Olve & Maja in Japan

Olve & Maja in Japan - Index

2008-05-19T01:06:00.008+02:00

Complete at last.
I will probably continue adding stuff to posts like links, some add-ons and so on, so do drop by once in a while. At least now the whole trip is covered. Hope you'll enjoy it.

Here's an overview:

- Intro
- Day 1 & 2 (The flight, Tokyo (Ueno, Akihabara, Ginza))
- Day 3 (Tokyo (Tsukiji, Odaiba))
- Day 4 (Tokyo (Shibuya, Ikebukuro))
- Day 5 (Tokyo: (Kichijōji, Ghibli Museum))
- Day 6 (Nikko)
- Day 7 (Tokyo (Ueno, Asakusa, Tokyo Tower, Roppongi))
- Day 7 (Tokyo (Ueno Zoo))
- Day 8 (Tokyo (Aoyama, Harajuku, Shinjuku))
- Day 9 (Tokyo (Harajuku, Daikanyama))
- Vehicles
- Day 10 (Kyoto)
- Day 11 (Kyoto)
- Signs #1
- Day 12 (Iga, Kyoto)
- Day 13 (Kyoto)
- Signs #2
- Day 14 (Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima)
- Day 15 & 16 (Miyajima, Hiroshima, Osaka)

Updates:

Flickr gallery with comments from my second trip to Japan in October 2008:
Japan 2
Also check out the blog from our latest trip to Japan in November 2009:
Olve & Maja in Japan 2

Day 15 & 16

2008-05-18T21:08:00.003+02:00

Breakfast at Watanabe Inn in Miyajima.

The food just kept coming. The breakfast took about one hour.

We had coffee on the balcony next to the little fountain. We also got dessert. For breakfast!

Watanabe Inn to the right. Deer to the left. Maja in the middle.

Deer. Everywhere.

Senjokaku pagoda.

Back at the torii gate.

Gate and deer. Miyajima in a nutshell.

Itsukushima Shrine.

It was still low tide in the morning.

The tourists had shown up. And the deer got more active - keeping an eye on the tourists' food and their train tickets.

We headed for the ropeway which would take us up on the mountain. There should be monkeys up there.

Us high above the forest. Eagles were soaring around us.

We had to change to another cable car halfway. It took more people and didn't go that often. At the top there were no monkeys to be seen. A sign told us they'd gone into the forest for food, but would be back at 5:30 pm.

Great view.

We decided to walk to the mountain's highest peak called Misen.

It got really warm.

No monkeys to be seen, but quite a lot of these little fellas.

A tree trying to stay alive.

There were a few small temples on the way. In one of the buildings a fire had been burning for 1200 years apparently.

Top of Mount Misen. 535 metres above sea level.
It took about 30 minutes to walk to the top from the cable car. There was a building there selling food and drinks (how that got up there is a mystery).

The torii from above.

Where we walked from.

Us on Misen.

Maja looking at Hiroshima in the distance.

We walked back, took the cable car back down and walked down towards the village.

Not only the deer were looking for a snack.

Checking the floating torii again. And it's finally floating.

Our inn had turned into a busy restaurant when we returned to pick up our luggage and our host had turned into a very busy waiter. Even though he was the only one waiting he was kind enough to drive us to the ferry. We got on the train to Hiroshima Station where we waited for a shinkansen train to Osaka where we were going to spend our last night in Japan.

Namba station in Osaka. We were lucky enough to find some lockers big enough for our two rucksacks and two suitcases.

Love hotels. Where couples can rent a room for a few hours, or overnight, for a very reasonable price. I'd seen pictures of crazy rooms with bumper cars, jacuzzis, with Hello Kitty themes, UFO abduction themes, pirate themes... with Playstations and DVD players. Osaka is known for the most innovative ones in Japan so we wanted to check one out. Therefore we hadn't booked any hotel there (silly mistake).
So here we were walking around in Namba looking for a place to stay. Love hotels have a room menu on the wall where the available ones are lit up, you press a button on the selected room and then you get the key from two hands in a small hole in the wall. Discreet.
But it wasn't that easy. Most rooms everywhere were taken and the ones left were nothing special at all - except for one room with a giant swimming pool. Most places there were nobody to talk to (I guess you'd have to get the key from a machine) and if there was they didn't speak a single word of English or they didn't accept foreigners. The last problem was that you had to check in around 10 pm if you wanted to stay overnight.

We were homeless in Osaka. We were exhausted and all we wanted was to relax. But it was Saturday night and we had ended up in the maddest place in town, a crazy area called Dōtonbori. It was like Blade Runner meets Las Vegas meets some horrible charter holiday destination. The area consisted of countless pachinko parlors, clubs, entertainment establishments and not much else. And people. Lots of people!

A building with a drop tower ride. Only in Japan.

Namba.

By Ebisu-bashi bridge. Not much space left for windows on this block.

Dōtonbori-gawa river.

We jumped on the subway and took it one stop to Shinsaibashi to escape the madness and do some literally last-minute shopping in Tokyu Hands before closing time. It looked like a concept artist had gone crazy here as well. This building was like a giant lamp with the floor plan scrolling up the side.

At least the manhole covers reminded us that we were in Japan, a country with some old stuff in it as well.

We returned to Namba. This is a building. With a ferris wheel around it! Why not?

Namba had turned even stranger and for the first time on the trip we didn't feel very comfortable. People were pissed and ridiculous-looking guys were trying to get girls into their host bars with some crazy clapping. We finally found a tempura restaurant where we had our last dinner in Japan.

It was 10 pm and time to find a room. We picked up our luggage from the station and went to Pamplona, a place we'd found earlier and also one I'd heard about before. Quite desperate to get a place to sleep I noticed a pretty special room I'd seen pictures of available and we took it.
It turned out to be in the basement behind a metal door next to the laundry room. It was a dark and claustrophobic S&M room with chains, hooks and leather and mysterious spots on every unwashable surface.

Coming from beautiful Miyajima hoping to have a nice last evening in Japan, but spending the afternoon in a twisted sci-fi city after desperately looking for a place to live, this got a bit too much. I ran upstairs, threw myself on the floor in front of the woman in the hole in the wall and begged for a room change. There was another one available. And it was the total opposite.

Quite sick and tired of the love hotels we went outside again looking for a place to have a nice and quiet drink. It was harder to find than I expected. The only decent looking place we found turned out to be a hostess bar (it said whiskey bar outside). Finally, just before giving up, we found a nice bar. The bartender warned us that the beer was 700 yen, but coming from Norway we just had to smile.

Back at the hotel. We were wrecked and didn't bother checking out all the stuff in the room. It also had a jacuzzi we didn't use. And a slot machine. And a huge brown stain on the bedsheets.

The next morning we dragged our stuff through the gigantic Namba station before we finally got on the Rapi:t train to the airport - another sci-fi creation, just a bit crappier designed. And after a while we spotted Kansai International Airport which is built on an artificial island. As a final climax to our not so pleasant stay in Osaka, we had to go through all our luggage in the check-in queu because we had a lighter in there - somewhere. We found it in my hand luggage... in the last pocket I checked.

After 12 hours on the plane to Paris, including an interrupted landing which made us nearly miss our plane to Norway, and some hours on a much smaller plane, we finally started the descent to Oslo. The sun which had been following us for almost 24 hours had at last overtaken us and was going down in the west and we were almost home.
It had been a fantastic holiday!

The end.

Day 14

2008-05-15T22:25:00.005+02:00

Another morning and we're leaving Kyoto. Waiting for the train to Hiroshima with a couple of more suitcases than we had when we arrived in Japan.

Even maikos take the shinkansen.

A beautiful day in Hiroshima. We stored all our stuff in a locker at the train station (and accidentally bought a lunch voucher in what we thought was a coin changing machine) and jumped on a tram to the Peace Memorial Park. In Japan you pay your fare on buses and trams when you leave.

Me in front of the famous A-Bomb Dome, formerly known as Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall before it turned into a grim reminder of what happened here 8:15 in the morning of the 6th of August 1945. The building was 150 meters away from the bomb's hypocenter and one of only a handful of structures withstanding the blast in this area.

The A-Bomb Dome.

One of many memorials nearby.

Maja and the A-Bomb Dome.

The Motoyasu-gawa river seen from the T-shaped Aioi bridge which was the target for the bomb. It missed by a few hundred meters.

The Peace Clock Tower. Chiming every morning at 8:15.

Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall before and after.

Maja ringing the peace bell.

Children's Peace Monument. Based on the story of Sadako Sasaki who believed she would be cured of her radiation-induced leukemia if she folded 1000 paper cranes. She died 10 years after the bomb at the age of 12.

A bird had built a nest inside the bell of the Children's Peace Monument.

Funny trees by the Pond of Peace.

The Flame of Peace.

The Memorial Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims.

The Hall of Remembrance of The Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. The structure symbolizes the time of the bombing, 8:15, and the walls depicts a panorama of Hiroshima after the bomb seen from Shima Hospital. The picture is made of 140000 tiles; the estimated amount of people who had died by the end of 1945.

Phoenix trees exposed to the bomb. They were hollowed out on the side facing the bomb, but still alive.

A model of Hiroshima after the bomb at the Peace Memorial Museum. The museum covered in detail the story leading up to the bombing, the history of nuclear weapons and most importantly the gruesome aftermath exhibiting a huge amount of building parts and everyday items exposed to the bomb as well as detailed descriptions of the long term radiation concequenses. There were body parts on display as well as lots of blood stained and torn up clothes vicitims had worn and items they had carried as they died - mostly children's. The accompanying background stories made Lars von Trier's movies feel like a Seinfeld episode.
We spent hours in there.

Outside we crossed the Aioi bridge again. Since last time we'd learned that the bomb was aimed at the spot where the white car is.

Then we walked back towards the tram. The bomb exploded a block or so to our right. Weird to think about.

We were gonna spend the night on Miyajima island just outside Hiroshima. We jumped on a train and got on the ferry. In the distance we could see Hiroshima. It seemed like a really nice city. A shame we didn't get more time there.

Me on the ferry to Miyajima.

One of the attractions causing Miyajima to be packed with tourists during the day; the floating torii of the Itsukushima Shrine. Now it was low tide.

As we got to the island everyone else were leaving. It got dark quickly and we found the place we were gonna stay over. The excellent, traditional Watanabe Inn.
Our room was huge (yes, the toilet had a heated seat, several shower modes and was the best toilet on the trip).

A kaiseki dinner was waiting for us.

Colourful food. We had no clue what half of it was.

The dinner lasted for more than one hour as we got served many small dishes. There was only one other guest living there.

Half a fish head. It was delicious.

Yet another small dish.

Maja eating.

As always in traditional inns the bed has been made when you come back from dinner.

We relaxed a bit in the room.

Then we went for a walk. Funny lamps were hanging outside the houses.

Miyajima is famous for its many tame deer walking around everywhere. We'd already seen lots when we spotted this tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog). It didn't really seem to mind us. The cat it checked out straight after this photo was taken didn't seem to mind much either. Tame and friendly animals everywhere. Just like a Disney movie.

We got to the torii. It was still low tide so we walked out to it.

Then we walked into the village.

Nobody was there, except some deer.

Suddenly we came upon the world's largest rice spoon. Cool.

Our inn was at the end of this road. Two exposures.

A park across the road to our inn.

We had to be back before 10:30 pm (many inns have cerfew). We filled up the bathtub. Fairly simple; it was just to press a button on a panel on the wall. A Japanese woman's voice told us something (we were quite used to this by now as everything talks in Japan; escalators, lifts, even garbage trucks...) and it started filling up. It finished by itself and played a little tune to remind us.

Relaxing in the yukata infront of another silly Japanese game show.

We found some sake in the fridge. We drank it on the balcony listening to the fountain outside. It sounded like rain.
A wonderful and relaxing way to end a day full of impressions.

Signs #2

2008-05-12T13:19:00.006+02:00

Here are some more Japanese signs we came over.
These are taken in Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima and Osaka.

A board full of colourful signs.

Being a Norwegian concept artist wouldn't have helped me a bit...

Cool bottles.

Nice design.

The dog is worrying why his poop is pink.

Another nice design.

Hello Geisha.

A giant crab attacking a building in Kyoto.

Pig's ass lamp. Something for Ikea?

A rather embarassed dog.

Phone's losing it.

A sign in Iga. A toilet sign for ninjas?

Looks bad!

Another nice sign about prams crashing into train doors.

A German bar in Kyoto. Bad German or good Engrish?

I have no idea why this was put up outside on the street.

An entrance.

Could have something to do with bike theft.

The kid spots a cigarette.

Cool designs.

A very old sign in the forest behind the Nanzen-ji temple in Kyoto.

From the Nanzen-ji temple. (The photo was not taken in a room.)

I have no idea what this is all about. I just know I wouldn't have liked to grow up in this neighbourhood.

A toilet sign.

A very, very old sign.

Some dos and don'ts outside the Namco Wonder Tower in Kyoto. If you wanna dance it has to be with a kid...

An ad on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. They use the Nintendo DS for so much more than playing in Japan.

Don't feed pigeons in Hiroshima. They don't like it.

What a capsule toy vending machine can do to you if you're greedy.

A sign from Miyajima where tame deers are walking the streets.

We made it in 7.

By least.

A nice way of telling you not to freak out.

How to behave in front of the Miyajima monkeys.

No eye contact what so ever!

At least they were trying to explain us something up there on the mountain top in Miyajima.

I pushed one and got out.

What not to do on the Osaka subway.

Day 13

2008-05-11T22:24:00.003+02:00

The weather was not so good this morning so we started the day by walking aimlessly through the Gion district before ending up in Maruyama Park again.

The park was not that crowded today. It was also very early.

Cherry blossoms.

We decided to head towards The Philosopher's Walk. On the way we passed this building.

Wired up.

Hello Kitty.

A small garden we passed.

We got to the Nanzen-ji temple.

There was an aqueduct there called Sosui.

We'd read about a small shrine very few people knew about hidden up in the hills behind the aqueduct and the temple. We wanted to check it out. We passed a small cemetery.

The path lead into the forest and up a hill.

And there it was. Nanzen-ji Oku-no-in. We were the only ones there.

Steep stairs everywhere. It had started raining as well.

We didn't climb further than this.

We returned to Nanzen-ji and checked out its Zen garden.

Samples and descriptions of several kinds of moss from the garden.

We continued to Tetsugaku no Michi, The Philosopher's Walk. There was a small playground there.

Walking The Philosopher's Walk.

Towards the end of the walk we came over a small retro style restaurant. We decided to have lunch there.

We had curry. On a sewing machine table.

Small figures along The Philosopher's Walk.

We walked towards downtown again. Japanese gas stations have the pumps hanging from the ceiling. Genius.

Crossing the Kamo river at Demachiyanagi.

After a lot of walking we came to the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park. Probably nice on a sunny day, but this was more or less everything we saw there. A wall. With a few gates. Far from spectacular.

Back in the indoor shopping arcades we had a quick look at The Nishiki Food Market.

The Takashimaya Department Store was quite fancy inside. Its roof was another story. At least on a rainy day.

We went to an izakaya restaurant in the arcade. Izakaya is like tapas and the one we were in served raw chicken! We didn't stay long and we didn't eat much more than a few (fried) pieces of rubber chicken. After leaving and having the waiter running after us with a banana he'd like us to have, we were still hungry and checked out yet another izakaya restaurant called A-Bar which normally is a place for students. It was a lot better.

A-Bar was hard to find. It was in a small alley, up some stairs and in this door. It was worth it though.

Day 12

2008-05-07T21:19:00.002+02:00

Today we were going to the ninja museum in Iga, a small place two hours and three train changes from Kyoto.
Back on the train station we got close to Kyoto Tower again.

Astro Boy greets us. Again.

Kyoto Station is a pretty amazing building. It opened in 1997 and was designed by Hiroshi Hara.

Changing train in Kizu.

The train from Kamo to Iga-Ueno took about 30 minutes through the countryside. It had only one car and it was packed, mostly by elderly people going somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

The last train taking us from the pretty deserted place Iga-Ueno to our final stop Ueno-shi had more cars but was nearly empty. It had some ninjas on it though.

A pink ninja train. Not ours though.

Cool train.

The ninja museum and a typical ninja house. The pink ninja guide showed us secret doors and hidden rooms. She spoke only Japanese, but luckily English signs were hanging around.

A very cool museum displaying all kinds of ninja equipment. And everything was in English as well.

The couple taking this photo said "kawaii!"

One of many secret methods of ninja communication.

We chose to go there on a Wednesday following the advice on the excellent japan-guide.com which said ninja shows were on every day except Tuesdays. We got quite disappointed learning that it was in fact Wednesdays they didn't have a show. (I wrote to japan-guide.com about this and they still insist they're right, but that it could've been a special occasion that Wednesday, so if you are going avoid both Tuesdays and Wednesdays just in case.)
We walked through Ueno Park to Ueno Castle nearby.

Ueno Castle.

A ninja kid.

People photographed cherry blossoms here as well.

Ueno Castle.

More pink.

Bearded ninja.

We headed towards town. There were ninjas everywhere. This one was on the pavement.

Ninja dolls were hidden throughout the small town.

We found a small shrine there. And another ninja.

Otherwise the town was quite sad - at least the areas we checked out. Everything was closed. Except for Uoji Fashion Plaza.

Some places had been closed for a while.

Without even finding a place to eat we went back to the station. There we saw another ninja train. Unfortunately our train was not that cool.

A clock outside Hankyu Department Store back in Kyoto.

Another stroll through the Shinkyogoku-dori arcade. Some boards were hung up there with some really nice illustrations. Perhaps it was an exhibition somewhere. We never figured out.

Man and machine making cakes.

Looking for a place to dine we bumped into a couple of large American ladies enthusiasticly exiting a place which apparently had been the best restaurant they'd ever been to (and this had even been their second visit there). They nearly forced us in. And it must have been good beacuse it was packed. We queued up.
The place was called Katsukura and they served tonkatsu which is breaded, deep-fried pork cutlets.
But first we had to grind our own sesame seeds for the sauce we also had to mix ourselves.

The ladies were right. The food was excellent. We even got the longest prawns in the world, also breaded and deep-fried. It was enough food.

Afterwards it had started raining heavily. We tried to check out the Gion district, but since we didn't have any umbrellas we didn't get too far.
Soon we returned to the hotel. Soaked.

Signs #1

2008-05-03T18:20:00.010+02:00

Japan is full of signs.
Like the many posters telling you how to behave on different premises, most often demonstrated by cute little animals or anthropomorphic objects. Which you also see featured in many logos. Kawaii (which means cute) is everywhere.
You've got cool signs, the odd signs and of course you've got the Engrish.
Here's a collection of signs and logos from Tokyo (and a few from Nikko).

The character on top is a bus mascot.

Funny if you're Norwegian.

Shop logo in Akihabara.

Ginza Street.

Chiyoda. A great place.

How not to behave.

Mind your fingers. Or the raccoons will laugh at you.

A typical sign on the sidewalk.

From Tsukiji fish market.

From a map of the Tsukiji fish market. We didn't get injured once.

Pink.

Smoking is bad.

Don't do this.

Maja liked this.

There was wind.

A guide to parents on the subway.

A vending machine in Odaiba.

Bike parking.

A bit of Scandinavia.

Kawaii.

A wall in Shibuya.

Shibyua.

Respect! Or as we say in Norwegian: Respekt!

How to use the toilet in our hotel room.

Sgt. Frog ice cream.

We walked passed this on our Norwegian feet.

If you are a smoking bamboo shot...

Drinks.

Chu.

A dentist.

Beware or the pigeons will cover you in poop.

Bus mascots.

A flower shop in Nikko.

Bad passengers.

A guide on washing your hands in the petting zoo in Ueno Zoo.

Ueno Zoo.

Ueno Park.

Nice posters.

Sign at the Sensō-ji temple.

Take care.

It's known that some Japanese men can't keep their fingers to themselves on a packed subway. That's why.

You've perhaps seen this on YouTube. In Kiddyland you get one with laughing infections.

Elephants must not throw cans...

In Harajuku.

Children's drawings in Daikanyama.

Day 11

2008-05-02T20:59:00.006+02:00

Staying at a ryokan means a kaiseki breakfast. You better be hungry for one of those.

A small pile of baby fish. Not what I usually have for breakfast.

Our room.

Saying goodbye to the nice owners of Kikokuso. We got a ride to the next hotel.

The older part of the Gion district. Which also is the geisha district.

Kyoto is famous for its tremendous amount of shrines everywhere. We stumbled over Kennin-ji, but only checked out the exterior.

We walked up to Maruyama Park. The major place for cherry blossom viewing in Kyoto. A small restaurant in the park.

The park's main attraction is a shidarezakura, a weeping cherry tree.

A map of the park. Confusing at first.

The famous tree.

Strolling through the old parts of Kyoto.

Maikos.

A shop window. You could buy cats there...

A monk.

We got to Kiyomizu-dera. One of Kyoto's major tourist attractions overlooking the town.

Its main building is built on pillars over the hillside. In the old Edo times people jumped from this 13 meters high platform. If you survived you got a wish granted. If not you were one of the unlucky 14.6%.

Improving health, longevity, and success at the Otowa-no-taki waterfall.

Red-bibbed statues.

Petals on the pond.

We left the shrine and walked down back towards town. Birds of prey were terrorizing the wildlife around Kamo river.

Back in the city center.

Kyoto International Manga Museum. It was more like a manga library. The highlight was a special exhibition on Kawanabe Kyōsai, a 17th century manga artist.

This evening we had some problems finding a place to eat. Not that Kyoto is lacking restaurants (it's packed with them), but we were in the mood for something fat and juicy - which turned out to be a bit more challenging to find.

We finally found a Korean restaurant where we ate yakiniku.

Me cutting the meat. With provided scissors. It tasted great.

Day 10

2008-04-28T11:46:00.004+02:00

Leaving Tokyo. Just checked out from the hotel and dragged all our stuff and ourselves onto a train to Tokyo Station.

Tokyo Station and the shinkansen train we'll take to Kyoto. We bought a JR Pass so we could jump on any JR Train whenever we wanted for a week. Except for the Nozomi shinkansen - which stops at less stations.

On the train you'll just have to have a bento box.

Most shinkansen trains have only three cars out of up to 16 all together for no reserved seats. We ended up in the smoking car by mistake (but since the train got really packed, we decided to stay in our seats and it wasn't so bad as soon as the train started moving).
Everybody plays DS and reads manga. Even the older men in suits.

Speeding through Japan in more than 300 km/h.

Kyoto Station. A train leaving.

It was a very long taxi queu outside the station, but no lack of taxis waiting.

Then we got to Kikokuso, the ryokan we were gonna stay in the first night recommended to us by our friends Rune and Cecile who'd even lived in the same room we got.
As soon as we arrived we got served tea.

Kikokuso.

We decided to head into town for a few hours before dinner. Since it was so rainy very few people were outside. And the subway station we found was nearly empty. It was like coming to a rural village after Tokyo. Luckily we came over an indoor shopping arcade in Pontochō, a place we would be very familiar with during our stay.

To our surprise we discovered that even the sidewalks had roofs when we got out on the other side. Must be raining a lot in Kyoto.

Then we returned to the ryokan for a traditional dinner, kaiseki, which consists of many small dishes of all sorts. Always arranged very beautifully.

There was a whole little fish in there.

Maja and a huge piece of bamboo.

Miso soup.

Afterwards it was on with the yukatas as we prepared for the ryokan's hot bath. It was nice.

Mmmmm. Yukata.
We stayed in for the rest of that evening.

Vehicles

2008-04-25T23:40:00.004+02:00

Japanese vehicles deserves a separate post as many of them are quite special.
In Odaiba, Tokyo there must have been a police gathering. Japanese policecars are cool.

We walked through Mega Web, Toyota's showroom, to get to the ferris wheel in Odaiba. There you could go for a ride around the building in these small cars.

Next to Venus Fort in Odaiba some cool cars were exhibited.

Taxis in Tokyo. They looked like tin toys in bright and saturated colours. Straight out of the box.

Outside Yoyogi Park, Tokyo.

A bus from the area around Shibuya with a cartoony Hachikō the dog.

A bus in Kyoto.

Everything cute (kawaii) in Japan is very often squashed and square. They even had famous Disney characters re-designed this way. As well as their cars. This one was taken in Iga Ueno.

Day 9

2008-04-25T22:08:00.005+02:00

Our last day in Tokyo. We returned to Harajuku and walked down Takeshita-dōri.

Takeshita-dōri is famous for its colourful shops. No wonder where the Harajuku kids get most of their gear.

And no wonder it's so easy to fill up a suitcase after a few weeks in Japan.

The beginning (or end) of Takeshita-dōri.

We took a quick walk to the Meiji-Jingū shrine nearby (but weren't really in a shrine-mood) before returning to the Harajuku station area.
Sunday is the best day to spot Harajuku kids.

Then we walked down the side of Yoyogi Park where one band after the other were playing.

One band had a whole lot of female fans.

The band.

Yoyogi Park on a Sunday. It was packed with people enjoying the day off. And the cherry blossoms of course.

People were performing for the crowd.

Or for themselves.

Or for eachother.

In Japan most dogs have clothes. And they're all small too.

Dog tipping over kid (not really).

We sat down in the grass and enjoyed the sun and all the wonderful and weird people. Many dressed up in the most original and strange ways.

By the park's entrance rockabilly groups were dancing to 50's music.

Some of them seemed incredibly serious about it.

In motion:

Harajuku kids.

Harajuku man.

Then we were off to Daikanyama. Close to Shibuya, but still a different world. Quiet streets with small shops and a very relaxed atmosphere.
Somebody got wed.

A window.

We found a yakiniku restaurant where you fry your own food at the table. We were told it would squirt so we dined looking like two idiots. The meat wasn't too nice though.

After dinner we went to a concert in a club called Unit to see some Japanese bands playing. The biggest names were Toe and Group Inou. The latter was the climax of the evening and consisted of two very nerdy-looking guys who seemed to have just escaped from their boy's room and now were releasing all the energy they had saved up over the years all at once. The music was kind of like Katamari Damacy on speed.
The cool things about gigs in Japan is that they start when it says they'll start. Good for me because my legs were completely wrecked after another day of walking. And I wasn't in the mood for the endless waiting I associate with most concerts.
I tried to take a photo (surprisingly nobody else did).

After the concert we took a taxi to the theme restaurant Alcatraz E.R. in Shibuya for a few drinks. It couldn't really decide wether it should be a prison or a hospital. At the entrance they needed some information.

Inside a nurse handcuffed us together and took us to our cell where we had to sit on the floor. A bit of Japanese mixed in as well...

If we wanted something we just had to hit the bars with an iron rod.

And then we got drinks.

Nurse passing.

Me looking out.

The corridor outside.

Maja and her drink.

The bar and the kitchen on the way out.
Yes, we did get out. They were closing. And we went back the hotel.

Day 8

2008-04-24T21:46:00.004+02:00

Another day. And a happy Maja.

First we were off to the Edo-Tokyo Museum to soak up some history. There was also a special exhibition of Kawase Hasui's work and we spent some time watching an amazing documentary of him working. Afterwards we left the museum through this cool escalator.

If Spiderman had an escalator...

Then we headed to Aoyama, ate in The Spiral Building and checked out an area with incredibly hip and expensive shops. Like Comme des Garçons.

The bubbly Prada Aoyama building with a design by James Jean pasted on.

It looked inflated.

Another interesting building.

Then we walked towards Harajuku and spent quite some time in Kiddyland on Omotesandō which has six floors of toys.

Finally we got to Harajuku station and it was packed.

Some were playing.

This was a Saturday. Sundays are usually the best day to spot the famous goth-lolitas and cosplay kids of Harajuku, but we saw a few anyway.
We were gonna go back the next day.

An overpass. And people.

More people.

A building under construction.

Most parking houses in Japan have those platforms which spins your car around. Cool.

After Harajuku we took a short trip back to Shibuya so Maja could buy some shoes. Crossing again.

Afterwards we were off to Shinjuku which is one of the more famous parts of Tokyo. We only got to see it after dark this time and it was very busy.

There we found a small tempura restaurant called Kushinobo.

The tempuras came straight from the deep-fryer to our plate. It was great.

Containers for used sticks.

We wanted to continue to Golden Gai after dinner. We'd gotten a bit lost on the map so we asked the waitress for rough directions - like if it was up or down the street. But as we had experienced earlier, don't expect anybody to simply point you in the general direction in Japan. They're not satisfied before they have found you a map with detailed descriptions on how to get there and/or involved a whole lot of other people in trying to help you out. In this case the entire restaurant got involved (even though nobody spoke English) and it all ended with the chef taking us there in person.
It was just on the opposite side of the block.

Map of Golden Gai. A network of narrow alleys in the middle of Tokyo packed with lots and lots of tiny drinking establishments so small they can only fit a few people. Most of them wont accept foreigners. But we were gonna give it a try anyway.

A Golden Gai alley.

We finally picked one out and entered. We just planned to have a beer and then leave.
At first we felt like a couple of intruders and not too welcome. But we did our best to communicate with eachother and after a while we were all chatting along - mostly about Norway and Japan. We were trying out Japanese drinks and snacks, the bartender played us music from his rockband and the incredibly drunk man with an incredibly snotty nose at the end gave me a slap on my head as he left before his friend slapped him back - as they do.
For a moment we were a part of the Tokyo everyday life. It was great!

Our visit to the little bar in Golden Gai gave us one of the best moments on our trip.
I'll leave out the name of it. That's our little secret. ;)

Day 7 (Ueno Zoo)

2008-04-23T17:05:00.006+02:00

Some photos from Ueno Zoo.
A Japanese giant salamander. Giant indeed. It was the size of a child.

A mouse deer; a bizarre creature with fangs and extremely thin legs on its small oval body.

They were able to climb outside and on a sign hanging from the tree it said: "Poop falls over you?"
(Then what?)

This goose was watching puffins and other seabirds.

Day 7

2008-04-22T12:23:00.013+02:00

The day after it was beautiful weather so we returned to Ueno Park early in the morning to check out the cherry blossoms (sakura) during daylight.

Boats prepared for rush hour.

The ducks were up.

Maja got herself a designer coffee with oil blotting paper attached to the fancy bottle.

I had an onigiri for breakfast in the park. They are rice balls with fillings sometimes wrapped in nori (when bought you have to remove the plastic in a special way not to destroy them) and are a popular snack you get in every convenient store. This one was of course pink because of sakura. A quick, tasteful and stuffing meal.

Another duck.

The lake was full of birds. And turtles.

This was next to Ueno Zoo, and from behind a fence a couple of geese persuaded us to pay it a visit eventhough it was not a part of our schedule.
(Photos from the zoo will be a separate post.)

The zoo was great. Outside we came over some carousels with familiar characters.

By now the park was packed.

Outside the National Museum of Western Art in Ueno Park. Detail of The Gates of Hell.

Detail of The Burghers of Calais.

We got ourselves some squid balls. They were incredibly hot and had a hard and rubbery piece of squid inside. I burnt my mouth seriously on it too, so one was enough.

Then we were off to Asakusa and walked through Shin-Nakamise, an partly indoor shopping arcade with lively sidestreets.

There we had lunch in a Korean restaurant.

Then we briefly checked out Tokyo's oldest temple Sensō-ji. Also a major tourist attraction.

The fortunes were also in English...

...and they were not good at all. More or less everything would go to hell.
Bad temple!

So we left.

Afterwards we jumped on a water bus, the Suijo-Bus, in Asakusa and sailed down Sumida River.

We passed the supercool water bus going between Asakusa and Odaiba. We wanted to take that the day we were in Odaiba, but looking for cash and my bad knee spoiled the plans.
Next time.

There are many bridges over Sumida River. Some are even multi storey.

We passed Tsukiji fishmarket. The forklifts were happy to see us again.

Tokyo Tower in the distance.

A pink boat with a Norwegian flag.

At our destination, Hinode Pier. And the boat we took.

Then we were off to National Museum of Modern Art and ended up in subway rush hour.

Afterwards it was off to Tokyo Tower. By the time we got there it was dark. Tokyo Tower is, with its 333 meters, the tallest construction in Japan and the tallest self-supporting
structure in the world.

Tokyo Tower has got a two-floor observation deck at 150 meters and another one at 250 meters. We went inside.

250 meters above Tokyo.

Afterwards we walked to Roppongi. Roppongi at night is not Japan. It's like being teleported to a horrible Mediterranean charter hell with drunk kids from the west and Afro-Americans and Brits on the streets almost pulling you into their pubs and nightclubs. We missed the apparently nicer Roppongi Hills which was closed for the night, so this was the only decent thing worth taking a photo of.

But we did find a nice yakitori-restaurant there called Kushihachi hidden away in some building. I guess the only good thing about Roppongi was that ordering food in English was easier. Even though this was far from a tourist restaurant. The quite common drunk Japanese gentleman had fallen asleep at the bar. In my part of the world the staff would've kicked him out a long time ago, but in Kushihachi the chef just moved his glass and plate away from him so he shouldn't accidentaly knock it over.

The food was great.

Afterwards it was time to leave Roppongi and get back to our part of town. In Tokyo there's a second rush hour. Which is just before the last trains stop running.

Day 6

2008-04-21T18:48:00.003+02:00

The next day we decided to take a daytrip to Nikko, some hours by train north of Tokyo. A major tourist attraction full of temples and shrines. And a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The train left from Asakusa north east in Tokyo, also the location of Asahi Super Dry building, the brewery headquarters with the famous golden turd.

As soon as the train pulled in, cleaning personnel stormed in to make sure it was nice and clean.

Crossing the Sumida River.

Preparing for Nikko.

Asakusa, where we took the train from, is located north east in Tokyo and is one of the stations farthest out on the subway map. Even so it took us another hour on the train away from Tokyo before we saw any sign of countryside. There we were surrounded by a group of kids who found us very interesting all staring at us and whispering to eachother. The teacher eventually had to ask us where we came from. Even the kids knew about Norway.

Quite unprepared we jumped on a bus and found our way to the Taiyū-in Mausoleum, a strategic place to begin we figured out.

Fortunes hung up.

Off with the shoes at Futarasan Shrine.

Sake barrels.

A frog shrine for kids...?

Me checking the map. Seems like we're off to the Tōshō-gū Shrine.

Tōshō-gū pagoda.

Yōmeimon Gate.

Haiden Oratory.

Yōmeimon Gate.

When you visit shrines in Japan, you have to pay a little entrance fee to enter almost every tiny building. We wanted to see Nemuri-neko, the sleeping cat, so we bought yet another ticket. And there it was...

And at every little place they sell different charms to bring you luck and safety in for example child birth, traffic and so on. These are the sleeping cat charms.

Tōshō-gū Shrine.

Three famous monkeys on Shinyosha (The Sacred Stable). See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.

Reservoir Dogs.

The first memory card is full.

The Sennin-masugata steps leading up to Ishidorii Torii Gate.

Rinnoji Temple.

Shouyoen garden.

Walking back to town we came over this really cool fountain.

Hippari Dako. A tiny yakitori-restaurant with three tables, delicious food and walls covered in business cards and notes from guests over the years.

We left something too.

Plasic food on dispay outside restaurants is something you get used to, but this was one of the fanciest ones I saw in Japan.

Waiting for the train to leave. It wasn't a rapid-train so it turned out to be a long trip back to Tokyo. About three hours.

Back in Asakusa. People celebrating cherry blossoms as usual.

Sumida River after dark.

And the golden turd.

Day 5

2008-04-20T15:20:00.008+02:00

The day had come to visit the Ghibli Museum. We jumped on a train to Shinjuku to change for a train to Kichijōji 10 km out west. It was rush hour in Shinjuku which is Tokyo's largest station as well as the world's busiest, with about 3.6 million commuters passing through each day.

Plastic dishes on display outside restaurants is a common thing in Japan - and very convenient for a tourist. But they also display ice cream and crepes.

Manhole cover in Kichijōji.

After a coffee and something to eat in Kichijōji, a rather relaxed and slightly bohemian area, we entered Inokashira Park. The whole park was bright pink from cherry blossoms.

People were already out on the lake.

Many were painting.

Everyone were taking photos as if they'd never seen a cherry blossom in their whole life.

And the lake was full of ducks.

The lake.

Boats.

There was a small temple by the lake. Dedicated to a vengeful goddess of love called Benzaiten.

An ema of wishes on wooden plates.

Very Zelda.

After a bit of walking we spotted this sign.

And then we saw this sign.

And at last we were outside the Ghibli Museum.

Us outside the entrance.
Fortunately we figured out in time that you can't just go to the museum and pay at the entrance. You have to book tickets for a special day well in advance and that has to be done from agencies online.
We booked from My Bus UK.

A staircase going up on the roof of the museum.

The giant Laputa Robot Soldier stands up there.

Our tickets for the Saturn cinema at the Ghibli Museum where they show shorts exclusively made only for the museum.

An overview.

Unfortunately taking photos was not allowed inside. But here's one of the many beautiful windows in there (the window was open and I was standing outside taking the picture, so no rule broken, hehe).

A sink close to the restaurant at the Ghibli Museum.

Detals from the backyard of the Ghibli Museum.

The museum was excellent by the way. There were innovative displays on how animation works. A few rooms designed as a private studio where the artist could've just left the room for a second packed with reference books, original art covering the walls, toys and animation equipment was on display (and you really had to be careful not to knock over the animator's teapot as you passed through) demonstrating in an extremely clever and interactive way the process of animation. A bookshop selling a huge amount of books. And a busy souvenir shop.
The best part was a 3D-zoetrope with Ghibli-characters being animated in strobe light. I couldn't resist to sneak out my camera and film it.

Afterwards we walked back to the park.

Busy birds and fish.

Cherry blossoms and people.

Maja bought some pink noodles.

More park people.

Maja.

Dressed for a day out.

Late conveyor belt sushi lunch back in Kichijōji. A small local place most probably not used to gaijin (a.k.a. foreigners).

Back on the Shibuya crossing after dark. Packed as always. Every night seems like a weekend. As if nobody have to go to work or school the next day.

We checked out Love Hotel Hill in Dōgenzaka and walked back through an area of seedy businesses before we came over a pet shop selling dogs. Or rather cartoony caricatures of puppies I'd never seen before. As everything else in Japan, these were designed kawaii - eventhough they were alive.

In the end we found a nice café in Shibuya where we shared a small pizza.

And since the pizza was a bit small, I shamefully had to eat a Big Mac before returing to the hotel...

Day 4

2008-04-18T23:28:00.007+02:00

It had been the last night at Chisun Hotel Ueno. We're moving to the slightly more central Shibuya.

Carrying stuff through Ueno station.

In Japanese stations there are marks to every door on the train where people line up to wait. And then they move to the side to let people out first.
They don't do that where I am from...

Shibuya. A building is being cleaned.

Found our hotel, Shibuya Tokyu Inn, and dropped off our baggage. Check in was later.

You can not smoke on the street in Japan. But they have smoking areas.

At the world's busiest crossing in Shibuya for the first time.

Us crossing for the first time.

Crossing.

The famous statue of Hachikō, the dog which waited for his master here every day and continued to do so for 10 years after the master one day had died and never showed up.

It was a nice day so we got ourselves a bento box and headed for a green spot on our map nearby called Jingu-dōri-kōen. It turned out to be a pretty sad park with a few basket ball courts, playgrounds and primitive sheds built and lived in by homeless people. Stitch is a very popular character in Japan, even amongst the homeless.

Our first bento box. Full of new and unusual tastes and textures. Some of them were a bit of a challenge I must admit.

A retired cherry blossom.

We walked back to Shibuya and had a coffee in Starbucks overlooking the crossing. There was a music store there where we listened to (and bought) some cherry blossoms bossa nova.

Then it was time to check into our hotel which you usually do around 3 pm in Japan. The toilet we got was a pretty basic one, only with a butt shower.

The bathroom was pretty cool though. Just one massive piece of plastic shaped like a bathroom.

And as everywhere else, the vending machine room. Conveniently located on our floor.

Then we were off again to take the JR-train to Ikebukuro. It's surprisingly easy to get around Tokyo by train and subway. Even though the subway consists of lines from two different companies with different ticketing systems which you often have to change between to get where you want.

In Ikebukuro we headed towards Sunshine City. Tokyo's fourth tallest building with 240 meters and 60 floors. After jumping into some wrong elevators and nearly getting to the top and then down again with some incredible speed (at the time of completion in 1978 it was the world's fastest elevator traveling 600 meters per minute) we finally found the right one and reached the observation deck on the 60th floor.
It's amazing only to have a thin window between you and a nearly 240 meters drop.

An amazing view with the silhouette of Mount Fuji in the distance.

Apart from mountains far, far away to the west there was city as far as you could see in every direction.

Sunshine City's observation deck. There was also an aquarium up there, but we didn't visit it.

Enjoying the view.

Down on the ground again we checked out the Animate shop around the corner which was the first Animate in Japan (we also visited one in Akhiabara two days earlier). Eight floors of manga, games, DVDs, etc. And the typical staircase you'd find in most shops like this in Tokyo. Narrow and full of ads.
It's worth mentioning Mandarake as well. We didn't visit the Ikebukuro branch, but we spent some minutes in the Shibuya one earlier that day.

Tokyu Hands started as a DIY-shop, but is now selling all sorts of things primarily aimed towards home and hobby and can be found all over Japan. We'd been to their main store in Shibuya earlier that day, but on the top floor in their Ikebukuro branch there is a cat petting zoo! Since pets are not very usual in Tokyo (except for some mini dogs seemingly custom bred for tiny homes and being as kawaii as you can handle which are being sold in small vending machine-like shops, but more on that another day), this is a place people can go to pet cats and attempt playing with them - even though the cats seemed pretty sick and tired of both petting and playing.

Petting.

Cats.

Maja and a massive creature.

Outside again.

In Japan you find buildings packed with small restaurants on every floor, so you have to look for a nice ad on the street, take a tiny elevator to the desired floor and hope it looks ok. We found a very nice one and discovered it was a Taiwanese restaurant.

Afterwards we went to Bic Camera there to look for some Tekkon Kinkreet maquettes we'd read about in a blog. Bic Camera is a chain of huge department stores selling electronics and they're everywhere. Only Ikebukuro had three of them. (We didn't find what we were looking for, but they had them in Kiddyland, Harajuku - so now you know).

On the way home we passed a shop selling something sweet and colourful.

Day 3

2008-04-17T20:01:00.015+02:00

Day three. Up really early in the morning to get to the Tsukiji fish market while it's still some action there.
Just outside the hotel around 06:30.

Quite empty subway station. As the train came people suddenly spawned from everywhere.

Tsukiji fish market. The largest in the world. It was incredibly busy and we constantly had to dodge funny little vehicles speeding back and forth.

A tuna. Probably very expensive.

Fresh fish and tantacles.

A clip from inside.

Maja and a lot of fish.

Puffer fish. Ready to be shipped alive to fugu restaurants around Japan. I unfortunately never got a chance to taste it this time.

Heads.

Me.

This is how it felt like.

Afterwards we headed to one of the many sushi bars at the market. Obviously touristy, but nevertheless the freshest sushi in the world. It was nine in the morning and my first sushi breakfast ever.
The chef in action.

The chef kept throwing different pieces onto my plate.

Afterwards we took a driverless monorail to Odaiba; an artificial high tech entertainment island in Tokyo Bay.

There Maja found a giant pink cat.

In Japan using cash is more common than cards. In Odaiba we figured out that we didn't have much cash left and the nearest ATM we could use was back on the mainland. We headed to Shimbashi and spent a long frustrating time in the rain trying to find an ATM which would accept our cards. We found one in a post office. We also saw some nice skyscrapers there.

Nearby we came over Nittere-Ohdokei. A huge clock designed by Hayao Miyazaki outside Nippon Televison Broadcasting Center. We stopped and waited for 12 o'clock. It was cool.

Two clips.

Then we went back to Odaiba on the monorail and to Miraikan, The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation.

A robot seal for petting.

Kids playing in the museum.

The robot Asimo from Honda was on display there. And we saw him demonstrated. Impressive.

Check out these clips.

Us. As a mosquito sees us.

A giant globe was hanging in there.

Afterwards the sun was shining so we went to The Giant Sky Wheel in Odaiba to try it out.

Venus Fort. A department store for women.

The ground floor of Venus Fort had a cat bus from Totoro.

Inside Venus Fort. The interior was like an Italian village and the ceiling was made like a sky changing from night to day. It was evening in Venus Fort when we visited.

Suddenly my knee said stop after all the walking so I needed a break. We took the monorail to the mainland and back again. And then back to the mainland.

We ended the day with soba in Ueno Yabu Soba.

Day 1 and 2

2008-04-16T11:20:00.031+02:00

28th of March 2008. Oslo Airport Gardermoen. We have just checked in and taking a self portrait in front of the tower before we're off.

We had a few hours in Amsterdam before continuing to Tokyo.

We were mostly flying over Russia the whole way to Japan. This is early morning somewhere over Siberia.

It was only dark for a few hours. So the morning came pretty fast.

Finally we landed at Narita airport in Tokyo and saw the first cherry blossoms, known as sakura.

Baggage picked up, fingerprints taken and forms filled out and handed in we headed for the first vending machine. Maja wanted an ice coffee, but got a burning hot can which was impossible to hold.

Me of course had to try a Pocari Sweat. Which tasted like water with sugar. Quite all right. My first sip.

After finding our hotel in Ueno, we headed out and saw the first of very many pachinko parlors. This one was in Ameyoko.

The pachinko parlors were incredibly noisy.

We walked towards Ueno Park and came over some lanterns.

Ueno Park is one of the most popular places for cherry blossoms viewing, known as hanami. They put up food stands everywhere and spend the days and evenings in the park eating and drinking. It was packed. And this guy was selling fish.

Lanterns.

Maja in our hotel room before trying an unknown drink (and pouring it out after one sip).
On the label it said "Once you sip it, you can't forget that rich flavor and pleasant after taste".
Very true.
The hotel was called Chisun Hotel Ueno by the way and was very nice. Not too central, but we only stayed there the first three nights.

A new day. We spot some familiar characters in a window outside our hotel.

We headed to Akihabara first thing in the morning, also known as Electric Town. I wanted a new camera for the trip and Akihabara is the place to go for everything electronic.

We got there too early. Everything was deserted and we wondered if shops were closed on Sundays in Japan. We would soon discover that we were very wrong.

Waiting for the shops to open we came over this guy on the sidewalk.

And checked out some of the back streets.

Then the shops opened and we came over this one. A shop of six (?) floors selling all sorts of plastic action figures and everything you don't really need but can't resist to buy.

Sgt. Frog is cool, and he was everywhere. I bought a few of these later in Harajuku.

USB Sushi.

Cool buildings in Akihabara. A wall with escalators.

And then we found this shop. Full of Ghibli stuff.

A wall full of capsule toys. 200 yen each. I came home with quite a few of them. Some were really cool ones while others were just beautifully silly in a very Japanese way.

Me with a familiar character from a DS game I'd tried out just before the trip called Pororon! Docomodake.
(And yes, I got myself a camera. It's there in my bag.)

These were everywhere.

And the game arcades! Usually six-seven floors packed with games which will never make it to the west. This was a drumming game. And the girls seemed to have played it before.

And of course the dancing games. This guy was good. He also used his hands, but I didn't get that on camera.

Self portrait.

On Sundays they close off the main street in Akihabara so the shoppers and gamers can roam freely. Good idea.

Then we were off to Ginza. Where all the posh people go shopping in huge, expensive department stores. Here's the window display of one of them.

An interresting building in Ginza.

They closed the street in Ginza too. A nice Japanese couple took this picture and told us to say chiizu.

We visited the Sony Building to check out the latest gadgets. Rolly is a dancing MP3 player unfortunately only working on Japanese Windows. At least I got to see it in action.

After the visit to the Sony Building headed towards the Imperial Palace Gardens. This was a cool building on the way. We had soup around here.

No Tokyo without Godzilla. I saw this statue on the map and expected something huge. It was in fact tiny.

In Hibiya Park we spotted something familiar. Apparently it had something to do with flight routes opening up over the north pole some time in the past.

It had started raining. This woman was moving plants outside Hibiya Park.

More than often you accidentaly buy a drink in Japan that you just can't finish. Here's an ice coffee mixed with something else about to go down the sewer and its bottle for recycling. Bins were absent in Tokyo so we ended up moving litter over huge distances before we were happy to ome over some of these.

Trees in front of the Imperial Palace Gardens. It was pouring down by now.

Imperial Palace Gardens. We never saw the actual palace.

We have left the Imperial Palace Gardens. Our feet are killing us and we are wet.

Waiting for the subway in an unusually empty station. Never needed to wait long though. Usually only a minute or so.

Returned to Ginza. It had gotten dark by now. And the buildings had been lit.

We took the elevator to the top floor in one of the buildings for a coffee. They were playing some interesting music and I shot a few clips out the window.

And then we returned to Akihabara to see it after dark. It was pretty cool. And crazier than earlier. Lots of people around and bands playing. These were called Yumeiro Monster.

We were about to leave Akihabara when we came over this enormous electronics shopping centre called Yodobashi Akiba next to the station. Apparently the biggest one in Japan. So we stayed for a few more minutes.

Back in Ueno we found a restaurant where we accidentaly ordered three dishes thanks to language problems. It was good though. We tasted okonomiyaki for the first time - which is a mix between pancake and pizza with a Japanese twist.

Intro

2008-04-15T16:35:00.006+02:00

Welcome to this blog!
On the 28th of March this year Maja and myself jumped on a plane to Japan.
I've been wanting to go for many, many years, so a holiday to Japan turned out to be my new years resolution this year (in addition to start working out, but I wont make a blog about that). And since the cherry blossoms season was coming up we decided that this was a good time to go. And not too long to wait. So we booked a flight.
We stayed a bit more than two weeks and returned to Oslo on the 13th of April.
I was initially planning to post all this on my normal blog, but after counting 2208 photos and 33 video clips taken I though it would be better to make a separate blog.
Because of this it'll take a while before this blog is complete. So please drop by once in a while to check for new posts.
The trip was fantastic! We stayed nine days in Tokyo, four in Kyoto, one night in Miyajima outside Hiroshima and finally one night in Osaka.
If you have to pick one country to visit in your life, pick Japan.
This is us in the land of the rising sun.