Vohveli

Sooooo! Our trip to Japan last year was wonderful. It was the trip of my life, at least. I know we wrote much less about it than we were going to, but the whole time we were there, I really felt more like living it rather than reporting about it. That’s why my photo collection was quite small afterwards… but Pabu took plenty of pictures, enough for us all.

All of us bought a load of souvenirs, really. All the candy has been eaten by now though. Overall, the trip was entirely too short. Two weeks is certainly not enough for anything. I miss Japan.

And that’s why we’re going there again!

I have been talking with Pabu, and we’ve loosely agreed that next year’s Spring would be ideal. During the cherryblossoms.

We’re both of the same mind when it comes to the places we’d like to visit… Travelling around Honshu would be wonderful, as we haven’t seen but a fraction of it, but the other islands, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido, are more than interesting too. Difficult decisions we face.

In Spring 2009, we’re off to Japan for our second visit! 

Konban wa, minnasan! It is now almost ten in the evening, so it should be something like three in the morning in Finland. Were all having so much fun, were so damn lucky. Too bad our trip is almost over, Id want this to go on and on. Ive bought so much candy! We still have much to do though, places to be, people to see and so on. Weve just about bathed every night, either in furo, onsen, or here in a hot bath. I think we all have started to smell funny, you know, our basic scents have changed. LOL. Maybe Im just tired. It gets harder and harder to get up at 7am, since we walk and exercise so much everyday. Ive lost a kilo, and I think Pabu has lost even more… No wonder most of the people here are so thin. The temperature changes quite dramatically at times; at noon it can be scorching hot, then in the evening its too cold to go out without a jacket. Anyway, theres line to the computer, so Ill have to leave now. Baibai!

ch 

Oh. My. Word. Three days. Only three days left. Thats nothing! I have nothing ready! What am I going to do?! ^^ I’ll have to wake up early tomorrow and figure out what I’m going to do.. What I still need to do. We are going to Japan in three days and so! Exciting! So exciting! Surreal!

 -s

Do you guys want a volunteer guide for us? The only costs are our guide’s travel, food, and entry fees. If we’re taking a guide, then should it be in Tokyo, Kyoto, where? If we’re going through with this, we need to hurry! The reservation has to be done as quickly as possible, maybe we should have done it already, so comments please!

-h 

I placed the order for me and saara’s money yesterday, and today they called me. Everythings as it should be, now we just have to pay Forex. We’re picking up the money from the airport.

-h 

Chiisai constructed a new page and it can be found there —————————->
Labeled: Matkasuunnitelma. Check it out. It’s WIP, but we’ll try updating it as much as we can.

 9 days.

 -s

I thought that it would be nice to balance the avalanche information with some personal feelings about the trip every once in a while. ^^ Needless to say that I think about it every day. I’m extatic and stressed and even though there still is 20 days left, it feels like nothing and like I have no time to do anything. There is so much to do before the trip and I probably should have started preparing for it a month ago…

The biggest things that require most money are - of course - clothes (and I really don’t have all that much money to begin with)… I need a good jacket and couple of pairs of jeans and lots of shirts and then I need shoes, maybe two pairs of them.. Heh. I really feel like I don’t have any clothes in my closet, even though it’s full of them. And I’m not a shallow person, but I like to dress smartly and I don’t want to go to Japan or Tokyo, dressed like a ragamuffin (a great word). Maybe I’m making a too big a deal of it. ^^’

Then I need to figure out how I’m going to pack everything, how much money I’ll take with me and how I’ll pack my cosmetics and if I need to buy small containers, because of the aeroplane regulations.. I need to figure out my camera and if I can’t, I’ll need to find a new charger for my precious old one. I need to find out everyone’s adresses and then all the people I’ll bring something back to.. And how much everything is going to weight and stuff and if they’ll let me into the plane at all..

Hehe. Yes, well.. It’s good for me to stress, because that means that I have a fair change to get things done.. Preferably before the last evening before the trip..

I have been preparing for the trip by learning useful sentences in japanese of course. Stuff like ‘do you understand english’ or ‘how much is this’ and ‘where is this or that’… I know how to introduce myself, have small conversations and of course belittle my skills as much as possible. I still need to learn at least the hiragana and to speak and use the numbers fluently.

This trip will definitely be one of the coolest (or possibly the coolest) thing I have ever done and half the time it feels so unreal that I am going to Japan. Of course we always talked about it with Henna, that it would be wonderful, but to be able to go so soon! We are so lucky!

Only 20 days to go. <3

-Saara

Everybody should check out the site for Laatumatkat - they have renewed their site, and I also noticed that the trip that we booked… it’s now only 1420€. ARGGH. Those bastards.

chiisai 

I went and bought the book today! Tokio Passi is now ourssss. I’ve read almost halfway through now and I love it. There was also a recommendation on one of our ryokans, Tokyo’s Homeikan! As soon as I’ve read it, I’ll pass it on to you guys too. ^^

I decided to write something about Takayama while I was at it, to get it out of the way … I don’t remember how many days we are spending there, but I think we shouldn’t plan too much for it. The reason for that of course being the Takayama Matsuri, the huge "party" thats going to be on while we are there! I wrote about the festival earlier and it should be a sight to see in itself.

If we find ourselves bored and with nothing particular to occupy ourselves with however, there should be lots of interesting things to do and see. Like Hakone, Takayama is a place of natural beauty and the enchantment of the town is partly due to the fact that Takayama is a reflection of old Japanese culture. (For what I have understood at least.) There are temples and shrines and old arcithecture, surrounded by nature (nature is a big and widely appereciated part of Japanese culture).

There are lots of interesting things to see that are easily a walking distance away from each other (?) in different parts of the town. There are temples and lots of museums, and if you are interested in hiking there is Mt. Norikura mountain road which consists of 23 ridges, 7 lakes, and 8 plains… I was also interested in Goshikigahara Plateau (a hike through a beautiful forest, which looks really nice in the picture), but to take part in the tours you need to reserve a guide.. Then there is the Ankokuji Temple, which I bet will be very nice and something I’d like to see if we have time…

All mentioned and more can be found here: http://www.hida.jp/english/tourist_information.htm

And maps to the locations here: http://www.hida.jp/english/map.htm

-S