Maid Cafe in Akihabara

So we just got back from Akihabara where we went to a Maid Cafe. It was my first time in a Maid Cafe because I was afraid to go by myself before, but it was really nice so there is no need to be afraid to go in. The Cafe we went to was called Mai Dreamin and it is pretty close to Akihabara station. First a  maid that was handing out flyers in front of the Cafe sent us up to the 3rd floor which was the smoking area of the Cafe and full with only men obviously. We asked to be seated in the non-smoking area of the Cafe which was on the second floor. So “our” maid went down with us to the second floor which was still deserted so we had the place to ourselves which was pretty nice. Our maids name was Yuno-chan and she was very relieved that I understood Japanese and I was pretty surprised how much I could communicate in Japanese.

Mai Dreamin from the outside

They made us read the rules for the Maid Cafe, which include obvious things such as no touching the maids, no asking for personal information, no personal gifts for the maids, no pictures and so on. You are however allowed to take pictures of your food! xD Also you have to pay ¥500 per hour and buy at least one drink while you are at the Cafe. They have a wide range of drinks and a small selection of food and deserts. We both chose a set that included a drink, desert or food and a picture with a maid for ¥1.400. We both had panda pancakes, which were not only super cute but also delicious!

Panda Pancakes

Taking pictures of or with maids costs ¥500 each time and so does playing games with a maid. I decided to play a game with Yuno-chan and she promised me a gift should I win. So we played the crocodile game where you have to push down the teeth and if the crocodile snaps its mouth shut when you push one down you lose. We agreed that when either of us lost three times the game was over. Luckily I won by 3-1 and I got a promotional picture of the top 3 maids as a gift. We both also took pictures with Yuno-chan as part of our set and she also decorated them with markers very nicely and wrote down the date and our names. Trix also participated in a prize draw for ¥300 before we left and got a promotional picture of one of the maids as a prize.

I have to say we really enjoyed ourselves there and if you ever have the chance to visit a Maid Cafe I’d encourage you to. It’s a somewhat expensive but nice treat and at least an interesting experience! Together we spent ¥4.600 for that one hour but it was definitely worth it and something I wouldn’t have wanted to miss while being in Japan! ^_^

My best sneaky shot of  the maid handing out flyers in front of the Cafe.

Back to Tokyo – just a short update

As you may have guessed by my lack of posts recently I have not managed to catch up with all the posts I wanted to do before going to Tokyo. I have been back in Tokyo since June 2nd. I arrived with the night bus from Nagoya at Tokyo station at 5:30 in the morning. I was quite surprised that NOTHING was open there. No coffee shop, no 24h convenient store … nothing!  Even in Europe every train station has their obligatory 24h McD! >.<

Well anyways I picked up my friend Trix from Narita AP that evening and the next day we just hung around Asakusa were we are staying at the same hostel I stayed in on my first visit to Tokyo, the Khaosan Tokyo Annex. It’s gotten somewhat run-down and dirtier since I was last here but it’s still tolerable. Then yesterday we went to Shibuya and Harajuku for some crazy shopping and visited also the Meiji shrine.

Since I have done the same things already last time I was here there is no need to actually post about it at all… so yeah this is just for everybody who wants to know what Trix and I have been up to. ^_^;

On a more interesting note, we are planning to visit Tokyo Disneyland & Sea Resort and the Ghibli Museum soon so I’ll put up some detailed posts about that!^_^

Tokyo Sky Tree is growing

Hiroshima Castle

So as I have mentioned in previous posts Hiroshima was really upsetting and I thought a nice visit to the castle would cheer me up a bit but yeah the castle, like pretty much everything else, was destroyed by the atomic bomb so there is really no escaping it. When I reached the entrance gate and read on a plaque “…destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945. The faithful replica (…) was constructed in 1958…” I went ‘duh’ but up until then I really hadn’t thought about it! It follows that only parts of the original structure have been reconstructed such as the castle tower and the gate with bridge and three turrets.

Reconstructed gate with moat and Hirayagura turret.

After you’ve been over the gate bridge and through the gate you can go into the building with three restored turrets. There is information in Japanese and pictures about the reconstruction and also about the castle area but nothing earth shattering. So I left pretty quickly and continued to head for the castle tower. On the way there you pass by a shrine and the ruins of the Hiroshima Imperial Military Headquarters, which is just the outline of a building with stones on the ground. The Headquarters were moved to Hiroshima when the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1894 and was housed within the castle grounds. Apparently the 6th Army division was housed there and at some point the Meiji Emperor used it as provisional quarters, which is interesting and all but not really a looker. So off to the castle tower… finally!

Entrance to the Castle Tower

The entrance fee is ¥360 and you get a very nice colored English brochure. The tower has 5 floors with nice exhibits on the first through fourth floor and an observation platform on the fifth floor. They have of course information about the history and development of the castle and town but they also have a big collection of swords and samurai armour. You can even try on some armour on the first floor. The view from the platform gives a better idea of the castle layout and offers a nice view of the city. All in all a good investment and worth a visit while you are in town.

Another shot from the side of the castle tower. With all the trees around it was difficult to get a good shot!

I think I haven’t posted any sakura pictures before but the occasional cherry blossom has shown up before this but they definitely became more common around then. After all Hanami wasn’t that far away anymore…

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park & Museum

The Peace Memorial Park lies enclosed by two rivers on the tip of an island-esque central area in Hiroshima that used to be a bustling downtown district before the atomic bomb was dropped on 6. August, 1945.  The park is dedicated to the memory of everyone who fell victim to the first nuclear attack in human history and the promotion of world peace.  The 66 monuments and points of interest in the park leave nothing to the imagination and describe the pain and suffering  inflicted by the atomic bomb. Flowers and paper cranes on the monuments are an omnipresent reminder of the heartfelt grief and empathy felt in Japan and all around the world for what happened in Hiroshima. People actually send folded origami paper cranes from all over the world to the Peace Memorial Park. According to a Japanese legend folding a thousand paper cranes grants  you a wish from a crane. However the paper crane has become a symbol for world peace through the story of Sadako. A girl from Hiroshima who was exposed to the radiation of the atomic bomb at the age of 2 and consequently died of leukaemia at the age of 12. Before she died she started folding paper cranes in hospital so her wish to get well would be granted. There are two different versions of the story. One says that she only managed to fold 644 paper cranes before she died, the other says that she did manage to fold a thousand paper cranes.

Children’s Peace Memorial inspired by Sadako’s story

Folded paper cranes from all over the world being kept in the little huts you can see in the picture above.

The centerpiece of the park however is the Cenotaph for the A-bomb victims covered by a saddle shaped monument. It holds a register of the deceased victims of the bomb and still every year new names get added, because there are still people dying from the consequences of the radiation.

Cenotaph for the A-bomb victims

And you might have already spotted it there in the background of the last picture. A symbol of Hiroshima and a graphic reminder of the destructive force of the atomic bomb, the Atomic Bomb Dome. The Dome is a registered UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996 and is very close to the Hypocenter.

Atomic Bomb Dome

The last thing I want to write about, since you have probably noticed that I can’t cover all 66 monuments and points of interest in the park, is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum. This museum is nothing for the faint-hearted, especially the second building. The first building tells the story of Hiroshima before and during WWII. It also explains why and how Hiroshima was picked as the site for the first bombing. Models of the city from before and after the bombing are on display and information on nuclear warheads and their distribution is provided. The second building however displays pictures and belongings of victims of the atomic bomb and tells their fate. This is really not for everyone and towards the end I just wanted to get out. I read a couple of the stories accompanying shredded cloth of children or partly melted lunch boxes and that was more than enough.  And don’t get me started on the pictures…

The Pond of Peace with the Cenotaph and the ugly building in the background is the museum.

The Peace Watch at the museum entrance. It says 23602 days since the first dropping of the atomic bomb and 299 days since the latest nuclear test.

View from the museum onto the park

For more pictures of the other monuments please visit my Flicker Gallery.

Oh the excuses!

All right here it goes: First I had some trouble having seemingly hurt my right hand although I still don’t know how it happened.  I couldn’t use it for about 3 days… it was rather painful. So there was no chance for me typing or doing any computery stuff really. Now that my hand is better again I managed to get sick! I have a sore throat and I’m hoarse… I sound really funny! I’ve been talking with myself despite the pain, it’s that entertaining! xD

I hope I can get some entries done tomorrow though, because I have some more recent stuff from Kyoto I want to put up ASAP! xD

Update

So as you can imagine the funny sore throat developed into a full blown cold and had me confined to the bed over the last 4 days! >.< Now I just uploaded some pictures from my visit to the Osaka Aquarium and really hope I can finally get some writing done tomorrow.

Now go look at fish! ^_^

Hiroshima 20.-22.03.

I stayed in Hiroshima for 3 days. I went sight-seeing on two of those days and took a “day off”, so I decided it would probably be a good idea to split the Hiroshima post into two. The first post will be about the Peace Memorial Park and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The second post will be about Hiroshima castle.

I found that my visit to Hiroshima was deeply emotional and at times depressing, hopeful and angry. It is unimaginable what kind of pain and destruction people must have witnessed there when the Americans dropped the atomic bomb. Even more unimaginable is that it happened a second time in Nagasaki. It was really hard to read letters and memos of American officials about the sober reasoning for dropping the atomic bomb. ~We spent all that money… now we’re gonna use it too.~ The wall full with letters from Hiroshima’s mayors to various countries for every nuclear weapons test. The pictures and drawings of survivors. Stories like the one of Sadako Sasaki and the thousand folded origami paper cranes…

Miyajima 19.03.

As I had stopped to reserve accommodation in advance to preserve my flexibility. It came to no surprise to me that all guest houses and youth hostels were full when I arrived in Hiroshima on the 18.03. after a long day on the train. Up until now I didn’t have problems with securing last-minute accommodation but I knew it was only a matter of time that this problem would come up. Luckily Miyajima is very close to Hiroshima and I knew that a new youth hostel had opened not on the island but right by the ferry port on the mainland. They had a free bed available there and so I crashed there for a night and got up early the next morning to take the ferry to Miyajima, which is really called Itsukushima Island.

On the ferry to Itsukushima Island aka. Miyajima.

Of course as soon as I was on the ferry I realized that I hadn’t emptied my camera’s memory card the night before and so had to limit my picture-taking severely so as to preserve the most important pictures from the day before. The ferry already took a slight detour to  go by the famous torii of the Itsukushima shrine before entering the port. After picking up and surveying a free tourist guide map of Miyajima I set out for the Itsukushima shrine first. So I walked by the water front towards the shrine snapping pictures of the famous torri as I went.

The  floating Torii of Isukushima shrine.

After taking as many pictures as possible, most of which I had to delete later to make room for some more pictures, I entered the shrine. The tide was rising but parts of the substructure of the shrine were still visible. The Itsukushima shrine is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the floating torii is one of Japan’s most photographed sites. The shrine was first built in 593 but was destroyed many times. It was remodelled into the present day structure in 1168 by Taira no Kiyomori. Next to the main shrine it features a Noh drama stage, music rooms and several other shrines around it which are all connected by corridors. The shrine is architecturally elaborate and very interesting.

Part of the Itsukushima shrine complex in the background you can see the five-storied Pagoda.

The Noh drama stage of the Itsukushima shrine, in the background you can see the o-torri.

After leaving the shrine I climbed up the stairs to the Tahoto pagoda, just intending to take pictures and then go back down to see the Treasure Hall and the Daiganji temple.  Put when I was up there the temptation to follow a sign post to another temple was just too strong.

Tahoto Pagoda

And so I followed a path further up the mountain to the Daisho-in temple and I am very glad I did. This temple is an absolute treasure! It’s beautiful, rather big and the best thing about it…very few tourists! They have a very nice colored and detailed brochure about the temple, but sadly it would go beyond the scope of this post to go through everything so I’ll just put up some pictures of my personal highlights.

When I left the Daisho-in temple I thought it would be nice to climb Mt Misen. A friend I had met in Beppu told me she went up there and it would be worth it. So I sent the next 2 hours climbing stairs and cursing my decision. The view and the hike up there were beautiful and definitely worth it but by the time I reached the top I was too exhausted to properly appreciate it and all I could think about was that I still had to walk all the way down again.

View from the highest point on Mt. Misen

On the way to the highest part of the mountain I also visited the Miyama shrine, the Misen Hondo main hall, Reikado hall and Danichido. Already too tired and too impatient to finally reach the top to properly appreciate them as well. The amazing thing was that after a 2 hour ascent the descent only took me about 40 minutes. When I was down from the mountain I got on the next ferry back to the mainland, went to the youth hostel to collect my luggage and then took the tram into Hiroshima to my next guest house.

Kagoshima – Kumamoto – Beppu – Nagasaki– Fukuoka – Miyajima – Hiroshima

Fukuoka 17./18.03.

From Nagasaki to Fukuoka I used my second day on the Seihsun 18 Kippu and after several hours on local trains I arrived at the Hakata JR station in Fukuoka. When I had first received the printed out train schedule from a clerk in Nagasaki I was confused about the station name being Hakata instead of Fukuoka, but a look in my Marco Polo travel guide solved the mystery. In 1889 the two cities Hakata and Fukuoka were consolidated for economic reasons to form the current Fukuoka.

Hakata station is the biggest and busiest station in Kyūshū and also currently under construction, so it came to no surprise that it took a while for me to get my bearings and the free crappy map they provide you with at the tourist information is no real help either. But eventually I made it to my guest house of choice a branch of the International Hostel Khaosan, I had stayed at in Tokyo before. After checking in I immediately set out for Canal City, which was a bit of a challenge to find actually. Once again the map wasn’t really much of a help. Canal City is a big shopping mall with a cinema complex and one of two points of interest in Fukuoka indicated in my travel guide. The other one is Fukuoka Tower so you can imagine Fukuoka is not really a tourist hot spot. But as with Nagasaki it was on my way and I really wanted to go and see Liar Game – The Final Stage. So upon my arrival in Canal City I headed for the cinema and went to watch Liar Game and for good measure Sherlock Holmes too. I came out of the second movie some time after 12 and had even more trouble finding my way back to the hostel in the dark…

Canal City, Hakata (Fukuoka)

The next morning I decided to do some culture and headed for a temple and a shrine one of the nice ladies at the tourist information had pointed out to me as her favourites the day before. First was the Tochoji temple followed by the Kushida shrine and as I had some time left over before I had to head back to pick up my luggage I swung by Canal City again, which was still closed to take some pictures.

Tochoji temple was nice but nothing special, the Kushida shrine on the other hand turned out to be a real jewel. The shrine itself was beautiful and relatively large but the best thing was definitely the huge festival float (?) they have on display. As I understood it the float is carried by a group of men through the city as part of a festival procession every year. Since the thing is huge and must weigh a tonne I’m not exactly sure about it though.

Kushida shrine

Festival float (?) at the Kushida shrine

Close up

After visiting the shrine I went back to the hostel to collect my luggage and get on the train to Hiroshima. When I arrived in Hiroshima however there were no free youth hostels anywhere in town so I headed to close by Miyajima, where I stayed the night at Miyajima Backpackers. More about my visit to Miyajima in the next post.

Kagoshima – Kumamoto – Beppu – Nagasaki – Fukuoka – Miyajima – Hiroshima

Nagasaki 15./16.03.

From Beppu to Nagasaki I used the Seishun 18 ticket for the first time, which is basically a special ticket they sell only at certain times of the year and as it happens it’s spring break right now at least for the Universities. With this ticket you can only use local trains and it takes a while to get to your destination but the price makes it worth it. One of the most expensive things in Japan is definitely travelling and the Seishun 18 Kippu only cost ¥11.500 and you can use it as 5 individual day tickets or you can share it with other people but basically it’s 5 tickets. That makes ¥2.300 a day.

A lot of people I had met an other hostels or guest house had told me not to visit Nagasaki and Fukuoka but I thought as long as I’m in Kyushu I might as well stop there on the way and I thought Nagasaki was indeed worth a visit. The guest house I stayed at was nice but for my taste a little to expensive with ¥2.500 a night, but not unusual for bigger and more touristy cities. The guest house is called Akari and has a really great location. Close to the temple street, where different temples sit almost side by side, a shopping arcade and not too far from the JR station.

I arrived in Nagasaki on the 15th of March in the late afternoon and after checking into my guest house I went to see the Kofukuji Temple, which lies on said temple street, very close to the guest house. I was pretty disappointed especially since I had to pay ¥300 to go in. I guess the temple is marked as a tourist attraction rather for being the oldest Chinese temple of some sect rather than for its beauty. The oldest stone arch bridge remaining in Japan today, called the Spectacles bridge, was built by a Zen master of said temple in 1634. It is close by and is called Spectacles bridge because it looks like a pair of glasses when the bridge reflects in the water of the small river it spans. After that I just explored the surrounding arcade and China town.

Spectacles Bridge, the oldest stone arch bridge in Japan (1634).

I had actually planned to see the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki and visit the peace park the next day, but since a friend I incidentally met again in Nagasaki was already the second person who liked the one in Hiroshima better so I decided to go to the Hollander slope instead. Nagasaki is not only known to be the second city hit by the atomic bomb but also as one of the only open ports during the time of Japanese isolation. The Holland slope is basically the foreign quarters in Nagasaki, where the foreigners who were for the sake of convenience all from Holland thus the name Holland slope.

I can imagine that is more interesting to Japanese tourists and I didn’t find it very exciting and I actually had some trouble spotting all the oh-soo European or American style houses. But the area definitely has a more European feel with its cobblestone pavement. There is one American house that is open for visitors and displays pictures and information on schools founded by foreigners in Nagasaki.

Western-style house at No.12, Higashiyamate

I also came by the Confucius Temple which looked really interesting and impressive but the fee was ¥600 and I frankly didn’t feel like spending the money at that point. So I decided it was time to turn back but when I got closer to my guest house I still had some time and decided to give another temple a try, which someone had pointed out to me the night before. So I went to the Sofukuji temple, which is a Chinese Zen temple founded in 1635 and contains rare examples of Ming-period Chinese architecture. This time it was a positive surprise. The entrance fee was the same as for the Kofukuji temple the day before but this time I felt I got my moneys worth! It’s a beautiful temple with a multitude of buildings and statues. I would recommend to anyone staying Nagasaki to visit this temple.

The Sofukuji entrance arch is one of Nagasaki’s landmarks.

“Great Cauldron at Sufukuji” was used to cook porridge for 3,000 to 5,000 people a day during a famine in 1681 that was caused by a failed crop the previous year.

After visiting the temple I picked up my luggage at the guest house and was on my way to my next stop: Fukuoka.

Kagoshima – Kumamoto – Beppu – Nagasaki – Fukuoka – Miyajima – Hiroshima

Procrastinating is my second nature

I am really sorry I have taken so long to post again but like the title says procrastinating is my second nature! I know I have promised before but I’ll do my best to catch up in the next couple of days! Honest! xD