thechadude-blog

[thechadude-blog]

Long time no hear guys (^^; Sorry that it took me so long to write this post, but things have been hectic and busy here the last weeks. And yes I arrived safely both in Kanazawa and my dorm ;). Time past by in an blink of an eye and because of all the organisation and orientation at university here nothing really big or interesting happened. I visited almost every thing touristy Kanazawa has to offer and all of it was great! On my first day I went to the Higashichaya, the towns tea city, and walked along Asano river :). I also made a LOT of great new friends from all over the world! Especially with my european friends I did a lot of adventuring. We visited Kenrokuen, one of Japans most famous gardens, Kanazawa castle and the old warrior house district. A lot of fun :D! I also love the campus´ and dorms location on the top of a mountain. A lot of nature and critters (even bears!) but still pretty near to civilisation and a great community of foreign and japanese students. I even managed to get into a course about Ohi-pottery, a pottery school which produces teaware since the 1600s! There certainly is a lot of potential for my research regarding tea with the tea district mentioned above and a lot of traditional crafts related to it that are located here. Let´s see who I’m going to meet and what I’ll experience from now on :). All in all I got used to living in Kanazawa fairly quick thanks to the great people I met until now and my ability to hold at least smaller conversations in japanese. From now on posts will come out a little bit more irregularly, mainly with pictures and just small text, so please be patient and have a look on this site from time to time :). Gunnar

[thechadude-blog]

Hey everyone :) The last 2 1/2 days before arriving here in Kanazawa (horray) I stayed in Fukui, prefecture of the dinosaurs. Sorry for the delay, but I didn’t have proper Internet the last days :(.  To be honest one day more in a quite rural area wasn’t the most productive of things planned but I enjoyed the one day I took myself to just relax in my hotel room and do nothing extraordinary. It was just me, convenience store food, a book, music and the internet all day... So a nice day to digest all the experiences I made over the last days (and I also got to skype with my parents which was nice) :). The next day I grabbed a hold of myself though and made my way to a big highlight  of this whole trip: Eiheiji ! Eiheiji is a temple located deeper in the mountains near Fukui (ca. 40 mins via bus) and one of the main training temples of the Soto school of zen buddhism. The ride there alone was astonishing! Mountains and streams flowing through valleys filled with big ceder trees and small villages, just everything my heart desired <3. When I arrived at the bus station the first thing that greeted my was a big souvenier shop, followed by more of the same kind and hordes of tourist. It wasn´t as bad as some places in Osaka though and the temple itself was quiet and nice. Massive trees and statues of boddhisattva enshrouded by moss and nature greeted me as I walked torwards the entrance of the actual monastery. After I paid the entrance fee and gave my stamp book to the nice people signing it, I started the roundwalk around the buildings.   To wander through these corridors I heard so much about was really wonderous. I could feel all the care the monk-trainees, which were also always present, put into cleaning and maintaining the buildings and floors. The gardens inside the monastery were pretty impressive aswell.  After my visit I took the next bus back to my hotel, where I enjoyed another quiet evening ^^. The next day I again took the express train, but this time to my final destination, Kanazawa! The text about my first days will follow soon, so stay alert ;D. Gunnar  

[thechadude-blog]

Hey everybody! from the 19th until the 21st I did something a bit more adventurous and visited a more rural city at lake Biwa: Hikone! Hikone is an old castle town where the clan of Ii reigned after being gifted with the area by Tokugawa Ieyasu after their support and win at the battle of Sekigahara 1600! Today it´s castle and castle road are the towns main touristic attractions. This time I stayed at a japanese style hotel, a ryokan, where even a kyusu and some tea waited for me to brew! That´s the service the chadude likes. Other than that it was the first time that I´ve got a room for myself, so I could finally relax a little more between and after my visits and strolls. On my evening stroll I even managed to find a teashop here! The owner was really friendly and explained to my how tea originally got to Japan, after I told him about my planned study of the topic. He let me try some of his teas and we ended up chatting for about 1 1/2 hours :D. After I bought 50gr of his Gyokuro Karigane green tea and he invited me to his families main-shop on the castle road I headed back to the ryokan, where I let the evening be. The next day ,after sleeping in, I headed straight to the castle. Even thought it was cloudy the hike up was nice and the sun came out as if it was a reward. The main building was really impressive both on the in- and outside.  It is one of the few castles which wasn´t destroyed after the Meiji restoration and you could see how it must have been walking around in such an bollwerk back in the day (pretty steep stairscases and doors and roofs made for small people like me hehe). The garden I visited afterwards was pretty too, but nothing extraordinary to be honest. Big pond, lot of artisticly treated pines and islands and some flowers, that remained from summer. Afterwards I wandered through the castle road on the quest for something eatable. I found a good noodleshop and ate some great Kamo Udon/ Thick noodles with duck meat and a thick broth. Yumm. Even better was my teatime at the shop I was being invited to the day before! I ordered a matcha-ice-parfait and a japanese black tea, both extraordinary good and soothing after a long noon of walking and hiking. I again chatted with the owner a bit and even got some goodies for free :). My next target was the street where craftsmen worked on butsudan or buddhist home altars. Well...I couldn’t find a single shop and that was where the harsh reality of Japans social problems caught on to me in person. It was the right street, but there were almost no shops (in general) opened and almost all people I met where ca. 50+. It really is shocking if you’re experiencing it first hand... Everything was just so deserted and sad :(. Here I sadly had to realize that neither the big cities, nor the smaller ones will be a nice place to live for me personally. They both just put me in a weirdly bad mood but maybe it’s just the weather or the homesickness striking. Who knows, I’ll gladly let the future change that mindset if it will. After another quiet evening I made my way to Fukui with a faster train, the “Shirasagi”-Line. Because of the weather I quiet enjoyed the landscapes passing by. Let’s see what this city has to offer me :). Gunnar  

[thechadude-blog]

Hey everyone, how´s it going over where you are :D? I’ve spent my last 1 1/2 days in Kyoto, Japans former capital! It was a great trip :). The day I arrived from Nara I kinda felt down and homesick because of bad weather (there was a typhoon that thankfully didn’t catch up on me), me still getting used to travelling and a lack of things to do, before I could check in my hostel, but it all got better in the evening. I was greeted friendly by the owner who also owned the restaurant next door nad was braught to a beautiful japanese-style room I shared with 5 other people that night.  After strolling through the surrounding area and hunting down some shrines I decided to eat at said neighbouring restaurant and hell it was a good decision! I decided to eat some Jingiskan (yes, named after the mongolian warlord) and a pint of Sapporo beer. The dish was great, consisting of a lot of lamb meat, soy sprouts, onions, mushrooms, pumpkin and green pepper grilled right in front of you on a pan, fattened with lamb fat :). After I finished my meal some pretty drunk, but friendly local guys came in and treated me to some sake and whiskey (they actually gave me 5000 Yen [sic] and covered my whole evening with that!). Finished for the day and not unhappy with my choice of location and food, I quickly hopped, in streaming rain which came from the typhoon, from one door to the other and went straight to bed.

The air in the shared room was a bit thick and hot, as you would expect in a room with 6 people, but over all it was a good nights sleep. I skillfully ignored all the noise the other tenants made in the morning and slept till 9:30 o’clock. My body a little under the weather from the alcohol and lack of non-alcoholic drinks craved for something sweet and so I quickly dashed in the next convenience store and got myself a melonpan and a bottle of tea (yeah it’s not the same as a freshly brewed one, but what else to do if you need that caffein and thein). Just after finishing my meal I once again met up with my friend Jason and we started our sightseeing trip. Now I finally felt better being in company of somebody I know and being able to talk and enjoying the day in such a beautiful city! The weather also was in our favour as we made our way to Kinkakuji, the famous golden pavillon. It was an amazing sight, with just a bit too many tourist (even for a monday) and we quickly went on to the next Temple, the Ryoanji. Here stand the world famous rock garden, which I wasn´t able to capture with my smartphone-camera because of a prohibition. It was a tranquil and nice place to wander through. As lunch we had some vegan temple cuisine called Oyudofu or boild tofu, which was very satisfying because of the subtle tastes and the absurd amount of tofu both Jason and I endulged in ^^. Afterwards we made a short stop on our way to the next sight in Gion town were Jason handed out some flyers for his project at a vegan café, where we also had a coffe and chai. The atmosphere was stunning with the Kamo river streaming by. By sundown we made it to the landmark everybody should know from the documentaries: Fushimiinari Taisha, the shrine with thousands of Torii gates! It was more a hike than a sightseeing, but the incoming darkness gave it a special, and slightly creepy atmosphere :D.  Yet another ride with the japanese train to inner Kyoto Jason and I went to end our trip together in the best vegan Restaurantsin the city, Ukishima Garden! The food was extravagant and delicious (so was the wine) and the mood of the place really did fit the warm evening with some Jazz and southern vibes from the interior :). After a long goodbye I parted ways with Jason (see you soon enough my favourite broccoli ;P) and took my bus to my hostel room ^^.   Today I made my way to Hikone. The entry on that will follow the next days.  Have some good ones and think of me while drinking your tea (if you have some) :) Gunnar

[thechadude-blog]

Yesterday and today I explored Nara, Japans first capital, which is home of the famous japanese deer! I visited almost every temple and shrine in the area and they were everywhere! After I stored my suitcase at my Hostel, I went to Kofukuji, one of the first buddhist temples in Japan. It had different halls and a big five-story pagoda which looked especially great at night! Unfortunately the main Hall is being reconstructed at the moment and I couldn’t see it, but from the scale of the site it has to be huge once it has been rebuilt ^^  But the real collossus of a temple was waiting for me today... Even though it was raining all day I had a lot of fun walking to and through Todaiji, the worlds tallest wooden building with the Daibutsu, the worlds biggest bronze statue. It really startled me how big they really were :O Afterwards I visited Kasuga Taisha, a Shinto shrine from the 8th century. The rain really fit the mood and strolling through thick forest. Discovering one tiny shrine after another was really exciting and calming at the same time ^^ Actually, before that I started my Goshuincho, a book to collect stamps and calligraphy from temples and shrines all around Japan. Now I already have 3, from Kofukuji, Todaiji and Kasuga Taisha :) I returened relatively early to the hostel today to write this and have some Nara-style Sushi I bought beforehand. It had an interesting, yet delicous flavour from the Kaki leaves it was wrapped in :)

[thechadude-blog]

Yesterday (and half of the day before) I spent my day in Osaka! First I walked all around town to stay awake and find some nice spots to visit and get something to eat at. I found various shrines and temples I really enjoyed and also the famous Shinsekai-town where I ate the best takoyaki I had until now :) It´s a nice place to dive into if you love 1960s vibes, flashy lights and good food. The next day I met my good friend Jason at Nankai-Nanba-Station and we went sightseeing together with another german girl that stayed in the same hostel as me. (If you’re ever in Osaka and need a nice place to sleep, search for Funtoco Backpackers Nanba. It´s clean, located in a calm area and the owner is a very nice guy too!) We ate some Tsukesoba, went to a café and I got myself a prepaid-simcard for mobile data. After discovering various shopping malls and sights Jason and me went to Ippodo and fetched a vegan dinner. A beer later we went to a small, local bar and called the day quits because Jason had to catch his train back to Kyotanabe :) All in all it was a awesome day and I´m getting more and more used to being in Japan. Especially speaking with the locals and actually understanding most of what they are saying is a rewarding experience ^-^ Today and tomorrow I´m in Nara! Let´s see what there is to explore here :D Gunnar

[thechadude-blog]

大阪に着いた！この1日半は疲れたけど、色々な友達仲できて面白い町も観光できて楽しかった！日本旅行と留学楽しみ‎|•'-'•)و✧

Ich bin sicher in Osaka gelandet! Diese 1 1/2 Tage waren zwar durch Mangel an Schlaf und die Umstellung auf eine Umgebung mit 28 Grad und Luftfeuchtigkeit nahe an der des Amazonas ziemlich anstrengend, aber haben auch durch viele neue Bekanntschaften und eine super interessante Stadt sehr viel Spaß gemacht. Ich freue mich schon auf die nächsten Tage Reise und das anschließende Auslandsjahr ‎|•'-'•)و✧

I arrived in Osaka! These 1 1/2 days were pretty exhausting because I had almost no sleep and had to cope with a hot and humid environment I didn't know. But in the end it was fun nevertheless because I met alot of nice people and explored this interesting city a bit. I'm looking forward to my journey and my exchange year that follows ‎|•'-'•)و✧