Der Andy ist inzwischen wieder zurück in Japan… zwar nur für drei Monate, aber immerhin.

Er schreibt auch wieder in sein Blog, wer also Lust hast, kann ja mal beim Schwaben in Japan vorbei schauen, was sich inzwischen so in Japan getan hat und wie es sich derzeit dort so lebt!

This is the end of my travel blog “Ohayo Gozaimasu Nippon”.

First of all, I really enjoyed writing this piece… thanks to all the people who read the blog (or at least some parts of it), thanks for your comments, your hints, your suggestions and your attention so far.

I have to admit, it took really some time to finish it at the end… you should definitely finish your work as soon as possible

So what are the future plans for this blog? And for me?
As far as the blog goes… this one ends here. I will not delete it in the near future, maybe someone will find it interesting to read about my trips and adventures in Japan
But you know… the end is also the beginning of something new (okay clumsy writing here) … more details on this “something new” will be posted here soon. This “something new” will also include the answer of what are my future plans…

Thanks a lot for reading this and taking part in my journey, I hope that you hopefully had a bit fun while reading the entries about my Japan time. And I hope that I will see you soon… at the “something new”

Stay tuned…

After my trip to the Kansai area, I went back with the Moonlight Nagara (perfect train if you are using the Seishu 18 train ticket) to Tokyo.

I came back on a Thursday morning, arriving 5 am at Tokyo central station. On this day, I went shopping, into a internet cafe to reserve my seat on the plane for my flight back on Friday, more shopping and last but not least, a last farewell party with all my friends.

It was a really nice evening but sad of course. Hard to leave those people that you grew accustomed to in the last months… we separated that night with a long farewell and the hopes of meeting again some time in the future.

I stayed at Sanders place this last night in Tokyo, getting up on Friday early in the morning, after 4 hours of sleep or so. Then I went to Narita Airport to get my plane back to Germany.

Without any problems or long waiting times I came back to London, Heathrow, survived the “chaos” of the newly build and opened Terminal 5 of British Airways (man those queues were long) and arrived in Berlin Tegel at night.

My family was waiting for me… When I came out of the arrival area, they were standing there with a huge line of A4 papers… written on the pages “Herzlich Willkommen Zu Hause” (which means welcome back home). I was totally overwhelmed… not expecting this

And the other people waiting for the other passengers were also stunned to see such a thing. A group of Australian people joined my family in holding the line and the pages and started to cheer when I came out with my luggage… I was really speechless… here are the pics

From the airport we went back by car to Cottbus… and I had a long night with storytelling, kissing and hugging my love and enyoing the warmth atmosphere of beeing back in the family circle after my six months on the other side of the planet.

During my time in the Kansai area (part of Japan, where Kyoto, Kobe, Nara and Osaka are located), I had the chance to visit Nara, the ancient capital of Japan. This short entry will tell you more about my visit…

So what can you see, when you go to Nara? A lot… I had a couple of hours time, so I went straight to Nara Park, where the main sights are located. Here’s the map of the park…

As you can see, there are many ponds, temples, shrines and gates. And one big buddha… the biggest Budda in Japan! (Worldwide too???) I took the round trip, beginning with a visit of a beautiful pond, complete with turtles, a small pagode and weeding tourists

It was a really nice and sunny day, perfect weather for photos or paintings as you can see. The couples were from South Korea… they went to the pond for photos, I am not sure if they were married in Japan actually. They didn’t spoke Japanese, just Korean and English…

After that pond, I went around a bit and visited the big pagode in the central area of the park, here’s a picture of the areal.

From this point you can reach all the other important sights in a short time and while walking, you have to pass through other parts of the park… with deers everywhere
The deers are usually quite boring, they just sleep or eat stuff from the tourist. You can buy deer food pellets everywhere, so they are never hungry… that’s probably the reason why they are so lame… But be careful, as the sign (see the pictures below) says… deer mothers can get angry when you come near their kids… and even if the big horns of the male deers are removed… they still can (will???) attack you! Here’s the sign and one hungry deer, trying to eat another one

Later on, when you pass through the woods near the mountain (see the map) you can find small and medium shrines, all colored in red, and many other interesting thinks. Here are two examples…

So you might ask yourself, what is the biggest thing that you can see in Nara? Like I said… the big daibutsu (Buddha)! On the following pictures you can see the big hall, where the Buddha is locatted and the Buddha itself, it was hard to make a good picture inside, not much light… and statives/tripods for cameras were not allowed (and the camera didn’t had any motion reduction or something like that).

I don’t remember, how much you had to pay for the entry, but it was definitely worth it! Really amazing, how big the hall and the statue are…

Afterwards, you can return to the park and see some other interesting places, for me my time was over then, I had to return to Nara train station, because I had to get back to Kyoto, to take the overnight train back to Tokyo. More on that in the last article about my Japan trip… stay tuned folks!

Nothing more to say I like Ninjas …

So here we go… the second part, continue after a short click

After the visit of the imperial palace, I continued my trip around Kyoto with short visits of other interesting attractions. Ryoanji Temple and Daikakuji Temple are also must sees… big areals with many small and big temples, lakes and ponds. Another interesting thing is the Kamomioya-jinja World Cultural Heritage Site. Following sixs pictures are from the area… beginning with the entrance sign (and map), the shrine in front of the big entry gate, the gate itself and and and …

As you can see, the entry gate is really beautiful, the areal inside of course too. Areals like this one are not uncommon in Kyoto, you can find many of them, all over town.

On my way to this areal, I had to cross a river and there I made a picture of myself, just a prove that I was actually there… just a reminder for me in 10 years… yes dude you were there!!!

This was just two days after my last shave… at the end, when I came back to Tokyo for my flight back to Germany, I definitely needed a shave… I forgot my razor in Tokyo So always remember to take your razor with you… even if you don’t need it daily (which I don’t).

So in closing, there are sooo many things to see in Kyoto, you can spend a month there… I just had three days but I managed to see many interesting things. Using Wikitravel helped me a lot to cover the most important things. Hail to Wikitraval

To close this entry for Kyoto… what can you actually see, when you arrive at the train station???
This here…

Really big and futuristic! Yes… a bit Tokyo again