Honeymoon in Japan

Honeymoon in Japan 13/06 – 26/06

Hi everyone

today after a good night's rest we finally set off for Milan Malpensa where the 2:30 pm Milan-Tokyo flight awaits us, 12 hours of travel, I'm soooooo scared, let's hope for the best, but can you picture meeeee on a plane for 12 hours, normally on our planes as soon as the plane rocks I feel sick!!! Luckily I brought a tranquilizer with me so it should make me sleep a bit, we do the whole very long check-in together with lots of other people and right away a hostess notices my t-shirt printed with our names and yesterday's wedding date and wishes us congratulations!!! We board the plane, obviously it's much bigger than our usual ones and I immediately notice a few little differences from ours....the legroom, the blanket, the pillow for sleeping, the silence of the engine, the silence of the passengers, all Japanese, very few Italians, and the videos with their own remote control!!! The pla

ne takes off, wow I'm going to Japan, it's crazy!!! I take some drops and start dozing off right away, luckily when I wake up it's explained to us that in the videos in front of us there's an interactive world with films, games and more, how coooool, so I immediately started watching all the films and documentaries, unfortunately right from the start Marco's wouldn't work at all, even after several resets we went to talk to the captain, rightly so. After a nap the food arrives, you could choose Italian or Japanese, what do you think I would have chosen....after dinner various things arrive, wipes, biscuits, Japanese tea etc....At a certain point it was fantastic, after a nap we saw the sunrise from one of the windows, it was fantastic, too bad I couldn't photograph it, it was a marvel!!!

06/14 TOKYO – At 8:30 in the morning we landed at Tokyo Narita, a bit dazed we walk through the corridors and immediately notice the silence they have there, not like at home, and especially the cleanliness, even in the bathrooms!!! The bathrooms are completely different from ours, so clean you could eat off them, scented and above all electric!!!! They have a sort of remote control on one side that lets you choose various things which at first I struggled to understand, like the temperature of the seat, the pressure and temperature of the water that sprays from below (they don't have a bidet) and the recorded sound of running water (Japanese women really hate other people hearing their noises).

We continue along the path and are greeted by loads of cartoonish signs and billboards, we arrive at a point where there's quite a queue to go and collect our luggage, patiently we enter the serpentine path and wait, at a certain point we see a very busy man who calls the other passengers and accompanies them to the counters, what a legend, that way he speeds up the queue a lot, and not a single Japanese person who tried to cut in front, they wait their turn in silence, just like Italy!!! Once past this point we reach the carousels and notice our suitcases aren't there, damn....luckily they had set them aside, pheeew....at the airport they explain that there's a train and the metro to take to get to our hotel, so we walk a stretch until the train, once downstairs we find a sort of flesh-and-blood announcer in front of us saying the announcements over the microphone and, as we try to get o

n the train, we're stopped by the conductor who signals no with his arms crossed because they're cleaning, can you belieeeeeeeeve it!!!! Once on board we finally rest a bit, struck by a sudden attack of sleep, I buy a Japanese coke from one of the many, many Japanese vending machines, we get off the train and a wave of Japanese people assaults us, we get on the metro that will take us to our stop Hamamacho and we notice loads of people sleeping sitting with their heads hanging down, go figure....once there we look around dazed and start asking left and right....unfortunately they don't speak English so we try with gestures, meanwhile I keep falling asleep everywhere, in the end we decide to take a taxi to the hotel, obviously it's only 10 meters but it was worth it, the taxi very different from ours: black car, electric right door, lace everywhere, driver wearing gloves, ID badge in plain

sight and finally at the Hotel, at the Shiba Park Hotel on the 7th floor!!!! Even though we're dead tired we force ourselves to take a little walk and eat something, so a typical Japanese snack with meat, fish, vegetables and slurpiness, Japanese supermarket, a stroll in Shiba Park right near the hotel, we even saw a small cemetery, how sad, theirs only have a few inscriptions all made the same, and especially no photos, and even one for children, they're made with lots of little statues with the name on top.

A little way from there we visited the famous Tokyo Tower, I couldn't wait to go up, it looks a lot like our Eiffel Tower only it's red and it's a huge antenna (Sailor Moon episode), from up there you see a beautiful panorama, almost all of Tokyo, probably in good weather....there's a lift that takes you all the way to the top, scaaaary, at the exit there's a beautiful huge Hello Kitty shop, how cooooool!!! Back near the hotel the difficult feat was choosing where to eat and especially what, so we took a walk, we inspected all the restaurants thoroughly, in the end we chose a little place where they serve enormous delicious soups, so their system works like this: you go in, they greet you with a bow and take you to the machine where you choose and pay for whatever you want to eat with the prices and photos next to it, like our cigarette machines, and here's what they brought us to eat, a

huge big soup with eggs, noodles, meat and nori seaweed, I have to say the presentation left a lot to be desired but the taste is delicious!!! Bought breakfast at a supermarket (they stay open 24/7) nearby, finally off to bed!!

Oyasumi nasai! = Good night!

Honeymoon in Japan 15/06

Hi everyone, here we are again!!

06/15 TOKYO - This morning after a good sleep of almost 12 hours to recover from the shock and a good breakfast we set off through Tokyo, the thing that stands out most is the silence there is in the city, not like at home where there's such a racket, let me give you an example: try going for a walk on Via XX Settembre, what do you hear? Ambulances? Car engines? Smog? All of this over there doesn't exist, there's only calm; the only noise we hear is the sound of the traffic light announcing you can cross with its tweet tweet, everything else is silence, like walking in public gardens; also because they use electric cars (they have very few, they don't need them, public transport works!!!), they use the metro or the bus and the only ambulance that passed by didn't have a deafening siren, no! it spoke over a microphone in Japanese!!! Another peculiarity I notice is that there it's forbidden

to smoke on the street, something that still doesn't exist at home....for those who want to smoke (there are few) there are spots where you can smoke your cigarette, you leave the butt in there and walk away without dirtying or bothering others!!! During our walk we're immediately drawn to a little shop that looks like an optician's, outside it has a very particular machine that lets you clean your glasses (free) with water and I think infrared, after a moment of hesitation we throw ourselves into trying it too, amazing how well it cleans them, they shine, never seen them so well in my life!!! From our legendary stop "hamamatsuco = hamamacio" we take the metro to go into the centre, immediately we're hit by a crazed herd of Japanese people walking on the left, how strange..!! We arrive in a few minutes at Tokyo station and from there we start wandering around, right away we try to find a

bank but alas we discover that the only one that accepts our credit card is City Bank, keep that in mind if you ever go to Japan, we went crazy!!! Meanwhile we've gotten a bit hungry so we take a look at the places and try one, obviously we're immediately greeted with bows and kindness (just like at home here, eh eh), the first thing that stands out is that there are no chairs, just two folded against the wall (they don't sit down, they eat standing up, they're crazy!!!), menu only in Japanese, not a word in English, here the ones who speak it are the men with work briefcases, in front of us various strange objects, a tap from which boiling water comes out, a little box with chopsticks and a little jar with green powder which we discovered to be green tea, and the still water with ice, always free here!!!! We threw ourselves into ordering, more or less understanding the menu, a sushi set

and miso soup, delicious, nothing like the one they give us in Italy, the sushi also melted in your mouth and the rice wasn't sticky like the one they normally give us, fantastic!!!! After various photos and videos with the restaurant staff we ventured towards the Imperial Palace of Tokyo which is enormous, it's a sort of little island in the middle of the skyscrapers of the centre, inside there's also a gigantic park where obviously we relaxed a bit looking at the pitch-black sky, outside the palace loads of workers with luminous batons in hand, police officers, there's one every 20 metres, it gives a sense of safety....after an ice cream break we head back towards the centre, precisely to the "Akihabara" district of technology and cosplay = boys/girls who dress up like cartoon characters, how cooooool!!!! Loads of lights, luminous billboards, cartoons and boys/girls dressed as cartoon c

haracters, so cool, we try to go into a little mobile phone shop to ask if they sell us a Japanese sim to put in the phone but unfortunately the clerk apologises saying they're only sold to residents and that they don't work with our phones, sigh sigh....then to my right I see a machine that looks a lot like a sort of locker with lots of little doors, actually it's a public charger, you put in your phone and coins and leave them there to charge and come back to pick them up charged, how many times has that happened to us!!!!???? Walking along we find a huge electronics shop, seven floors, will we manage to see it all, luckily there's the lift, at the top a floor only of souvenirs and finally Hello Kitty (I'm a fan), there was everything from mega plushies to bento boxes, to cutlery, to towels, clothes etc........Towards evening, with all this wandering, hunger sets in so we stop in a dive

(as we call them) to eat with shouting restaurant staff, what a nuisance, here they don't serve sushi but enormous big soups with meat, egg, nori seaweed and broth inside, at first they didn't seem that good, then instead eating them mmmmmmmmmhhhhhh so goooooood

(to be continued)

Honeymoon in Japan 16/06

Hi everyone, here we are again!!

06/16 TOKYO – Hi everyone, today we went with our legendary Shinkansen train to a district of Tokyo called Ueno where there's a very nice zoo full of animals of all breeds and colours, it was terribly hot, 35 degrees in the shade and 98% humidity, in fact we couldn't stay outdoors for long, luckily there were indoor pavilions with air conditioning. The animals I liked most are the little red panda, the monkeys and the bears, this park is so vast that, think, there's even a cable car service that takes you from one side to the other, it took us 3 hours to visit it all, at its centre we find a huge lake full of big orchids and a boat service to enjoy the view.

From there we moved to another district called Asakusa where the Senso-ji temple is, beautiful with a lovely "thunder gate", unfortunately when we arrived it was already closed because in Japan everything closes at 5, they don't wait for you!!! Outside the temple there are loads of young men doing the rickshaw service (The rickshaw is a means of transport that, in its original form, uses human power to pull the vehicle. The rickshaw consists of a two-wheeled cart on which one or two people can take a seat.

The driver positions himself between two long shafts, pulling the vehicle) and a fantastic street full of shops with fantastic souvenirs, Marco had to keep me on a leash to stop me buying everything I saw!!!! From there we took a walk inside the district, it's beautiful, just how I always imagined Japan with its little houses and old restaurants, as if time had stopped!! Along the way we also met a small group of geishas who were going to catch a taxi, I tried to ask if they could take a photo with me but they started running on their clogs as if they couldn't, what a shame… we came across loads of little shops selling biscuits of all shapes and sizes with cartoon animal characters on them, I also met the dog Hachiko, so sweet, he gave me lots of kisses.

For a snack we found a very nice little place where they serve sushi on a conveyor belt, fantastic, so tasty!!! In the evening we met up with a friend of Marco's who lives in Japan, in Tokyo, in the Roppongi district, a beautiful young district full of music and folklore, multi-ethnic, the only negative note is that in Japan there still isn't a law on smoking indoors so often we got swallowed up in a cloud of smoke, it was a bit like going back in time...he took us to eat in a restaurant where they bring soups served inside pots as big as the ones we use to make pasta....I thought I'd never manage it and instead ehehehe.

Good night and tomorrow we're off to Nikko!!

Honeymoon in Japan 17/06

Hi everyone, here we are again!!

06/17 NIKKO – Beautiful!!!

Good morning everyone, here we are again with another stop on our beloved Japan, we travelled with the legendary Shinkansen train to the connection with the little train to Nikko because from the station to the little town is very long, you cross a very long valley between fields and beautiful forests until you reach the small station of the little town, from which we discovered buses depart, otherwise on foot it's 1 km on foot uphill under the sun (you decide). Once there we're greeted by an unreal silence, as if it were a magical place, it feels like diving into the past, among brilliant colours due to the great humidity and the spirituality you can breathe. The places to see are the valley of the temples and the Shinkyo bridge, beautiful, especially the emerald-coloured water that flows beneath it.

Walking around the various temples we discovered that at the Futura-San sanctuary they even celebrate quite a few weddings, right away it occurred to us that we could have celebrated ours there too but too much paperwork!!! The valley is made up of many sanctuaries, most of them at the top of little hills reached via steep flights of steps, I thought I'd cough up my lungs at any moment!! The most beautiful thing about this place is, in my opinion, the respect they have for their monuments, so much so that to enter their sanctuaries you have to take off your shoes and woe betide anyone who dares approach with them on their feet!!! Going back down the path we visited the Shinkyo bridge, beautiful, surrounded by emerald green waters.

In town we pulled one of our stunts, as you can see in the video below we passed through a small cemetery and guess what, there was one of those gongs they sound during ceremonies, could we not try to sound it!!!! Noooo obviously and here's the result!!! eheheheh

Honeymoon in Japan 18/06

06/18 Kyoto – Part 1

This morning we moved from Tokyo, we went to Kyoto via our legendary Shinkansen (train), super fast!!! We saw the train arrive and we went closer, Marco got on, I had a problem with the suitcase, everyone had already boarded and in an instant the train closed its doors even though I tried to stop it, even banging my fists on the door, Marco could do nothing but watch me as I cried desperately....the train took my Marco away and I was left at the station alone with people who don't speak my language nor understand English. Unfortunately in Japan it works like this, either you get used to their rhythms or you're left behind, while I was crying it occurred to me that if I got on the next train and got off at the next stop maybe we'd meet again, so that's what I did, and at the next station I found him, he came towards me and hugged me tight.

Once in Kyoto we saw loads of nice little shops in the station, we went straight to the hotel to rest a bit. In the afternoon under rain that wouldn't stop we took a little stroll around there, the thing that immediately amazed us is how much police there is around and especially how many traffic wardens with a luminous baton in hand, at least 4 at one intersection, just like Italy eheheheh, walking and walking we arrived at a garden with temples and a pagoda, everywhere the sign beware of fire!!! (they're terribly afraid of fire there, everything is made of wood).

Towards evening we went back to the hotel and I discovered that inside a drawer there was a beautiful kimono which I immediately tried on!!! Since it kept raining I convinced Marco to take a walk in the shopping centre near the hotel, we saw loads of beautiful little shops, including one selling kimonos, yukatas and accessories to make your own, I got Marco to help me choose one with all the accessories, yesss!!! my first kimono. I also bought the clogs but how hard it is to find my size, a 39, they all have tiny feet, and besides, there they wear clogs shorter, it seems that's the fashion....go figure....for dinner we did the shopping in the supermarket on the ground floor, beautiful, a huge section of fish and sushi, fantastic!!!! Dinner in the room with take-away sushi from the supermarket and a Japanese baguette, how fun!! That's all for tonight, see you tomorrow

(to be continued)

Honeymoon in Japan 19/06

06/19 Kyoto – Part 2

1 week married!!!

Hi everyone, this morning we went to the info desk at the station to find out the way to see something, as usual they bowed to us a lot. We got on bus number 207 behind the station that was supposed to take us to the monuments, small problem, we no longer knew where we'd ended up, so on the bus we asked a group of really nice kids who tried in every way to help us. In the end we arrived at a fiery red temple where a wedding had just been celebrated, he was in a kimono but she seemed to have a lampshade on her head, you know, like Pac-Man, exactly like that!!! eheheh. After looking around we walked a good stretch until we reached a beautiful street with rickshaws, luckily I managed to convince Marco, 3000 yen for 10 min, a must-try!!!!.

Back home a few minutes to get ready and then off at a run to the meeting for the Special Night in Kyoto!!! A fantastic experience, we set off by taxi from the hotel towards the Gion district = the geisha district, along the way loads of little shops selling geisha accessories, make-up services, little combs, little slippers, wigs, it seems it's very difficult to see one in person, they're always rushing around at dusk!!!. Once there we took a walk and right in front of a geisha house one appeared, running. Beautiful is the nearby street with the little bridge over the river and the wooden and bamboo houses, then another geisha at the restaurant was entertaining a client. By six we went to the ryokan = typical Japanese house, for the tea ceremony.

The house consists of a small entrance (they pay taxes based on how big it is) where you leave your shoes, a dining room with tables where we waited to be divided into groups. The house inside is enormous, they even have two internal gardens, one tiny and the other large where the tea room is, connected by a stone path. The little room is only reached through an opening similar to a dog door, like the ones in American doors, on your knees and bent forward. The little room is small, low and dark, lit only by the faint light of a candle that makes everything magical.

We were seated in the centre while the lady in a kimono, with bows behind us, on one side prepares the tea with all their magical ritual!! We were seated in the centre while the lady in a kimono, with bows behind us, on one side prepares the tea with all their magical ritual!! She uses a sort of big brush like the one men use to shave and mixes it all quickly until it becomes a green foam in a little bowl, meanwhile she serves us some sweets (made of chestnuts), one by one she bows in front of us and offers them, you eat a piece at a time, then the tea is served in a cup placed on the ground in front of us, with a deep bow. Ritual for drinking the tea: bow in front of you, take the cup in your right hand, then in your left, turn it twice clockwise and drink it in three sips.

Something magical!!!! When finished we went back to the dining room and they served us the typical Japanese poor-people's dinner of the era, all proteins, fried poor things, tempura, miso soup, tea and savoury rice. At the end of dinner they gave us gifts: two origami and a rice-paper lamp shaped like a ball. Once outside we took a walk along the street of the geisha houses, which can be recognised by the signs with the names of the stars and the red lights in front. Last stop a theatre where they stage shows and the geishas perform, we watched some very particular shows, including a typical dance by two apprentice geishas = maiko, fantastic!! From there we took the taxi back to the hotel and took a walk nearby.

We stopped outside a bar where quite a few Japanese had gathered and we realised there was the World Cup match Netherlands – Japan, further on we went to see a slot machine parlour, beautiful with all the cartoon characters, that they frequent, there's more racket than a disco, you decide!!!!

Good night meme

(to be continued)

Honeymoon in Japan 20/06

06/20 Kyoto – Part 3

Hi everyone, this morning we took our legendary Shinkansen to go to the north of Kyoto, precisely to the Golden Pavillion, so cooool!!! Beautiful golden temple situated in the middle of a lake and beautiful gardens with loads of enormous fish (now I realise that Sampei in the cartoon wasn't on drugs, giant carp really do exist!!) Unfortunately my camera broke right here, how sad, let's hope we can fix it in Italy. We took loads of photos both there and afterwards in the zen gardens, a disappointment, I thought there really would be the rake to make the patterns and instead.... From the garden we went to Nidojo castle which obviously was closing (everything closes at 5) so they had us running the whole time, very beautiful especially the gardens, inside nice but empty, there's no furniture (as is their tradition).

At 5 o'clock on the dot we left the castle and my love had a brilliant idea "let's go shopping" so we took a taxi which in Japan costs nothing compared to Italy, like eating, you eat for 9 euros for two!!!! no I haven't forgotten a digit, we had ourselves taken to the main shopping street and we went wild with 4 hours of unrestrained shopping!!! Incredible how much fun I had and Marco too, I bought getas = clogs for the kimono and a matching bag and he bought socks and a kimono!!! Before leaving I bought a bigger light-blue backpack for the souvenirs and we had dinner in a very nice place with photos of sushi dishes on the walls and here too we had dinner for 10 euros for two!!! After dinner we took a taxi to the station and to the hotel to pack for tomorrow's trip, we're off to Hiroshima!!

Good night meme

(to be continued)

Honeymoon in Japan 21/06

06/21 Miyajima Island

Hi everyone, today we moved to a little island in front of Hiroshima, it's veryyyy particular because as soon as we arrived we found fallow deer around the streets of the town, it seems they're venerated here and are left free to roam a bit like we do with our dogs and cats, except that these are three times as big and also poop a lot ehehheeh!!! You get to the island by a boat that connects the outskirts of Hiroshima with the island, it's tiny, there are practically no cars and there's a fantastic silence, on arrival we were met by one of the guys from the hotel-ryokan where we'd be staying with his little van, the hotel is at the end of the street, quite far from the landing, you only get there by van or on foot, 2 hours, and there too guess what, we were surrounded by deer, how lovely and soft!!!! Once at the hotel we settled into our ryokan (typical Japanese house), our room is empty,

there's just a little table in the centre of the room and two backrests, the television, typical tatami flooring and a built-in wardrobe with the two beds folded inside as per Japanese tradition. In a drawer we found two kimonos which obviously we didn't wait a second to put on!!! After a few photos we went downstairs to the lobby in our kimonos and geta clogs to immediately try the famous public bath!!!! unfortunately I couldn't take photos inside but I'll give you a nice description now to make you understand what it was like: So you enter through two separate entrances, men and women, preceded by a curtain, inside there's a room, a sort of ante-bath with a cabinet where you put everything, but really everything you're wearing, you leave your clogs there too, then there are washbasins to take off your make-up for the ladies and from there you go into the actual bathroom with just a litt

le towel to wet once inside, on your left you'll find an enormous hot pool, stop!!! where are you going? don't jump straight in like we'd do in Italy, here you first have to sit on the stool on your right and wash yourself completely, soap included, when you're perfectly clean then you can immerse yourself without diving because there are other people with you watching and wanting to relax, not be disturbed, since there's great silence inside.

I stayed almost an hour then my head started spinning and I got out, back in the room we found dinner served in the room, how romantiiiiiic!!! Now I'll show you the photo, there was everything, even a little flame lit for a flambé dish to die for!!! After dinner we took a walk around the island, practically deserted except for the fallow deer which in the dark we could spot by the smell of their droppings or by their breath, also beautiful is the Torii, which is the red gate in front of the island, reachable on foot when the tide is low. Didn't sleep a wink on the typical futon, a Japanese mattress laid on the floor, an experience to try, unique!!!

Good night Meme

Honeymoon in Japan 22/06

06/22 Miyajima Island – Himeji

This morning we got up very early, didn't sleep a wink....had an American breakfast because the Japanese one is truly terrible, and that's coming from someone who'll try anything, but if you put pickles or a fish head in front of me I can't do it eheheh, after breakfast a nice public bath to relax and then ready for another stop towards Himeji castle, it must be beautiful!!! Once there, luckily we met a Japanese guide who spoke perfect English and followed us around the whole tour, during the tour we discovered that in this castle The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe was filmed, what a great actor.

" – Tell me how he died? - I will tell you how he lived. " " – Do you think a man can change his destiny? - I think a man does what he can until his destiny is revealed. "

Inside there are fantastic gardens and the castle is truly enormous, you wouldn't think so from outside, on the way back we took part in the festival that was happening all over the town with stalls and everyone celebrating dressed in kimonos of beautiful colours, I also tasted a typical local dish, octopus balls in batter with lots of special sauces on top, so good!!! On the way back we had quite a few problems because of the wrong train time, we arrived at night and there were other problems with the next day's flight which we wouldn't manage to catch because of an agency mistake. Hi everyone, see you tomorrow

Honeymoon in Japan 23/06

06/23 Miyajima Island – Okinawa

Hi everyone!!

even our trip is coming to an end unfortunately, like all beautiful things, in fact today is a day dedicated to travelling from Miyajima island to Okinawa island where we should find crystal-clear sea, we got up early this morning, after a good breakfast we took a public bath one last time with a Japanese lady who was glaring at me lol... to prepare us for the very long journey ahead. From the hotel by van – boat – little train to Hiroshima – Osaka – Osaka airport, a total of 5 hours plus 2 hours of flying!!! Once off the plane and arrived in the city we were a bit shocked, it has nothing to do with Japan and the Japanese, it felt like being back in the West ( how nice though to arrive at our huge hotel, with a normal bed, a normal room, tomorrow we'll see the beaches then it's back to Tokyo and home.....

Honeymoon in Japan 25/06

06/23 Miyajima Island – Okinawa

Hi everyone!!

even our trip is coming to an end unfortunately, like all beautiful things, in fact today is a day dedicated to travelling from Miyajima island to Okinawa island where we should find crystal-clear sea, we got up early this morning, after a good breakfast we took a public bath one last time with a Japanese lady who was glaring at me lol... to prepare us for the very long journey ahead. From the hotel by van – boat – little train to Hiroshima – Osaka – Osaka airport, a total of 5 hours plus 2 hours of flying!!! Once off the plane and arrived in the city we were a bit shocked, it has nothing to do with Japan and the Japanese, it felt like being back in the West ( how nice though to arrive at our huge hotel, with a normal bed, a normal room, tomorrow we'll see the beaches then it's back to Tokyo and home.....