Admiring the red maples of Japan

14 January 2020 • Travel time: with 15 November 2019 on 24 November 2019

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Have you ever dreamed of looking into the future too? I've always wanted to! And just recently, we opened the curtain of this mystery for ourselves. It turned out to be not quite the way science fiction scientists describe it, but nevertheless there are things that really make life better. And I am not talking now only about a technological breakthrough, but also about people's attitudes towards tourist guests. One has only to stop for a minute, buried in a map, as a passer-by or an employee will definitely come up to you and ask how he can help you. Even if there is that rare case where your random assistant only knows Japanese, he will still try very hard to make your day easier and better.

But from a technological point of view and highly developed technologies, it also turns out interesting here.

Globalization has made it possible to take advantage of modern progress in different parts of the Earth, and Ukraine is far from an exception. No matter how developed Japan is, but, for example, the lack of such a simple thing as the ability to buy railway tickets online casts all of Japan's progress into question. There are really progressive things, for example, a real rain remedy, which we will successfully use! Seats that in trains and buses can be deployed in the direction you need. Even if these are three connected seats in a row, you can deploy the entire row. And also the multi-level nature of cities, when people walk below, a bus rides on top of the bridge, another bus rides even higher, and people also walk even higher, and Google, when laying the route, specifies from what level the traffic should be laid. But the most interesting and unforgettable thing is their ultra-modern toilets ...

Japan is a real test for experienced travelers, preparing for a trip takes an indescribably large amount of effort and time, many things, such as “How to determine which transport can be used on a travel card? ”, which seem so incomprehensible in Kyiv, remain secrets, even upon returning from the country. Or a train that starts on rails owned by one company and ends on rails of another company that is not covered by the pass, so you only have to pay for the part of the route that is not covered by the pass. And the situation when the number and name of the train does not completely match the ticket, but this is exactly the train for which you bought a ticket, we will have nightmares more than once))) When the doors close at any second, and a decision needs to be made lightning fast.

The marketing of the future has gone much further than the infamous UIA marketing department) In Japan, almost all prices are excluding VAT. That is, almost always you have to pay more than indicated. Sometimes it happens that the price with VAT is still indicated on the price tag, but much smaller than the price without VAT. And how many stereotypes about Japan were destroyed during the trip can not be counted on the fingers))) And yet, these strange differences in Japan just make it so unique and interesting. In general, let's look at everything in order, we begin our preparation for the trip!

First you need to decide which color do you prefer - red or pink? If pink, then spring sakura is waiting for you. If red, then you will definitely experience the real momiji in autumn. Momiji is admiring the red maples.

I honestly don’t know what is more interesting, but the flight was already so burning that it was unbearable to wait for the spring sakura. Let's enjoy maples! That's just not enough vacation, you have to think about something. I also want to go to Egypt. But this year it is definitely one thing to choose, the choice, of course, is obvious. We love corals and fish so much that the choice in favor of Japan was really not easy.

The most common question I get asked about Japan is the visa. The answer here is the most joyful and pleasant: in addition to the fact that a visa is free, a minimum of documents is required. No guarantors, certificates from work, account movements, copies of state of emergency, etc. By and large, this is a questionnaire, a route and the balance of money in the account. All these rules were adopted relatively recently. Since Japan was our potentially 50th anniversary country, almost no one knew about the trip.

But everyone could participate in guessing the 50th country. The most unexpected options came across, but it was there that the truth could be, since initially the 50th country was supposed to be Moldova, which was later replaced by the Vatican and after the action of Qatar became Japan. The winner of the competition was our friend Olya, and in a separate nomination, Zhenya, who the day before the trip was able to determine the 50th country from one of our photos on Facebook, where the trips of the upcoming eighth season were posted, and Japanese tickets were carefully disguised beyond recognition, but one of the clues is a Japanese transport pass, on which part of the logo was visible, and this turned out to be enough, along with other hints found, to unmistakably identify the country.

Japan JR Pass is a separate part of the travel preparation. You can buy it in many places, but not in Japan.

It makes most transportation completely free, including the Shinkansen high-speed trains. It is rather difficult to check the cost of trains online, at least because the prices do not include one of the taxes. For example, a Tokyo-Kyoto ticket even in a ticket machine glows about 5.000 yen ($ 45), but the commission that will need to be paid somewhere further (but where exactly, it seems, will also remain a mystery forever) will cost about 6.000 yen ( $54). From Kyiv it was difficult to figure it out. But the cost of a weekly pass per person, taking into account commissions ...buckle up !! ! Approximately 35.000 yen ($321). That is, for two, you need to unfasten half the cost of air tickets for something that, most likely, will be profitable for you. The price of the ticket not only put us in a stupor, but in real horror. But we trusted the advice on the forums and still bought it.

In the country itself, we tried for a long time to figure out how to determine the price of travel, to make sure that we were not at a loss. As a result, we went to the cashier and asked directly. The Tokyo - Kyoto one-way ticket costs about 14.500 yen ($133) per person. It’s already relieved, only on one of the trains in both directions we practically beat off the cost of the ticket.

Now everything is ready, you can fly. We flew for a long time, then a two-hour transfer. Moved. Then they flew twice as long. As a result, they took off at 23:00 and arrived at 22:00. We saw how the night passed, then the day passed, and the next night came through the porthole. Also, my problem is the inability to sleep on planes ...Nevertheless, we flew officially the best airlines of 2019, so the plane was as comfortable as it could be. We had a modern Airbus A350 flying from Qatar, and it was really chic. The plane is very comfortable and thoughtful.

I already have a tradition to call my mother from the plane. On board Qatar Airways, you get one hour of free Wi-Fi per device. Moreover, the speed of the Internet is really impressive, you can easily communicate by voice, the price for the entire flight is also pleasant - $ 10. In the included food menu, I was pleased with the bar list, which even included cocktails and champagne. When you order wine, the stewardess, like in an expensive restaurant, demonstrates a bottle and says that it is Australian red wine and asks: “Does it suit you? ". Dasha preferred Chilean white.

I started diving into Japan right from the plane, I had all the cartoons from the author of “My Neighbor Totoro” downloaded to my tablet. I'm not a fan of anime, but these cartoons are a real work of art. For some reason, I really downloaded the film “The Witch of Blair”, thereby simply took out my brain!

As they say, such dregs have not been filmed before ...And although no, they did shoot it, the film turned out to be quite old. Well, our second flight is coming to an end, it will start now!

Tokyo

We had less than an hour to get off the plane and get on the subway. The metro, in a country famous for its hard-working residents, closes at approximately 11:30 pm. If we don't make it in time, we'll pay so much for the night bus that no ticket will help. Released from the plane, you need to act very quickly. We rushed at the speed of light to the customs control, on the way there was a five-second photo stop near decorative maples. You can rush further, another moment - and we are standing behind customs with an entry stamp. How did it happen so quickly? Until the last subway is still about an hour. But you need to sort out the fare and withdraw money.

As far as I know, not all ATMs accept MasterCard cards. But it is definitely accepted at 7-Eleven ATMs. Here bam! And there is a whole ATM with the name 7-eleven. We rent 50.000 yen ($460). ATM, please don’t let us down, we arrived without cash) The ATM gave us five pieces of paper for 1.000 yen. Wow denomination bills, almost $ 100. At that time, we were still worried about how we would exchange such a high denomination banknote. But it turns out in Japan to spend such a bill is a fairly simple task.

So, now we urgently figure out where the right subway is! An employee ran up to us, asked which station we needed and quickly called everything on the machine. The machine gladly accepted the mega bill and poured change. Run there! We rushed off and jumped into a train. Phew done! There was still about an hour left before the last train.

Apparently, while we were doing our forced march from the plane, time stopped, and we went into hyperspace. We sit on the seats, and they are the softest. A very unusual feeling when the transport is so soft. I opened the app and looked where we should change. But the station at which we boarded was not there. So, where are we? Apparently, there are other stations in hyperspace. A guy immediately came up and offered to help deal with the subway. We said the right station, he said we got on the right train and gave us a metro map. But on this map, too, there were no stations that we pass. Somewhere at the fourth station, one did match. But the next one was non-existent again. We asked the girl sitting next to her, she looked at another application and said that we were moving correctly. When asked where this station was on the map, she pointed to a branch line that had no stations at all. Hey, how do you know we're here?

The girl replied something similar to Japanese wisdom.

There was also a diagram of the branch line in the car, but not electronic, it was generally impossible to find us using it. Having passed from a dozen stations, we really got to the right interchange. Changed the branch, now everything matches. With a diagram. And here is hurrah! We did it, drove to our station. As far as we understood, the problem was that the diagram the guy gave us belonged to another subway company. In a sense, the map showed the possibility of free travel on one of the travel cards, and our airport branch, like some others, was not included in this scheme. We just needed one more scheme with other branches, and the sum of these schemes will just give a complete picture of the metro, but this is not accurate. It was still possible to get on our precious travel cards, but technology is powerless here. You need to stand in line at certain stations during business hours to activate it.

Until you activate it, you won't be able to drive on it. It's too late for an evening flight to be activated. They say that at the airport the queue for activation is delayed for hours. That is, initially you need to do a series of dances with tambourines in Kyiv to get it, since you can’t get it in Japan, and when you get it, a few more dances to get to the agency and activate it.

Theoretically, you can make your life easier by registering a Suika payment card. But unfortunately or fortunately, Google Pay did not allow me to do this. I think that, fortunately, in this story there was still some Suiki missing for a complete set) In one of the social networks, someone admired that the Japanese subway is very thoughtful. But the author of the post did not see really well-thought-out subways. Specifically, I believe that the lightest metro is in the Dnieper, one branch and only six stations.

There is not the slightest question about the route in such a subway: either left or right)))

We got out of the subway and saw it - Tokyo at night. It really is as beautiful as it sounds. It was, without exaggeration, love at first sight. He's so… Japanese! A grandiose-looking temple rises right there, a luminous tower peeps out from behind the houses, everything is so interesting and unusual. The best acquaintance with the country is through the kitchen, and now we will do it. We went to a small restaurant, which in appearance is clearly not designed for tourists. But for us, it's just the right thing. What's on the menu here? Uh? what all interesting, and most importantly - very inexpensive! Where do you start when you want to try everything at once. Let's take fried gyoza, Ramen and something else completely unknown.

The food came very quickly.

We armed ourselves with reusable plastic sticks and here it is - getting to know the country. Japan, you and I found a common language. Asia, as always, did not disappoint in terms of food. To be honest, Asia never fails in anything, except perhaps for the greed of the Vietnamese. Japanese cuisine is very different from all Asian cuisine in one moment - it is not spicy at all! Not something we're used to, but it really doesn't have the spiciness. By the way, we did not notice this on the first day. You can, of course, look for spicy dishes on the menu, but ordering at random, the chance to run into a spicy dish is low.

The cost of food in small restaurants is about 600-800 yen per menu ($7.5). The menu is enough for a hearty meal. The serving of dishes in absolutely all restaurants is fast. I think our wait never exceeded ten minutes. If you take more serious restaurants, then 1100-1200 yen per serving ($11.5).

Although the ramen was delicious, it is inferior to the ramen that we cook in Japanese restaurants. Basically inferior in terms of the number of ingredients. Sushi in Japan is quite a rare dish, you will have to look for it.

We had a delicious meal, happy and beaming, we went to look for our hotel. The average cost of a private room for two with a shared toilet is $50. It was not possible to live in capsules, since a lot of people will live in neighboring capsules, that is, something like a common room. Our very small room was made in a strict minimalist style. Bunk bed, shelves, slippers and a window. But in the case of Japan, as well as with Norway, we were mentally prepared that it was not worth paying space money for comfortable hotels, it was better to pay a relatively reasonable price just to sleep in a room. Although, as the hotel of our last day will show, the presence of a shelf is quite luxury.

The alarm clock has rung. The first thing that comes to mind is we are in Japan!! ! This is definitely going to be a very interesting day. The second thing that comes to mind is the beginning of the journey, there are many more such awakenings ahead! Third - you need to get together as soon as possible and run to explore everything! An interesting surprise was that in the couple of months that we booked this hotel, the rules changed. Free breakfast now included! We went down to the first floor and saw 9 sad Japanese people sitting at a small table. Maybe they, of course, were not sad, but when I saw breakfast, it seemed to me that everyone around was sad. The guests were offered toast and mashed potatoes soluble in boiling water or onion soup, which also needs to be poured with boiling water. Nearby, on a black board in colored squirrels, Breakfast was written and the same toast with soup was drawn. Moreover, a cup of soup on a plank looked a little more fun than in reality.

We took our things and ran for a walk. Japanese food is really delicious and spending time on instant soup means you get one less delicious meal per trip. Let's eat somewhere full.

We lived next to a big temple and a real Japanese market! It wasn't really that different from the real non-Japanese market, but since this one was in Japan, it was native Japanese or even Tokyo! The views of the Asian temple charged the mood up to 100%. Although we understood that over the next couple of days, the temples could begin to ripple. We walked to one of the central railway stations in Ueno. Since at this station there was one of the centers for activating the JR Pass. We walked along fairly simple, deserted and not particularly attractive streets. Even cars did not drive on the roads, although the traffic controllers actively monitored traffic and single pedestrians.

The houses were not very high, but they were located close to each other, from the window of one house it was possible to shake hands with a neighbor from an adjacent house. A familiar, strange sensation rose up inside me. You seem to be in the country of the future, but you see rather simple streets, in places they look simpler than in the CIS countries. In fact, it is clear that there are more progressive parts of the city, there are less. I had the same feeling for the first time in Singapore.

The fact is that Japan is really progressive and can surprise you with many things, but it is completely different from what it is shown in popular tourist programs. We even specially revised the episode of Eagle and Tails, where Ptushkin told how all the wow-wows and robots perform some tasks here. They can and do, but in one place specifically to show how they perform.

Before activating the travel cards, the girl made sure that I clearly understood the rules and the impossibility of canceling the activation. That's what great respect for the Japanese. They always put a lot of emphasis on the rules before providing the service. It is very important for them that you know exactly what you are paying money for and how much you have to pay, this really manifested itself in a large number of places. And the girl herself, who conducted the briefing, did it with such sweet love in her voice that I immediately flew off in my mind somewhere into the fairy tale “Good night, kids” and now I’m drinking raspberry tea with Stepashka and Fillya. Her charisma and voice carried the kindness of thousands of Emirates flight attendants. I almost began to regret that the travel cards need to be activated only once. In general, I want to express my deep gratitude to all the people who treat their work with such love, you definitely make this world a better place.

Dasha, having breakfast, asked which of the two girls I got, because she also noticed that the one on the left is very cool. With activated travel cards, we were also given tickets for our first route. That is, if you have a travel card, you can either just get on the trains and ride on a common basis, or go to the box office and they give you free tickets assigned to seats. The way operators work with computers surprised us quite a lot. On the touch screen, the girl presses her fingers an incredible number of times at a very high speed. When we first paid attention to this, we could not understand why there were so many clicks to issue nameless tickets. What else can you call so hard? But this was not only about ticket sales, it was the same everywhere where they work with a touch screen. We started to see what was going on.

After clicking on a certain button, workers make a blank click on an empty part of the screen or in a frame, only after that they click on the next button. It seems like everyone did. Why, we don't know. But it was clearly visible that two clicks in a row on the buttons on the touch screen were not made. So, here we go!

Nikko

Dasha upset me by saying that our travel cards do not cover high-speed trains. But the train we got on, the shinkansen, began to pick up speed faster and faster, eventually reaching 280 km per hour. It turns out that there are even faster ones, but they travel on the same train models, only they accelerate to 320 km per hour. Traveling around Japan on Shinkansen is a pleasure. Really gigantic distances between cities are not a hindrance at all.

And the most interesting thing is that Japan is, in fact, one big city.

Many cities have grown so that they have already tightly connected their borders. As a result, you are rushing on a train not through fields and valleys, but through a solid city. There are breaks in the fields, but mostly there is an endless city outside the window. It was very unusual. It turns out that changing the picture outside the train window is very necessary for internal switching. And so, it seems that you just decided to drive around the city between two points. We had to get to Nikko, and from there transfer to a bus that takes us to the themed town of Edo Mura (Edo wonderland). But there is also something to see in Nikko. Where to start in order to be in time? We arrived, there was a woman at the station who advertised tickets for some bus. She said that the next one in Edo would be in an hour and a half, and the last one around 3:00 pm. Well, we decided that in what order. Let's go for a walk in Nikko. Somewhere it was mentioned that tourists starting to walk around Nikko may not want to go anywhere else.

And we understand them very well. This city is amazing!!!!

We caught our first momiji right here! Red maples here were just at their peak (November 17)! What beauty is everywhere. It was necessary to visit the temple complex, to which you also need to go by bus. But to our happiness, there was a traffic jam in the city, about which we were warned, and we passed all this beauty on foot. From the redness of the maples it seemed that even it was warm.

It took about 40 minutes to reach the temple complex. Here, of course, Japanese architecture in all its beauty. And there are so many temples that you can occupy yourself for two days if you set a goal to review everything.

This is not a temple, just a shop

We knew in advance that according to the reviews we should go to Tosho-gu. And what huge ancient trees here! The entrance to the temple complex, if I'm not mistaken, costs 1300 yen ($12).

In fact, all the beauty is not so much inside the temples as outside. But really everything is in the best traditions of Japan.

The Japanese also love to stand in lines. Sometimes, even on the platform of a long train, everyone crowds in the queues of the first cars, and a little further there may be even free space in order to be the first at the entrance. But the Japanese are unlikely to risk becoming the first to go there, according to our observations, most often he simply gets into one of the already formed queues. So we stood in the temple in some kind of long line in the hope that at the end there would be something very interesting. Fortunately, I went to look where we were standing, it turned out that this was the queue to pray. Well, at least they didn’t defend it completely, otherwise there would be a surprise at the end. Then we went to one of the temples, we were brought in as a priority as English speakers.

And they said that now the guide will speak Japanese, and then for us and a couple of other tourists in English.

After the guide finished his Japanese speech, he turned to us and seemed to continue in Japanese. Dasha and I could only catch a couple of words, but even then, most likely, we just began to understand Japanese. But nevertheless, the man banged loudly with pieces of wood, from which the painted dragon on the ceiling seemed to growl. The dragon's muzzle reminded me of the human face of some Yura. It happens that you look at a person and you can immediately imagine what name suits him best, and so it is with dragons. Therefore, we named him the dragon Yuri. Further along the trip, we conditionally called all the dragons Yuriy. I had to hurry to the bus to Edo.

We had to eat along the way. It's a pretty standard problem on busy trips where there isn't enough time for food.

We went to the market, I got myself different buns in sealed bags, and among the buns there was even a hot dog with ketchup. Dasha was heated up with a large bowl of ramen. If Dasha had to endure with ramen until Edo (you won’t be able to eat on the bus), then I ate my rolls on the way, and then waited for us to be able to eat Dasha’s soup. Rolls, by the way, are also bombed, like all food, take it boldly))) But in fact, we just didn’t know yet what gastronomic treasure was hiding on the shelves in the markets. We walked back to the bus station, where no one was there, including the woman who told us about the last bus. We went to the information office, they told us that the last bus to the village left two hours ago. Like this? And that bus around three in the afternoon? The cashier assured us that there was no bus at 15:00. But this is Asia, plans for a trip cannot so easily collapse here, something is wrong. But everything is strictly on schedule, there will be no bus.

While the woman was calling the village to find out what time the shows usually take place there, I decided to look out of the bus station room just in case the fireman and saw a red bus that was about to leave. Oddly enough, the bus was on the minute according to the schedule that we were told in the morning. I decided to look out for the reason that when we entered the ticket office room, Dasha said that there was a red bus nearby, and when the cashier assured us that there would be no bus and showed information about the village, I saw a photo next to the information the bus is red, and on the morning schedule it was this time that was added with a pen, as if someone knew something.

Dasha and I are always trying to improve this world and the most valuable thing we have to do in this case is to go to the cashier on the way back and tell them to update the schedule, since the bus still runs at this time.

To which the woman thought for a moment and said: “Oh, yes! Today is Sunday, he always goes on Sundays at this time! ". In fact, it is quite possible that there should not be any bus, but this is Asia and everything always adds up here, and the bus just appeared. Although the drive to the village was not long, we only had a couple of hours before closing. Two hours before closing, instead of 4.700 yen, the entrance fee is 4.100 yen ($37).

Edo Mura

First of all, we found a shop and Dasha started a meal, but I went to explore the immediate surroundings. Just then a group of Japanese people was photographed, ideally suited to the photo of my Japanese family. When their photographer finished the photo, I gestured for everyone not to move and gave the girl my camera. We are directly related to them. Satisfied, I returned to Dasha, and when this group of Japanese passed by us, everyone happily said goodbye to me.

Only five minutes in the village, and the locals already know me. The village represents Japan in the Edo period 1603-1868.

There are many fun activities and free shows. First we went into a house where children and adults climbed into a hole in the wall. There was a sign at the entrance that it was not for the faint of heart, you must not be pregnant and must have a healthy heart. We've been tense. But we are brave, after the Chinese death trail we will not be intimidated by some hole in the wall. Forward! It was light there, at first we climbed the stairs, then crawled straight, then to the left, then squatted and left the next door. End!

Yes, the medieval Japanese horrors of modern Europeans will not intimidate. Then a formidable ninja came up and ordered Dasha to hide in a secret wall!

Then we visited a couple of Japanese-style houses and went to the maze! The labyrinth was really funny, sometimes consisting of caves, sometimes wooden. But since the time of the first show was inexorably approaching, we really had a fear of not having time to leave the labyrinth. In addition to the entertainment itself, the village has a really beautiful exterior of the streets and all the buildings. We had to choose between a traditional comedy show and a waterbending show. Of course, we love humor, but we were afraid that we simply would not understand it. Not so strong in Japanese yet. Although Japanese was probably the first language I started to learn in kindergarten, I still remember some fucking and nakakayazabyuka! And for a long time I believed that these are really Japanese words. We went to the magic show. It all looked pretty simple at first.

A very sweet and charismatic Japanese woman was telling us something, then three more Japanese women appeared and began to create water magic. But by the middle of the performance, we were already watching the magic incessantly. Water began to pour from the most unexpected objects, where it seemed that it could not appear at all. And it was really funny in places. We liked. At the entrance we were given small white sheets, they have such a trick with a tip, you have to wrap the change and launch the package at the end of the show onto the stage. There is one minus in this system - the first rows run the risk of catching the bundle in the head. Before the next show, we had another 20 minutes. We ran further to explore the village.

There was simply not enough time catastrophically, literally an hour more. But here, most likely, the problem is that there are only 24 hours in a day, of which at least 6-8 more need to sleep.

How cool it was! Or maybe you need to come back here again? But unfortunately not at all (But there is good news, this is only the beginning of the journey, and Japan promises to be all so interesting.

Japanese trains serve not only as a means of transportation, but also as an excellent resting point. While you are driving, you accumulate strength to continue the journey. Yes, and the head is resting from the constant brainstorming about how to once again transfer somewhere or get somewhere. We are back in Tokyo, in Tokyo at night. Tokyo at night is probably one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Even despite our love for nature, these luminous skyscrapers and banners are one love! It is also convenient to have anime fans among friends. Anton started sending us ideas of what to do in Tokyo based on anime. The message "Visit the maid cafe in Akihabara! "

I didn’t make a route and these words seemed to me a terrible Japanese spell, or at least some very ancient city, where everyone has to go for several days for the sake of the legendary cafe that serves coffee on their heads! But everything turned out to be more accessible and simpler, Akihabara is one of the areas in which many special cafes are concentrated, in which anime girls communicate with visitors and try to cheer them up. We quickly determined which one had the best rating and made plans for the evening. The sights of Tokyo are districts, you return to the city in the evening to just walk along the streets of one of the districts.

Part 2. Admire the green bamboos of Japan

Akihabara in Tokyo

This is our first area of interest, here you can see what modern life looks like in a parallel world for us. In addition to food, skyscrapers and banners, such types of entertainment clearly stand out here: karaoke, Sega game buildings, rooms with machines where something needs to be pulled out, as well as something completely new for us. These are buildings from which very loud music tries to escape through a closed door. Like a musical monster was locked up there. We went inside, saw hundreds of slot machines, all of them had something different and very graphic. Almost all the machines are occupied by the Japanese, each one plays its own music very loudly. But all these machines are united by one mechanism - metal balls, they pour along the edges of the screens.

The player constantly presses a button.

Apparently, the video that is shown on the screen is a mini-roller that has nothing to do with the game, the game itself is the balls that either fall into the pit or do not fall, and the number of balls somehow affects your money. And the saddest thing is that some people in Tokyo just go around pressing the button and chatting with someone on the phone without even watching the game. That is just some kind of endless extraction of money. Photography is not allowed in this bar. There are no windows and of course no clocks. On the walls are signs to the toilet and where you can buy food and water. Everything you need to spend the maximum amount of time here. You are a modern country, you must be above all these casinos, how is it (But, apparently, gambling addiction - a disease of gambling addiction - does not depend on the level of civilization, and there will always be those who want to profit from it. After leaving this institution on the street seems unusually quiet.

Because the ears need time to readjust after a musical explosion.

Music playing in other buildings

We also had a traditional trip to McDonald's. We ordered a Japanese burger. This is a hamburger in which the meat has a pronounced sweet taste of Asia. And that's fine, Coca-Cola, by the way, is not as sweet as ours, and french fries are the most common. But nonetheless. We visited a real Japanese McDonald's. Another cool entertainment is to go to the anime store and admire the figurines. Of course, Japanese figurines did not tell us anything, since we are not very savvy in anime, but their variety is simply impressive.

And the space prices for some of them just told us which ones are more famous and rare. Moreover, the prices in size reached the total budget of our entire trip.

Since we planned a trip to the maid cafe, we needed to have a good meal somewhere. Prices in maid cafes are much higher. In order not to waste time, we ate primordially German shawarma on a Japanese street! Moreover, in Germany this dish seems to be nationalized, but it has its origins from the Turks, sometimes you can even see a sign that this is Turkish shawarma. And here they are already hanging signs that this is a German dish. We decided to compare prices at different maid cafes, and then go to the planned one, so that we know for sure that it is not ten times more expensive than in others.

On the streets of the district, Japanese anime girls lure passers-by and show the menu and rules for visiting the maid cafe. But the problem throughout Japan is that almost all Japanese know English well, only those who work in the field of inviting to restaurants or similar establishments do not know. That is, cashiers, all internal staff, employees of establishments, all are savvy in English.

But until a Japanese graduates from college, his vocabulary is zero. Apparently, in the last year they have express training. At that moment, when you pass by the inviting anime girls, they will invite anyone, they will look anywhere, but not in your direction. So, near one restaurant in Kyoto, the entertainer (or as they are called there) seemed to start talking on the phone when we were approaching. Sometimes the Japanese simply began to look thoughtfully into the distance, as if thinking about the great and beautiful. We approached one of the Japanese women to find out the rules and prices of the maid cafe, I directly felt her fear that a hungry European would now eat her along with the menu.

As a result, we visited the originally conceived institution with the highest rating. Inside we were met by two girls, smiles, joy, greetings. We were led to our table, put on us the ears of a bunny and a bear. They showed us the rules of the cafe - each hour costs 500 yen (4.

Then, the girls held a lottery where they could win some junk) And then one of them started to sing and dance on the stage, and the second, hitting the floor with glowing sticks, began to actively light up near the stage. And this is really cool, such moments are most appreciated later, at such moments a certain business card is assigned to the country, this is something unique that is only here! But in the case of Japan, there are hundreds of these business cards. And the toilets confidently hold the first place. While we were sitting and digesting the impressions of the first day, and they were over the edge, a waiter came up to us and taught us some cute Japanese phrases and gestures at the end of which a heart came out of our hands.

For money, the maid cafe has a number of other entertainments, such as a photo session with the girls, a magical passport that they will make you in case you forget yours, and so on.

The booklets that lie on the tables also explain that many things are given to girls due to the magic that every girl in the maid cafe possesses. The hour flew by like a flash.

Before we left, another company came and we noticed that the Japanese like to wear masks not only on the street, but also indoors. These guys took off their masks just for the photo shoot and put them back on. It's already quite late, you need to move to the hotel. In Japan, there is one drawback - very expensive taxis. To put it mildly, we couldn't afford them. And each procedure of dismantling with landing in the subway can take a lot of time. We determined that with the last of our strength we could reach the hotel on foot. Just 30-40 minutes walk. But it seems like the hotel seemed to us further in the morning. Apparently, the magic of those girls shortened the distance for us.

We walked, and when it seemed that we were already completely offline, and there were minutes left before the hotel, I realized that I had chosen the wrong hotel on the GPS. We had two hotels booked in Tokyo and this is the second hotel we will be staying at on our last day in Japan. Before our current one, you need to go ...the same amount, but there is no metro on this section. But it looks like we have officially set a new record in our travels! The longest and richest day in the history of trips. This is Japan!

Road to Kyoto

Tokyo, you are simply beautiful, we are forced to leave, but not for long, in a few days we will return! We are on the fast train to Kyoto. We fly over dozens of connected cities, Mount Fuji. By the way, Fujifilm film seems to have a name from Mount Fuji.

I'm watching Neighbor Totoro to continue my immersion, and I'm also fulfilling an idea I've had in my head for over six years - I'm listening to a Tokyo Drift song right in Tokyo! But an interesting fact: the anthem of our trip was the introductory song from the intro of the anime "Psycho Pass". Moreover, Dasha from the initial episodes, I have from the episodes of the end of the season. Before the train, we picked up various snacks in the store, including a bottle of coffee. I opened the fridge and reached for a bottle. Instead of cold, the bottle turned out to be warm-hot! They sell teas and coffees in some kind of anti-refrigerators that keep drinks hot. Although you can't tell from the outside. But coffee and tea in such bottles is exclusively without sugar, and sugar is not offered. Now I have half a liter of severely bitter Japanese coffee.

But these are all trifles, a really important moment that influenced the impression of the trip took place right in front of us - there was a girl who was holding something edible, unusual and triangular in her hands. The Japanese woman brings it to her mouth and makes a crispy bite. We don’t know what it is yet, but we already want it, it’s called “onigiri”, this is exactly the gastronomic treasure that is probably sold in all markets, but why haven’t we discovered it yet? Time is running out. If a time machine is ever invented, I will send a message to myself in the past to try onigiri on the first day. Although no, if we had spent an extra minute on the first day buying triangles, we would have missed one of the trains and the bus to Nikko.

Interestingly, buying just one onigiri on the first day would have drastically changed part of the trip.

In general, if a time machine is invented, I will not interfere in the course of events of this trip. And in fact, regarding my life experience, I would most likely not make any attempts to interfere in my past. In general, if a time machine appears, I will only travel forward!

At one of the temples in Kyoto

Since there are very large cities in Japan, most often upon arrival we left our backpacks in the storage rooms, and in the evening we picked them up and went to check into the hotel. This results in significant time savings. One camera is enough for two backpacks. But there were cases when the return to the station was inconvenient, we just took backpacks with us. It is very convenient when there are few things with you, along the route some of the clothes were used and thrown away, and the backpacks themselves are comfortable and small.

By the way, on this trip, a record was also set for the lightness of backpacks relative to the duration of the trip, both backpacks weighed 10 kg in total. Cameras at train stations cost 400 yen ($3.5). Our first stop in Kyoto lasted about half an hour, and we took the train to Inari.

Inari

The place is very promoted, and, accordingly, the prices for food are also here, it is advisable to come to Inari already full) This is one of the places that we had on the “must see” list. We had a bite to eat and went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It is famous for its hundreds of red Torii gates. The first thing that catches your eye is the crowds and even traffic jams of tourists. But there are so many gates that you just need to go to more distant ones and the number of tourists begins to fall heavily. I imagined that there would be such arches for ten, twenty minutes. And it turns out that our route took hours!

You can not rush to take pictures, catching shots without people, by the second hour their number will be reduced to zero. The concentration reached one person for ten minutes. True, there were still two factors, it was already getting dark and it started to rain. And we are not looking for easy ways, so we chose the route uphill. The gates are really impressive both individually and in quantity. At first I realized that they needed to be measured not in tens, but in hundreds, after an hour I was sure that it was easier to count them in thousands, in the third hour I realized that they could hardly be counted at all. Very, very unusual place, and also extremely free.

Usually, the entrances to the temples are paid, and the drive from Kyoto is not far at all, about 20 minutes. In general, a truly unique place on the planet. And most importantly, you can find an arch of your favorite size, there are from tiny souvenir ones to real giants.

The way back turned out to be a little strange, we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up right in the city, although a couple of minutes ago we were on top of the mountain. Well, ok, given the rain, it will be faster. But what is strange is that when we arrived it was still sunny and the birds were chirping on the platform, but now it is dark and rainy, and the birds are chirping again. We began to pay attention and found out that the birds are turned on in all crowded places where you need to go without stopping. But this is our personal observation, maybe the Japanese have their own vision of why they have birds chirping in the speakers. Our friend Anton again sent a recommendation via viber to try traditional meat, which you need to fry yourself in a restaurant. Well, let's follow the menu)

Meanwhile, the rain began to turn apocalyptic. And the idea to get to the hotel by bus, which is covered by our JR Pass, failed, because from that bus you need to walk 20 minutes.

We arrived straight to the hotel and it turned out that restaurants where you need to fry meat yourself simply occupied the area around our hotel. How everything fits together. Either we settled so far from the center (actually very far), or in Kyoto with simpler English, but they couldn’t understand us at all. But at the same time, the restaurant always agreed with us, no matter what we said. The prices seemed a little expensive to us, I still think “It's strange, it seems to be on the outskirts of the city, but such an expensive restaurant”, but in fact, at that time we had not yet seen the prices in similar restaurants in the center. Here, approximately 100 grams of raw meat cost about $11.

But is it really tasty, or is it just the effect when you try to find something special in this meat for $ 11, which fundamentally distinguishes it from all other meats. Japan also ranked first in our ranking for the deliciousness of steamed rice cakes.

No wonder Anton wants to try them so much.

Here they are sold in all 7-Eleven and are simply extraordinarily tasty. They are much better than in all other Asian countries where we have tried. And the assortment of flavors here is pleasantly pleasing, especially with the taste of pizza or “Three Cheeses”. Even then I imagined with horror how I would live without them in Kyiv. But at that moment we had not yet reached those mysterious triangles that the girl ate on the train. It is interesting that sometimes they refused to sell me pies for an unknown reason, probably they meant “There are so few pies in Japan, but you eat them all so big here, leave them to others! ” ". But as I later found out, at the lower levels of the shelves they were still prepared simply, but at the top they were already ready.

To end this gastronomic evening, we bought a bottle of sake from the market.

When buying alcohol, you must be on the screen to confirm your age and that you are aware of the rules for drinking. The taste of sake was a big surprise. Two important points: it is completely different from the one that you can try in our restaurants and this drink is really tasty, nothing to do with the taste of our strong alcoholic drinks. Naturally, we drank a drink in the hotel, as far as we understood, there is nowhere else to drink it. Check-in at this hotel was automatic, by code, but nevertheless, Japan again surprised. In order to receive the code from the box, you must remove the mobile phone from the wall and call one of the programmed numbers. Then the operator will tell you the number of the box and the code from it.

The lack of late reception meant that there was no place to ask for a plug adapter. In Japan, with adapters, it’s not that there is a shortage, they simply aren’t in stores.

Most of the Japanese looked at the photo of the adapter from our plug with great surprise, since they don’t seem to know about the existence of the Soviet standard) In hotels, we were lucky with varying degrees of success. But still, we are engineers, if the ancient people learned how to make fire with a stick, then we now know how to produce electricity using a tee for flat plugs. It was also lucky that the hotel had some kind of mega device that was supposed to provide us with free mobile Internet on the road, but for some reason changed its mind and demanded money. Charging from the device also helped us out at the hotel, as it coincided with our Samsungs.

In general, the journey through the Land of the Rising Sun is already quite difficult, but you always have the opportunity to increase the difficulty level to hardcore - just don't take an adapter from home. It also helped a lot that we had two batteries for the camera with us.

Hold on Andrew, samurai don't cry! It's just yesterday's raindrops on my face. We switched from the bus to the train while we were driving to the desired station, we decided that we were smarter than Google and would get off at a station closer to the temple complexes than the navigator suggested. But Google was right, and we went far beyond the mountains. But the views were beautiful.

We even thought about taking a walk there, but it's definitely not for a week-long trip. I had to go back to Kyoto. Here we were waiting for a real bamboo forest! At first the forest was very crowded and not nearly as dense as I imagined it to be.

Rather, it was thick, but from the number of tourists, not bamboo. But, as with the red gate, you just need to go further. As a result, we saw a real dense bamboo forest, these are places where the sun practically does not pass from the density of trees.

It was in the forests that bordered the territories of the adjacent temples.

There are many temples here and you need to decide in advance which ones you want to visit. Entrance to each temple costs about 600 yen ($5). Between the temples are the most beautiful forest parks with beautiful views with steep cliffs above the river. There was also a boat sailing up the river.

If I were an artist, I would definitely paint a picture here. Unfortunately, the problem with all beautiful views is that no camera will capture their beauty, even on a sunny day. Moreover, there are both paid and free parks, this does not affect the number of people inside. So, wait, today is a working day, where are all those stereotypes that everyone here works from early morning until late at night and practically without holidays?

And you can meet absolutely any age.

Probably, most of them still work, but I can say one thing, a very large part of the Japanese know exactly how to have a good rest, spending time in these beautiful parks. Red maples - this is of course wow! Kyoto also did not lag behind other cities in terms of gastronomy, it was here that we visited the most atmospheric restaurant of our trip - Sabou Sagano.

Here, most of all, we remember the atmosphere that an elderly Japanese hostess created here. The friendliness, the serving of the dish, the feeling that you just stopped by to visit your Japanese grandmother, but the size of the portions is, by itself, “grandmother's”.

Moreover, this is a classic of Japanese table setting, when the dishes are arranged on a tray according to some special feng shui. For dessert, I bought myself a cone of green tea-flavored ice cream, which is sold on every corner here.

Delicious, of course, but obviously not the peak of the country's gastronomy) And we went further to temples and parks. Literally a couple of days before departure, employees at work watched a program that if you settle in some city in Japan, then you will also be paid money. Sergei even then joked, saying that Andrei can drive to Japan? I said in all seriousness, they say, of course, I will definitely go there on the next flight. Just from Kyoto sent him a response video from Japan.

It was necessary to go to one of the following temples by bus, but we decided to walk about forty minutes for a greater immersion in the city. The road was quite unusual, mostly cabbage fields! That is, we walked along summer cottages. It is worth paying tribute to the Japanese scarecrows. They are more like people, in the fields at once with families, and sometimes also with guns!

This temple was unusual in that its entire pedestrian area was in the form of bridges connecting the buildings. It was impossible to enter the ground and gardens of the temple, since all movement takes place either above them or next to them. Even got to the choir of Japanese monks. Of course, we planned to visit more temples from Kyiv, but, as expected, they start to ripple over time)

But they are really wonderful. This is what Kyoto is good for, that the great traveler, weary of contemplation, has a place to rest! You can always go to contemplate the stones in the rock garden! Reviews about the garden are ambiguous, one half of the people do not understand what the meaning is, and the other speaks of the great. But we, like no one else, felt the meaning, we were probably the longest visitors there. The whole secret is to walk through many temples in half a day, overcome the forest and mountains, take just one short break for lunch.

After such a many-kilometer hike, you sit comfortably in this garden opposite the stones and you don’t need or want anything else at all, you just sit and relax! Nowhere else to run! If you come here invigorating, then the real question is what to do with these stones. And so, full zen and appeasement!

People came and went, only we and the stones were eternal. Even on the territory of the complex itself, in which the garden is located, there is a large lake and a rack with a heavy stone, which says “Not for sale”. Apparently they already tried to buy it as a keepsake) While walking along the lake, we met a group of organized tourists with a guide. I always begin to feel pride in our independent routes at such moments.

We rested, you can have a snack and move to the center!

Our anime connoisseur Anton just sent a recommendation to try some wonderful dessert, which was sold right here. An interesting point is that Japan is perhaps the first Asian country in our experience, where really delicious sweets, and not red beans like everywhere else. But these are all trifles, somewhere in this period of time we bought our first onigiri triangles.

At first we could not figure out how to print them correctly, because there is cellophane between the nori sheet and rice, but if everything is done correctly, then you get a stuffed rice triangle in your hands, packed in a nori sheet. Over time, we have perfected the skill of unpacking triangles. That first bite, the crunchy sound of a seaweed sheet, then Japanese rice and stuffing. Why have we never eaten like this before?? ? Why are there no songs and poems about this delicacy?

And the main question is how to try something else now, if it will be difficult to choose between rice cakes and onigiri every time? Here people are coffee-addicted, cigarette-addicted, I have always been glad that I do not have harmful addictions, but here it is worth recognizing. My name is Andrew and I'm an onigiri addict! One such thing in the 7-eleven market costs about 120 yen ($1). For a full meal, you need about three such triangles. There is a fairly large selection of toppings, maybe salmon, shrimp, pork, etc.

From that day on, we always had onigiri with us in reserve, in case there were no restaurants nearby. Now we got on the bus and drove to the very heart of the city. We arrived at one of the popular tourist streets, there are a lot of hieroglyphs in its name, which I could not translate) But the very essence of the street turned out to be that there are solid restaurants for self-cooking meat.

And the prices for meat really inspired horror. We realized how cheap and beautiful it was yesterday where we unfastened just some $ 11.5 per 100 grams. From the street we moved to the center. The centers of Japanese megacities are no less beautiful than all other places, but against the backdrop of temples, everything here seemed too crowded and somehow chaotic. We were moving towards Gion Park, because there should be a famous area with geishas and famous Japanese parties.

We arrived at the park around 18:00. It's not that there were no geishas or festivities in the park, we were the only tourists here. Maybe the wrong park or city? We opened a blog of some traveler who so colorfully described how the tables were bursting from the feast, everyone was clustered together so that the guests could fit at the tables ...We look around - it was empty, it was still not enough for the tumbleweed to roll.

But while we were walking to the park, we really saw girls in kimonos, but how to distinguish which of them is a geisha, and who is just walking in disguise? So, with the evening festivities and the park, something did not go according to plan, but from the blog we found out that there is a rather interesting street here, naturally also consisting of hieroglyphs, but it leads to a fairly well-known temple with a simple name, which is now under repair, though and working. The street turned out to be really very conducive to walking, there are many themed shops, cafes and the like. There was even a store in which Totoro stood at the bus stop.

The store was all in this theme and played music from the cartoon. It seems like there were quite a lot of temples today, but night temples have their own atmosphere. So, let's continue)) It was that temple "under repair", a number of girls sat at a long table and sold tickets, all of them did not know English.

It is worth asking one of them something, the domino principle begins, she looked at the neighbor on the left, she also looked at her neighbor, and so on, when they reached the extreme neighbor.

She began to giggle cutely and that was the end of her English explanations. Okay, I take my words back that the majority here knows English) We tried to find out what else is there on the territory in order to assess whether to pay for the next temple or not, as a result, Dasha and I disagreed, I went to explore the temple , and Dasha remained on the street with shops.

I liked the night temple in the end, but the exit from it turned out to be in a completely different place, but I had to return the same way, otherwise in Japan you can get lost so that we will meet only in Kyiv. For dinner, we decided to look for real Japanese sushi.

That is, in addition to two travel cards, you also need to buy a ticket ...Japan, but how can you understand? Okay, anyway, we drove a considerable part while we figured out the rules of the road. They apologized to the driver for not knowing all the details. The man let us out for free, nodding that everyone here gets into it with travel cards. But they got out not far from a normal restaurant. The order here must be made on the tablet, which is fixed at the table. And on the tablet, you can even choose English. But to choose it, you first need to go through the menu in Japanese, then the English selection of dishes, and then confirming the order and clarifying the ingredients again in pure Japanese. And the saddest thing is that if in the morning you are still full of energy to win the program, then in the evening it finally finishes off. But when our order was brought to us and the taste of cutlets turned out to be just like that of mommy, we forgave them everything.

The most interesting thing is that literally in the very first days, after returning from Japan, thanks to Dasha and me, the lost brand new expensive phone was returned to the owner.

The hotel also had a funny situation, it was necessary to pay the hotel, but in the price list the price for payment was higher than ours in the booking confirmation. When I wrote to the hotel through booking that something was wrong with the price, I received an interesting response from the hotel, so that I could deal with the hotel myself. Some sort of recursion. But booking, as always, is a force, the manager at the reception quickly gave up. The most important argument in such a dispute is the phrase "So let's call the booking and ask. " Most often, this phrase is decisive in disputes with hotels. And to be honest, you can’t call it a dispute, the Japanese are really all such cuties that all conversations with them bring pleasure.

Especially shopping in supermarkets, sellers almost always greet you when you just enter the door, and when you buy, they always say some very long and fast phrase, putting your goods in a bag. It seemed to me that they were saying some kind of saying about each product, such as stacking milk and saying: “To be healthy, drink cow's milk! ". With packages, here is the most incomprehensible thing for us. Any product is packaged and will definitely be placed in a package, and sometimes many products are in one package, and the package is in an even larger package with other similar packages. At the entrance to any park or temple, you will definitely be handed brochures, and sometimes two at a time. Whatever you buy, the amount of garbage grows many times over.

The cities are perfectly clean and not a single trash can! There are practically none at all. And in the toilets there is also a reminder to take all your garbage home with you, except for used toilet paper.

If there is a water machine, then there will be a trash can next to it, but only for water bottles. Sometimes we found trash cans and it was almost the event of the day when you can greatly relieve yourself. But even when finding the trash, the adventures do not end there. Garbage needs to be sorted, there are two tanks in front of you, a bottle is drawn on one, newspapers on the second, and you have a cardboard cup for coffee. And where is it? Once, after a long search, they found a large plastic bucket, obviously under the trash. But they could not open its lid, it seems to have been glued. Another time, I clearly found a garbage container, but why is it perfectly clean and there is nothing there. So the question is - throw your garbage bag there or take a walk with it for a couple more hours? Packages, by the way, are not at all similar to ecological ones. In general, two main questions - why generate so much garbage and where to put it then? )

We checked out of the hotel early in the morning, checked in at the Kyoto main station, and left for Nara. Recently I watched a program where they said that the delay of the train is a whole event for Japan. Either we are lucky for the events, or the author of the video was not in Japan) Trains arrive most often at the appointed time, but ours traveled 55 minutes instead of 45 minutes) This difference may seem insignificant, but when planning the route and transfers, we were very attached to that the trains must arrive on time.

Part 3. Admire ancient Japan

Magome

Nara

And now I will share with you my favorite city in Japan! I actually voted to skip this city on the route, for some reason it did not seem so attractive to me. If it were not on our route, then I would never have known about the next best place in the world.

Nara is a city in which one of the main inhabitants is deer. The city has a very large, just immensely large park area with temples where deer walk. No enclosures, they just live here for one purpose - to be loved. When mankind invents portals, I really hope that there will be at least three of them: Nara, Xi'an and Istanbul. Just a month ago, I could not get enough of visiting Cats Café in Cherkasy. And here deer in unlimited quantities!

To understand the scale, there are really hundreds of them! We arrived at the station and went to tourist information to clarify the route. Although what is there to hide, we went to the tourist information to once again talk with mimic women who work in this area. She asked how we feel about temples? After a positive response, the woman said that we were incredibly lucky, because we arrived at the right place!

And she said it was with such joy that when people win millions on TV shows, the presenters are less happy. There was so much positivity and joy in her voice! During a few minutes of communication with her, we were simply charged with light energy. The woman first laid a route through the best temples, then she clarified whether we were afraid of walking. I redrawn the route, then said that if we also love Japanese gardens, then we need to rebuild the route again. As a result, we had in our hands a map of the city with outlined routes, buildings highlighted and crossed out. As if this is some kind of cunning plan to capture the city)

Japan, thank you for such workers who truly love their profession, and most importantly, other people. Now it was necessary to synchronize the maps on the phone a bit and for this we need a super hotel!

Dasha was very surprised why I needed a super hotel and was even more surprised when she saw the sign “Super Hotel” on the street. I just caught a weak Wi-Fi signal, and I had to find the source, and the signal was called that) Of course, we could turn on the Internet in roaming, but downloading offline maps is expensive in terms of traffic. Let's run to the deer paradise! Deer here could be found for every taste: with spots and without spots, horned and not so, impudent and lazy, hungry and plump, sleeping and invigorating.

In general, the main thing is to decide in advance which type of deer suits you more! And one well-fed deer got into a difficult situation in general, he decided to lie down picturesquely right in the middle of the arch that adorned the road. Accordingly, each passer-by considered it his duty to feed him (a pack of deer cookies costs 200 yen - $ 1.7).

As a result, the deer was too lazy to get up, but every minute he grew fat, and from this it should be even lazier and harder for him to get up.

Now he is doomed all his life to lie and feed himself in a tasty place. The most interesting thing is that we saw the first deer behind a high metal fence, I also thought that they live here in captivity, but it seems that in this way they simply retired from people. And we also found a whole family of relaxing deer in one clearing, I wanted to carefully and quietly get close to them in order to somehow fit into my deer family, but they looked at me somehow condescendingly and with misunderstanding.

In general, the deer did not accept me. We tried to follow a strictly drawn plan for the capture of the city. Further along the way we had two Japanese parks, one expensive and the other free.

Moreover, you first need to go to the free one, and then, in principle, you can not go to the road. We were given such instructions in the information. The entrances to the parks were next to each other, both entrances had seemingly identical ticket offices with prices. Nothing indicated that the park should be free for tourists. But we had a clear intention to go to the one on the right.

We approached the cashier and asked what for what and if it was free, by chance. She asked for our passports, looked at them and said that it was free for us. She also asked me where we found out about this place. Basically a spy game! And it's wonderful, we like such interesting things) At the moment of entering the park, the clouds parted and a bright and warm sun shone, red maples were filled with fire. The picture was the most picturesque, and what else could be more beautiful than a Japanese garden?

The most interesting thing is that in other countries Japanese gardens are completely different from those in Japan. There are, of course, common elements, but, for example, red bridges are a stereotype. Although railings and other red elements are in abundance here. A nice bonus of the park was that from its hills you could see what a paid park looks like, about the same. I would love to describe another story about how we ate deliciously in a restaurant in the middle of the park, but then it would seem that for most of the trip we only did what we ate.

It's just that in Japan every meal is really an original and unique phenomenon. During the meal, there will definitely be something that will make it unforgettable. And most importantly, you can never worry that you are hungry or in a hurry, and you will be served for a long time. In Japan, as in most Asian countries, the speed of serving dishes is maximum.

It is worth noting that Nara was remembered not only by the Deer. Apart from the deer, the temples of Nara were very different from the temples of other cities. Exploring the temples of Nara, we seemed to have rediscovered Japan once again, right during the first trip. Especially worth paying attention to the temple of Todai-ji, with a giant statue of Buddha inside.

The temple is not something that surprised with its size, it struck to the core. Even despite the fact that the temple was fenced around the perimeter, the ticket offices were arranged so that you can see it in full, and then decide whether to go or not. But once you see such a temple, you definitely won’t refuse. The sensations were close to those when we saw the Taj Mahal. Why is this temple not considered a wonder of the world? It's just the most beautiful day!

But, no matter how much you walk around the park and temples, you begin to understand that this day will end anyway and you need to move further along the route. The sun gradually changed to evening. A wave rolled up inside me, similar to the one you experience at the end of a journey, when you need to return home. But this is only the middle, and I don’t want to leave this particular city, this part of an idyll on the globe. In addition to the park, there are still tourist streets on the way to the station, there are many interesting shops and a whole covered bazaar. But it was difficult to part with the deer, so the streets had to be passed in an accelerated mode. Goodbye Nara, I will come back to you, rereading the story again and again!

Now we have to go to a real Japanese village far from civilization. Rather, there are all the amenities, just getting far, and from Kyiv it was not entirely clear how.

But having a ticket for high-speed trains in your hands is not a problem at all, even if you don’t know all the nuances of transfers in advance, they will definitely tell you at the station.

Tsumago

Well, have you charged yourself with a little deer with us? Let's now go to medieval Japan and walk along the path of the feudal lords. Let's hit the road! From Nara, we took the train to Kyoto, picked up our backpacks from the luggage room, and took the train to Nagoya. But for what I additionally love Japan, you can eat deliciously not only in the city, but also on the train))) Almost everyone takes warm food from the shops with them and starts feasting, we were no exception) While we were driving, we were preparing for a real tourist trick . We'll have a 15 minute transfer at the big train station where we'll have to find lockers, check in our backpacks, transfer to the train and travel lighter when we get back to Tokyo and pick them up.

We shifted all the necessary things into a small backpack, then sat and mentally prepared. The difficulty lies precisely in the extremely fast orientation in an unfamiliar place.

Our shinkansen began to slow down, now it will start, we are already at the door. Three, two, one, doors open, go! We need to find workers. When asked where the lockers (luggage rooms) are, the employee replied that we would not be able to hand over things to the lockers today! Just not today! What is it like? ! They are automatic. Okay, let's go look for them. Found. Just one door is open, but on the screen, instead of paying, it glows, something about official terrorism, and about the fact that your things will be confiscated and given to the station administration. It was clear that nothing was clear, but something clearly was not going according to plan. We ran to look for more lockers. And the station is really small. We found more lockers, everything is closed here.

All right, let's run to the first ones, we'll close things, and then let them seize them and give them to the administration, after all, they will be obliged to look after them. But the door refused to close - the system is blocked. In my head they tried again to translate the text about official terrorism and did not understand anything more. We drove to the train until nothing exploded here. We jumped on the train almost at the last moment.

We go further, there are solid questions in my head and there is not a single answer. Let's google what it means. It turns out that four Asian countries have agreed on an anti-terrorist program and are conducting exercises just at the train station in Nagoya and on this very day. We just hit the jackpot. We need to go not to Tsumago, but to Las Vegas! Things had to be handed over exactly at that station, since the further route was one-way, that is, at the end it led to that station, and not where we are going now. Let's urgently rebuild the route.

After all, tomorrow, according to the plan, a nine-kilometer path of feudal lords with an upward slope. We corrected it a little, in principle, everything turns out ok, but somehow it’s not very transparent. However, in Japan everything is not always completely transparent in planning. But in any case, we have travel cards for trains, so wherever we donate things, we can definitely pick them up. We traveled by Japanese standards on a slower train.

The train was apparently an old model, when the train flew into the tunnel, a strong air blow was felt on the windows, eardrums beat in the ears. But it was fun! The train climbed into the mountains, the temperature outside the window dropped more and more. If in the afternoon we had 22, now we are getting closer and closer to zero. We were relatively ready for this. We did not take warm clothes with us, but there were many ordinary and autumn things at the ready. We arrived at the train station in Nagiso. In the dead of night.

We were the only ones at the small station, but out of six lockers, everyone was free. It was necessary to throw three coins of 100 yen and turn the key. Of the six cameras, we made a good choice hitting the jackpot again. It was in this door, as it turned out, that someone had already thrown two hundreds before us, and after we threw the third, the locker closed, released the key and rang coins somewhere inside.

The temperature continued to fall, our task was to walk from Nagiso to Tsumago before the temperature dropped to minus one, otherwise we would have to be completely tight.

It was necessary to go about 3.5 kilometers along deserted streets and past highways. There were no people at all, the clearest stars were overhead. But the very feeling that we are getting through the real Japanese wilderness plays out a sense of pride for us and especially for Dashino's ability to make such unusual routes.

At some point, the crocodile cold began to pierce my legs to the bone. There were still traditional Istanbul warm pants in the backpack, and at that very moment we approached a telephone booth, which was located just between the cities near the highway. Just perfect for dressing up. Most likely, Japan itself has already helped us. Well, at least we adequately estimated the check-in time and warned the owner about the check-in at about 10 pm. When we got to the night Tsumago, we immediately liked it, these old houses and lanterns are magic.

The coordinates of our hotel-lodge on Google turned out to be incorrect. We were able to determine this by the fact that there was no Wi-Fi signal from the house at the specified coordinates with the same name as it was in our booking confirmation. Much respect to the owner, who thoughtfully wrote the password for the Wi-Fi.

In many countries, when you can’t find the owner, then Wi-Fi with a password can really resolve the situation to get in touch. We were able to redefine the location of our house, the error was 200-300 meters. At one point, the necessary Wi-Fi lit up, which means we are definitely nearby. It was exactly 10 pm and it was at this time that the owner decided to look out of his house into the street. When I said that we had come from Nagiso on foot, I saw for the first time how round Japanese eyes look. What is cool about our current home is that it is a real ryokan (traditional Japanese-style hotel), we saw such houses in the cartoon “Spirited Away”, and our ryokan is so original that it does not have heating. In the meantime, the temperature was already sub-zero outside...

Fortunately, in our room, the owner turned on the air conditioners for heating in advance.

The snag was that the owner showed it to us literally 20 minutes ago and went to bed, and we couldn’t find that room point-blank. All attempts to find the lost room have failed.

We seemed to be lost in an old museum. That's all there is. Okay, you'll have to knock on the owner. When the guy went to show the room, we were just curious about where she would end up. As a result, it turned out to be exactly where we thought, but for some reason we looked there three times, but did not find out that this door opens and leads to the shower. Despite the crocodile cold, I managed to raise the air temperature in the shower so that I got an excellent Japanese bath.

We also had triangles with us, which it is desirable to put in the refrigerator at night, but in our case it was enough to put them in the pantry, which was outside the door in the room and hope that they would not turn into ice cubes, like our products in Norway.

In the morning we were waiting for hot toast with jam and peanut butter, as well as coffee with matcha). It was necessary to eat well, because the nearest cafe will be already behind the path of the feudal lords. We had breakfast - you can go on a long journey from Tsumago to Magome! A recommendation for those who plan to repeat the route is to go in the opposite direction, it will be easier, since you will have to go down most of the way. But we are full of enthusiasm and determination.

The road really turned out to be quite picturesque places, and Tsumago himself is generally beyond praise. This is a separate corner of Japan, which is different from the country.

It looks like time stopped here 400 years ago, there are a lot of cool vintage elements.

The feudal lords, of course, knew how to choose picturesque places for their routes, rivers, forests, mountain landscapes are in abundance here). At the entrance to the forest, a hanging bell with a sign was waiting for us, which says that it must be beaten to drive away wild bears.

But the problem is that we couldn't figure out how to use it. Either you need to hit him when you see a bear, and a helicopter with special forces will immediately fly in and save you, or you need to be in it, for prevention. Moreover, if you do not guess at what point exactly they need to be used, then the history of the campaign can have completely different outcomes. And it is unlikely that the bear will then write a story about how he met tourists.

Okay, apparently it is necessary to beat for prevention, I hope we will not raise the alarm for the whole village.

Soon her friends joined her, as a result, a really considerable herd began to gather.

It seems like we are far enough away, and there is a river between us, though not deep. But then for some reason the herd decided to cross the river, and clearly in our direction. Damn it, let's run! I did not want to repeat the Chinese adventures at all. Luckily for us, there were quite a few tourists. I waved my hand to them, which is the monkey on the right. While the man realized what I was showing him, one of the monkeys jumped onto a nearby tree.

The tree turned out to be rotten, and a huge branch flew into the neighboring bushes. Not frightened tourists, this is not something that did not frighten them, but they also stopped to look at the animals up close. Of course, it's only to our advantage. We were able to safely move on.

At the end of the route, we reached the city of Magome.

It is no less thematic than Tsumago, again the desire to take a bunch of photos. It turned out to be very convenient that in this city there is a 7-eleven type market, which means we will not stay hungry. There are also very few buses here, but we arrived exactly at one of them and went back to Nagiso Station to collect our things.

By bus, the path of the feudal lords is much faster than on foot) By Japanese standards, Tokyo is very close here, several hundred kilometers, but getting to it from such a remote place is another task. Getting there took place on three trains for four hours due to the duration of the transfers. But here at least not only the cities were outside the windows. There was such a picturesque river near Nakatsugawa that I even suggested making adjustments to the route and taking a walk there. But there wasn't enough time, unfortunately. I had to move on.

But Nagoya turned out to be a cool metropolis, where we had time to walk for about an hour. We are very lucky that we already have enough travel experience to take the lightest possible backpacks. Since walking with backpacks on the route is a fairly common occurrence, and leaving things in a storage room for less than an hour is not very cost-effective, neither in terms of money, nor in time, so that later you can look for this very camera again. Stations are huge and there may be several luggage storage rooms. It often happened with us that we could not find exactly the one where we left things, we just walked around and showed the workers a ticket, and they already sent us.

Part 4. Enjoying rainy Tokyo

Tokyo again

The trip is gradually coming to an end, and we still haven't tried the most important thing - real Japanese sushi. To do this, we went to the Tsukiji fish market.

Previously, fish was brought here early in the morning, for which there were auctions between restaurants. This is already in the past, but the market has remained an interesting attraction for tourists. There are many fish restaurants where they make sushi. To visit the market, it is best to get off the subway in the Ginza area. This is one of the areas that should be on the list of every tourist. Skyscrapers, shining advertising, pretentious and expensive shops, luxury cars, here you just plunge into the rich life of Japan.

Between the houses from time to time you can find various installations, mini-parks, walking streets and other interesting things. While we are traveling, Japan is already in full swing preparing for the celebration of the new year, although it is only the middle of November. From this, the areas are doubly beautiful, luminous trees and garlands are everywhere.

We are seated at the bar, we are assigned a personal chef, to whom we must place our order. The chef prepares the order right in front of us.

This whole part of the ritual is very warming interest. We put the set on the rack. Now something will happen that I have been waiting for nine years. Dasha and I have a rule how to try such things, the one who tries it first should not give any indication of what dish tastes, so that the second of us can evaluate it as neutrally as possible. So, an expert opinion about Japanese Sushi. I will compare with our “Eurasia” as it is our favorite sushi.

Soy sauce is more salty in Japan.

Serving the dish is more showy in Japan.

Wasabi - located inside the sushi, not served separately, we did not notice a difference in taste.

Amount of fish on land- Japan has more.

Until the last possible check-in time at the hotel, we had a couple more hours, an hour to get there and an hour to take a walk. But the problem is that the districts are quite far from each other, and only getting one way will take 20-30 minutes, and tomorrow it will generally rain until the departure. While Dasha and I were arguing where it would be better for us to go in order to do everything, a Japanese grandmother approached us and asked if we needed help. This, by the way, refers to those moments when in Japan someone will definitely come to the aid of a confused traveler. We explained that we were just trying to plot the best route on the map, but my grandmother decided to take our route into her own hands. “ Did you know that in the high-rise building on your left there is an elevator with free access to the roof-garden? Did not know? Be sure to get up! ". Wow, thanks!

It is interesting that they keep the finished bottles on the table, as a result, at each table it’s like a competition who will drink more alcohol.

Odaiba Island

Weather forecasts in Japan are extremely accurate, and if they promise rain, then you can’t get away from it. Or are you still going? We tried to do one trick, but what if we get up much earlier, right early in the morning, walk the main part of the route before it rains, then walk part of the day during the rain and just go to bed early. When we woke up, it wasn't raining yet, but apparently we were leaving the room so loudly that it woke up the rain. It started raining that day with us( Nevertheless, Tokyo needs to be seen. For starters, we just had a great breakfast at our new favorite cafe. In fact, in Japan, all cafes except one turned out to be our favorite. That one was in Inari, and it seems to me they just forgot to add a pinch of love to the ramen.

Well, maybe you could add some meat. Well, or at least more ingredients. Most likely, non-native Japanese worked there. While the rain was not pouring to the maximum, we went for a walk in the Hamarikyu park.

The rainy park was good enough, but from the outside it might seem that we are just crazy tourists who simply do not believe in the existence of rain, which, mixed with the wind, tried to tear our umbrellas to shreds. We fought both physically and mentally. The park turned out to be large and spacious, which was unusual compared to other small miniature parks in Japan. It is convenient that ferries to Odaiba leave from this park.

When we approached the pier, it turned out that these ferries leave every few hours, and three times a day, and one of these will be in 20 minutes.

The cashier said that we should not suddenly be confused, since five minutes before him there would be another ferry, which was marked on the schedule right at that time, unlike ours. Absolutely all the people that were at the station loaded onto that ferry. And ours is not even on the horizon. Surely it's not ours that just sailed away? The cashier assured me that ours would be here soon. Then he went out to a lonely pier and looked partingly at the floating password, then looked somewhere to the right. And then, out of nowhere, a rather rather big boat sailed especially for us, since there were no more people who wanted to. As a result, for 1400 yen ($12). We got a vip transfer around Tokyo.

There are many interesting places on the island. Probably the most interesting museum of science, we left it for last. We started with the Fuji Film studio.

To be honest, we almost didn’t understand anything from the museum’s installations at all, but we remember the interactive chest on the video screen, which had to be said in Japanese in order for it to open. One man decided to help us, explaining that we just need to say this and pointed to the hieroglyphs. Then I realized that with the knowledge of Japanese writing, we are just as tight as with speech and demonstrated the opening of the chest with the phrase “Aitykorotomashi! ” The chest opened, a funny character appeared there, and then an aunt in a penguin costume sang a children's song, and both the child and the man who stood nearby sang along. The chest closed, the Japanese left. Well! Now you will see Japanese magic! No matter how hard we tried to repeat the phrase, the chest did not give in. I tried with different accents and with Chinese and even with Spanish, nothing at all.

Firstly, because there is no rain here, and secondly, some halls really made us linger.

There are a lot of things about children, so if you are without children, then do not waste time on things that do not arouse wild curiosity in you. Now let's go through something interesting. Robot show. Although the show is positioned as a children's show, there is a real active robot that runs and jumps on one leg while running and plays football and the like. The ability to ride hoverboards, which you need to control ass. From the outside, it seems that someone rode an overly smart toilet. Dasha and I arranged a game of kwacha on these devices. As a result, I did the impossible - I fell along with the hoverboard!

Then there was a zone where a giant planet Earth hung, made up of many video screens, which also turned into a moon while we were there. But the most interesting rooms were the imitation of the Internet and the information storage room. The Internet imitated a device of ten meters by ten and in full human growth with many channels, stations and balls rolling everywhere along the channels. At the first station, you get a mechanical device with eight mechanical memory cells.

Dasha encodes the message

With the help of special stations, it is necessary to translate the Latin letter into the binary system. The binary value is stored by magnets in the mechanical memory. Then you go to the station for sending messages. You choose the addressee, this is one of the other five stations. Accordingly, you get the binary value of the number of this station.

Then you take black and white balls and lay out the station number and the encoded letter, thus imitating zeros and ones. You press the send message button, and your encoding is in the form of balls, in the sequence of which the address is encoded, and the message is rolled in a spiral to the marshalling yard. At this station, the binary code is read and resent to the station you specified in the letter. Then the balls reach the required station, the input filter cuts off the address balls and reads the value that was posted in the message body. Thus, the letter sent by you is displayed at the recipient station. At the same time, many messages fly from different senders along all these paths.

But perhaps the most unusual room is the information room. In front of the hall, you go through registration and a colored ring with handles lights up on the floor around you.

From that moment on, the room follows you and records all your movements and actions. If you approach another participant in the room, then the circles begin to take hold of the handles, if you move away, then they wave to each other. It is necessary to pass about five different stations. At one of the stations they tell you about the importance of anonymous storage of information and that your information belongs only to you and you have the right to dispose of it. On one of the points, you can activate the display of all your steps. A long snake of all your movements in the form of heels will be highlighted throughout the room, which will end on you. At the main station, you can transform all your movements into unique music and decide whether you are ready to reveal the anonymity of this information?

Your music begins to play throughout the hall and rhythms and waves begin to appear on the walls.

A kind of dancing abstraction. Since Dasha revealed her anonymity, her initials shone on the walls while everyone enjoyed another unique musical creation. This hall caused us, probably, the maximum delight. It was very unusual to listen to music silently.

From the small interesting things of the museum, I also liked the real hologram of a small raspberry. The hologram was achieved through an optical illusion. On the pallet lay a very real berry, which was impossible to touch.

Ah, I almost forgot about communicating with a real humanoid robot. While Dasha was anticipating what secrets of the universe she would now learn from the artificial mind, I read in the instructions that behind the artificial mind there should be a live operator, whose speech and head movement will be picked up by the robot. And the second person already has the pleasure of "talking with the robot. "

It turned out quite funny, considering that visitors who did not know about the presence of the operator came up and I started talking to them under the guise of a robot. For some reason, a random man hurried to run away when I started asking him questions.

No matter how good, warm and dry it is in the museum, we need to move on. Again in the rain, again in the fight. We tried to make a trip to the embankment to see the views, but in such weather this idea was a failure and meaningless. Tomorrow, something urgently needs to be dealt with this rain. The next significant tourist spot in our Japanese experience is Shibuya Crossing.

This is probably the most crowded intersection in the world! Every time when a traffic light comes on, so many people cross here that the question never comes out of their heads: “Why do they all need to go somewhere? ” True, due to the rain, there was a feeling that there was a wall against a wall with umbrellas like with weapons.

The intersection itself is littered with an insane amount of video ads and even audio. This place perfectly conveys the atmosphere of Tokyo. This is the only place in all travel where a bunch of people are not annoying. From the crossroads we went towards one of the famous areas - Rapongi.

Honestly, I simply didn’t have the strength to walk with wet feet, but a visit to the Hard Rock Café is a must. Somewhere along the way, we crossed paths with a traveler from New Zealand, the guy clarified if we were looking for someone here by chance with whom we could have a great drink? But, unfortunately for him, we are not on these matters, we are not in Georgia))) I planned to buy a T-shirt in Japanese Hard rock Café as a keepsake. But in Japan there are several of these cafes, and the prices in Rapongi were higher, we decided that tomorrow we will look at another one. On that, they decided, went to the hotel to dry their legs and sleeping bags. From the moisture in my feet, I was afraid that my membranes would grow between my fingers.

Everything is very far away and Google shows buses not in numbers, but only in hieroglyphs. The second no less significant problem is that it’s not that they don’t speak English here, they don’t even know it in tourist information. In any case, it's much better than fighting the elements in Tokyo. Although it's a shame that on this trip we couldn't pay due attention to Tokyo, and it seems that returning to Japan doesn't make much sense. Let's hope that someday there will be an evening at the transplant. Although Dasha lost her scarf, so we will most likely return now. But no, the Japanese woman caught up with us and handed over the find.

Due to the language barrier, we're in for a day of hardcore travel. Not far from the railway station, a chic castle was noted. Unfortunately, it was luxurious a few hundred years ago until it was destroyed. Now archaeologists are excavating there.

But nevertheless, this city became a really significant stop on our route, we saw the life of Japan in a non-tourist city and we really liked it. Firstly, there is a walking street that literally charges you with beauty. Secondly, in this city we went to the Japanese Pacific Ocean. The truth is to go by bus, the number of which you do not know the challenge is still the same. We tried to keep the hieroglyphs in mind and match them with the inscription on the bus.

As a result, the first hieroglyph clearly coincided with the Google map, and at the last second we jumped onto the bus. Apparently, this hieroglyph meant the word "bus". Since it turned out to be absolutely on all other buses. But we understand that we are, after all, in Asia. Here everything is always in favor of tourists. So this bus went exactly where we needed to go. On the embankment, we had to get off near a chic complex with a water park.

When we went out, we found out that it would be chic when it was built, but for now there are bulldozers and workers. But nevertheless, behind the pine groves, a sunny o-e-a-n was waiting for us !! !

And, oddly enough, really quiet. This is the second time we have been to the Pacific Ocean, the last time we saw it from the opposite side, from Peru. Then I was surprised why it was called quiet. The sunny ocean caused a wave of emotions. This is the end of our trip to Japan. The week flew by very quickly, so it’s simply unacceptable to go to Asia for a short time, you need to definitely take at least two weeks for such trips. Although, paying for another week of travel would not be too happy) No matter how harmonious the ocean looks, the marks in the city about where to run in case of a tsunami remind of the danger.

Well, let's start the road home.

One of the tasks that we had to solve was to buy garbage bags to pack backpacks, which, unlike us, would fly to Kyiv. Not that the task was difficult, it is simply not solvable. Try to explain to non-English speaking Japanese who do not litter what a garbage bag is. You can make a whole TV show where participants will be offered a million dollars as a prize if they can buy two things in an hour in another country where they do not speak the same language with them - garbage bags and an adapter from a Ukrainian outlet to an Asian one.

Back in Tokyo, we had a few more hours. It was possible to see something else from the planned. We chose the famous Studio Ghibli clock (where Totoro was made). A chic watch shows a chic show several times a day at certain times.

But not on this gorgeous day, today they were under repair))) The funny thing is that we have already tried several times to adjust the route under these hours, but we didn’t get it, but now we got it. But do miracles happen? Not far from the clock there was a large steam locomotive, which also showed the show on schedule, and just when we were near it, for some reason the show started out of schedule. It was a real parting gift from Japan. Now you can move towards the airport. But first we need to pick up our things from the hotel.

Dasha and I finally decided to do a real travel master class. So that Dasha could still walk around the districts, we split up. We previously agreed on the place and time at which we would meet, agreed on what we would do if we did not meet. I went for things, Dasha stayed in Akihabara.

The whole aerobatics lies in the fact that the metro has dozens of exits and transitions, and finding the same one is a very, very difficult task. While Dasha was walking, I went to hand over umbrellas and pick up backpacks. While walking with backpacks and without umbrellas to the subway, I managed to lose a pillow from my headphones. Now she is forever in the heart of the Ueno district.

At Ueno Station, the plan was to buy a fancy T-shirt from the Hard Rock Shop. And it was on the chic T-shirts of only this store that Hard Rock Eki Ueno was written instead of Hard Rock Tokyo, and then the inscription Tokyo was not so prominent. Uh, and here there is so that without bonus additions in the form of an ani-beni. The girl replied with a smile that such T-shirts that say Hard Rock Tokyo are only in the Raponga area, which I can’t physically reach))) Well, ok, someday I’ll buy myself T-shirts in an even more distant country with hard rock. The time of the meeting turned out to be calculated with an accuracy of two minutes.

When we saw each other at the entrance to the station, we breathed a sigh of relief.

The last time we use travel cards is getting on the monorail. For a week I have already got used to the fact that they are in a separate pocket and every time I deftly take them out, now they will be honorably kept at home as a memory of an unforgettable trip.

Well, let's sum up the journey. It was very eventful, unique in some places. The trip has no direct analogues in our experience, which is really not a small plus. As for prices, many people describe Japan as an expensive country, this is not entirely true. It’s definitely expensive - it’s to buy travel cards, and then you can already walk within the budget. At the top of the memorable things are toilets, the pleasant mentality of the Japanese and of course Nara with their deer. Food and temples here are not the same as in other Asian countries, which is a definite plus. Japan definitely gets one of the highest ratings.

But all this has a downside as well. The complexity of the trip also gets the rating “It was more difficult only in China” If Asia is not yet open, then it’s definitely better to start with easier countries, but if you are a hardened traveler and are ready to accept the challenge, get something new, unusual and complex - Japan is waiting for you !

In a separate story, itinerary and costs around Japan > > > < /a>

Translated automatically from Russian. View original