sakomoto: A journey to Japan

Hi,

today I went with Takuya's father to the biggest shopping mall, that is around; the AEON MALL. 

Big indeed.

There you can buy nearly everything.

From pets

to handmade cosmetics.

It has a gaming hall, as well.

I bought there some souvenirs and a new battery for my PSP. Nothing big, though.

So far for today.

Hello everybody,

a bit less than an hour ago we had an earthquak. 5 min later the media reacted. Here is a map; the photo is taken from the TV. For those, who are interested I live where the blue point is.

Nothing else happend that would be worthy talking about. I went to Akihabara and bought some items for some friends of mine.

Hi,

as the title says Takuya and I used a shinkansen today, in order to go to Kyoto. There we visted 4 temples and 1 shrine. I am going to show pictures of every place, except 三十三間堂 (sanju san gen do). It was forbidden to take pictures there.

So let's begin,

at first, the 伏見稲荷大社 (fushimi inari taisha), which is a shinto shrine. It is famous for its over 1000 torii.

Next the 清水寺 (kiyomizu-dera), which is a temple:

The waterfall Otowa no taki. It is said that drinking the water of the three streams confers wisdom, health, and longevity.

After that, we went to 金閣寺 (kinkaku ji). That is a temple covered with gold.

At last, we visited 竜安寺 (ryoan ji). A Zen temple with a stone garden.

 A model of the garden.

In the evening we used again the shinkansen to come back to Tokyo. The trip is ca. 3h long.

Hi everybody,

today we visited Takuya's grandparents and went with them to 深大寺  (Jindai ji) , a shrine.

Gate to inner yard of the shrine.

This is a basin where you can ignite and put incense sticks. They are sometimes free, but most of the time you have to pay for them. You then fan the smoke to the body part, where you wish recovery or improvement.
 

Near the shrine is a museum for the animation Gegege no Kitarou. This animination is best known for its popularization of the folklore creatures known as yōkai, a class of spirit-monster to which all of the main characters belong.

There was also a restaurant near the shrine, where we aet some soba.

Back at the house of Takuya's grandparents, his grandfather defeated me in Go.

Me, at the house of Takuya's grandparents, holding a Daruma.

That's all for today.

Hello everyone,

today we had a little break. So I was at home all the time, recovering a bit.

I played a bit with my background.

Orginal:

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e122/Xandomir/g9690Hintergrund.jpg

Manipulated:

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e122/Xandomir/g9690Hintergrund2Kopie.jpg

The bell is entirley own work.

Today, we went to the City of Doom Akihabra. Yes it is this legendary city which is called electric town.

It is all about technology and animination. Two of the biggest shops there are Gamers and Animate. We went into them and really you can get nearly everthing. At Gamers they have an own floors for Nintendo, Sony, Boy's Love, two for Mangas, one for mainstream media, one for figures, one for model (those you can build and colour by yourself), one for orginal soundtracks, ... . At Animate it was basically the same ^^.

Akihabara has also the highest frequency of meido- and cosplaycafes. Most of them are advertised by maids handing out flyers on the street. Thanks to that I had a bag full of ads. at the end of the day. ^^ The service in these cafes starts with cosplaying waitress / waiter, goes over trying to speak with a cute voice (waitress) and announcing the customer with ご主人様 (goshujin-sama "Master"), to 御握り (o-nigiri) which is hand-made in front of the customer and baiting. Of course, the more service, the higher the price and some cafes provide more than others.

Unfortunately, taking pictures is not allowed in most of the shops. Furthermore, taking pictures in a meidocafe is either entirly not allowed or you have to pay. Takuya and I went to this one:

Cure Maid Cafe (Page is in japanese) They wear traditional dresses (to make it short traditonal: long skirt - modern: short skirt; there are some other differences, though). They do not address with goshujin-sama, however that is fine. The atmosphere is calm and comfortable. All in all a very nice cafe, where I am going to visit again.

Some pictures of Akihabara:

One of the famous small electro shops:

One of the famous small sidestreets, with many of the famous small shops ^^ :

What I bought today:

From right-hand side to left-hand side:

Lucky☆Star char: Konata price: 300 Yen

GunslingerGirl char: Claes price: 735 Yen

Fate/Stay Night char: Saber price: 840 Yen

Shirley (Manga) price: 620 Yen

That is all for today.

Hello to everyone reading this,

today Takuya showed me the city he lives in, Kunitachi. Tokyo as most of the not Japanese people know it, does not really exist. The whole metropolitan area is called Greater Tokyo Area, which consists mostly of the prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Tokyo (at the center). The prefecture Tokyo itself is divided into cities. And Kunitachi is one of these cities. In Kunitachi is also the Yaho Tenman-gu. A shrine we visited. Besides the main shrine there is also one to worship the foxes. In Japan it is belived, that some foxes have special powers and are the messangers of the Gods. I only took photos of the fox shrine:

After visting that shrine, we went home again. Takyu did then something on his own. So I went, with his mother and sister, to a Sushibar for dinner. It was one with a conveyor, those are really useful. You just take what you want. The plates are coloured. And each colour stands for a price range. So they just count your plates and tell you how much you have to pay. After that we went to a bookshop.

What I bought today:

From top to bottom and from the right-hand side to the left-hand side:

- Wagaya no Oinari-sama (Light Novel) 550 Yen No. 1

-  BLOOD ALONE (Manga) 550 Yen No. 5

- Gunslinger Girl (Manga) 550 Yen No. 9

- Fate Stay Night (Manga) 540 Yen No. 1

To buy mangas and light novels here has many advantages:

- Here they are much cheaper than in Germany.

- They are are not censored in anyway (Neither cutted, nor wrong translated)

- The best thing is even in a normal bookshop, they offer lots of free items, like these booksigns:

Of course, there are some ads. printed on them. But that is all right, in that way I know where the pictures come from. In additon, the ads. are on the backside.

This is a manga magazine :-), which presents normally one chapter of different mangas. It contains a poster, as well, and costs 590 Yen.

Hello everybody,

how are you doing? Today, Takuya left me alone at home, therefore the communication with his mother and sister was more interesting, than yesterday. They can only speak a few words English and I can speak only a few words Japanese. However, in the end it was enough.

Here are some pictures of my room, May the house dog and the air condition (In Japan it is so hot and humid). Despite being a dog I will address May with she.

The entrance to my room:

The air-condition just outside my room (so far, I spotted three air-condition in this house)

My room: 

May (the cute little thing, that woke me up every morning so far >-<):

In the afternoon, we visited the 八王子まつり　(Hachioji Matsuri - Hachioji is the name of the area and Matsuri means festival (See also: Japanese festivals)) and a 花火　(Hanabi (Firework)  Hana means flower and bi means fire). You can define both Matsuri and Hanabi, but you cannot describe them. You must have been there, in order to really understand what is so fascinating about them. At the Hachioji Matsuri, for example, everywhere were drummer groups. Their sound was like thunder. Shops on the street sold food and cool drinks and offered different games of luck. Furthermore, you could see many people wearing Yukatas. At the end, 4000 people from different clubs and factories were dancing traditional dances on the street.

All right, maybe the photos can help you to understand what is so great about these festivals. At first, the Hachioji Masuri:

 So far to the drummers.

Yukatas:

If you are a foreigner at a Matsuri, it might be that people look at you. In order to avoid this situation, I bought a yukata for myself ;-). Strangely enough even more people looked at me ^^'.

Pictures of the traditional dances at the end:

I was not the only one, with a good camera equipment ^^:

At events or road works you can see traffic policemen:

A Maneki Neko in front of a shop:

Pictures of the Hanabi:

Hello everybody,

so this is my first entry in this blog. First things first, due to some international readers the whole blog will be in English.

OK, there is not really much to say about today. After an 11-hour flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo - Narita Airport and from there a 3-hour trip by car to the house of my guest family I was really exhausted. Also, that is the reason why I lost a GO party against Takuya's father ^^.

If anybody will ever go on to have a long flight like I had today; I strongly recommend something, which keeps the eyes and the nose moist, because the air in the plane is dry as bones. Some Japanese people used a breathing protection, as well. You know those things, that doctors wear.

Anyway, because of the Lufthansa strike there should be no catering on my flight today. However, All Nippon Airways reacted: They provided all passengers with a free meal at a restaurant at Frankfurt Airport; they excused themselves around three times for the inconvenience and gave all passengers a voucher over 5000 Yen. The best thing is that, in the end, they themselves provided a catering on board. This service was maybe even better than that of Lufthansa, because they served Melonpans xD.

All in all I am quite happy with my first day here.

All right, time for some pictures. Not many, though, because today was not much to see, except the Tokyo Tower and the Rainbow Bridge. Most of the photos were taken out of a driving car, so please excuse the poor quality.

My plane at Frankfurt Airport:

Some infos, showen during the flight:

My first Melonpan:

My plane at Tokyo - Narita Airport (the one in the foreground):

One Hotel of Tokyo Disneyland:

All right now to the Rainbow Bridge:

The Tokyo Tower as seen form the Rainbow Bridge:

　The Fuji TV station as seen from the Rainbow Bridge:

 View on a part of the Tokyo harbour:

And now some picture of the Tokyo Tower:

Three  other random thing I saw in Tokyo:

What you need to build high-rise buildings:

No comment:

Ok, so far for today. (01/08/2008)