Last Christmas in Japan

Hey! I’m back. Let’s make this quick.

I am going to write a review about Japan. I went there with a couple of my friends last year. We stayed there for almost 10 days. I moved from one city to another – from Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kawasaki, and Kusatsu! I often use their shinkansen and subway.

Here’s what you need to prepare before going to Japan:

1. If you’re holding an Indonesian passport, make sure you apply for their visa. You can do it via travel agent or go straight to their embassy. But, say hi to the so called e-passport! Now you can travel to Japan anytime you want!

2. They have this JR Pass (in short for JAPAN RAIL PASS) that will cost you around U$ 250 for 7 days. They also got the 14 and 21 days. So if you’re traveling without a group tour – I strongly recommend to purchase this to get around (Make sure you buy this before traveling to Japan – you can’t buy it once you reach Japan). It’s worth the price (Don’t ever take taxis in Japan – they’re extremely expensive). Go check out their web!

3. The best season to travel: Spring season – so you can see the beautiful Cherry Blossom! (Though I went there on December)

So, I traveled there with Garuda Indonesia. It’s a direct flight from Jakarta to Narita. It takes 7 hours and 20 minutes to get there. If you’re on budget you can always use AirAsia (it’ll be a long, tiring hours though since you have to detour to Kuala Lumpur first).

You ought to know, that the locals are very helpful. My friend and I lost our JR Pass and didn’t even know how to use the train. A guy approached us and offered his hands. He even bought us drinks! Crazy, right? P.S. I left my belongings in restaurants, etc and they always got it. Japan is a very, very SAFE country – I must say.

So here you go, my highlights of Japan!

Kyoto, Japan

1. Kyoto Tower (Night Vision)

2. The famous Futon Bed

3. Kiyomizudera Temple (While you’re on your way to this temple, there will be a long road where you can find all kinds of snacks – not to mention the Green Tea! You can find almost anything, you name it! Green tea candy, Green tea puffs, Green tea Mochi, Green Tea Ice Cream!) Good thing about this temple is: It is Free!

4. Fushimi Inari Shrine – for those of you who have watched Memoirs of Geisha, you will reckon this! Such a pretty sight to see.

 

5. The famous Gion street (too bad we didn’t see any Geisha, but we met one earlier in the temple)

5. Toei Studio Park

Moving to Kawasaki City

Visited the Fujiko F. Fujio Museum! Beware, Doraemon lovers out there!

The next day, I decided to explore Tokyo. Let’s start with Tokyo Disney Sea (FYI Japan has three great Theme Parks – which are: Disneyland & DisneySea (both located in Tokyo) and of course Universal Studio Osaka ; too bad I only visited the DisneySea. Went there on Christmas, bad idea! Such a long queue & I only got to play three rides)

Osaka

Osaka Castle

After a long tiring day, we all decided to go to this small, beautiful city called Kusatsu where you can find onsen. An onsen (温泉) is a term for hot springs in the Japanese language, though the term is often used to describe the bathing facilities and inns around the hot springs.

Good day, people!

Nadia Maizalius

Turkey, 2013

First attempt.. first attempt..

I have always wanted to go to Turkey, especially Istanbul. A lot of my friends have traveled there and they said Turkey is marvellous. And yes, I couldn’t agree more. Plus, you don’t need to work on your visa. Once you arrived there, they will stamp your passport and give you the permission to enter the country. Hail to visa on arrival!

Okay, so I went to Turkey on August with my sister and dad. My dad was the one who arranged this trip. We took an overnight flight that was operated by Turkish Airlines and arrived in the next morning. It was summer in there, and I’m telling you.. if you’re not a fan of hot temperatures, don’t go in summer.

Highlights of Turkey

1. Dondurma (Turkish Ice Cream)

Turkish ice cream is…. somewhat very delicious…. Tried them for the first time and bought 5 more. They called it ‘Dondurma’ in there. It was really creamy and soft and silk and tasty. Oh my, I’m craving for one right now! Too bad I don’t have the picture of them. Fyi, they were made out of goat’s milk! It is commonly soldin the vendor’s carts and store fronts. The vendors often tease the customers with a stick, serving it in a cone and taking it back with the stick. Hilarious! (Price: 3TRY-10TRY/cone)

2. Hot air balloon ride (Cappadocia, Turkey)

I have never experience this before, so this was my first timeriding a hot air balloon. One word: Wicked! We booked a flight from Kapadokya Kaya Balloons (www.kapadokyakayaballoons.com). There were several choices about the flights and we ended up choosing the standard one. The company picked us up at our hotel, very very early in the morning, like at 4am maybe? (via minibuses) and transported us to the take-off site. It was a 60 minutes flight. Afterwards, they gave us champagne to celebrate the so-called landing. Highly recommended. Here are some pictures: (Price: U$250/person)

3. Ephesus Ancient City

Now, Ephesus Ancienty City lies 3 kms southwest of the town of Selçuk – Izmir. If you are crazy about historical sites, you should definitely go here. It was worth the visit. Okay, so more about the history of Ephesus: In the year of 10 BC, Androclos, the son of King of Athens-Kodros, was searching a location for establishing a site. Androclos belonged to Akhas, was running from the Dor invasion in Greece. He was leading one of the migration convoys. It was predicted by an Apollon oracle that a fish and a boar would show the location of the new settlement. Days later, parallel to the oracle’s prediction, while frying, a fish fell down from the pan, irritating a hiding boar behind the bushes. The feared boar escaped immediately. Androclos followed the boar and established the city of Ephesus, where he had killed the boar. When Androclos died in the wars with Carians, a mausoleum was built to the memory of the first king of Ephesus. The mausoleum is considered to be placed around “The Gate of Magnesia“. Google it for more! P.S.: don’t wear high heels or expensive shoes in here, it will be all dusty! (Price: U$32-U$60/person ; depending on the amount of hours)

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4. Pigeon Valley (Cappadocia, Turkey)

Great spot to photograph the city of Cappadocia, cheap souvenirs shops, and there’s this tree where they put up all kind of evil-eye (the blue eye). You may be wondering what’s the evil eye stands for. Well, the evil eye is basically a look that many cultures (especially here in Turkey) believe able to cause misfortune for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike so then Talismans created to protect against the evil eye are also frequently called “evil eyes.”

5. Uchisar Village (Cappadocia, Turkey))

I was eating my fourth cone of Dondurma. Believe me, it tastes sooo good. There are actually churches, kitchen, etc inside of these caves. There are few local people that’s still living in those caves, but most of them are open for tourist.

6. Cotton Castle (Pamukkale, Denizli Provence)

Don’t forget to stop at these gorgeous hot springs and travertines, terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water! Definitely worth the long trip in the coach. P.S.: Bring some extra clothes!

7. The Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Galata Tower, Taksim Square (Istanbul, Turkey)

On my very last day in Turkey, I went to the blue mosque. It was just perfect! In a walking distance, you can reach Hagia Sophia. Funny facts on Hagia Sophia: it was actually a church then it was a mosque, and nowadays it’s just a museum. And you can see the Virgin Mary is next to the arabic calligraphy which stands for ‘Allah’ and ‘Muhammad’ (scroll down to see the pic!). On my last day, I took a bus to the Taksim Square and shopped a bit in there. Then, I just had to try the Old Tramp and I ended up walking a couple of kilometers and found this beauty called Galata Tower (Turkish: Galata Kulesi).

Well, that was all. I really hope you would enjoy Turkey as much as I do! 🙂

Related articles

• Cappadocia – Göreme, Turkey (travelpod.com)
• Istanbul, Turkey (thelongweekender.com)

Intro

Hi. I’m currently trying to bring back my old habits and one of them is blogging. In here, I’ll mostly write about my vacation and provide you with some useful infos (if you want to travel there). In daily life, I’m just a normal 22 y-o girl who’s currently majoring in GP. I’m living in Jakarta, Indonesia, South-East Asia. Good day!