Reflections in a Ryokan

With an aching heart and tears in our eyes we started to pack and tidy up our little room in Shibuya in the morning of the 20th.

Not being able to leave Tokyo without saying goodbye to our good friend Kenji, we decided to have lunch together for (probably but hopefully not) the last time.

We'll miss you Kenji! Maybe not as much as you miss your Yayas, but we will :'(.

After saying our farewell wishes we got on our way to Shinagawa, from where our Shinkansen to Kyoto would depart.
The Shinkansen would cover the distance of 510 km to Kyoto in 2 hours 20 minutes, giving it an average speed of 220 km/h and making the commute a pleasent and uncomplicated one. The ride in the Shinkansen was much less spectacular than I had expected, in comparison to the SBB (or the Deutsche Bahn) however, the train's spot-on punctuality and efficiency impressed me nevertheless.

our Shinkansen of the Nozomi Line

We spent our first night in Kyoto in one of Japan's iconic capsule hotels.
Its interior design reminded us strongly of a spacecraft and the constant soaring of the air-conditioning right in front of the capsules just added to the sensation of floating through space in a far away galaxy.

On the next day we went to explore the eastern part of Kyoto (also known as the Kiyomizu-dera Area) with Alessio's parents, who were spending the last few days of their holiday in Kyoto.
The Kiyomizu-dera, from which this area has its name, is an independent Buddhist temple.
It was founded in the early Heian period in 778 and its present buildings were constructed in 1633. What makes the building special is that not a single nail was used in the entire structure!
It takes its name from the waterfall running off the nearby hills. Kiyomizu means clear, or pure water.

the road leading up to Kiyomizu-dera

a Korean tourist group dressed in Kimonos, standing in front of the entrance to the Kiyomizu-dera complex

the Kiyomizu-dera Temple 

- Louis

As for the moment I am thinking back to our last 3 weeks in Tokyo, I am lying on my futon in the room of our Ryokan (traditional Japanese guesthouse), which will be our residence for the next 3 nights.

me in a very pensive mood...

If I had to describe my impressions of Tokyo with 3 words I would go with "overwhelming", "mesmerizing" and "vivid":

Overwhelming because of the city's huge dimension and area (2'188 km2), the millions of people and the huge, dazzling billboards that cover the walls of the skyscrapers in the major districts.

Mesmerizing because of how well organized this gigantic metropolos is: How it manages to shift the millions of people with hardly any incidents, how it is being kept incredibly clean and how everything just seems to be working like a charm.

Mesmerizing because of its humongous scyscrapers and staggering architecture and of course, last but not least, the delicious food.

Vivid because Tokyo never sleeps. There is always something happening, there are always people ambling through the streets at every time of the day (or night). This is especially true for Shibuya, the district our apartment was located at. If you didn't check the time, it was impossible to tell what time it was just by strolling through the streets in Shibuya, simply because there were as many people at 20:00 o' clock as there were at midnight.

We experienced so much in the 3 weeks we were in Tokyo, we went to do many places and tried to see as much as possible of this colossal city, we tried out a large variety of foods (our goal was to never eat in the same restaurant more than once, which we almost achieved) and met great people. The time we stayed in Tokyo was incredibly fun and exciting and the more time I spent in Japan's capital, the more I got accustomed to the life in this megalopolis, the more I could imagine myself living here.

To list all the things we liked about Tokyo would take up too much time, so to conclude this article, I will just mention one of our highlights: The dish "Broiled mackerel" we ate at our last day in a restaurant near our apartment. This simple dish only consisted of the raw mackerel, onions and and an extremely flavourful but unidentifiable, pink vegetable. The fish was brought at the table in its raw form and then got roasted to the table just a little bit by one of the cooks and afterwards sprinkled with a tiny amount of lemon juice. A piece of the now slightly roasted mackerel then had to be dipped into a mixture of soy sauce and extremely spicy Japanese mustard and then be guided towards ones mouth. Doesn't sound that exciting, does it? But be assured, the explosion and sublime interaction of the 4 different tastes mackerel, lemon, soy sauce and mustard creats a satisfaction for ones taste buds that is beyond mankinds imagination. The only way to grasp the pure essence of this most utterly delicate taste, is to try it out for oneself. We both agreed that it was one of the best food we had ever tried.

THE mackerel in its natural, raw, lost and incomplete state

THE mackerel's transformation - can you feel your mouth watering?

THE mackerel after having undergone its final evolution. It has found its calling (on our plate)! Who can still resist the temptation?

- Alessio