Golden week - part I

May 05

At the end of April / start of May, there is a period called “Golden week”, when a bunch of public holidays come one after the other. This means many Japanese people have longer holidays from work or school and they often use this opportunity to travel or relax.

I used the free week to go see Kyoto, Osaka, Onomichi and Hiroshima together with Mt. This was the most intense week so far. And possibly the most special.

I’m splitting this post in two, since so many things happened during the week. This is the first part. Enjoy! :)

Arriving to the guesthouse

On Monday morning, Mt and I left Tokyo for 大阪 (Osaka). We took the 新幹線 (shinkansen, bullet train), which was a cool experience by itself - moving at 300 km/h without feeling like moving at all. Then, we took some local trains to our first guesthouse - it was situated in a little suburb, roughly an hour away from 大阪 center.

After arriving, we went for a little walk, and in the evening we cooked and ate お好み焼き (okonomiyaki) at the guesthouse with some Japanese people and the other guests.

bikes. — A bike parking place at the station. Perhaps it used to be a casino?

ashtray. — A sign at the smoking area in a park.

chair. — Naturally, there was a massage chair at the guesthouse. Looked kinda hypergalactic, but felt really good.

Bathing in the suburbs

After the dinner, I headed to a nearby 温泉 (onsen, natural baths) with two other guests. The guesthouse owner gave us bikes to get there quicker.

The 温泉 was called “Sauna Kukka” and their logo was a flower. I was surprised to find my language in a tiny suburb.

Turns out that, in addition to the baths, they also had two pretty nice Finnish saunas with Finnish names and explanations for things like “löyly” (yea, they wrote it correctly, great attention to detail). The place cost like 4 euros to enter and it was really amazing - they even had an electric pool.

Mmm, yea that thing. So, we were relaxing in one of the hot pools, when the Polish guy who had been there before asks me to try out this cool thing, with a smirk on their face.

“Yea, yea, just sit right here, by this vent in the wall”. I was expecting it to be like a massaging current, so I moved right in front of it.

BZZZZ AAARGH I DON’T FEEL MY LOWER BACK OR MY LEGS WHAT THE FUCK.

Yea, I kind of jumped away screaming. There was literally an electric current coming from that vent, shocking my entire lower back. In the pool. You know, underwater.

Two Japanese people nearby were politely trying not to laugh at my reaction, but they couldn’t help it. That’s what I get for being amused by foreigners trying ice bathing in Finland. But I have to admit, it was quite funny.

I tried it again, more slowly, and it was actually fairly pleasant, kind of massagy. Still didn’t do it for too long, I like having legs.

onsen. — I couldn't take photos in the 温泉, but here is a cap from their webpage. They had both indoor and outdoor pools with different temperatures. Even a cold pool for dipping in after sauna.

sauna. — And here is how the saunas looked. In the one on the bottom right, you could even heittää löylyä yourself. Very cool, never seen that outside Finland.

Kyoto day

The next day, we visited 京都 (Kyoto). It was roughly a 1.5 h train trip from the guesthouse. I was expecting the city to be really crowded, but outside the most touristic spots it was actually really chill and spacious.

breakfast. — We had breakfast at the guesthouse. Too bad I didn't take more photos inside - it was a really beautiful traditional Japanese house.

Here's the other photo I have, from our room. We slept on a tatami on futons.

architecture. — Just after arriving in Kyoto, we happened by the arts uni. It kind of looked like those 3D renders that the architects use, with people standing around pretending to do things.

After lunch, we headed to this temple. It was a place for sitting in silence and looking at rocks.

ornament. — The house had a lot of fine wooden details and ornaments.

The rock garden. You couldn't walk there, just observe. We sat by it for probably an hour, and the more time I spent looking and listening, the more beautiful I found it. The wind in the colorful trees, the birds singing, the butterflies and flowers, water flowing somewhere. I get why people would choose to stay at such places as monks.

Furthermore, the toilet had funny wooden shoes. That's a thing here, toilets in houses often have toilet slippers that you're supposed to wear while doing your business.

bamboo. — Moving on towards the next destination: the thousand torii gates. It's really touristic, but we took the adventure route™ up the hill, and met almost nobody on the way. And we saw this pretty bamboo forest.

On the way up, we also found hungry dogs. I'm not sure why so many temples have dogs/humans with these eating cloth things. If somebody knows, please let me know in the comments below. And don't forget to subscribe.

tori. — The hill of thousand torii, heading down. Lower, there were a lot of people, but at the top it was pretty empty.

street. — We walked around a bit more, and saw some smaller streets.

river. — Heading to the center for a delicious Indian restaurant, we came by this warning. I found it slightly dramatic...

takase. — ...considering the river looked like this. There was water maybe up to the ankles.

dino. — Want to be the coolest kid in your class?

drawing. — Found this in a little bookshop. I really liked the illustrator's style, especially how they drew darkness here.

Osaka and towards Onomichi

The following morning/noon, we walked a bit in 大阪 (Osaka). We visited a cafe and some second hand stores, and I bought a nice book, but otherwise the center wasn’t that exciting during daytime on a Wednesday.

crepes. — We ate a second breakfast at a cafeteria. I'm fairly sure this banana crepe hadn't heard of veganism. But it was quite delicious.

ducks. — Headquarters of a broadcasting company.

Playground with surprise nazis. Yea I know it's the other way around. But when I first saw this, I had to check. Just in case.

In the afternoon, we took the bus to our next guesthouse in 尾道 (Onomichi). The ride was much cheaper than 新幹線, and still very comfy. From the bus stop, we took a local train to 尾道 station and started walking towards our guesthouse.

It was evening, around 21, and during the walk I had the most Ghiblish moment so far in Japan.

So, 尾道 is a cute seaside village, and the house was halfway up a hill. When we were walking the small streets towards it, a cat appeared in front of us. It started walking some 5 meters in front of us towards the guesthouse and we followed it for quite some time. On these little narrow dimly lit corridors, in the evening. That felt like fantasy.

stop. — The bus made a couple of stops on the way. In the sunset, even parking lots look pretty.

cat. — There were so many stray cats in 尾道. The locals seemed to take care of them.

In the guesthouse, we were greeted by the owner, who spoke a mixture of Japanese and English. They were super nice and the house was really pretty. I was showing them and a Japanese guest photos from Finland, since they were interested. But I was also quite tired from the traveling, and went to bed quite early.

This is the end of the first part. But what else is in Onomichi? What are the cat stones? How was the overgrown graveyard on the island? Did I ring the bell on top of that mountain I clamb? And what about Hiroshima and the okonomiyaki there?

Find out in the next episode of Golden week!