Osaka

Hellloooooo,

And welcome to Osaka! 

THAT is the Glico running man. This sign has been hanging here in various configurations since 1935 and has become a famous landmark of Osaka. To be honest, we kind of stumbled across it while strolling through the city and looking for some food. Even though it was raining that day the city was bustling with people and there were long lines in front of the food places.

Eventually we found a place. We weren't looking for something specific but when we saw that this store had a huge bowl of fried noodles, aka "Yakisoba", we simply didn't have a choice.

Even though it was meant for ten people, the two of us devoured the whole thing. It was delicious, but not an easy feat. 

Osaka really is an awesome place for going out. The little alleyways all have a charm of their own. Just look at this one which was basically located at the doorstep of our hotel.

This alone should be reason enough for a visit but the city has a lot more to offer. If you are into history like myself you will find that this city's past is rich. There is for example Osaka Castle, the seat of power of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the second of the three unifiers of Japan.

He was born as the son of a lowly peasant and worked himself up, as a retainer of Oda Nobunaga (the first of the trio), to be the most powerful warlord in the time of the Warring States, the Sengoku-Jidai (1467-1568). He chose Osaka as his stronghold and built a mighty castle.

From here he completed the unification that his former master started. The castle however was sieged and eventually fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the third and last on this famous list. He brought an end to the seemingly endless state of war and ushered in an age of peace that would last until the middle of the 19th century. After the castle fell to Tokugawa, he ordered it to be repaired and expanded. The version you can see today has not changed much from that time.

I hope you liked my little history lesson. Rest assured it won't be the last. Just as Toyotomi himself, my brother and I used Osaka as a base for further conquests. You can look forward to more posts coming soon!

See you then,

Nils

First time in Tokyo (again)

Yo,

It has been a while, for which I am sorry. In my defense, nothing much has happened here since January. Temperatures have reached the double-digits again and my beloved snow is slowly melting away. It came to pass however that I now HAVE something to report, something incredible: My brother came to visit me!

That is us in front of Tokyo station. It's his first time in Japan, and Asia in general, so it is a lot of fun to show him all the peculiarities of this country. We will be traveling around for three weeks and you can bet I will be updating you along the way. Stay tuned!

We have spent the first few days in Tokyo, arguably the biggest urban area on the planet. It is interesting how a city can be this big but still feel so cramped. To highlight this curious circumstance just have look at a typical alley where we would go for a bite to eat.

At night, Tokyo turns into an entirely different beast. This right here is the famous red light district in Kabukicho in Shinjuku. Cyberpunk vibes.

We inadvertently ended up going to a rather famous market area named "Ameyoko", which was close to our hotel. It follows the suspended train tracks on both sides with passageways and more stores underneath.

Great place for shopping of any kind and various food stalls. Can you guess what you can eat here?

Also close to our hotel was Ueno park, a big park with a zoo, lots of museums and cherry trees. The latter have recently started blooming so everyone is going nuts. Words cannot describe the sheer amount of people that go to this place to see the cherry blossoms. I agree that they are beautiful and all but this is just crazy.

There are of course places that are not as crowded. Their quiet beauty is much more alluring in my opinion.

I was of course playing the tour guide for my brother but I obviously tried to include places I haven't been to myself. One of these was the shrine for emperor Meiji. He is the one who, with foreign "help", seized the power, took over the government and implemented reforms that would incorporate western ideas into Japanese society and culture, and rapidly industrialize the country as well. He is still worshipped for his role in putting Japan on the world map and laying the foundation for what the country is today.

Even though I had already been there many years ago, I simply had to take my brother to Senso-ji again, the massive red temple in Tokyo's Asakusa district. This time around the weather was lovely, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

From there it was not difficult to see Tokyo's tallest building, the Tokyo Skytree, towering 634 meters above the city. And no, nothing in the world will ever get me to go up there.

We are now on our way to Osaka, riding the famous Japanese bullet train. The 500 kilometers will only take us 2.5 hours. Everyone should be jealous of Japan's trains. Before hopping on the train, my brother and I picked up my girlfriend from the airport who just came back from a trip to Germany. I was glad I could meet her after a long time. This is us before parting ways again.

That's it for now. There are plenty of things we want to do while in Osaka so it won't be long before the next post.

See you then!

Nils