Okonomyaki

Okonomyaki is a traditional Japanese dish that is sometimes referred to as Japanese pizza or Japanese pancake. The word actually means "cook what you like". At an okonomiyaki restaurant there is a large frying plate in the middle of the table where everyone cooks his/her own dish.

The meal itself contains your own choice of meat, seafood,  eggs, vegetables and noodles. You mix everything together and start frying it into a pancake like shape.

Thanks to the guidance of Keiko and Magnus we were able to make our dishes look professional in the end. It was a delicious meal, we will be sure to cook it for our friends when we return home.

Hiroshima

We had a great time in Hiroshima both sight seeing and catching up with old friends.

After arriving in Hiroshima we met up with Pär's old university friend Magnus and his family. They took us to a restaurant where we got to try Okonomiyaki (Hiroshima style). In the afternoon that same day we then met up with Erika's old childhood friend Derek and his family. In the evening, Derek took us out for some more traditional Japanese food. This time it was grilled fish skewers and sashimi followed by some bar hopping.

The two most well known tourist sights in Hiroshima are the Miayima island and the atomic bomb museum. The day after we arrived in Hiroshima we spent a full day at Miayima with Magnus as our excellent tour guide.

During our last day in Hiroshima we rented bikes to get around the city. We rode the bikes to the atomic bomb museum. The museum is really interesting and is well worth a visit. Be aware though, during the week there might be hundreds of school children there on a field trip.

Ready to board the next bullet train

Enjoying fish dinner with Derek

Hiroshima peace park

Kyoto (or "How to overdose on temples...")

Kyoto might be Japans most famous tourist sight with its over 2000 temples and shrines. Whenever you see a photo from, read about or hear someone talk about Kyoto it is always about temples and shrines.

Arriving in Kyoto you therefore (at least we did) expect to step out of the train and straight into street after street with only temples and Japanese gardens. Instead you are met by the busy streets and apartment blocks of a city with 1.4 million people. However, once you start exploring the streets you discover temples and shrines almost everywhere. Some very small, tucked in between two concrete buildings from the sixties and some very large with enormous Japanese gardens that go on for acres. Once you enter these gardens it is like the busy city outside ceases to exist (unless you happened to end up in one of the most crowded tourist temples).

We really appreciated this mixture of both modern city and old temples and shrines. It is only possible to take in a certain amount of temples a day and it was nice to be able to escape from it every now and then. For example being able to find a sports bar so Pär could watch the rugby world cup final!

Japanese garden at Nijo-Jo castle

Kinkaku-ji, "the golden temple"

Soba noodles at Japanese table

Nijo-Jo castle, official Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa Shoguns.

The 1000 Torri gates

Issen-Yoshoku

Hakone

The Hakone district is a very popular tourist sight. It has interesting volcanic activity, provides a great view of Mount Fuji and it is also interesting from a historical point of view.

During the Edo era when the capital had been moved from Kyoto to Edo (now Tokyo) Hakone was used as a check point. Everyone traveling between Kyoto and Edo had to pass this check point and identify themselves.

Volcanic activity

View of Mt. Fuji-san



Taking in the nature

Walking among the old cedar trees from the Edo era





Kamakura

We started our visit to Japan by visiting Erika's old host family and friends in Kamakura. Kamakura is a small town so it was a great first stop to use for battling the jet lag. Even though small, the town still offers plenty of historical and cultural sights to visit, the most famous one probably being the great Buddha that was built in the 13th century.

It was so exciting to see old friends and family again. We were well looked after and had a wonderful time. We hope to see you all again!

Daibutsu, the great Buddha

Hase-Dera temple

Paper fortunes

Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu shrine



Hase-Dera temple



Enjoing canned coffee

Laundry

After three days of traveling we had to do laundry for the first time. As we are planning on traveling for about 300 days, continuing at this rate would mean that we would have to do laundry 100 times.

Maybe we should have packed more than 10 kg per person...:-)

Bullet train

Riding Japanese commuter trains in rush hour with a 50 liter backpack is quite a challenge, you do take up quite a bit more space than the average person... This morning we did however not have much of a choice since we had to get to the station to catch the bullet train to Kyoto. Even though we thought we fought the crowd pretty well we sill managed to miss our train by 5 minutes. Luckily there was another train a bit later and we got to experience our first ride on a bullet train (shinkansen).

Shinkansen is Japan's high speed railway network. Its first line opened in 1964 and the trains run at a maximum speed of between 240 and 300 km/h.

Farewell Switzerland

Waiting for the airport train at Stadelhofen

Last dinner in Switzerland had to be a cheese fondue

One last view of the Swiss alps

14 cubic meters (and 2 backpacks)

Before starting our adventures, we stored away all our remaining belongings into our 14 cubic meter storage unit. Towards the end it felt a little bit like playing a game of Jenga or Tetris, but luckily we did not have to make an extra visit to the garbage dump across the street.

In the end, all we were left with were our two 50 L backpacks :-)

Still plenty of room...

...but more things are coming

Starting to fill up

Almost there, only two bikes left

Our new homes

D-Day

So, yesterday we handed over the keys to our appartment and put the last few items in our storage unit... I guess we are now past the point of no return. Today is departure day, our flight for Tokyo leaves in four hours and we are very excited to finally get going!

Our life as it was......

During the next 10 months we will be embarking on new and exciting adventures.
We do however leave Switzerland with mixed emotions, saying goodbye to a beutiful country, wonderful friends and a comfortable home.

One week to go........

We have quit our jobs, cancelled our appartment and bought two 50 L backpacks and a round-the-world-ticket. All of our belongings have either been sold or have been put in a small storage unit in Zurich.

In one week from now we will leave our comfortable lives in Switzerland and head out on a round the world trip for 10 months. First stop will be Japan.

The purpose with this blog is to share our adventures with our family and friends. We hope you enjoy our posts and pictures :-)