Big in Japan: What an amazing time

Hi there!

We're back in good old Germany.
First of all, I want to apologize for not writing one single English post while we were in Japan. We really had trouble with getting a wifi connection. And then I had to write everything with my smartphone. For chatting or a quick email, a smartphone is really nice, but writing long blog postings on a none mobile wbsite with a little display is hard work. it didn't do what I wanted it to do and uploading pictures was so annoying. Moreover, we covered up to 30 km a day by foot and I was very tired in the evening and prefered to eat and relax and write some personal diary instead. But I will make it up, I promise.

Nine days have passed and I already want to go back. Really really hard. It was amazing. It was awesome. We had a really good time with so many impressions and experiences. We are still totally flashed and overwhelmed. The interesting part is, I can’t tell you WHAT exactly makes me want to go back. I guess it’s a combination of everything.

Let’s start with the landscape. It’s so beautiful. There a hills and mountains everywhere. Not just plain rocky mountains but lush green ones, covered to the top with green trees and some white or pink cherry blossoms form time to time. It looks all soft and cushioned, like bouquets of broccolis. There are mountains at the coasts, too. And between those mountains there are the cities. In Kyoto for example, we arrived at the central station with the shinkansen and when we stood in front of the station at the crossing we looked to the left, to the right or in front of us and in every direction you could see the green hills very close at the end of the street.

Only negative point are all the electric power cables which are running over ground and are quite a lot. It's not really beautiful and destroys the scenery a bit.

The landscape beneath the train tracks from Kyoto to Kanazawa, from Kanazawa to Takayama and from Takayama to Nagoya is really beautiful. From time to time some small villages and in between nothing but nature, lakes, blue rivers (at least when the sun is shining) and the gigantic japanese alps in the background. When you were used to the green puffy hills I told you just before, these grey mountains were really impressive. Still snow covered, rocky cliffs and so high! A massive grey wall you can’t stop looking at. And that says a person who is used to mountains and has a brilliant view of the Bavarian alps right out of the window of her flat! But I guess it’s a case of “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence”. (Although I think our alps have grown a little while I was away – they seem to be much bigger now…)

I guess you’ve already got a feeling for how in awe I was (and still am) there all the time.

Let’s get to the people next. If I could use only one word, to describe them I would take “amazing”. Cause that’s what they are. They are amazingly friendly, helpful, sufferable, polite, organized and so much more. And they are amazing cooks as well. When I talked to a colleague about our trip a few days ago, he asked me as a response to my “Oh my god, the food was so good!” if it’s not all about sushi there. Definitely NOT! True, you can have a lot of sushi. Especially in all those convenient stores were they buy their take away food for breakfast or lunch you can find lots of sushi rolls, inari or onigiri. But it’s not the same with the restaurants. They have a vast variety of different restaurants. Lots of them specialized to a special type of course, e.g. okonomiyaki or soba restaurants. If you are an omnivore, you can taste a lot of different things. And if you are a vegan: Keep your eyes open, you, too, can taste lots of different things! In Hiroshima, we found an okonomiyaki restaurant by chance which serves vegan okonomiyaki as well. So delicious!

For every breakfast in our accommodation, we were served a lush variety of vegan Japanese dishes, too. It was so much, so tasty and so so good.

Okay, I am a little off topic now. I wanted to write something more about the people. We really had only good experiences with Japanese people. It felt like it was a personal matter for them to help us and make it as easy and our stay as beautiful as possible. For example the employees of the JR Ticket offices. We had to travel a lot and because of that, we spoke with approximately 40 ticket employees. And we had NONE who wasn’t very patient and friendly. They all took the time to search for the easiest route and to listen to all our questions and answered them as good as they could. No one was in a rush. Often, we had some difficulties with the language. English is the most learned foreign language in japan, German second. But if only a small part can actually speak English, the part for the German speakers is so small that the chance of meeting someone is something near zero. But it worked out somehow, although we really often had some language obstacles. Lucky us, I could remember some basic stuff from my Japanese class and against my worries I was able to understand and communicate important things. It was a lifesaver at some point. More important than talking was the ability to read hiragana. It was very helpful to read the signs, so you can find the restaurant you are looking for or, in our case, our accommodation near Mount Fuji. The name of the Ryokan was written only in hiragana and we almost walked by (it was so cold, we would have been some beautiful frozen ice sculpture in a short time if we hadn’t found the accommodation).

I feel, like I am lost in my thoughts and impressions again. It’s very difficult to follow a structure and a red line with my story, because so many situation trigger some other thoughts and it would lead us to a spiral deep down in my memories, hopping from one topic to the next in a blink of a second. Focus Chiri!

So I already told you of the friendly ticket office employees and of the difficulty of finding someone who can speak English properly. All people we asked for something were so amazingly friendly and tried hard to communicate in English. But we met people, who asked if they could help us before we could ask, too. Those were people who can speak English quite good. So in summary we can say, that every person who can speak English tried to get in touch with us and wanted us to help if we looked lost. It doesn’t matter if it was in Tokyo staring at the huge subway map, in Kyoto turning our map round and round searching for the exit we took and the way to the temple, or in a small temple in the mountains were we read an English poem carved in a stone and were explained the meaning of this ancient phrase and shown the miracle of the two-type-but-still-one-tree we otherwise would have overlooked. So we were really lucky all over the trip and had a protective angel who sent always the right people to the right time. Thanks!

When you enter a shop, restaurant, what ever, you were always greeted with a long “welcome” by almost every employee. When you pay, the took your money with both hands thanked you a lot and took the time to count your change for you to see. They then gave you the money and presented the bag with your goods and the receipt in a manner of respect. A bow, the next few “Thank you” ‘s and off you go. Really nice. You feel good and appreciated as a customer.

Back in Germany we had to do grocery shopping. We are back for about 16 hours, still feeling a little out of place because we were such a long time away. It’s time to pay. When it’s our turn and the cashier scanned our goods I greeted with a warm “Hello!” (we were used to greet each other nice back in japan). “Hmpf” some grumbling sound. Okaay. We stored our food in our basket and I handed over the money. Grabbing for the bill – searching for the change – transferring the change somehow in my palm still outstretched from giving her my money (She lost some coins in doing so) – grabbing for the receipt and throwing it in our basked. Next customer. Eh, well, thank you, too, have a nice day and stuff… Damn I so want to go back to japan!

So you see, we experienced some really good stuff and the mixture of all this makes us longing for japan. More and more.

They sure have their negative points, too. There were a few things we don’t agree with and would act differently. But at least at the moment I am most willingly to look over these points.

Here back in Germany, it’s getting quite busy the next weeks. I have to work a lot and university started, too. I’ll spend my free time with continuing my Japanese class (my husband found his new hobby in learning Japanese, too, and he is already better in reading hiragana than I am… feels strange, because I’m not a good student and don’t learn much but in comparison to him, I always was the smart ass. Now he outruns me… ;-) ) and with blogging more frequently on my food blog and on facebook. But I have some plans for this blog, too. Although we aren’t in Japan anymore and some of our friends and family probably stopped checking this site the minute we set foot on Germany. I would love to provide some more information about the places we visited and give some advice about eating vegan in Japan.

I promised some pictures, too. I took over 6500 pictures and I have to look them all through and delete the rubbish. Yeah… not so prosperous. ;-)

But I had a quick look and can already show you some. They are mostly of our stay at Kyoto.