Last Days in Tokyo

I’m home again. My 5.5 week stay in Japan has ended. Let me show you how I spent the last few days.

So I was tehre in Tokyo. I met a lot of interesting people there. I went on a Tsukiji tour with some people from the hostel. Tsukiji is the biggest and most important fish market in Japan and a very busy place, I told about before. Someone I went there together offered me to join her going to Nikko, a place with many temples close the mountains. It was very cold there but such a beautiful place! (first 4pictures). I got to see a famous temple, the TÔSHÔ-GÛ 東照宮, where one can find the grave of Tokugawa Ieyasu. The three apes seen on picture 2 are also quite famous for that place.

The following day I went around Tokyo with a friend and got to go to the Ghibli museum.

Most amazing thing were all the drawings and sketches there! Unfortunately it’s not allowed to take pictures inside the museum… But it was very inspiring, I recommend it to all Ghibli and also Art/Animation Fans!

On Tuesday, January 31st, I had the chance to visit a japanese farm in Ibaraki prefecture, which lays in the north of Tokyo. The one who made Food for us after the Tsukiji tour invited me there to make Miso Paste with him. I really enjoyed it, though it was very cold. It was my first time at a Japanese farm and a completely new experience! I stayed there two days. The first day we steamed the soy beans for over 2 hours (90kg of soybeans I think!!). Because we only arrived there in the afternoon, it was the only thing we did that day. The next day we started to crush the steamed soy beans, mixed it up with salt and fermeted rice. This took a couple of hours, since we had some problems with the machine. Now I have to wait 6 months until the miso paste is done. I’ll try to go back to Japan that time =)

The last couple of days I spent around Tokyo: Akihabara, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku - just doing some shopping and buying souvenirs…. And in the evening partying with people from abroad I met in the Hostel ;D

I really had a good time in Japan. So good, it hurt to go home. It was so different to last time I went there, since I could understand Japanese from the beginning.

I made a lot of new friends and recommend you all, if you have some interest in Japan, go there and experience it yourself! It was a wonderful time. I can’t wait to go back there…