After breakfast in our Japanese Style Hostel Fujitaya we drive to Kyoto station to take the train to Inari. There we walked with many other tourists to the Fushimi Inari-Taisha Shrine. 10’000 Tori’s guide us up to mount Inari. In face of rain we walked the 4km steps up. The higher we go, the less people were there. We walked up through forest, cherry blossoms through all this Tori’s. It was beautyful. This Shrine is one of the oldest in Japan. Back at the train station we went to Nara. Nara was the first capital city of Japan. In the park, messengers of god welcome us. The deer’s were everywhere in the park. After a small shopping tour in Nara we went back to Kyoto in the evening. Unfortunately, we had some troubles with the bus plan and needed some time to find the bus back to our accommodation. We looked for something to have dinner. But late on 9pm it was difficult to find a restaurant which still served food. Tired we gone back to our hostel and slept really well in the traditional futon beds.

The next day we spend in Kyoto. We hoped early in the morning to have less people on the Kiyomizudera Shrine. But all the cars thought the same. But we walked up the old tea street of the temple where we had a fantastic view over Kyoto. The temple is built with wood and it feels to step into the past of Japan. In Eikan-do shrine we had to take of the shoes again and walked through the huge temple site without shoes. Also, the garden was nice and here were less tourists. To enjoy Sakura, we walked from there on the river to the quarter of Gion. The cherry blossoms are beautyful and we were the whole time in it’s magic. On the evening, we had traditional food in Gion. Sukiyaki is with sliced beef and vegetables which we had to cook in a pot together with soy sauce and then we had to tip the meet in a raw egg. It was delicious.

With the Shinkansen, we went back to Tokyo to our hotel in the Shinjuku quarter. After check-in, we drive with the subway to the Tokyo Skytree. We had luck and also that it was nice weather there was less people. With the lift, we gone around 600 meters up. Tokyo Skytree is after Burj Khalifa the second tallest building and the tallest broadcast tower in the world. After we enjoyed a coffee and the view, we drive back to Shinjku. There we were in the Alice in wonderland restaurant where we enjoyed a delicious meal. We walked a few hours in this crazy quarter and was impressed by these many influences.

On my last day in Japan we planned to go to the garden of the imperial palace. Unfortunately, the garden was closed so we walked around the whole garden. We enjoyed again the beauty of Sakura and went to Ginza. After a small shopping tour, there we goes to Shibuja where we had the next shopping tour. For dinner, we enjoyed a Korean Barbecue with delicious meal and walked afterwards again through Shinjuki. Early in the morning I had a train for 1,5 hours to the airport and had to go back 12 hours to Switzerland.

Japan, where tradition meets modernity was a beautyful experience. Unfortunately, I had to less time to see more of this fascinating and beautyful country. It won’t be my last visit in Nippon.

What you have to keep in mind in Japan:

• Really less people can speak english. So, you need to know the sign language
• Don’t fill yourself your drink in
• Name the people with the surname and “San”
• Smoking is only aloud in the market corners
• Order some different food and share it together is normal. Except soups
• Don’t give tip’s. That’s a insult
• It can everything eat without issues. The fish and meat is fish and from high quality