Lights and Shadows of Japan @japanlights - Tumblr Blog

5 Advantages of sightseeing alone - the pros of travelling on your own and how to enjoy your solo travel.

#travel #travelling #travelling tips #backpacking

Kansai trip #5: Evening in Osaka

In the evening we decided to cut on actual sightseeing and have some fun. There was only one landmark left on our list: Tsūtenkaku, the “Tower Reaching Heaven”.

But that was just the beginning of an eventful evening!

We've all had Pierogi, that doesn't count.

They forgot to add "run to the priest seat after he left, to be the first one to sit on it" ;)

#Poland #67 out of 76

History of Japan with lots of humor in 9 minutes

#Japan #history #culture #video

dreams-of-japan

#Japan #Japan photo

Where the Hell is Matt? 2012

Dancing around the world :)

#dancing #culture #we're all brothers and sisters #some things are international

exercicedestyle

Yuya Shino/Reuters

#Japan #daily life #Kimono

8 things I love in Japanese restaurants

Restaurants in Japan are the same as in Poland in their main purpose - they serve food. But they serve food in a slightly different way. Here’s a short list of few things that I absolutely love about Japanese restaurants. #1 Wet towels

O-shibori (おしぼり) - a thing that’s in every single restaurant, whether it’s a small sushi bar or a continental theme fancy place, is a wet towel. A customer can just sit, take his towel and clean his hands before eating, no need to go to the bathroom and wait in a queue for this. The towels vary, it can be a disposable small piece of wet cloth in a foil packet, or an actual moist towel (warm or cold), but it’s always there, ready to keep your hands clean. #2 Payment at the door

Word of explanation: I’m used to the European style (for obvious reasons) where in a restaurant a waiter takes an order and then, when the meal is already eaten and the customer is ready to leave, the waiter brings the receipt to the table and leaves, so that the customer can put the money on a designed place and leave. Waiter comes back after the customer left, or sometimes when the customer is getting ready, depending on the place. This makes an actual problem with how to signal to a waiter that you want to pay? Shouting for the waiter to come is impolite in here. Sure there are some subtle signs in five stars restaurant where everything is working like in a clock, but nobody uses them in normal diners in the neighbourhood. So we’re usually stuck with “look pointedly at your waiter (let’s hope he’s in your line of sight) until he gets a hint that we’re ready to pay.” Not very effective, especially if someone’s in a hurry (but as I pointed in my sushi bar story a while ago, in Europe nobody should be in a rush in a restaurant, or suggest so, since that’s incongruous). Now that we have a context: here’s how it’s brilliantly solved in Japan: you don’t wait for the waiter. When you’re done eating, you stand up, take your things, take your bill and go to the cash register that’s by the exit and give them your receipt (or number) and money. Simple as that. Of course there’s a variation in some sushi bars where first a waiter has to count your plates, but that’s easy too, since it’s all right to just call the waiter in Japan. #3 Pictures in menu

Every single English menu I saw in Japan had pictures of each and every meal they offered. Maybe not drinks, but all meals were shown on photos with caption in English, and usually (but not always) a short list of ingredients. There was no trouble at all with ordering since I always knew exactly what I’ll get. And the picture always looked exactly like the served food. Just to compare, an extreme case: I've seen restaurants in Europe that have cryptic menus, that’s actually a simple list of names like “duck on a cloud” or “gold chicken”, which forces customers to guess, try luck, order something with a nice name, or ask a waiter what’s what.

Take a walk in the sky

Umeda Sky Building Floating Garden Observatory

Evening was getting close, but there was still so much to see in Osaka! Next stop: Umeda Sky Building and the amazing Floating Garden Observatory. By then I’ve been in a few observatories and towers in Tokyo, but this one is still my favourite. Not only the view is great, it also looks amazing from the outside - like two tall skyscrapers connected at the top with observatory deck. That has a huge hole inside. And lets you walk in the sky.

Umeda Sky Building was once chosen by The Times as one of the top 20 buildings in the world. Apart from the unique architecture, another thing worth mentioning is the road up: to get to observatory deck, one must take the escalator - which is inside a tunnel connecting both buildings.

Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel in Osaka

The second step in my Kansai trip was a big wheel close to Osakako subway station. Opened in 1997, it’s 112.5 meters (369 ft) high and has a diameter of 100 meters (330 ft). It was the World’s tallest ferris wheel until 1999. The ride gives a great view for Osaka, including the bay, Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, Kansai International Airport (that’s where I came from!) and, if the weather is nice, also Mt. Ikoma! The view from the top is amazing and let one see all the landmarks around. The ride itself is 15-17 minutes, but the wheel makes a short stop in its spinning, so that each carriage has a short moment on top to enjoy the view.

A few things about Japanese Diet

New Year has come and with it - New Year’s resolutions! One of the most popular one is “I’ll lose some weight/ go on a diet”. Which is a great opportunity to talk about Japanese diet, which is said to be one of the most healthy diet in the world. Now, I’m not a specialist when it comes to diets or nutriment values and so on, so I just wanted to point out a few things I, personally, think are worth knowing about Japanese diet. I won’t give any meal plans or anything, since during my stay in Japan I was not on a real Japanese diet - I was cooking what I knew how to cook, and so typical Japanese meals were not always on my table. But here’s some things worth knowing about Japanese diet

#Japan #diet #healthy food #Japanese diet #food #cooking

Untranslatable words from Japan, the polite and nature-loving country.

“A language has a lot to do with its culture’s uniqueness. Because of that there are some untranslatable words.

In Japanese culture, people have a lot of appreciation towards nature and it is very important to be polite towards others. That politeness and the nature appreciation reflected on to its language and created some beautiful words that are not translatable to English.” (x)

#Japan #language #culture differences #Japanese language #Japanese

Merry Christmas!

To all my dear followers, I wish you a Merry Christmas, full of love and happiness that you can share with your family, friends and loved ones! I hope this time will be filled with joy for you all :)

#about my blog

Kyoto is a place everyone should see while in Japan, but that’s not the only place worth seeing in Kansai region. That’s why during my stay, just after spring semester was over, I went for a one week “road trip” there. The idea was to see as much as I could in a week and not limit myself to one city. Before I’d start talking about all the things and places worth visiting, the question is: how to get there?

#Japan #Kansai #travel #Osaka #Kyoto #Japan tips #travelling tips #travelling #road trip #in Japan

5 not-so-pleasant things in Japan.

Japan is a nice place. Same goes for Tokyo. But there are some tiny irritating details that were never mention in any guidebook that make you go all “Arrrrgh!”. Here’s a list of things I absolutely didn’t love in Japan.

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#Japan #Tokyo #otaku #Japan life #sushi

triaelf9

October of the Terbi Anime 2016 calendar has some lovely Sailor Moon Crystal art! ^_^

#reblog

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