last of japan

So this is going to be a very brief recap of the past two weeks or so, although as one single blog post it'll probably still be one of the longest ones I've written. I still wanted to write one final one, though, before returning to Finland, because I know I won't have time or energy to go through all the photos from the last weeks after I return - I'll just be recovering from the flight and eating a fuckton of smoothies. I MISS MY BLENDER. But I still wanna show you all the exciting stuff I've been up to after the final exams, so here we go! I was actually thinking of choosing just a single photo for each day of the week, but I don't think I'll be able to do that... Too much cool stuff was seen. Gotta share.

Right after handing in my last essays, I made a date with Miho to go and see Ginkakuji. The name refers to a silver temple, although whereas the golden temple Kinkakuji is actually golden, this one is made of wood. But it was beautiful, nevertheless - especially the sand gardens around it. In Buddhist temples they quite often have these sand sculptures and patterns all around the building, so compared to Shinto shrines, they look pretty ascetic. But that's the whole purpose of it - it's supposed to be an ideal scenery for meditation since there are no distractions around.

So sad we only got to hang out this once before I leave though!

Sand.

Also, rock. Obviously fun-loving people, those Buddhist monks.

The next day we went on a day trip to Uji, which is a town right next to Kyoto (or just a village in Kyoto? I don't know). Uji's very famous for tea, and since I definitely wanted to buy some matcha powder to bring back home with me, why not go and buy it in one of the most significant tea production areas in Japan.

Uji's also very picturesque, so it's a nice destination if you're content with just walking around and taking a bunch of photos. But if you're looking for more action and things to do, you'll probably be bored to death. But for me it was worth seeing, if just for all the matcha stuff and a change to climb Mt. Buttoku. Need I say more?

This is where I bought my matcha - apparently a very old and established shop.

There's no visit to Uji without having some matcha parfait.

Byodoin Temple - probably the biggest tourist attraction around Uji.

And then we visited some other shrines and temples.

Pretty neighborhoods with tanuki (Japanese equivalent for garden gnomes) in basically every garden.

Conquered Mt. Buttoku!

I've also been wanting to go and see Omi Jingu, which is the shrine where they hold the annual karuta tournaments. Also famous from the anime Chihayafuru, which I might've also mentioned earlier. It's only a 10-minute train ride from Kyoto station towards Lake Biwa, located in a small town called Otsu. We accidentally took the wrong train and ended up on the opposite side of the town, so we had a proper walk through Otsu - which, I must say, looked like a pretty shitty place! In a way that's almost fascinating. The architecture was really weird, and clearly influenced by both Japanese and Russian traditions. In addition to that, there were streets with German names and stuff. And it was so quiet, almost like a ghost town.

But Omi Jingu was just as pretty as it had been depicted in the anime. That's where Tenji Tenno is enshrined - he's the guy who wrote the first one of the hyakunin isshu - the tanka poems that are written on karuta cards. There was a tiny museum with a clock related exhibition downstairs, and upstairs all kinds of random stuff, including some of the original rolls for hyakunin isshu! That was probably one of the coolest things for me, personally, since I've been studying the poems for quite a while now.

Otsu.

Of course I also had to go and pray for good karuta skills...

The following day, it was time to take a dip in the onsen in Arashiyama for the last time! Now just so there's no misunderstanding, this was definitely not my last time in an onsen, only this specific one... I counted three times going to Arashiyama onsen, three times to Kurama onsen, once to Arima onsen in Kobe, hopefully still Spa World in Osaka, and countless of times to a nearby sento (public bath). What can I say, I love bathing! And the Japanese sure know how to make it enjoyable.

Also, about the picture below... I'm drinking coffee milk, which is a cold drink that tastes pretty much like really sweet café au lait, and I was told that's something that the Japanese traditionally drink after a bath. And that's probably why there are always vending machines full of the stuff in every onsen or sento I've been to. And this is how you're supposed to drink it, with your hand on your hip, looking as genki as possible. I don't know where that pose originates from, but I would guess a commercial or something.

On Sunday, a week ago, I embarked on my last proper mountain climb, or hike, whatever you wanna call it. I'm gonna go with climb, since that's what it definitely feels like. They do not kid around with the trails here, they just lead pretty much straight to the mountain top, so it's steep uphill most of the time!

This time we conquered Mt. Hiei, which is the second tallest mountain in Kyoto. According to Wikipedia, it's 848.1 meters tall, which is actually less than I imagined it would be... Oh well. It was snowing up there and freezing cold, but so pretty! On top of the mountain, there are a few different temples that together make up a temple complex called Enryaku-ji. This is the home for the Marathon Monks, who wander around the slopes of Hiei in attempt to achieve enlightenment. I didn't see any monks, but the temples sure were impressive. Also because there were no tourists! So that's your prize for sweating for two hours to get to the top - to see grand temples without having to fight your way through the crowds.

Kyoto's down there somewhere...

Alright, so the day after that, it was finally time for our great adventure in Kobe. It's only a one-hour train ride away from Kyoto, but this was the first time I was visiting the town - and I really liked it! It's not nearly as touristy as Kyoto, but had more of a big city feeling to it. Kind of reminded me of Tokyo or Osaka. The downtown area seemed to be excellent for shopping, with huge malls right next to Shinnomiya station. A short walk away from the busiest area, there was a quaint old town kind of area, with narrow streets and this funny European style museum house we also visited. Oh, and a Chinatown, where they were having a fashion show kind of thing going on, with models dressing up in traditional Chinese costumes - I think they were actually introducing some historical characters or something.

Wait... this Louis Vuitton model looks familiar!

Hello, Kobe!

And this random bunny. What are you doing there, dude?

One of our teachers at school was from Kobe, and she was always telling us how Kobe has the best cakes in Japan. So of course I kindly asked my host, Miki, to take me to a bakery café of her recommendation, and it was damn delicious! I had pecan tarte, which I've never actually tried before, I don't know why... So good. Then we took a train a bit farther away from the central area, to Harborland, to see the famous night view that's displayed on every Kobe postcard. That was actually the only thing I knew there was to see in Kobe, so I'm really glad we had Miki to show us around and take us to the best spots - I think it's thanks to her, actually, that I liked Kobe so much, since I didn't have to spend hours and hours getting lost and wondering where I could get a decent meal and stuff.

Just had to include a picture of this - one of the best tonkatsu I've had here, with all those different sauces - one of them you actually got to prepare yourself!

Thanks so much, Miki!

For the last two days it was just me and Maija, and the next day we spent soaking in an onsen called Taiko no Yu in the famous onsen town Arima. It took about an hour to get there by train from our hostel, but it was so worth the travel time. And the train ride was pretty scenic as well! I don't have too many pictures from Arima, though - the main purpose of the trip was to go to the onsen, and for obvious reasons you're not allowed to take photos in there, so you'll just have to rely on my description here. There's this one though, that I took when we were walking from the station to the onsen resort - I think this is where they used to bathe way, way back... This is basically downtown Arima.

So about Taiko no Yu... Simply. Amazing. Arima is famous for that they have two kinds of onsen water; "golden" water, which is actually brown from the iron deposits, and "silver" water, which just looks like normal, clear water, and is actually slightly radioactive! But it's all supposedly very good for various muscle and joint ailments, and they claim that drinking the silver water is good for your stomach. So of course, after all the bathing stuff, we went ahead and got ourselfs these fizzy drinks they were selling at the souvenir shop in the lobby. I don't know about the health benefits, but the taste was pretty nice!

Back to bathing matters, though. So at the reception we got ourselves a pajama kind of thing to wear around the place, since after entering the building, you were pretty much free to roam around, enter the bathing area and come back to the lobby for refreshments (or sleep - they even had a sleeping room!), or go to the food court downstairs for an actual meal. You paid for everything with the bar code on your wristband, and then they billed you at the exit.

The bathing area was huge. They had a couple of these gold and silver baths inside, and a couple more outside. There were all sorts of different saunas, some of them so weird - for example, this one where you laid flat on your back, with only your feet dipped into a gutter kind of pool with hot water. Or this one outside, that was just a stone bench with water streaming down the smooth surface of the stone, so that when you sat on it, your back and ass were all warm with hot water trickling down on it, while all the other parts of your body were freezing since it wasn't a very warm day.

The sauna that I liked the most was, not surprisingly, the Finnish type of a sauna. At first we thought it was just one of those "Finnish" saunas where it's just hot but you don't actually get to throw water on the rocks to get a good steam/heat wave going on. There was just this peculiar cone sticking down from the roof, right on top of the sauna stove, and I was certain it would dispense water at some point, but then we got tired of waiting... But then we went again, and sat on the other side, and I saw that there was something written on the cone. It said ロウリュー, which in romaji is rouryuu, which, I soon realized must be löyly written in Japanese. And for all of you non-Finnish readers, that describes the action of throwing water on the hot rocks, and the consequent steam and heat that follow. Then I went ahead and read the description on the wall, and yes, that's exactly what it was! So this time we waited for the löyly to come. Oh, and next to the sauna, there was also a cold water bath, so that was just a genuine Finnish experience!

I'm sorry for rambling off like that, but that was probably one of the most amazing, if not actually the most amazing place that I've been to in Japan.

On the last day, we took the cable car up to the top of Mt. Rokko, and were planning to look around all the museums and stuff they had up there - but the buses that were running between the different sights around the mountain top ran so poorly and were packed with people, that we pretty soon just gave up and went back down to town to get ourselves some Kobe beef. Before that, though, had another way too delicious piece of cake in this nice restaurant café with a great view.

Is this the Naniwa port where the flower bloomed?

The sensei sure wasn't lying about the cake. Sweet Jesus.

They even brought the trophy to the table when I started taking pictures. Lol.

Phew! That's one hell of a long post. Sorry. I spent an entire day writing that. Well, half the day choosing and editing the photos, but anyway. Also, these are not really the best photos that I have from these adventures, and I'll be sure to post more on Flickr when I get the chance to properly look them through and adjust them to my liking, so that I can present them in a way that I'm actually happy with. But that'll have to wait for a couple of weeks, I think.

I was also thinking of maybe writing one last post after I get back home, just to have a sense of closure - I started this while I was still in Finland, after all, so it would only be fitting to end it there, too. So, until then!