Sept 10th-15th: Last Days

   On Saturday, we do a family trip to Kamakura, souther from Yokohama, a city that was the political and military capital of the country between the end of the 12th century and beginning of the 14th as the siege of the bakufu of the Hōjō clan. Today, the city is mainly the closest beach resort from Tokyo and a religious center: A city of a relative small size which also is a pleasant site seeing destination. We went to two Buddhist temples we weren't during our previous stays and skipped others we already went.

Sept 6th-9th: Kyoto

   Kyoto, established in a large valley in the mid of the inland and designed on the model of the former Chinese capital Chang'an, was the seat of the imperial court from 794 to 1868. The city was named in different ways during its long history, and the current name still means "Capital City" while imperial and political transfer occurred times ago. As a result of its history, the city is built according to feng-shui directions, its streets grid the area north-south and east-west and numerous temples, palaces and sanctuaries are erected. Kyoto is certainly one of the most famous destination for domestic & foreign tourists. Among the high-school students, a day trip to Kyoto is one of their must-do activities.

Sept 1st-5th: Kumano Kodo

   As the typhoon is still approaching and threatening, we also ask to the JR company about traffic shutdown for the next days; indeed they plan to stop activities on the next day. At the hotel, the tenants are definitively discouraging us to try to go in the mountain by such weather. Maybe we'll have to cancel our change our plans. But for this day, we have to visit few places in Shingu and go souther before we go to the mountains.

   On the western edge of the city, against the hills, stands the Kamikura Jingu.

Aug 30th & 31st: Ise trip

   In the evening then, we take the train to Yokohama, and from there the night train up to Nagoya. The night train leave at 11pm, but it is awesome to see how many people are still coming back from work so late, while others are seated powerless and sound asleep on the bank of the platform, defeated by weariness and alcohol. There is also a little group of elderly people waiting for the train; given their clothes and backpacks, they are tourists as well. After a night with very few sleep (not comfortable enough), we arrive at Nagoya at 5.30am, it is already 28C outside.

Aug 27-28-29th : Quiet Week-End

   Once the rain as gone, the heat came back right away (I t has never been cold, but now it is warmer) and I spend the whole night with the fan switch on right over my head. Waiting for my wife to come back, I received a copious breakfast from my mother-in-law and then was seating contemplatively at the 'balcony'.

   On the agenda of today is the announced Family Meeting Lunch ! As the brother-in-law will marry soon, the both families will meet up for the first time.

Aug 25-26th : Going to Nikko

   For our first excursion, we are going to Nikko and the lake Chuzenji, around 130km north from Tokyo. From the old time, this place is a destination for pilgrims and thereafter for tourists (economical pilgrims); placed at the bottom of the mountains, Nikko was a religious center in the 8th century and grew in activity during the 17th century. The shrines and temples site is since a couple of years listed at the UNESCO and is nowadays a popular touristic destination for domestic and foreign tourists. A few kilometers to the east, and around 1.000m higher, the Chuzenji-ko and its surroundings were a sacred placed, taboo for women and commoners, thus reserved for priests and noblemen. The lake itself is filling a former volcano crater that exploded around 20.000 years ago.

Aug 21st-24th : Firsts Days

   For our first morning we woke up early; noise of cars in the street, loud footsteps in the corridor, the heat, jet lag, or a mix of all that... Anyway, the whole family is also awake, and my wife and her father are already discussing the planning of the trip we'll make next week, and since it is vacation, that i have nothing to do, that I cannot really understand what I see and hear on TV, I decide to go for a walk around the block. Until now, I never had the opportunity to do so. Since I'm not allowed to go out with the jinbei (hey, it's a pajama, dude!) I have to borrow a t-shirt from 'onii-san' who hopefully is somehow from the same size as I.

Aug 19th-20th : Departure

   The day to take off for our destination, on Friday 19th August, we wake up relatively early: the first flight is on 11.40 am from Stuttgart to rally the international airport from Frankfort where the next flight for Narita is on 1:40 pm with arrival at 7:40 am next day. Before that day, I monitored during several months that if Lufthansa would propose again ticket for 500€ with the A380 as they did once after they acquired a few of the new born from Airbus - in vain; Boston, Dubai, Shanghai, yes, but not Tokyo... too bad... I buy the tickets for twice the price, and got almost an heart attack when I receive a few weeks later the previously mentioned offer... 'luckily' our travel's dates are not matching with the purchasing conditions. So with the tickets in the pocket, we can already think about vacations.
    As usual, we go to the airport with train from the S-Bahn station down the hill: check-in and control done, we wait at the boarding gate. The adventure is going to start, and not really the way it was planed...

Forewords

   Hello and Welcome on this blog, a transcription of notes taken out during the travel my wife and myself went between Aug-19th and Sept-15th in her homeland, the country the Rising Sun, Nihon Koku, 日本国, more commonly known as Japan.
 
    We had planned to fly over there already last year and the last major earthquake in March made it clear how precious it was to go and meet our remotely located families & friends.

   The intend of this diary was to keep a firmer trace of the memories gathered during this travel and to share with people in a more narrative way the experience of these several days with some anecdotes and few pictures. This transcript is made with the spirit of sharing memories and of contributing to display the irreducible value of differences among cultures.

   The blog will be completed as I will, step by step, sort out the pictures, recollect my notes, re-transcript these, and find few complementary information upon locations visited : please subscribe to the RSS feed to get notified when updates are done.

   Please enjoy the reading and feel free to comment upon stories, we would be delighted to read from you as well.