diego’s car is called Mitsubishi Pajero (which in Spain is called Montero, since pajero in Spanish means “wanker” haha) In 2 hours we arrive and see impressive view of Mount Fuji and a beautiful lake, all colored with red and yellow autumn leaves.


After taking 1,000 photos we are heading back to Tokyo. At 17.30 we need to meet a group of couchsurfers at Shibuya, change into our Halloween costumes and go party whole night.

Kamakura trip

Day 3: Kamakura trip

We wake up at 8 am and go to Shinjuku station to catch a train. Besides we had to meet Elizabeth, a Mexican girl, from Couchsurfing, who is also traveling around Japan and also wanted to visit Kamakura this day.

Our Japan Rail pass is valid starting from 2^nd of November. But a great idea passed through our head – what if we just show the pass at the metro station, since the guy in metro just sitting inside his small office looking at people passing by, he most likely won’t try to check the pass carefully. So we tried…so it worked! And It worked for 2 days since then, trip to Kamakura was a free one for us so far :-D.

Kamakura was full of nice temples and shrines, green and pretty. We walked around while Naoki was explaining us some details Kamakura history and temples. After cultural part we needed to taste some local food and Naoki said he knew a good Okonomiyaki place nearby.

Okonomiyaki is type of Japanese food, made more o less like egg omelet mixed with cabbage, seafood or meat, which you prepare by yourself on the pan which is incorporated in the table in the restaurant. This place had an offer, for 1,500 yen (11 Euro) you can eat as much okonomiyaki as you can during 2,3 hours. Especially for Juli they brought okonomiyaki without any vegetables (cabbage, onion etc), since he doesn’t eat “green stuff”, and Naoki was very surprised for the first time to see this special way to cook non vegetable okonomiyaki :-D After 2 hours of eating we got out, and I guess we will not eat eggs for at least 1 week haha

Last stop was an impressive Big Buda statue, probably the most impressive thing we saw in Kamakura that day. We took the train back to Tokyo, used our non valid Japan rail pass again and met Naho and Diego at Shinjuku station.

Shinjuku met us again with loads of people and total chaos, since it was a peak hour, everybody was going home from work, so station was full of “robots” and “hot Lolitas” :-D

We met Naho and Diego and went for a beer outside the station. In traditional Japanese restaurants they ask you to take off the shoes so be sure you have clean socks haha

Finally we got to Heath and Jim place, guys arrive around 23.00 with a “happy attitude” after the drinks they had with their friends. We bought some beers and they had some wine, so once again we keep talking and laughing till 2 am…NO SLEEP AGAIN!!! We need to wake up tomorrow at 7 am, since we go with Naho and Diego by car to see Mount Fuji. Why it’s necessary to wake up so early? Because this very night is a Halloween night, and we need to go party whole night. So basically, we go to sleep at 3 am, then wake up at 7 am and plan to come back home, without sleep at around 6 am next day. Conclusion? NO SLEEP AGAIN!!! :-D

Tokyo - welcome to the future

Day 2: Tokyo

In NARITA airport, before going to town, we did following

1. Exchange voucher to Japan Rail Pass (you need to tell when you want to activate JRP, the exact date – so they will type with BIG letters on the pass when it expires). We will use JRP for 7 days, starting with 2nd of November till 8th (I mean this is what we thought in the beginning :-D

2. Buy NEX and SUICA card (a good offer available just for tourists, which includes Narita – Tokyo ticket for Narita express + 2000 yen credit on Suica card, for traveling in Tokyo area – JR and metro.

3. Rent a Japanese mobile phone with Japanese SIM card. The cheapest way to communicate within Japan using a mobile phone is mobile phone email. It’s not a normal email, like gmail for example, that you can access through cell phone, it’s special cell phone email address , for example Elena@vodafone.ne.jp – so you use it to send emails through your phone and its really cheap – approximately 19 euro cents /email, while un sms costs about 70 euro cents. Yeah, that expensive!!

Ok, after all that we take Narita Express and get to Shinjuku station. Our hosts, a gay couple and ambassadors of Tokyo, Heath and Jim, will be home at around 16:30, so we leave bags in coin lockers (Japanese word for it is : koin lokka – haha funny) in the train station and go have a look around the area.

Close to Shijuku station is situated skyscrapers district, with Tokyo Government Building, a huge and impressive construction where you can take a free tour around the building , offered by volunteers and end the route at the observatory on the 45th floor.

After dedicating around 1 hour listening about history of the building and taking pictures of the city on top of it, we decided to grab something to eat. Everywhere we saw big buildings and commercial centers but somehow in the middle of this modern district we found a tiny street with local simple open bars offering noodle soup. In the bar you could see only local and clearly the guy in the bar didn’t speak any English but somehow we understood each other and we had great portion of tasty soup for just 2 Euro/each :-D

If you want to smoke after dinner, like Juli did, be aware that in Shinjuku district due to its central location and business profile, it’s permitted to smoke on the street only in the indicated locations – the fact that Juli was continuously complaining about, of course! :-D

Fist things that impress you in Tokyo, besides skyscrapers and futurist architecture are:

1. Tokyo transport system – total chaos, it blows your mind of because of a huge amount of different subway lines, mixed with train lines – different companies own different lines, so I guess this makes it worse!

2. The way people dress here is surrealistic : girls dressed like little porno Lolita or other type – gothic Lolita. Impossible style combinations, short skirts, long boots, stockings, pink colors mixed with leopard bags and silver shiny shoes.

3. The way young working men dress – all same, like robots – black suit and white shirt, really , it’s a bit scary , you feel like in a clone world :-D

4. The price for the alcohol – even in a convenience store a can of beer is around 1.5 euro…this country definitely is not created for Spanish people :-D

We dropped our bags in Heath and Jim house and went to meet another friends, Naho – a girl we met in Barcelona during her travel and her boyfriend, Diego, originally half Brazilian (by mother) half Japanese. There was a home CS party that night, so even dead from jet lag we decided to go :-D

In the house there were several couchsurfers, Japanese, one French, one Turkish, English, two American girls – well normal CS cocktail I guess.

We had a couple of beers and a soup “Nabe” – which was basically a big pot with water where you put green Chinese cabbage, slices of meat, mushrooms, tofu cheese and some spices. It stays on fire, while people are taking some soup, and then putting some more new ingredients, so it can last for hours I guess :-D We left the house around 23.00 and had to run to the station since the last train was at 23. 15

Next day we had planned a trip to Kamakura. I saw in Tokyo group on Couchsurfing a guy, called Naoki, who was offering to some traveling couchsurfer to show around Kamakura. I wrote him and asked if he can show us too, when we arrive, within a week and he agreed. So we had to meet him at 11 am at Kita Kamakura station, which is 50 minutes away from Tokyo by train.

Again no sleep!!!

Expenses control:

- Nex & Suica package: 7000 yen (53,44€)
- Rented mobile phone with SIM card: 26€
- Coin lockers at Shinjuku station: 500 yen (3,5€) and 400 yen (3,05€) – we needed two for our bags
- Food (noodle soup): 700 yen (5,34€)
- Beers bought in the convenience store for the home party: 1600 yenes (12,21€)
- Contribution for the food at home party: 1000 yen (7,63€)

Start of the trip: Barcelona - London - Tokyo

Day 1
London – Tokyo

Fist stop is Tokyo, mix of technology, future world architecture, traditions and contrasts!
We are still in Barcelona though, checking up for our flight and calling my mother in law to say good buy. She is telling us that Real Madrid has lost 4-0 in the match with a “nobody knows team from the 2nd B Spanish league” - Alcorcón). My God! This is nice news before taking a flight indeed :-D

We arrive to the HUGE London Heathrow Terminal 5 and now need to wait for 2 hours to take the flight to Tokyo. How to spend this precious time? Looking for wireless internet, of course, we need to see what happened with Madrid! :-D Juli has asked BA girl in the airport if she knows any coffee shop with free wireless internet and she gave him a good tip – go to the BA lounge entrance, from there it’s possible to connect to the BA network and have good connection. Of course we followed the advice! Juli ended up standing outside the lounge, close to the escalator, giving advices to other people who were wondering how he got free net :-D

So we took the flight, 13 hours flying, eating and drinking everything we can (the Japanese stewardess is still in shock because of Juli’s requests: “I want beer, tomato juice and a diet coke”, he was telling, and the woman was asking: “ are you sure your stomach can handle?” :-D

Expenses control:
In the airport 8€ (a bottle of water and a sandwich)