let's never come here again because it will never be as much fun.

we've been back in cold, grey germany since wednesday night but we mainly spent the last few days curled up in bed and sleeping. it seems like my body is catching up with the sleep it couldn't get those last few weeks and as for hobbes...well, tigers do sleep all the time anyway, don't they?

it's still 2-3 weeks before university life starts again. everything else is already catching up on me more or less slowly, all those problems i tried to refuse to think about lately, they're all waiting for me now as reality smacks off my rose colored glasses. but for now, crack is wobbling his head happily in front of me and my red panda robot is crawling around in the room. i've got a script to read for a play in november, papers to write and friends to visit. it's gonna be ok.

well, i guess it's time to say goodbye and continue following our own paths again. 600 readers in 2 months, that's really smashing. we hope you enjoyed this travelblog as much as we did, thank you for sticking by.



love & peace,
idilneko & hobbes

spekulatius.

this was definitively the suckiest of sucky journeys home ever: i missed and took wrong trains to the narita airport in the rush hour of crazy tokyo several times with my heavy baggage, arrived late at the airport and this lufthansa-bitch at the check-in made me pay a ridiculous amount of money for my excess baggage, she even billed my hand baggage! wtf!? i was like "yeah i'd love to pay but see, i just set this big pile of money on fire this morning!!" seriously, how can you rip off a poor student like that?! stupid fucktards.

a boring 12-hour-flight later, the first thing i see at the german supermarket at munich airport is sushi. duh. because it's oktoberfest-time in munich, there was an army of drunken germans wearing dirndl and lederhosen at the main station and to crown it all, the train to stuttgart had a delay of 70 minutes. yeah, welcome back to germany.

when i was finally home, everything was so unusually normal. it didn't feel like we've been away for almost 2 months at all.

well, as it's already morning in tokyo time, i should finally get some sleep.

sometimes you have to go halfway around the world to come full circle.

i'm not yet realizing that we're flying back to germany tomorrow. it feels so unreal. my bags are packed but it more feels like tomorrow's gonna be a day just like the last few ones has been: i'd wake up in the morning, get a shower, go to the convini to buy 2 onigiri with grilled salmon and a bottle of pocari sweat, go down to the subway station and eat my breakfast during the 30 minutes ride it takes to get to shibuya/harajuku/shinjuku with the JR yamamoto line. i'd get off and walk around in the streets, visit a shrine here and a temple there and wish i had such a great taste for fashion like most of the girls here in japan have. i'd eat a chicken salad and french fries at mcdonalds and in the afternoon i'd get a chûhai or two, get a bit tipsy and gaze at the skyskrapers and huge advertising screens on the buildings which make my head whirl and laugh at random whacky japanese stuff.

i don't wanna go back. sure, it sounds childish and of course i'm missing my family and friends and stuff but these last weeks have been a nice escape from all the stress and other annoying things that really wore me down the last few months before i left for japan. i'm tired of dealing with moronic chocolate queens and crooked marzipan kings, smart-ass hypocrites stabbing me in the back over and over again. i'm exhausted by wasting my time with those people or other preposterous stuff, i don't wanna do it anymore. this journey made me realize again, that i've got better things to do.

time to wake up.

suntory boss is the boss of them all.

so this was my last day in tokyo, my last day in japan. i tried to make the best of it.

in the morning we first visited the attractions in asakusa which means we first went to the asahi beer building with the huge golden fart flame on top of it and then the kaminarimon (gate to senso-ji), nakamise (street leading to senso-ji) and the senso-ji temple. i didn't know it was the most popular and famous temple which probably explains why it was so crowded there, even on a wednesday morning.

we walked along the kappabashi shopping street and took the train to shibuya at ueno station. i guess shibuya and especially the large intersection at hachiko exit of the shibuya station will never stop to amaze me. when onur first showed me shibuya, we went to this building with the huge advertising screen right in front of the intersection (by the way, in the movie lost in translation it's that screen where charlotte sees the ad with the huge dinosaur). there is a tsutaya (cd/dvd store) and a starbucks on the first floor and from there you have a beautiful view over the crowd. we spent quite some time at tsutaya, listening to japanese punk and hip hop and pop. i was just listening to a cd by 東京事変 (tôkyô jihen, tokyo incidents) and i really liked the music and then suddenly i found out that this is shiina ringo's band! i really like shiina and i liked the songs so i bought the brandnew album "娯楽(バラエティ, variety)".

we walked over to harajuku, bought chûhai and sat at the side of the omotesando avenue, watching people and resting for a while when a really drunken bum showed up and started to bother us. when julian told him to shut up in japanese he got really angry and started insulting us and went away. when he came back later with a new cup of cheap sake in his hand, he had already forgotten everything and started babbling again and we decided to move along. my brother had asked me to buy a tshirt by a certain brand ("bape") and we searched for the shop in takeshita dori for over an hour until we found it by chance. well, at least takeshita dori was really interesting.

afterwards we got a train to shinjuku (it was rush hours btw so it was real fun in the crowded train) but as julian was too tired and went home, i walked through shinjuku alone. i wanted to look for the park hyatt hotel from lost in translation but i terribly lost my way and ended up in the middle of nowhere, went back to shinjuku station by train and went to some gamecenters in kabukicho. that silent hill arcade game was rather boring but i really liked playing tekken 5! *sighs* gonna miss the game centers...

tokyo

tonari no totoro, totoroooo.

one really annoying thing about japan? the lack of garbage cans! and yet, the streets are super clean! it's a fucking mystery.

i'm really exhausted although i slept in late today (well but as i went to bed at 4am and woke up at 10am you can't really say i got much sleep). my feet hurt like hell from all the walking and i got a severe headache.

today ana and me went to shinjuku. we went to the tokyo metropolitan government office in the skyscraper district which has an observatory on the 45th floor. we went to the south tower, the elevator took only 50 seconds for 45 floors! the weather was rather rainy so we couldn't see the fuji-san but the view was breathtaking nevertheless.

in the afternoon we met up with saskia and went to the ghibli museum in mitaka (=am arsch der welt). the exhibition and the museum itself were really lovely, i especially liked the huge furry nekobus (but only children up to 12 years were allowed to play with it, bah!). the museum shop was a bit disappointing though. afterwards we walked through harajuku up to shibuya again and went home. ana had to leave for kyoto and i just wanna get some rest now.

tokyo

harajuku.

i finally got one of those transparent plastic-umbrellas, put on something nice and went to harajuku with ana today. although it was sunday, there weren't as many dressed-up people at the famous bridge of the harajuku station as i'd expected. there were mainly crazy gothics and a few gothic lolitas as well as some crazy guy singing to his cd-player and a very cute boy who was giving out free hugs (more pictures of harajuku fashion here). but if you wanna see people like in the very famous FRUITS magazines, you just gotta walk along the omotesando avenue, i never saw that many trendy people at one place ever! unfortunately it was so crowded, that i couldn't take any pictures except that whacky ojisan you can see on the next picture.

his earrings were actually fish bowls with living goldfish in it! before i went to omotesando, ana and me went to the meiji shrine first because it was near the harajuku station. it was very worth the long walk through the yoyogi park: not only was it beautiful but we also saw a few shintô wedding parties! it must've been very annoying for the bride to be photographed by dozens of tourists at her wedding day but she looked so beautiful in her wedding kimono!

after our visit to the meji shrine, ana left because she wanted to met her friend at the youth hostel so i got myself a chûhai at lawson (convini) and strolled along omotesando avenue. there was a man selling old kimono, obi and other kimono accessories on the street where i bought sashes for a few yen. as i was walking down the avenue, i called my mum and stopped at a corner. while i was talking to her on the phone i noticed that there was a man taking pictures of me. i smiled at him and he continued taking pictures with his big camera and then he was gone. i still don't know what that was about, maybe he thought i was some kind of celebrity or maybe he was just a pervert.

suddenly i spotted a kebab restaurant and as i was already tipsy i went to the guy and asked him if he speaks turkish. he was like "of course, sister!" and gave me turkish cherry juice and we talked in turkish/english/japanese about our lives. as i'm not good at memorizing names, i forgot his but he told me that he's been living in tokyo for 12 years now and that he's planning on opening another restaurant in osaka. i asked him about night life in tokyo and he recommended me roppongi if i don't wanna spent too much money. but then another turkish guy showed up, onur (yeah i remembered his name), and he told me that roppongi sucks and that there's a night club in shibuya i should go to. as he was on his way to shibuya he offered me to show me a around the streets here and as i had no actual plans for the afternoon, i agreed happily. he got us chûhai and told me about why he came to japan, that he's working at a yakiniku restaurant and that he's planning on returning to istanbul and opening a yakiniku restaurant there (damn, what a great idea!). he couldn't speak any english at all so we mainly talked in turkish (as i was drunk it was probably the best turkish i've ever spoken!) and japanese.

we had a great time in shibuya, i was amazed by the large intersection at the shibuya station. onur told me that at around the rush hours, over 5000 people are crossing the streets there at once! we ate a snack at mcdonalds, then went up the love hotel hills and he showed me the club (called "womb") he mentioned. before i went home we exchanged phone numbers because we eventually wanted to meet there in the evening but as the admission was a bit too expensive for julian, him and me decided to visit roppongi in the evening instead. now roppongi really wasn't that spectacular and there were too many gaijins and other strange folks so we walked around for a while, took purikura at a game center and left around midnight. unfortunately the train stopped a few stations before the one we had to get out so we strayed for 1-2 hours along the sumida river till we finally found our youth hostel, ate instant yakisoba at 3am and went to bed.

tokyo, fashion & people

tokyo!

i don't know how how many times we lost our way today and how we actually made it here in the end but we made it! we're in tokyo!

the k's house, our youth hostel, lies in asakusa. our room is pretty small, we barely have space to put our luggage on the floor, but the youth hostel is nice and clean plus we have our own shower/toilet, tv and internet connection in our room. also, there are at least half a dozen convini in this street! (but none of them has momo chûhai, meeh!)

as we're really tired this evening, ana and me just wanted to go to a shabu shabu restaurant near the hostel but couldn't find it so we ended up in a mcdonalds somewhere in asakusa instead. afterwards we decided to make a short trip to akihabara. there were 2-3 teenagers singing around at the akihabara station and we found a game center where we could finally play tekken 5 but apart from that we couldn't find anything interesting (maybe we were just too tired) so we went back again. tomorrow's sunday so we're definitively going to harajuku - looking forward to the crazy fashion styles of the teenagers there!

tokyo, , food

biba osaka!

today i took a break from cultural sightseeing. i bought a few manga at some second hand book store, mostly erika sakurazawa's stuff and attack no1 (/mila superstar) because it was only 150¥! in the afternoon i put them and some other junk in a big cardboard box and sent it off at the post office because my bag is about to explode. guess i'll have to pay for excess luggage this time. damn.

around 6pm julian and me went to osaka for one last time because osaka rocks! kyoto has nice temples and shrines and stuff but apart from that it's a rather boring and dirty city in my opinion. the only bad thing about osaka is the humidity though. fortunately we arrived in the evening so at least it wasn't that hot anymore. we walked around in namba of course and crazy shinsai-bashi-suji for a few hours, drinking chûhai and making purikura and we were lucky enough to get the last train back to kyoto in the end (although spending the night at the osaka park with the bums would've been fun, too).

trips to various places

robots.

we met a chatty obaachan (=grandma) at the sento this evening. when she found out that we understand a little japanese, she just wouldn't stop blabbering. i was too tired and didn't understand most of it but occasional nodding and a "sô desu ka" here and there seemed to satisfy her. she even gave me and ana an o-mamori (amulet)!

ana and me visited the heian shrine this morning. we took the wrong bus and lost our way a few times before we found it and it wasn't really that interesting, also the people there were rather unfriendly. at noon, we ate lunch at an italian restaurant at the main station - real european food for the first time in 6 weeks! after lunch we met with julian and went to Nagoya which takes only half an hour from Kyoto with the hikari shinkansen. we didn't visit anything special there except the spaceship aqua of the oasis 21 complex, just walked around and did some shopping and found a robot museum where we spent about an hour in the museum shop playing with all the fancy robots and toys and i bought myself a robot tshirt and a nohohon zoku.



kyoto

momooooooo.

i bought myself a 400¥ momo (peach) today to cheer me up. the peaches here in japan are huge and really expensive, they usually cost 500-700¥ at the supermarket so i got away really cheap i guess. i'm starting to feel better again. these last few days i really couldn't stand japanese food anymore and felt rather lost and sad and even more exhausted that usual but now i'm getting back on my feet again. only one week left and i should try to make the best of it. like buying overly expensive peaches or a camouflage fan. guess my kali mates are going to go green with envy!

soooo we went to the kiyomizu-dera (temple) today. i was looking forward to that because i enjoyed my trip there in 2003 very much. like the last time, i ate macha icecream, drank from the holy water of the otowa spring and bought chocolate yatsuhashi for my family. we also saw a few maiko walking around today. the temple was very crowded and there was a school class from Nagasaki which obviously had the task to talk to tourists about their home countries and stuff, we were "attacked" by at least 2-3 groups of pupils today but at least we always took funny pictures. we actually also wanted to visit the nijo castle today but as we spent far too much time at the souvenir street leading to the kiyomizu temple, the castle was already closed. we went to the main station instead and saw an amazing cheerleader performance, afterwards walked around at the gion district a bit before we headed home again.

kyoto

deer cookies.

we have really good weather these days. although it's getting quite atsui (hot) here again, the light's good for photography. today i went to Nara together with ana. we got our japan rail passes this morning and took the nara express which only needs 45min there from Kyoto.

we visited the todaiji temple with the huge 大仏 (daibutsu, great buddha). the todaiji itself was really huge and impressive as was the buddha statue. we also walked around in the gardens and the nara park, visited the kofukuji with it's five-story pagoda and saw/fed/pet/were hunted by lots and lots of deer! although it was quite scary when half a dozen deer attacked me at once when i tried to feed one with those deer cookies, i enjoyed it. i was looking forward to this day, finally one of my childhood dreams (petting deer) has come true! :)



nara

save the global warming,

we just came back from the sento. this time i used the sauna (the first time in my life btw) and one of the baths and i'm feeling soooooo relaxed and tired now. i just wanna go to sleep.

i've rather lost my appetite these days because of the cold and the stress and insomnia. i'm feeling exactly like in 2003, craving for sparkling mineral water and european food. ana and me went to starbucks at the kyoto tower today, ate cheese blueberry cake and macha frappucino, one of the yummiest things i've ever drank. alas we don't have that in europe!

today ana and me went to the kinkakuji (golden pavillion) and the ginkakuji (silver pavillion). i had already seen the kingakuji in 2003 and although the ginkakuji itself wasn't as impressive as the kin one, the gin's garden was more beautiful. afterwards we met with the others in the gion district and went to a restaurant. sorry this entry's boring but i'm tired and sulky.

ps: save the global warming? that's actually on a bag of a perfume dajana bought today. ...


kyoto

kyoto.

sorry for not updating properly. i had a bad cold those last few days and i couldn't sleep last night at all. we left Tsu and arrived at the temple in Kyôto yesterday. coincidentally there was a buddhist wedding ceremony that evening and as those are very rare (even in japan) we all went down to watch it but after half an hour i was feeling so bad i left and went to bed. i also missed the noh theater performance this morning because i stayed in bed till 3pm. when i finally could stand up and walk without almost fainting immediately i went to the sento (public bath) right next to the temple (as the temple itself has no showers) which made me feel a bit better.

i don't know, i'm just really really exhausted and confused at the moment. the weather is strange, i've got mosquito bites all over my arms and my neck and back hurts from my heavy luggage i had to drag from Tsu to Kyoto yesterday. i've just watched hard candy with the girls in my room, now we're all lying around reading manga (the temple has hundreds of manga, it's crazy!) before going to sleep.

countdown...

i'm feeling sick and exhausted again. it's really annoying: the days here start off sunny and rather cool but in the afternoon it's raining cats and dogs so i always get soaked on my way home. an umbrella isn't really that helpful so i got myself a raincoat but still got a sore throat.

as ana was a bit sulky today, julian and i took her to that kimono shop after classes where we had bought those cheap yukata, kimono and obi lately and when she got that beautiful white/red kimono with golden embroidery for only 1000¥, she was all happy again.
so today i visited the saty mall, uniqlo and the edobashi (where the lawson plus & the us mart, where we always sang karaoke, are) for a last time. still can't believe we're leaving on saturday. on my way home, i also shouted "sayonara!" to miss kyanya and as i rode past her house quickly because of the rain and i heard her meowing back at me.

i've already started packing as i don't wanna waste my time with that tomorrow and enjoy my last few hours with my host family instead. tomorrow's gonna be busy: first we'll have our presentations in front of the class, after classes we'll go buy the ingredients for the german dishes we have to cook for the sayonara party in the evening. on saturday morning we're leaving for Kyôto then. they said that there's internet at the temple, we'll see.

ps: i still gotta finish monday's entry, sorry about that.

university life

broooooooot.

idil: 0 - weather: 1. yeah, so i finally catched a cold. this morning i felt dizzy and had an headache so i asked my host mum if it is ok to stay at home today. she immediately gave me medicine and sent me to my room where i slept and stayed in bed till 4pm.

a few weeks ago we had met a professor at the university who needed help with the pronounciation of some turkish names for a paper. i told him that i'm turkish and helped him with the names and we incidentally met from time to time on the campus and because his german is really good we chatted a lot and so he invited anastasia and me and our host families over for dinner at his home this evening. i wasn't feeling too well but i went there anyway and it was so worth it! it was a very nice evening with lots of delicious food and laughs and: german bread and salad with balsamico vinegar! ana and me were delighted!

tsu

kimono.

i'm so exhausted. because of the binge yesterday everybody skipped classes today so it was only me (dead tired) and anastasia. it was really stressful and i was royally pissed off at the others for just staying in bed and letting us do all the work.

it's raining again and i got soaked on my way home. i took a hot shower when i arrived but i'm feeling a cold coming up. just watched some drama with my family again while eating matcha cookies.
julian's host mother gave mine a hint today that there's a sale at some second hand shop in the city where you can get yukata at a low price. she took me there and i got 4 yukata, 3 beautiful obi and even 2 kimono (each only 1000¥!) for a total of 5,500¥! one yukata and one obi even was for free. me lucky. me happy gaijin.

on our way home i gave my mum a call and when i put her on speaker, she talked to my host mum which was really cute: "konnichi wa, okâsan!" "konnichi wa, okâsan!" (...) i can't believe i'm already leaving on saturday. it feels like yesterday when i arrived here, putting my clothes in the drawers of my room and feeling rather uncomfortable around my host family. but in the meanwhile i grew fond of them and this house and everything and i'm really sad about leaving this place.

today we also had our last trip where we went to an elementary school which was real fun - japanese kids are just so cute! when we arrived, they were all super excited and cheered and waved at us. first, they were rather shy but soon they started touching our blonde hair and "different" clothes and permanently asked questions and asked for autographs on their exercise books, we felt like damn celebrities! it was exhausting but fun.

i was in a 4th grade class with haichi (a chinese student). we came around lunch time so we ate lunch together with the kids. the way they act with their teachers and their politeness is intriguing, so different from european kids. they all have their tasks, for example a group of pupils handed out the food to everyone, two stood in front of the class before and after lunch and asked everybody to put their hands together and say "itadakimasu" and "gochisôsama deshita" and they all cleaned up their classroom together afterwards. also, the teacher's more acting like a father than a teacher.

after lunch, they had half an hour of free time and we all went to the schoolyard and played basketball together. after that, they had to clean up their classrooms. when the lesson started, haichi and me stood in front of the class and were the sensei (=teachers) and tried to answer their questions. i didn't felt nervous because they were so curious in a nice way. before we had to leave, we all played games together and had to give more autographs or draw pictures for them. one girl wrote me a little farewell letter, how cute is that?

university life