Japan

 

Japan

So, this has taken forever, I'm am sorry, but I've been busy, and a bit lazy. And this is an update I've dreaded a bit since it is so picture heavy. 200 pictures or something and a few videos. Also, some parts might not be safe for work, aftermath of the nuclear bombs etc, so keep that in mind. Anyhow, what to say about Japan? It's crazy, in a good way, you got to experience it. I was there for 22 days, using the JapanRail pass, so I can take the bulletrain and other JR trains, it costs about 500 US dollars, but it is worth it. I went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Hiroshima, Himeji, Kanazawi and back to Tokyo. As usual below are pictures of different stuff that I find interesting/funny. Do yourself a favour and at least check out the Return to Tokyo part, crazy stuff there :)
In Tokyo I stayed with Rik Jin I met while interrailing back in 2010, and we kept in touch since then. International friends, woho :) 

 

 Tokyo

So this is the metro system in Tokyo, holy shit it's large. Luckily for me the JR pass can be used on the main ring and most of the larger lines, but not the local metro, but it is fairly cheap.

Below are some pictures of the famous pedestrian crossing in Tokyo.

Random temples and/graveyards are riddled throughout Tokyo.

This is one of the main parks/shrines/tempes in Tokyo, Meiji Jingu, it is quite large and has several parts to it with museums and the actual shrine.

A wall of sake!

A wall of Wine!

This is the biggest wooden gate in Japan, details in the picture below.

This is the actual shrine.

Personal prayers offered to the prayer tree every morning.

From inside the park.

Norwegian salmon, woho!

 A small beautiful house in a quaint neighborhood,

A sign for the local shops/companies.

 Takeshita street, so this is one of the more cool/crazier places in Tokyo, a lot of cosplayers, weird-ass clothing shops, but a nice craft beer place as well, and a cool "restaurant" enjoy!

A dress made out of the plastic pearls you have to iron.

A cool "restaurant" I stumbled upon, clothing store in the upper level!

Surfboards in the cellar.

Scooters and motorcycles in the middle level.

From Ueno park where you have the Zoo, National History Museum, Science Museum and Museum of Western art.

Old bronze statues, 48 of them, I want one. Check the picture below for more details.

This is a mirror apparently.

Incense burner.

Medicine cases

Outside the parts of the museum.

Old scrolls. Didn't see any of the farting scrolls though :\

Following are different arms and armor and other accessories.

Cool book stand!

Lobster.

Dragon made of iron, from the Edo period, dated 1713.

Tachi Sword, Heian period, 12th century.

Turtle skull, some superstisious fisherman thingy, can't remember entirely.

Whaaaaaaaaale!

The following pictures are from inside the science museum.

This are one of the detectors used in the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector in Japan.

USed to study proton decay.

Check out this cool three minutes video about it:

 Also, if you haven't seen Cosmos, do it!

Science at work, I've no idea what it is supposed to be, everything was in Japanese!

Museum of Western art.

Edwaert Collier, Vanitas - Still Life with Books and Manuscripts and a Skull. Dated 1663.

David Teniers the Younger -
The Tempration of St.Anthony.
Late 1660s.

Herman van Swanevelt -
A Roman View of the Ruins of the Temple of Venus and
Rome with the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine.
Dated 1634

Giovanni Paolo Panini -
AN Architectural Capriccio of the Roman Forum with
Philosophers and Soldiers among the Ancient Ruins, including
the Arch of Janus Quadrifons, the Sarcophagus of Santa Constanza,
the Farnese Hercules and the Cincinnatus.
Ca: 1745-1750

Hubert Robert -
Imaginary View of Rome with Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius.
The Column of Trajan and a Temple.
Dated 1766

Hubert Robert - 

Imaginary View of Rome with the Horse-Tamer of
the Monte Cavallo and a church
Dated 1766

Needless to say I want these pictures.

Statues from outside the museum.

One evening I went to a planetarium, and I encountered this, apparently a famous K-pop group was in Japan.

Glow in the dark entrance to the planetarium.

The doomsday device, or the projector, they are humongous.

Mom, didn't know you ran a store in Tokyo :)

Anime district by night, I was asked if I would like to be interviewed for Japanese TV, sadly though since I don't know a word of Japanese, that didn't happen.

I went to another science museum as well, some good stuff here,

A huge globe that tracks the weather.

A weird sort of segway?

Again with the neutrinos and the detectors? Yeah, here the information was in English!

Inside a cylinder they displayed with lights when a neutrino passed by,

So this wall is quite large, look at the picture below to see how little that is compared to the real deal. Also, if you didn't see the video about this place, scroll back up and do it!

The offspring of a fish astronaut!

More globes, with what I think is flight patters.

This is more what the museum is famous for, androids, this is a news anchor android, read the information in the picture below!

Read the description, but it basically says you can remote control an android while others are talking to it, a bit creepy.

Astronaut food anyone?

So I stumbled upon a pirate café/restaurant while out exploring, and ventured in, What ensued was a bit weird. Girls clad in quite sexy pirate outfits chatted me up while I was sitting there waiting for my meal. When it arrived the girl drew this cat on my food. Also, when I presented my hand to say hi my name is John, she said: "Sorry we are not allowed to touch customers" wtf? Anyhow, cool chicks, and a decent but expensive meal. When I told my friend about this he said: "Oh yeah, that is a maid café". So yeah, what is a maid café, well, have a look here , i ventured into a less creepy one though I guess. And luckily it wasn't a groping café.

Groping Café

"The record number of women groped on Tokyo’s trains continue to rise. As the suburban trains are usually crowded, bringing the workers to large cities and back to their suburban homes, close physical contact is unavoidable. Many men use this to their advantage, pressing onto women and groping them. The groping problem is so extreme that Tokyo started a campaign of women-only carriages. 

So how’s a groper supposed to get his kicks? Welcome to “Train Cafe,” a simulated train where groping is allowed just minutes away from Tokyo’s Ikebukuro station. The cost to ride is 5,000 yen (~$42US). Once each hour, Train Cafe holds an “all aboard” event, where the paying male members “board” the train together with the girls and engage in simulated ‘chikan’ (groper) play.
Each 20 minute ride allows gropers to grabs any girl’s behinds or breasts. Upskirt grabs aren’t allowed and will result in a violation. Since the girls are just normal folk that hang out at the Cafe after work, male attenders are free to ask them for a date or drink after the session has ended."[1]

Yeah Japan is weird.

 

Pimp my ride! Also Japan got an abundance of butt ugly square cars, that looks like their made out of plastic and are really narrow. I'm assuming they are cheap and easier to navigate through this place, hence why so many got them.

Kyoto

My next stop on the trip in Japan was Kyoto, here I stayed with Midori (see picture below), we met in Cambodia and she invited me to stay at her place in Kyoto when I arrived, awesome sauce! Kyoto is a beautiful city with hundreds of temples all around, so you get a bit sick and tired of it, but still, worth it. Here I also went to a public Japanese bath, so, me bollocks nude, together with old Japanese men.  Around the edges of the room are small shower stations kinda, where you sit down, and wash yourself, or, brush your teeth or shave. After this you can jump in the warm baths, or cold, or go in the sauna, lots of options. It was kinda weird, but a good experience, and so damn nice/good. A warm eucalyptus/mint bath has never hurt anyone. IF you ever go to Japan, do this! They have several hot springs out in the country side you can do it as well if you want to. You might be stopped if you got any tattoos though, because of the Yakuza etc. not sure how they enforce it in regards to tourists though,

At the same hostel I stayed in Cambodia we also met Kenji, who also lives in Kyoto. What I didn't know is that he owns a friggin TukTuk, so he drove us around in that one day when we went exploring. Let's just say the Japanese people that saw us didn't quite comprehend what was happening haha, we had a good laugh at least!

So yeah, we went exploring local shrines/temples and the bamboo forest.

Proper local Japanese dinner.

The guesthouse I was supposed to stay at (where Midori works), until she invited me to stay at her place.

Needless to say I love this traditional old Japanese guesthouse!

Some old cars I've stumbled upon, in a random garage.

So following here is a million pictures of different shrines and temples, Kyoto got a metric shit ton of them.

Please read the description on the sign here, it is _HARDCORE_ sadly no, pictures was allowed. It was locally know as the blood ceiling temple or something, quite cool!

More info on the temple!

Inside this temple the Sanjūsangen-dō they have a thousand golden statues, but again no pictures allowed. But google can fix that, check it out! :)

A map of Kyoto with all its temples, jeeez.

Some beautiful traditional stone gardens,

Roof painting

The local fire department running different drills of some sort :)

This was my room for several days, not as luxurious, but free! :)

Ahah yeah, another glorious shot of the TukTuk :)

The gold temple! Covered in gold leaves.

Okay?

Proper local Japanese cuisine! I had such a blast with these guys! And the food, amazing!

Ah, this was the bathroom where I stayed, it is a community house, so they share kitchen and bath/shower.

Street shrine

So one of the things I wanted to do while in Japan was to taste the winner whisky of 2014, and that I did. 40 dollars for that small amount you see there. But fuck it, when in Rome, or rather, when in Kyoto.  It was quite good, very sweet, so I would use it as a dessert whisky I guess.

The Yamazaki, Single Malt Whisky, Sherry Cask.

Japan is weird.

I almost got a heart attack one night as well when this ENORMOUS fella showed up on the wall, right next to my face. *sob* Maybe 6cm diameter? .......

This is a local fairy-tale figure, he shows up everywhere, can't quite remember what the deal is though :p

Another famous temple in Kyoto, temple of orange gates, you walk beneath gates like this almost all the way to the top of the mount,.

Pimp stairs at the local train station.

This is taken from the bullet train, it moves so fast (270-340 km/h) the picture gets warped.

Nara

So what is Nara, well it is a town, but what makes it cool is the the park, where there are hundreds of "wild" deers. They are quite domesticated and not afraid of humans at all. Quite cool, also, the former largest wooden building in the world is found here!

Feeding the deers, as can be seen as well, the deers are "trained" to bow to get more food haha, quite cute :)

A normal sight :)

Todai-ji temple!

Descriptions of lotus petals surrounding the Buddha. 

Details lotus petals.

Apparently it is good luck to crawl through this space!

Outside of the temple there was some entertainment as well.

A cool large tree or rather trees and the description.

Osaka

I only did a day trip to Osaka and saw the Castle and the History Museum. The castle was a bit of a disappointment.

Battle miniatures.

The history museum with a cool sphere in the building.

View from the museum.

Hiroshima

In Hiroshima I was lucky enough to get to stay with Cait from the US that I met on a day trip to the DMZ in Seoul, people are really nice :) So yeah, here starts the more gruesome pictures so keep that in mind, also this is one of the more interesting sections so please take your time :)

2-3 Minutes after the explosion, taken 6.5km from the center.

This depicts ground zero of the a-bomb, the fireball was 300meters across apparently.

Model of the bomb.

Details of how it worked.

Tricycle.

The shadow left after a victim on these stairs, have a closer look and read the details in the picture further down.

Pictures of burn victims and the aftermath.

This room commemorates the victims of the bombing, each stone tile here represent a number of victims and the stone in the middle gives the time the bomb detonated 08:15.

The A-bomb dome, one of the more or less intact buildings after the detonation.

Hiroshima castle, rebuilt after the bombing.

Yes, hello, I'm a samurai warrior!

The Itsukushima shrine and torii gate, this place is quite cool, the temple floor is built so they float on the water, so when the tide comes in the floors raise themselves, so you can pray everyday at any time!

A selfie is of course needed when encountering wild animals.

Next in the list was Ōkunoshima or bunny island as it is called. It was a former poison gas manufacturing site, but that was abandoned. The rabbits here don't have any natural predators, hence why there are so so many.

As I said the islands was a place they created poison gas, so there are a lot of abandoned buildings here used for that.

Himeji

One of the reasons I went to Himeji was that it was on the way back, and I had a few days to kill, also the castle had just finished renovations, so it was a golden opportunity to see it.

Cool statue.

Castle at night, I'm shit at taking photos.

So, this is the shrine at the top of the castle, the castle was a disappointment as well, nothing inside, just empty hallways basically. Luckily though, Himeji had other things to offer, more about that a bit further down.

Fish in the local Japanese garden.

So, one of the best places I went in Japan was Mt.Sosha with the temple area Engyo-ji on it. This is also where they shot several scenes of the Last Samurai with Tom Cruise.

The view from the top.

One of the cooler and more beautiful shrines I've seen in Japan.

A frog hiding out!

An ant exodus? I don't know, we never figured it out where they went.

Looks familiar? Well, you might have seen it in The Last Samurai.

I don't know what this is supposed to be, but it is cool, check out the small toy car in picture 3.

Map of the place with all its buildings.

Kanazawa

This place is an old Samurai and Geisha town, so I spent a few nights here as well, good stuff.

Damn  Swedes pop up everywhere!

A small pig outside a caféø

A famous bridge apparently, dunno :p

Some old cool local houses.

I found these funeral cars, a bit more pimp than back home.

Again. no pictures.... this is called Myōryū-ji or the Ninja temple, and it is awesome!

From the wikipedia article:

 "In the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate prohibited the construction of buildings higher than three stories. Viewed from the outside, the temple appears to be a two-story building, but actually it is a four-story building with seven-layer internal structure."

The house has a lot of secrets rooms and hallways, worth a visit. But no English guide, you do get a English folder with explanations to take around, so it is okay.

Old samurai house,

The castle.

The Geisha district with gold smiths etc,

A gold smith store or whatever where the walls are covered with gold leaves.

The production of gold leaves.

Gold statues and screens.

Got served tea with gold flakes in it.

Gold facial mask anyone?

The castle gardens.

I went to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art as well, they got some weird stuff there, but it was entertaining!

I took a picture even though I wasn't allowed to ahahaha. Anyhow the artist here had people dress up as trees, and he went in between them and took pictures all the while other people dressed up as super heroes walked amongst them as well. WTF?

A huge painting/installation, quite cool!

Oh, more from the pool, just the underside, it was cool okay?

One of the weirder installations was called The Moonwalk Machine, it was a huge room with a moonwalk machine in it, and it looked like it was on the moon With the video below playing on the walls. Sigh, just watch the video below and you'll see it for yourself!

 

 Last days in Tokyo

Well, they know how to promote movies, this huge display also made sounds and said "I'll be back" if I remember correctly xD

So, what was the last thing I did in Japan? Well, I went to the Robot restaurant, and I mean it, if you are gonna do one thing in Tokyo, do this, it is insane. I don't really have words, so, enjoy the pictures and video beneath, all from the restaurant.

And finally a video of the mad spectacle, sadly I didn't get the panda charging in on a cow on tape.

So these pictures are from the bar upstairs you can chill out in before the actual show, and they have a small music show here with the performers, check out the instruments further down.

You made it, what a long ass post, anyhow, hope you enjoyed it!