Japan = Big Smile

Attention this post consist of around 3000 Pictures. I just guess.

So it might take some time. But it s great it gives everyone i short image how life

is like in Japan. Its great by the way ;)  Anyway after almost one week 

in Malaysia I finally managed to travel to japan. For the first time in my life :)

It was like a dream comes true. Anyway it was like dream. After looking

at all of this pictures for a couple of time, I regret that I did not "experience"

the time in japan even more. It was simply to cold. And we were quite busy shivering.

Anyway all in all a great experience which I will never wanna miss in my whole life.

As it seems the pictures are really not in the right order. I am sorry for that.

Anyway I meet up with Anka in Kuala Lumpur and we spend some hours there 

to wait for our flight. We got a damn cheap promotion flight with Air Asia. 

It was so cheap, hilarious. I am not gonna tell you how "much" I paid.

Anyway for me it was a little more expensive since I did not return back to 

Kl. I had to take the flight back to Taipei. Which was all in all almost double the price.

But it is a shorter distance. Kl-Osaka is 7 hs and Osaka - Taipei 2 hs.

Bai Bai Malaysia >>> Japan here we come.

So we took the flight early in the morning. It was the best flight I had so 

far. The Airplane was huge and it was not crowded at all so a lot of ppl

had the possibility to sleep across 3 seats. Including me. :) 

The whole flight was smooth, no shaking nothing, good food. 

No annoying ppl in there. Since most of them were Japanese it was really

silent :) Ha ha. Too silent. So after 7 hours we arrived safely at the Kansai airport.

Which is build on an artificial Island. The view during the flight was great. 

Japan looks really small from above. At the airport we were a little bit lost 

at first. And compared to Singapore and Malaysia where we have been first it

was freaking cold. So we were shivering and damn. Actually it was just around 6-7 ° 

so I should be used to that from Taiwan but dunno why it was simply more cold.

We managed to get on an Express train and arrived close to our Hotel in 

Osaka Central district. We were really lucky to find such a central, cheap and good

hotel as well. The funny thing about Osaka was, the hostels are more expensive.

Wired. We had at 2 beds room. Japanese style with Tatami mats, and furniture.

There were also some Yukata ready for us to use.

It also had a japanese style bathroom where ones goes naked inside. 

I never managed cause we always arrived home around 12 so it 

was already closed. What a pity ;) 

As soon as we arrived it was around 5 or 6 pm already and dark.

What to do of course not staying in the room. So we were heading

out to have a look what Osaka has to offer. Since it was Sunday 

I though ah its ok. It s not crowded and loud. And there are not 

so many cars driving around. The first thing I realized. Osaka is 

City of  bikes. A lot of ppl ride the bike around here. Even if 

it is freezing cold. Respect anyone!!! So we just went around to 

find something to eat. Looking for an Okonomiyaki restaurant. 

Ans as usual, as you are looking for smthg special you wont find it.

But somehow we managed. The first jap. meal my favorite food.

After that just for a couple of beers to my later on Favorite Bar 

in Osaka. Later more.

As I Said my pics are in the totally wrong order. Anyway Ill 

explain one by one. On the third day we decided to go to 

the world heritage city of Kyoto. It is around 1hr ago, north 

of Osaka. It has many many temples and shrines. Actually almost 

everyone knows, or is familiar to some of these. This one here

is the Fushimi Inari Shrine (or Temple?). Which is quite famous. For

its hundreds of red ports. Later more.

There you go thats the difference!

Streets in Kyoto 

This is actually not Fushimi Inari anymore. Ah gosh pics in a

totally confusing order. This is the second Temple we visited.

I forgot the name. But was huge and on a hill. 

I really like the architecture of them!

View over Kyoto. Kyoto Tower in the middle.

Japanese Garden.

Anka doing something weird.

There was a huge shopping souvenir mall infront of 

actually every temple. Here a women in a winter Kimono.

A traffic light in the middle of nowere. There was literally 

nothing to warn you of! Japan -.-

After the 2 temples we actually wanted to go to the 

maybe most famous one the golden one. But it was already closed.

Yeah you heard right. It was closed o.O At around 5 some Temples close.

So we went to the older part of Kyoto called Gyon (?) Thats were lots of 

old buildings are and where you can spend your time with a real Geisha. 

Which we did not cause it is unaffordable. 

And the first days were a little rainy and still cold. 

After looking around for a long time to find something to eat we 

went to a Yoshinoya like  Restaurant. Where you choose and pay 

your food on a vending machine. Then the Staff knows what to cook. 

And its actually finished as soon as you arrive the table. Some Miso like soup 

with salad and Donburi. And really cheap just 5€ !

So after dinner we still had 3-4 hours left until our bus to Tokyo 

departs. We took a nightbus from Kyoto to Tokyo to safe some 

money. It was really cheap compared to what the Shinkansen would cost.

What to do? Almost every Temple was closed it was cold. We had no money or 

baggage space left for shopping. Lets hang out at Mc Donalds for 3 hours

and have just one MC Flurry Oreo. Ai ai ai!

No eating again. This is again totally in the wrong order. 

This is our second day in Tokyo already. Our delicous dinner.

Oyako donburi with Soba noodle soup! :P 

Anka had Tempura stuff with the same soup.

I am really a fan of Soba now. They are also supposed to be healthy.

If you drink the soup in which they were cooking.

These pictures are taken in the Asakusa district in Tokyo. 

It is a nice, quite and more traditional area of Tokyo. This is

the highest Building in Tokyo now called Sky Tree.

The main gate of one Temple. 

Souvenir shops.

Michiko and Anka. 

Ah I love this kind of architecture. 

This toilet deserves its own picture. It is a toilet of course, which is

cleaning you actually automatically. You can change the sound of the 

flush, Dry and the last thing missing it that it plays music :D

Back in Osaka a very famous temple. 

Kimono Women.

He is actually from Landshut i think. Lifed there for 

10 Years and was working at a Nuclear Power Plant,

cannot speak German and is now working in a temple :)

We ran into a wedding. 

Funny thing is that all of our friends from Osaka dont know

about this one! 

This is a tourist attraction its a stone buddha covered in moss.

Cause ppl through water on it. 

There it is.

Dunno who he actually is but he is very famous. And it

somekind of meeting place in front of him! Easy to find.

actually its here on a bridge in Namba 

Exclusive Yakitori dinner, with our friends from Germany

 Yohei Miwa and Miyako (?)

Again all you can drink beer during dinner. I love this kind of

service in Japan and really think we should invent it Germany

and Taiwan as well!

After dinner we went to Karako. I also sang some songs which 

I normally never do. 99 Luftballons. Russland und Wonderwall.

I am proud of me!

Anka bought the guys some Valentines chocolate. 

And as a reward they also bought her some stuff. 

And even me O.O. I got Fishcookies, the best gloves

in the world and a cup which says I am a drinker. 

This is the tower in the Tsutenkaku area close to our hotel!

Finally umai running sushi which is quite rare in osaka!

They also sold horse sushi ...

A interesting building in Osaka

On one day... Anka was shopping. I meet with Tsubomi and 

Midori which also spend one semester abroad in Taiwan. 

So gald to see you again. Even though we were not all of us.

We went to Nara a city also close to Osaka but this time more north 

eastern. Also an 1 h ride away. It is kind of a normal city, from what I

 can tell. The special thing about it, is that around the temple area are

hundreds of "wild" deer running around and living. They are not 

shy or frightened at all of ppl. 

This explains perfectly what can happen. 4 is my favorite.

You can buy some cookies and feed the deer. And turn totally crazy

follow you and even bite sometimes. Danger !!!! 

Thats how it can look like.

This Temple btw is one of the oldest ones in Japan.

Huge

Midori & Me

Before you enter the temple you usually wash your hands

with this fountain water. You can also drink it. Like every

water in Japan.

Tried to clap hands on the pic whith Buddha, then this guy

showed up and did his poses. 

Think he belonged to some kind of comedy troup. 

After that we went for eating. And we ate a lot. !!!!

This is Sake pudding. The girls bought it for me. And they

 had regular one. I don't regret cause mine was way better!

Really really good. And I normally don't like sweets.

Afterwards we were heading to this store. I thought they

sell some kind of fancy sweets but no it is Sushi. And really good 

one.

Tsubomi, me and Midori on our way to eat again.

This is Motchi with Anko red bean paste inside. Normally 

i dont like Motchi but this one was great. So afterwards we were 

heading to a small town somewhere nowhere to eat famous Ramen.

The town was called Tengri and this Ramen store was the 

first shop which remembered me of a Taiwanese nightmarket.

Thats it. Later on we took the train to Osaka back again 

to meet up with Anka. We still had a lot of food to eat 

and just half day left in Japan. So we had to eat real

Osaka Style Tako Yaki and Oden and Kushikatsu.

So one by one :)

This are the famous Smart Gloves. Using the grey part 

u can handle a touchscreen smarthphone. Its awesome. 

!!!! Thank you so much Koji ;)

Great Tako Yaki

Tsutenkaku Tower by night! 

This is the Volkswagen in my Favorite Bar in Osaka.

Last Check >>> Kushikatsu

View from our room. On our last half day in Osaka. 

We thought we are smart and buy some cheap self-made.

Anyway it was not cheap at all but tasty.

So we walked one last time across the main 

road found some new small temples.

And were both sad to leave Japan already.

At the railway station. Time to say goodbye!

Yeah this is no spaceship its the high speed train, we occasionally 

stepped in. And had to get of at the next station.

So now again the pictures in the hopefully right order.

These are the missing pictures from Fushimi Inari. 

I really like the red color. There are soo many of these ports

Ah yeah and it was raining again!

The ticket shop!

It is the temple for the fox god!

Before we went to nica small restaurant. I love these kind of style

Most important the cell phone :)

Salmon Shasimi Donuri with sobasoup

Ah this is at the second day in Osaka we meet up with 

our friends who visited us in Germany.

Had great dinner and beer all u can drink 4 2 hs. A little watery.

Nabe! Umai desu

Before that we have been already to another place snack bar.

And the moss buddha temple 

Nice street.

Before all of that I went with the guys and keiko their 

office lady to Osaka castle. I expected an old building.

It is not at all there 2 elevators inside and lots of exhibitions.

Kuni ans Keiko

Great though

Maybe a Swarovski Mercedes. Maybe

The shopping mall. For Lunch we had our first self made real 

Okonomiyaki! Yeah. Step  by step!

So good!

The raw ingredients!

And Yaki Gyoza which is Actually Jiao ze

Japanese garden!

We meet up early in the morning on our first day to visit some

temples.

Koji genki desu ka ?

And clean the hands again ;)

Fushimi Inari

Thats at the Yakitori place. Miyako next to me asked me what I 

enjoyed most in Japan. And I answered : This right here

hanging out with the old and new friends. What is a country

without its inhabitants?

Karaoke afterwards!

We lived next to the Zoo and every one of this posters has blush

Even the crocodile!

This bar is damn cool. And it provides cheap beer :)

Just 3 Euro !

Midori, Tsubomi, Anka and me!

Cat in same position as the fox!

Tanuki. Forest spirits!

Gion by night

Real Geisha!!!

Its really great. Kyoto by night !

Best pic. This pics are by Anka 

This is perverted as fuck! Bacon with two different kinds of cheese in 

burger paddys out of fried Chicken! Gross

We took the bus from Kyoto to Tokyo. 8 hs over night.

But way cheaper than anything else. And jsut poor students as 

us in the bus! :) ha ha. Our homebase was Nakano. It is close

to almost every interesting spot in Tokyo. Shinjuku, Harajuku,

Roppongi .... And we hat a cool little Hostel with the nicest staff

every :) 

Skyscrapers in Shinjuku

We went up to the top level of the majors building.

Thats the view. Houses to the horizon. Tokyo is huge.

But not very tall. 

Sky tree in the bg

Tokyo Tower in the middle!

Costume to become the perfect man slut! :) 

Hair color which exactly shows how the color is gonna be :)

I am not sure which district this is I think its Kabukicho

This place is famous especially for hosts. Host clubs are 

clubs where women can go to hang out with guys.

But no more. The same as the maid cafes. I heard that usually

hostess go there cause they wont get a normal guy or so.

Ah yeah and it is one of the most dangerous parts ;) Sure

Finally after one day of supersightseeing, Shinjuku, Akihabara,

And so on . Ropongi!!!! Ropongi is the amusement district

with lots of pubs, bars and clubs. This is Louise Bourgoise " Mamam"

I really wanted to visit this. It great.

I adore!

There are all over the world. New York, hong kong, Japan ...

From there we walked to the amazing Tokyo Tower

And afterwards we meet up with some Karate Friends of Anka, 

she meet the last time in Japan. So we had a pretty rough schedule.

So went to awesome " sugoi" small Yakitori Restaurant/ Bar and meet up 

all these nice new ppl. For me. All in all we have been around 10 13 ppl.

The average was way older then us. But they were cool trying to speak english

or trying to understand my poor japanese. We had great food and beer and

all in all a great time!

The Karate masters

Mama

The best Yakisoba I ever ate in my whole life thanks to Master!

The whole troop togehter!

Onigiri

This is the Asakusa district. very tradtional and old as you can see! ;)

No thats what I am talking about