De retour dans la vraie vie
Apr. 27th, 2018 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
castalieHello, flist. From Choisy-le-Roi. Definitely less fun than my last post. We came back to France Wednesday, late afternoon. We were knackered. Obviously, the trip back is more exhausting than the initial trip, there's less excitement and just more tiredness due to all the fantastic things one has done. And, omg, we had the time of our lives there. It was amazing.
We stayed five days in Tokyo where we saw all the temples, ate all the food, strolled in a million little streets, went to a real-life traditional Japanese house dating from 1935, had a long stroll at the Ueno parc, visited the Edo-Tokyo museum, had a blast at Shibuya - twice - had fun at an arcade - (those are pure madness, btw. We played the equivalent of Guitar Hero but with taiko so like Taiko Hero?) and finally saw a purikura, went to the Tokyo tower and did so many, many other awesome things.
We then took our first Shinkansen and headed to Osaka for another five days, from there we visited, well, Osaka for a day (another museum, we visited the Castle, strolled around), went to Kyoto twice (oh, how I loved Kyoto! Gorgeous temples again, peaceful and gorgeous areas where you could hear nothing but the soft wind and the sound of water around you, like this mini temple near a tiny waterfall in the wood, or the Philosophy path, where you can stroll down a little canal and browse and have a drink or an ice-cream in the little shops on the side, which we did. Another favourite part, for me, was the Gion neighbourhood, known for still being the Geisha district. It's traditional and absolutely gorgeous. We didn't see any Maiko or Geisha but I absolutely loved the place).
We also spent a day in Nara (there were deers everywhere! Real life deers who were just there, all around... some of them looking quite blasé about the whole human thing, to be honest lol) We took our second Shinkasen to go to Miyajima (it's a smaller island further south, we took a ferry to reach it and passed in front of the Itsukushima shrine "floating" torii, which is in the sea when the tide is high. We went out at night and since the tide was low, we could actually approach it on foot from the island). There, we spent a night in a ryokan, which was beautiful and so different from everything we're used to, and had the most amazing dinner ever, before having an incredible breakfast the morning after.
We were supposed to stay the whole day in Miyajima and climb the mount Misen but it was raining a lot so we decided to change our plan and headed to Hiroshima where we spent our last full day. We saw the Genbaku dome (aka the Atomic Bomb Dome), walked through the parc, saw the Children Peace Monument, the Cenotaph and its eternal flame, and visited the peace memorial museum. It was an extremely moving, very emotional day, visiting Hiroshima is quite an experience... I'm glad we went, I think it was important to make a stop and I'm so glad we decided not to stick with the original plan and go there instead (we should have planned it from the beginning but there you have it). Then it was time to leave for the airport, where we'd decided to book a night in one of their capsule hotels (we wanted to be near the airport since we were leaving early morning on Wednesday). It was a pretty fancy capsule hotel, actually, so even though it was small (it's a cabin with no room except for the bed, basically), it was quite enjoyable (and the facilities were awesome). Then it was off to France.
God, it was so amazing. We loved everything. My mind is still ringing with everything Japanese: konbini, ekiben, donguri, izakaya, ema, omikuji. And the food! Takoyaki, dorayaki, onigiri, okonomiyaki - so I already knew those from restaurant in Paris but there's obviously nothing even remotely similar to having the real deal in the original country :) Although we're lucky enough to have a pretty good Japanese neighbourhood in Paris where you can get those and be pretty close to the real thing.
In short, we want to go back ;) Maybe in three or four years #FingersCrossed We're totally starting a Japan 2nd edition fund as of right now!
I was afraid the jetlag would be awful on the way back but so far so good, we had two good night sleep and although we might be a bit tired during the day, it's nothing too awful. We did spend the whole day on the couch yesterday, though lol I woke up around 6.00AM, had Grantchester on the telly (went back to the pilot), then Cookie started watching with me and before we knew it, we'd watched all of series 1. Then I picked Lost in Space (the latest version) and I think we're on to episode 6. Pretty good binge-watching day, if you ask me. Then this morning I caught up with Deception, which I love more and more, really ♥
As for this afternoon, I have an appointment with an anaesthetist, I'm having minor surgery next week. If you remember the health issues I had last year? It didn't completely go away so I went to see a surgeon and he confirmed that it would be best to have aforementioned surgery. Nothing serious, it's ambulatory (at least, I'm not supposed to spend the night) then I'll have one-week sick leave. Yeah, I'm just back from a two-week vacation and I'm off-work for a whole week after that, great timing!
We stayed five days in Tokyo where we saw all the temples, ate all the food, strolled in a million little streets, went to a real-life traditional Japanese house dating from 1935, had a long stroll at the Ueno parc, visited the Edo-Tokyo museum, had a blast at Shibuya - twice - had fun at an arcade - (those are pure madness, btw. We played the equivalent of Guitar Hero but with taiko so like Taiko Hero?) and finally saw a purikura, went to the Tokyo tower and did so many, many other awesome things.
We then took our first Shinkansen and headed to Osaka for another five days, from there we visited, well, Osaka for a day (another museum, we visited the Castle, strolled around), went to Kyoto twice (oh, how I loved Kyoto! Gorgeous temples again, peaceful and gorgeous areas where you could hear nothing but the soft wind and the sound of water around you, like this mini temple near a tiny waterfall in the wood, or the Philosophy path, where you can stroll down a little canal and browse and have a drink or an ice-cream in the little shops on the side, which we did. Another favourite part, for me, was the Gion neighbourhood, known for still being the Geisha district. It's traditional and absolutely gorgeous. We didn't see any Maiko or Geisha but I absolutely loved the place).
We also spent a day in Nara (there were deers everywhere! Real life deers who were just there, all around... some of them looking quite blasé about the whole human thing, to be honest lol) We took our second Shinkasen to go to Miyajima (it's a smaller island further south, we took a ferry to reach it and passed in front of the Itsukushima shrine "floating" torii, which is in the sea when the tide is high. We went out at night and since the tide was low, we could actually approach it on foot from the island). There, we spent a night in a ryokan, which was beautiful and so different from everything we're used to, and had the most amazing dinner ever, before having an incredible breakfast the morning after.
We were supposed to stay the whole day in Miyajima and climb the mount Misen but it was raining a lot so we decided to change our plan and headed to Hiroshima where we spent our last full day. We saw the Genbaku dome (aka the Atomic Bomb Dome), walked through the parc, saw the Children Peace Monument, the Cenotaph and its eternal flame, and visited the peace memorial museum. It was an extremely moving, very emotional day, visiting Hiroshima is quite an experience... I'm glad we went, I think it was important to make a stop and I'm so glad we decided not to stick with the original plan and go there instead (we should have planned it from the beginning but there you have it). Then it was time to leave for the airport, where we'd decided to book a night in one of their capsule hotels (we wanted to be near the airport since we were leaving early morning on Wednesday). It was a pretty fancy capsule hotel, actually, so even though it was small (it's a cabin with no room except for the bed, basically), it was quite enjoyable (and the facilities were awesome). Then it was off to France.
God, it was so amazing. We loved everything. My mind is still ringing with everything Japanese: konbini, ekiben, donguri, izakaya, ema, omikuji. And the food! Takoyaki, dorayaki, onigiri, okonomiyaki - so I already knew those from restaurant in Paris but there's obviously nothing even remotely similar to having the real deal in the original country :) Although we're lucky enough to have a pretty good Japanese neighbourhood in Paris where you can get those and be pretty close to the real thing.
In short, we want to go back ;) Maybe in three or four years #FingersCrossed We're totally starting a Japan 2nd edition fund as of right now!
I was afraid the jetlag would be awful on the way back but so far so good, we had two good night sleep and although we might be a bit tired during the day, it's nothing too awful. We did spend the whole day on the couch yesterday, though lol I woke up around 6.00AM, had Grantchester on the telly (went back to the pilot), then Cookie started watching with me and before we knew it, we'd watched all of series 1. Then I picked Lost in Space (the latest version) and I think we're on to episode 6. Pretty good binge-watching day, if you ask me. Then this morning I caught up with Deception, which I love more and more, really ♥
As for this afternoon, I have an appointment with an anaesthetist, I'm having minor surgery next week. If you remember the health issues I had last year? It didn't completely go away so I went to see a surgeon and he confirmed that it would be best to have aforementioned surgery. Nothing serious, it's ambulatory (at least, I'm not supposed to spend the night) then I'll have one-week sick leave. Yeah, I'm just back from a two-week vacation and I'm off-work for a whole week after that, great timing!
no subject
Date: 2018-04-28 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-28 07:07 pm (UTC)How did you handle the language barrier?
Pretty good, actually. I'd heard that the Japanese weren't really good at English and, admittedly, many of the people we engaged with had kind of a limited English (and this is not a criticism, the French aren't exactly known for their language skills!) but to be honest, they are so resourceful and helpful that those who don't really speak English well have ways to make themselves understood: for instance, when we got to our hotel in Tokyo, the lady who did the check-in didn't seem to know a lot of English but she didn't even really need to, all the procedure was dealt with digitally. We just had to read the screen and hit the right buttons.
Then there was this other time when we were looking for help at a station, we went to an Information desk, except the lady did not speak English at all (although she understood us), she just took a tablet from under her desk and used GoogleTranslate to answer our questions.
All the restaurants we went to had an English menu and if they didn't? Most of them display plastic replicas of the dishes they serve with the price on each of them (it's actually pretty fun to see) so even if they didn't, you'd basically just have to take a picture of the dish you're interested in and show it to them.
We encountered some people who spoke English well (not that many, though), some who just went by and some who didn't speak English well at all but not once did we not get the answer or the help we needed. Also, we only met lovely people who went our of their ways to help us.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-01 08:15 pm (UTC)I'm amazed you got to experience the sound of water and wind and nothing else, I expected you'd be competing with dozens of other tourists. :O (That's been my disappointment with my holidays abroad lately. I love the sound of natural silence, but can never find it.)
Good luck with the surgery!
no subject
Date: 2018-05-02 06:37 am (UTC)It's telling that the ones I did recognise were mostly food-related. :D
Same thing here lol
I'm amazed you got to experience the sound of water and wind and nothing else, I expected you'd be competing with dozens of other tourists.
Oh, don't get me wrong, most of the time there were so many tourists around! But now and then, you'd find yourself (almost) alone, it really depended on where you were. When we did the canal stroll around Kyoto, for instance, we were basically on our own, there were tourists around but everyone was so spread out that it felt like it was just you :)
The crowd and the agitation, it never really bothers me, tbh. Since I choose popular places to go, I expect to find many people there. Sure, I'd love to experience those gorgeous places differently but it's just not realistic - I'd have to go at a different time in the year, for a start, which I cant. Maybe one day but not now, not with my job. So I just go with the flow (of many people lol).
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2018-05-09 03:38 pm (UTC)I've also been reading your reply to Kimberly's comment about the language barrier. I love how communication still happened, despite the lack of a shared language.
Good luck with the surgery. If you've had it already I hope you're resting comfortably.