donderdag 31 december 2009

Akemashite omedetou! (happy new year!)

We went to the Senso-ji (oldest temple in Tokyo, 1300 years of history behind it) for new years. In Japan they don't do fireworks (well maybe at the gaijin places, but we weren't there) but they go to the temples and there they ring the temple bell 108 times (According to Buddhism, man has 108 sins and that, by hearing the bells toll that number, he can be relieved of all of them).
First I burnt one stick of incense for everyone of my close friends and of course my father and sister.
There was a huge line, but using our 'stroopwafels' I cut the line a little and tagged along with a few Japanese youngsters :D
I was witness to the bell tolling, and more so I saw my first (full) Geishas (as seen in the movies I have posted below.
The fire you see is to burn bad luck and things you want to get rid of from the previous year.
Again, all our best wishes go out to all of you, family, close friends and people we know alike.




We miss(ed) you guys (and galls)!

We are the future

We are now once again in Tokyo.


As we wont be online tonight: All the best wishes, we will be there 8 hours earlier. :p
Except for Nana who has us beat by an hour.
Oh and Levi, Miyuki, Mirai and all the nice Japanese people we met along the way, they will also be celebrating in this timezone of course. Hope to see you all in the year of the tiger.

Be safe and have fun, we'll be thinking of you!

Snow Monkeys!

Yesterday was great, after a hike through the forrest along an snowy and icy(!) trail we arrived at the famous monkey Onsen.
As with all the animals we've seen here the snow monkeys are protected and therefore completely unafraid of people. This gave me the chance to get some really nice closeups. Remember, this is not a zoo. If you stare and or grin at them too much they could easily pull a 'Bokito'










The Japanese Macaque lives in mountainous areas of Honshū, Japan. It survives winter temperatures below -15 °C (5°F), and is perhaps most notable for the amount of time it spends in naturally heated volcanic hot springs in Snow Monkey park located in Yamanouchi town, close to a historical Hot spring area named Shibu Onsen. In Life on Earth from 1979, David Attenborough notes that the monkeys (not the entire population) first moved into the volcanic area with the springs, "Only a few years ago."

Interesting read about this type of monkey (in Dutch) came out today: there is a group that actually flosses

dinsdag 29 december 2009

Japan will never be the same

I changed the flow of a river, Japan will never be the same.


(ja pa, alweer :D)

maandag 28 december 2009

Insomnia

Apparently Joost is getting questions why he is sleeping so much, so to clarify:
Joost doesn't sleep all that much, I sleep so little. I already have trouble sleeping, but ripped from my normal rhythm I REALLY have trouble sleeping. 3-4 hours a night. I do get my moneys worth that way though ;p
For some reason, as soon as I'm in a moving vehicle I CAN sleep though... Just like after a party in Holland :D

Kanazawa

This morning we took the train from Kyoto to Kanazawa. it took us a little over 2 hours to get there, but the view really made up for it. We saw the first real snow of our trip. It was almost a 'Winter Wonderland' :-)

The train station is a really beautiful building as you can see in this picture (Den Haag CS, eat your heart out)

The ryokan (wiki says says they are more expensive than hotels, but thats not true AT ALL) we are staying in is really nice, they even have their own onsen. Too bad we don't have time to enjoy it.
After we checked in we went to walk around the town. First we went to the old Samurai neighbourhood where there were some old Samurai houses that you could enter and look around in.












After this we went back to the Ryokan so i could put on a wool sweater since i was getting a little cold. Warmed up, we went out again so we could look around in the Ninja area. Since it was getting later the pictures are a little dark






We were getting hungry, so we decided to walk back in to the main part of town to see if we could get some food going. After walking around a little and trying to see if there was some vegetarian food anywhere, we decided to just go into a nice looking place and ask. There was vegetarian food there. My god was there good food. Eric got his meat, his fish, his crab and I got my vegetarian food. Boy oh boy was this good food. We want to make a special note of this place because the service was exceptional and the food even more so. Unfortunately, Eric lost the card for this restaurant in the taxi, so we cant tell you the name, but the name on the restaurant is in Japanese anyway. But, it is easy to find, it is right around the corner from the Toyoko-inn (hotel).
Here a small sample of the wonderful food we had








Our bellies full, we wanted to see the geisha area.