Japan-02 (Kyoto and Tokyo)

After Tokyo, it's time to talk about Kyoto. Kyoto is a nice town. Is not as big, modern or active as Tokyo, but it is much more beautiful. You can find some kind of temple or shrine around every corner, and it also has a lot of traditional culture (such as tea ceremonies) and places.
I travelled to Kyoto from Tokyo on the 29th of January using the bullet train, a very fast and easy way of travelling.
Some of the most famous temples and shrines i visited were Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavillion (its name comes from a golden structure it has), Ryoan-ji (which has a famous Zen stone garden), and Fushima Inari-taishi (which has long rows of torii, making it quite labyrinth-like). I also visited the famous Gion districts, a Geisha district (unfortunately I didn't manage to see one there), which also has a lot of shrines and temples, one of which held a festival where I saw dancing Maiko (Geisha apprentices), and managed to get some soy beans they were throwing at the audience.

The Golden Pavillion, Kinkaku-ji

The stone garden in  Ryoan-ji

Torii-row at Fushima Inari-Taishi

Maiko (on the left, with white faces) at the festival ceremony

Street in Gion

In order to immerse myself in the Japanese culture, I ate the delicious food (some of which I had never heard of before, such as horse sashimi), had some samurai lessons, learned to play Go, and went to an onsen (hot spring) at Kurama, a village next to Kyoto.

Horse sashimi

Kurama

Me, dressed up as a samurai

Other nice places I visited where Arashiyama Monkey Park, a bamboo path, the Kyoto Imperial Palace, and the Kyoto International Manga Museum (with thousands of manga volumes, most of them in Japanese, unfortunately).

Monkey at the Mokey Park

Structures at the Kyoto Imperial Palace

Movie posters for Miyazaki movies at the Manga Museum

The bamboo path

On the 10th of February, I took the bullet train back to Tokyo, and from there I went to Narita, where I stayed in the same hostel as before. I flew to Seoul the next day.

Japan-1 (Tokyo)

Today, I'll talk about my visit to the city of Tokyo. I arrived at Narita Airport on the 22nd of February, and stayed in a hostel in Narita, a small city in the Tokyo region, that night.

On the 23rd, I went to Tokyo proper. Tokyo is a very big and nice city, a mix of both modern and traditional Japan.
One of the places I visited was the Asakusa region, from where you can see the Tokyo Skytree, one of the world's biggest buildings. In Asakusa I had a guided tour around the place, where I got to see interesting stuff such as the market and Sensoji temple.

The market

Tokyo Skytree

Pagoda at the temple

Some of the most famous districts for nightlife are Roppongi, Shibuya and Shinjuku. I visited Roppongi with my roommates, after we had visited the Tokyo Tower, as the two areas weren't very far from each other. In Shibuya I saw the famous crossroad, where people and vehicles alternate. And in Shinjuku I got to enjoy a nice view of the city for free, from the Metropolitan Building.

The Tokyo Tower

Roppongi

View from the Metropolitan Building

The Shibuya crossroad

Another interesting district is Akihabara, famous for its electronic products (with shops selling stuff ranging from lightbulbs to vintage video games), but most recently as a place for the manga and anime enthusiasts (selling cosplay costumes, figurines, comic books, movies, cards, etc...).

Super Mario statue at a vintage video game store

Attack on Titan cosplay

Two other nice places I visited where the Edo Museum (which tells the history of Tokyo from the Edo Period until present time) and the fish market (where I had some very nice sushi).

Japanese boat at the Edo Museum

The sushi (it's probably not all sushi, but I never got the hang of those names) I ate ath the fish market

China-3 (The Chinese tea ceremony scam)

Hi, today I would like to tell you a funny story. I hope it will entertain you, but also be a warning for future travelers.
It happened in the old town in Shanghai. I was taking a look around when a young Chinese couple approached me and asked me to take a picture of them. I did so, and afterwards we started talking. They were very nice and friendly, and explained how they were tourists from Beijing. It was very nice to find Chinese people who were good at English, as most of them, including taxi drivers, barely speak any.
After chatting for a while, they informed me that they were actually on their way to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony, and invited me to go with them. As I didn't have anything important to do and thought it might be a nice cultural experience, I went with them.
They took me to a small room in a building with a woman and a lot of different objects for the ceremony. I was given a menu with the tea prices, and remarked that most of the teas were a bit expensive, and a couple of the were really expensive. So I decided that I would only choose 2-3 of the less expensive ones, and that the experience would be worth the price.
But it wasn't that simple. The woman started doing rituals and serving tea, while explaining in Chinese (which was then translated to English by my companions) how to properly consume the tea, the history of tea and of the ceremony, how the rituals work, and so on. The tea was served in very small cups, and the woman was just pouring different teas in there as the ceremony went along. I realized that by getting caught up in the ceremony I might end up paying a lot of money, so after some time I asked them to stop and explained that I didn't have money to pay for too much tea. Luckily, I managed to convince them to tell the woman to stop the ceremony. I ended up having to pay around 30 USD for a bit of tea, and when I left the couple I was angry at myself for allowing things to get out of control.
Later on, when I was in Beijing, I was approached again by an English-speaking chinese person, who invited me to go have a drink at a bar, and his lines of dialogue were quite similar to the one used by the couple. I politely refused to go, but then I started wondering if it might be a common thing to invite tourists in China to places where they might get ripped off. So I decided to search for more stories on the Internet, and found that it was quite common for travelers to get tricked by this tea ceremony scam or something similar. After that, I was again asked around TEN times by different people in Beijing if I wanted to go have some coffee or tea, and the lines of dialogue were extremely similar, it was ridiculous.
So I would just like to remind everyone that in all countries there are dishonest people, and one should always be careful. But this of course doesn't mean that one should avoid contact with strangers, I don't want to encourage that, but there are always ways to both be cautious and friendly. In this case, for example, a good idea might be suggesting a different place to have tea or coffee.

China-2 (Beijing and Shanghai)

After Shanghai, I visited Beijing. I went there on the 15th of January, and I stayed in a hotel, because I wasn't apparently allowed to stay in any accommodation below 3 stars. Well, at least I had an excuse to enjoy some luxury.
As I said, Beijing has a lot more culture and history than Shanghai. It also has most of the famous Chinese monuments and locations.
The first place I visited was the Forbidden City, which was right next to the hotel. It's a big palace complex, where them Emperors used to live, and it has a lot of different pavilions, a garden, monuments, and other structures. Next to it is Tiannamen Square, where ceremonies are sometimes held.

Buildings in the Forbidden City

Tiannamen Square

I also took a day trip where I visited some tombs from the Ming Dinasty, a jade sculptures exhibition(where I had lunch), a silk factory, a teahouse, and the famous Great Wall of China (another one of the 7 New Wonders of the World), which realy is a great and amazing structure. The wall is at a great height, and we went down after visiting it by toboggan, which was a lot of fun.

Throne at the underground complex where the Ming Tombs are located

Jade dragon

Me at the Great Wall

Tea

I also visited the Temple of Heaven, a temple in a garden area composed by different structures, which was used for offerings, amongst other things, and the Olympic Area, where I saw the main Olympic Stadium (known as the "Bird's Nest") and the National Aquatics Center (known as the "Ice Cube").

Structure at the Temple of Heaven

The "Bird's Nest"

The "Ice Cube"

I left Beijing and returned to Shanghai on the 21st of December. On the 22nd I travelled to Japan, and on the way to the airport I rode on a magnetic train (a Maglev), for the first time.

The Maglev Station