Miyajima or OMG the deer want to eat me!

These Christmas have been all but boring. Some friends came to visit and so we decided to go on a trip to Honshu, we ended up spending two weeks going from one place to the other, non stop.

We visited this great island called Miyajima, just some 40 minutes away from Hiroshima by train and ferry.

On the ferry towards Miyajima

The island is famous for the big torii in the middle of the water, and I must say it is an impressive torii, but what surprised me the most was not the torii but the DEER!

The deer run around freely and without a worry in the world, just trying to get paper to eat from the visitors. I’m not joking, there is an actual notice saying that the deer eat paper, but it also says you shouldn’t feed them…there is a reason for that.

Deer

So we get to the island and I am all excited about the deer and feeling like one of the girls from the Little house on the prairy…we visit the torii, we go for a walk around the village, looking for our hotel (turns out it was the shittiest hotel in the whole island, but whatever, that is not the point).

More deer doing things

The Torii

Night arrives and we start being a bit worried about all the shops and izakaya being closed, and when I say night I mean something like 6pm! We decide to start looking for a place to eat and on the way to the restauran we find this gift shop and I buy some cookies (really nice btw).

Temple complex at night

After dinner we head back to the hotel and I see a lonely deer, so I take out one cookie and feed it to the animal, when all of a sudden 6 or 7 deer appear out of nowhere! and they all start following me trying to get more cookies. I panic and start running while laughing nervously, of course, they follow. I get on a bench and one of the damn deer bites my leg! Meanwhile, my friends are laughing like mad and taking pics of me. I jump off the bench and run towards a small wall, I get on it and so the deer cannot reach me anymore.

Again the torii surrounded by tourists

When I look around there is a Japanese family laughing and taking pics too….what can I say?

The story was really funny, but at that moment I was seriously scared!

A curious thing about the island, at the entrance of some hotel there are a few aliens…

Aliens in Miyajima?

What!! You are not sleepy??…or Sasaguri trip

I wanted to write about the classes and conferences I have to attend, and how people generally just sleep there while I am left understanding almost nothing, just waiting for it to end, but I was advised not to upload any pictures of that, just in case someone happens to see it and read my opinion on it…

So, instead of that I am going to post some pics from Sasaguri, a very nice place in the prefecture of Fukuoka.

I have visited Sasaguri (篠栗) like four times already, and I am sure I will go back, it is like a magnet to me, for some reason I can’t understand.

Anyway, I don’t want to wrote too much so I’ll just upload a few pics.

This is the entrance, during the summer this short road is surrounded by green-leaved trees, but when fall comes it turns to a beatiful crimson color.

The entrance to the temple complex is lined by a series of stone lanterns

On the other side there are some shops and small restaurants, and sometimes they even set up stands with delicious matcha yaki mochi.

The whole site is surrounded by a magnificent bamboo forest. The views of the forest are just amazing and in my opinion the most beautiful feature of the place.

All around the complex there are bamboo forests

The main attraction of the complex is the giant Buddha. Apparently is the biggest bronze statue of a Buddha in the whole world…that is amazing!

It's very big...

I still prefer the landscape views and the stairs that lead to smaller shrines, and the red torii in the middle of all the summer green.

Leading to a shrine

Obviously I needed to focus a bit better, but in my defense, the camera was not so good and I recently bought a much better one that takes the awesomest pics ever!

Summertime in Tokyo

Summertime, and the living is easy…or so the song goes. Well, in fact summer in Japan is anything but easy, it is so damn hot it makes you wonder if dying is such a bad option.

Aaaaanyway, so it was August and hot and I decided to go pay a visit to my friend Ceren, who was working in Tokyo. I buy a Shinkansen ticket and in four and a half hours I’m in Tokyo!

Here is the thing, Tokyo is a city one has to visit, but I would never ever choose to live there, it is very big and more expensive than most cities in Japan.

Since I don’t plan on criticizing the place, I’ll just start writing about my life as a tourist in Tokyo.

Since Ceren was working, I spent most of the time on my own, walking around the city and visiting everything I could, though, in the end, I didn’t half of what I have planned.

Early morning picture

My hotel was right next to Kaminarimon, this gate enters Nakamisedori, which leads to another door Hozomon, that in its turn, opens the wai to Sensoji.

This is not the Sensoji shrine, but I found the Pagoda way more interesting than the temple itself. To the left Hozomon.

Another of the so famous areas of Tokyo is Ueno park, honestly, one of my favourite places in Tokyo, with all the different temples and shrines, and the zoo, and a totem…

So noone gets lost

After you see the sign, up the stairs, and again, up another set of stairs, and you are on top of it! And ready to see the samurai that took his dog for a walk (and you will also notice that my camera had some seriour issues with the focus, it wasn’t me, no)

and of course you should take your dog for a walk

Since I was in Tokyo, I had to take the change to visit the metropolitan museum and take some pics of my nice Dotaku. Since, everytime I go for a trip I get asked if I visited any museums, this time I simply had to.

and the Metropolitan Museum of Tokyo

I’ve got tons of other pics of my dôtaku, and the shrines and temples, but this is getting boring, even for me, so let’s go to Roppongi and meet the Beckham.

I would simply love it if this wasn’t on purpose….

and old man

And another of the oh-so-famous spots in Tokyo is of course the statue of Hachiko in Shibuya, which is apparently the best place to take a nap!

Fukuoka life

So I was riding from Hakata Station towards Tenjin when I passed through nakagawa bashi, that is the bridge of Nakagawa River, and I decided to stop and take a few pics of a very interesting area of Fukuoka: Nakasu (中洲)

Nakasu is an area of entertainment, basicaly full of host bars, clubs, love hotels, izakaya and yatai!

The yatai are funny food stallswhere you can either sit inside the cart or outside at a table. They turn out to be quite expensive, specially if you decide to go for a few rounds of beer, but all in all they are worth a try. The food they serve usually consists of kushiyaki (meat skewers), tempura, and ramen! Hakata ramen is specially famous, though I think pork stock is just something quite nasty for my palate.

Yatai from Nakasu in preparation