Woche 26 - Nikko, Tochigi, Utsunomiya + Tokio 2.0

After the most chaotic day of my trip so far, I had to mentally collect myself, remember that getting stuck in Japan during the cherry blossom season is actually really cool, tell Esther what was happening on the live ticker, send Hanna a 10-minute memo and teleconference with Mom. After that, things didn't seem so bad at all, apparently I wasn't supposed to leave Japan yet...

Since I had a limited choice of accommodation, I couldn't really choose the next places. One that I had almost booked was gone within hours and I quickly booked it for the following week. First of all, a real stroke of luck. Nikko is about 3 hours from Tokyo by public transport. It is a small village located between the mountains of Nikko National Park and is known for its many onsen. Onsen are the thermal baths of Japan. They don't differ very much from our thermal baths except that they are always separated by gender and you can only enter without swimwear. And of course there is also the visual Japanese touch, which makes the whole thing super cute. In the anteroom you place the obligatory Japanese slippers neatly on the small bamboo shoe rack and lock everything up. My hostel was more of a hotel and had an in-house onsen, for which I only had to pay an extra €1 per day. It was only small but completely served its purpose. One pool inside and one outside with an outside temperature of 0 degrees. Next to the pool there are small showers with stools for taking an ice-cold shower. I think this onsen course revived me on the first evening. Like a newborn, I floated out of there and straight into my bed, one door away. PERFECT!!

The next day I actually wanted to see the famous shrines and temples of Nikko, but when I realized at the train station that I had forgotten my ticket in the hostel and then it started to SNOW, I made a 180 degree turn back in the cozy common room of my hostel. There I booked my onward flight and spent the entire day eating ramen from 7/11. I also have to get over my cold.

My unplanned onward journey to the smaller and, above all, less touristy places in Japan gave me a completely different view of the country. Admittedly, these cities are rightly less touristy, completely normal residential areas, relatively gray and uninteresting. But the interaction with the locals and the normal everyday life of the Japanese comes through much better here, in my opinion. English is really poor and there are no longer English menus in the restaurants here. The friendliness is still outstanding. Due to bad weather and the search for a comfortable place to stay, I had a few Starbucks visits this week. It's so sweet when you come in and all the employees greet you with cheerful shouts. Then someone comes out from behind the counter and gives everyone a card so that they can decide in peace what they want. Then I always order with pointing and in English and always impress with my three Japanese words. Then you stand in the next line and wait for your drink. There, everyone in their turn is happily greeted by the barista with a wave and they check which drink they have ordered and it becomes something along the lines of 'ok, I'll make x drink for you now'. They also come around the counter again and check my receipt. And 'thank you very much' is said about ten times in this process. I love. I'll go there again tomorrow.

But my hostel with only Japanese guests has so many guidelines and rules that you have to be careful every step of the way to make sure it's allowed. I think that's very typical here and the whole thing is monitored by the cameras in the hallways. So you are forced to stick to the rules. And I think the Japanese internalize that very early on. As far as transportation is concerned, there are countless express trains as the IC equivalent, where the next one always looks sleeker than the last. Driving with it always costs around €10 each way. The local trains (Regions) take forever, but only cost €2-3.

Next, the second of my open-jaw flights was brought forward so that the entire flight was completely unusable. So rack your brains again and book a new flight. This time via Kuala Lumpur with an overnight stay, so that no time difference can affect me anymore!

The last day in Tokyo, for which I had finally hoped for cherry blossoms, unfortunately didn't deliver. Due to the cold, the Sakura season has been pushed back a lot this year. It's really not worth planning your trip based on that. Especially because they only bloom for about 5 days! A few trees were already blooming in a park, so I went there and the chaos was indescribable. Well, I had forgotten a bit that it was Sunday, but when I saw that the TICKETS for the PARK were already sold out by 4 p.m., it was definitely too stupid for me. This time I stayed in Asakusa, which is a really cool part of the city, and then I feasted on the street food mile one last time. Tomorrow the long journey to Nepal begins (35 hours in total). BYE JAPAN🇯🇵