Japan

The trip started badly with no sleep on the plane, and then my friend Andreas and I got lost on the subway. First I went to the wrong hotel, and when I finally found the right one, the machine that I was checking in at said there was no reservation in my name. The problem was fixed in the end, and when I finally got to lay down in my hotel bed after nearly travelling for a full day and night to get there, I was exhausted and thought, why did I even bother to do all of this when I could have stayed at home.

We soon went out in Shinjuku in the evening, and I saw fat rats running around the street at the same time as girls were standing outside bars trying to get guys to go in. It felt almost like the red light district, and soon we would go by a park where there were prostitutes lining up outside of it. So the only positive thing to take with me from the first day was that I got to see the Godzilla head overlooking one of the streets and that I had some great food at Shogun Burger, where I acted as weird as I could around the sweetest and coolest waitress of Tokyo. Even though we should have made an impression on her just from saying dumb stuff, she couldn't even remember us a couple of days later, so I guess there are a lot of people in Tokyo.

I should have gone straight to bed after that to finally get some rest, but instead I went to the "onsen" of the hotel. Normally it's a traditional Japanese hot spring and the bathing facilities built around it, but I found out even some hotels pretend they have it. I found it funny that they wanted me to cover up my tattoo but then asked all visitors to drop all clothes and bathe naked.

Andreas rented an apartment nearby since he was gonna stay for a month, and when we met up the next day we were both still tired since we had a hard time sleeping even though we were exhausted. I guess we hadn't gotten used to the new time zone and the new place yet. We pushed on anyway, and I had planned a day where I got to see a lot of the most interesting places of Tokyo according to me. We started off at Takeshita Street (or Take A Shit Street as we called it) to try and find some kawaii girls, but we mostly just found a street full of people so we could barely move since it was Golden Week, Japan's busiest and most celebrated national holiday season. After that we went to see the statue of Hachikō, who was a Japanese Akita dog celebrated for his incredible loyalty, waiting nearly 10 years at Shibuya Station in Tokyo for his owner, Professor Hidesaburō Ueno, who passed away in 1925. He is a national symbol of devotion in Japan and is famously immortalized in bronze at the station. People were actually queueing just to take a picture of it, but I had no time for that, so I sneaked in from the side and snapped a photo in between two people's turns. Close by is the world-famous Shibuya Crossing. It's the busiest pedestrian intersection, with up to 3,000 people crossing at once in a synchronized "scramble" every two minutes. It's a symbol of Japan’s urban energy, characterized by huge neon screens, bustling nightlife, and its dramatic, organized chaos.

I needed a break from all the people, so we went out to the less busy place where Tokyo Tower is located. I only wanted to see it because I had seen it in the Japanese TV series Alice In Borderland, which by the way starts off with a scene of a totally empty Shibuya Crossing. In the show participants have to play bingo on the Tokyo Tower by climbing up and pressing the different buzzers installed at various points on the way, but we kept our feet on the ground. Andreas told me the Ginza strip was a boring place; he had been there over a decade earlier, so of course we went there to make sure it was still dull, and it was. The only good thing was that there were no cars allowed on the main street there, so we didn't have to relive the Takeshita Street experience at least because there was enough room for everybody. We went out to the man-made island of Odaiba in Tokyo Bay, which is a popular shopping and entertainment district. We felt like we were in New York for a second because there was a small version of the Statue of Liberty, and then we saw the Statue of Unicorn Gundam, which looks like a gigantic Transformers character, but it's actually from the Japanese novel and TV series Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. We were early for the booked experience of TeamLab Planets, a museum where you even walk through water. The artworks change depending on the presence of people. We had to kill time, and when we went around the corner we unexpectedly found a place called Wildmagic - The Rainbow Farm, which looked like glamping in the middle of the scenery of skyscrapers. It was the best place we had found so far, and it only shows that you can plan all you want but the best things can come from random places around the corner. We drank a beer in the rain, and the cup said "Stop thinking, start drinking". We didn't follow the message and left after that to go to TeamLab Planets, and it was a nice experience even though it didn't live up to my very high expectations.

Now we really needed some sleep, but we didn't have time for that because the next day we would do a detour to South Korea and had to get up early to catch a flight. I will tell you all about that in another post, but on the flight back to Tokyo a random girl next to me fell asleep on me not only once but twice, so I spent most of the flight trying to sit still so I wouldn't wake her up. The guy on the other side of our row gave us a weird look since he knew we didn't know each other from the start, and it looked almost as if she cuddled me the whole flight when she found out my shoulder was a nice pillow.

We had a motto that we could rest when we're dead, so we went out partying and singing karaoke instead in Shinjuku Golden Gai. It's a famous, historic nightlife district known for its tiny, themed bars packed into narrow alleys. It features over 200 miniature bars and eateries across six streets, offering a nostalgic, "Showa-era" atmosphere that survived post-war modernization. They must have heard a rumour about how bad we sing since they wanted us to pay for every song we wanted to sing. For some reason we chose weird songs like Lambada and Hips Don't Lie; I guess we were drunk after too much sake. We found a really nice bar with lots of vinyl singles where the guests could ask the cool older bartender to play them. When he found out we were Swedish he played a lot of Swedish music, and we met a lovely American couple that were also out drinking. They were really nice to talk to, so it was hard to leave them behind when Andreas wanted to move on to some other bars to see more of Golden Gai. It was getting late, and we tried some upstairs bars, where the stairs were so narrow you could barely fit, but all were empty or closing, so it took a while to find a new bar when we settled for an empty one on the ground level. We met a cool bartender, and she played some Japanese music that was both intense and cute and could best be described as anime rave. That was until the American couple suddenly reappeared, and we joked that they must have been stalking us since they had 200 bars to choose from. I got the bartender to play Coldplay Yellow for them since it was their couple's song. I started to predict the future of the bartender and told her to ask any questions she liked, but there must have been a language barrier because her first question about her future was asking me what I would have for breakfast tomorrow. We bought her a drink and started vaping, and the rest of the night is a blur.

The next day we didn't have time to be hungover, so we went to Ryōgoku Kokugikan, also known as the Sumo Hall. It's Tokyo's premier indoor sporting arena primarily dedicated to sumo wrestling. Located in the Sumida ward, it hosts three major grand sumo tournaments annually in January, May and September. The arena seats over 10,000 spectators and also holds boxing, wrestling, and concerts. It was closed when we were there, so we only got to see it from outside and saw no fat grown men in diapers. Instead we went for a stroll to Tokyo Skytree, a 634-meter-high broadcasting and observation tower, making it the tallest structure in Japan and the world's tallest tower. Opened in 2012, it features two observation decks (350m and 450m) with 360-degree views, acting as a major tourist landmark and a key digital television transmitter for the region. But once again we only got to see it from the outside since the tickets were sold out until the evening. So we chose to go to more old-school Japan and visited the Senso-ji temple, the oldest in Tokyo, and Asakusa Shrine, one of the most famous Shinto shrines in the city. Then we went back to a more modern vibe when we visited Akihabara electric town in the evening, densely packed with 1,000 electronics stores. Some of them had lots of animated porn on the highest levels of the stores, and no one seemed bothered to go in there, and the store even said you could photograph in there as long as you showed respect to the customers. It was weird that many of the girls on the covers of the movies were portrayed as if they were kids or something.

The next day we left Tokyo again, but we stayed in the country this time. It was time to go to Hiroshima with the Japan Rail Pass, which is an economical, unlimited-travel rail pass designed for foreign tourists, offering access to almost all national train lines. We tried to escape all the people celebrating Golden Week in Tokyo, but instead we realized we had booked a hotel on the same street, Peace Boulevard, where the Hiroshima Flower Festival took place. Decorated floats, marching bands, and dance troupes took over the city that is mostly famous for being the first military target of a nuclear weapon in history. When we walked through the crowded Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and saw the Atomic Bomb Dome, a surviving structure in a state of preserved ruin as a reminder of the destructive effects of nuclear warfare, I felt the wings of history. I was really touched by it, and after a visit to Hiroshima Castle, which was largely destroyed by the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945, and then rebuilt in 1958, I felt oddly at home in Hiroshima. It was more peaceful and quiet than Tokyo, and I enjoyed just sitting in the castle gardens with koi fish swimming around me. The city had a feeling that just spoke to me.

The next day we went out to a nearby island called Miyajima, and it was the highlight of the trip with its beautiful scenery. It is most famous for its giant torii gate, which at high tide seems to float on the water, and I made sure to catch that moment and walked out in the water to get closer to it. I could have stayed in the water for hours, but I knew I also ruined all the tourists' photos by doing it, so I went up to land again to go take selfies with some of the friendly sika deer that roam freely on the island. Well, not all of them were friendly; we also saw some of them trying to steal food and other stuff from strollers on the way which was funny. We couldn't see the pagoda Jinja Gojūnotō since it was being restored and all covered up, so instead we went to all the small statues at the Daisho-in Temple and then visited the Henjo Cave, which houses eighty-eight Buddhist statues under a ceiling covered with lanterns. Daisho-in Temple is located at the base of Mount Misen, on which the sect's founder, Kobo Daishi, first began the practice of Buddhism on the island.

While we waited for the low tide around the torii gate, we went to eat some momiji manjū on the main street, a type of baked wagashi. The confection is a buckwheat and rice cake shaped like a Japanese maple leaf and is a local specialty on the island. It is typically filled with red bean paste, and I don't get why they wanna put that in sweets. Then we went up Mount Misen with the ropeway, and I don't understand why I always try to challenge my body's fear of heights. Maybe it's because there is a battle inside of me where I wanna see beautiful scenery while my body says get down to safe ground again. The second ropeway was really steep, and I began to doubt how I ever would come down again, and we had only bought a one-way ticket up the mountain since we thought it would be fun walking down; that was before we understood that Misen is 535 meters above sea level. Instead of starting the descent from the ropeway, I persuaded Andreas that we should first walk to the top. It was tough to get there, but it was totally worth it since it had the best view of the whole trip to Japan. Then there were so many steps down from the mountain that I injured both my knee and calves before we reached the bottom to see the torii gate, which we now could walk out to since the low tide had arrived.

After the visit to the beautiful island I wanted to rest, but Andreas wanted to go to an 80's bar, and I couldn't say no since you only live once. I joked with him and said, let me guess that we will be dancing like madmen in the bar in the end even though we barely can stand after the trip to Mount Misen. We couldn't find the bar and ended up at Ace, which was an empty bar with boring staff, and I thought this will be a boring night out. We gave the 80's bar another chance to be found, and it took some real dedication to find an escalator that took us up to it. We had read reviews of it before saying it's empty on weekdays but the staff is really friendly, and it lived up to those expectations. It seemed like there were more staff than visitors, and it didn't take long until we danced and sang all night, dressed up in outfits that the bar offered the guests. Kayokyoku Hit Studio, as it was called, is a place where you can experience Japanese retro culture. "Showa" refers to the Japanese era that lasted from 1926 to 1989, and the 70s and 80s in particular are considered the golden age when pop culture flourished alongside economic growth. So they played Japanese music from this era and not what Western people can expect from an 80s club. Both the staff and the few visitors there were wonderful, and we ended up celebrating a regular's birthday and having the time of our lives. One fun girl from the staff said she was shy, but I couldn't tell since she was singing, playing instruments, dressing up, and putting on more of a show than me, and she was sober since she was working, so I have to give her props for that. She definitely made it a fun night to remember, and I wish it wasn't a 24 hour flight to go there, otherwise I would be at the club every week.

The next day we headed for Osaka, and that city was a special place for me already before I went there because growing up I had friends there who visited us during my childhood. Unfortunately I haven't heard from them in a long time since they were mostly my parents' friends, and when my parents divorced then that relationship turned sour too since they didn't agree with the divorce and all the bad things connected to that. I also became a teenager at the same time and moved on in life. I tried to find them on social media before I went there now, but they have common names and it was impossible.

We thought we would finally get some rest, but the hotel made sure no guests were allowed to check in before 15:00 sharp. It felt ridiculous, and we just had a small break before heading out to see Osaka Castle. It's one of Japan's most famous landmarks and played a major role in the unification of the country during the sixteenth century of the Azuchi–Momoyama period. With its surroundings it was more beautiful than the one in Hiroshima, and since we were gonna go to Super Nintendo World the day after, I pretended it had been inspiration for the castles in the Mario games.

We then went down to Tsutenkaku Hondori, which is a shopping street with a big tower at the end of it, and then onwards to American Village, which didn't seem American at all except they blasted hip-hop music from every shop. The only thing to take with me from this place was that the lamp posts looked like robots.

We went up early the next morning to go to Universal Studios two hours before they even opened. We thought we would be the only ones there, but people were already running from the subway to get a good spot, and it soon became very crowded even that early. We weren't sure we would get into the Super Nintendo World part, and everything was so confusing with the tickets that we started to have doubts that we would even get into Universal Studios at all. After two hours people started rushing in, but it seemed like the tickets to Super Nintendo World were already gone as soon as we entered, so we casually walked, realizing that this day wouldn't be as amazing as we had hoped for. That was until we asked a worker for clarity, and she said no one needed a ticket for Super Nintendo World today, and we began to understand why everybody ran like madmen, so we started to do it too. We went straight for the Mario Kart ride, but it was mostly just confusing, and we probably would have needed another ride straight away just to be able to know what we were supposed to do.

Instead we had to queue for a Yoshi ride for 1.5 hours because now all the other people had gotten the chance to come in as well. As a ride it wasn't something special, but it was nice to see the whole Mario world from Yoshi's back. It felt so surreal to be there in a good way, and the only bad thing was that it was way too crowded. We went into the Donkey Kong Country part, and the mine cart ride seemed to be the coolest of them all, but the waiting line was three hours, so Andreas didn't want to waste all that time in line. We checked the queue for the rest of the day, but it never went under two hours, so we never got the chance, but it looked amazing when we saw other people ride it.

We settled for Jurassic Park, Jaws, and Harry Potter, and the last one was my favourite. I drank delicious butterbeer and saw Hedwig, Hogwarts etc. I went on a fun ride that made me feel like I was riding a flying broom, and the only bad part was that I had to physically hold my glasses in place not to lose them since the ride went all over the place. We saved a lot of time by learning there was a single queue that was much faster, and even though we pretended we were going one by one on the rides, we always got to ride together anyway. They used the single guests to fill the rides when there was an odd number.

It was a really fun day, and we hadn't had enough of Nintendo, so we went to Kyoto the next morning to go see the Nintendo Museum that is on the outskirts of town. I'm not really into museums because often they are quite boring, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a mix of a history lesson and interactive exhibitions, and it was a great experience where they had thought about even the smallest detail. We ate a mushroom burger of course, and then we went on to see the Arashiyama bamboo forest far out in another outskirt of town, and I could tell we maybe had too much planned when Andreas walked right into a glass door at full speed at the hotel before that because he didn't even notice it. Maybe we needed some rest, but we didn't have time for that.

The bamboo forest was alright but not as magical as I would have thought, and I mostly blame all of us tourists for that. I would love to go there early in the morning and be there by myself to get to experience the true feeling of it. But we didn't have time for that, and instead we went to do some geisha spotting in the old parts of town. A geisha is a highly trained Japanese female performing artist and hostess who entertains guests at exclusive banquets and teahouses.

We went to Hanamikoji Street in the Gion area, and it felt like birdwatching because all of the tourists tried to get photos of the geishas that quickly went down alleyways where we weren't allowed to follow if we didn't want to get fined 10,000 yen. When I finally got a picture of me and a geisha walking by, it felt like I hit the jackpot. After that we randomly stumbled upon a love hotel. They are short-stay accommodations designed specifically for couples to enjoy privacy, if you know what I mean. They feature flashy neon signs, often boast eccentric themes, and are rented either for a few hours during the day (called a "rest") or for the entire night. We had no one to "rest" with, so we went up to the Yasaka Pagoda to get some real rest outside of it instead.

The next day we were supposed to go back to Tokyo, but I thought that was too easy, so I planned for us to go to Hakone instead, famous for hot springs and its natural beauty. We saw the majestic Mount Fuji outside the window on the bullet train going there, and then we changed to a bus taking us up the mountain of Hakone. On the way to the Hakone Open-Air Museum we saw an Airstream parked outside a hotel. It's an iconic American brand of recreational vehicles and travel trailers, globally recognized by its rounded, riveted, and polished aluminum aerodynamic exterior. Inside was a small café, and we decided to have some cheese sandwiches and chat with the Japanese café owner, who was really nice. He said he had been to Sweden, and when we talked about going to Mount Fuji the next day he said he had climbed it twice.

The Open-Air Museum was really nice and was hit and miss as it always is with art and sculptures. I don't care for Picasso that much, but it was fun to see that they also had art from my Japanese favourite Yayoi Kusama. The best part wasn't the art in the end but instead the foot bath from the hot spring with beautiful views over the green and lush mountains.

After this the natural thing would have been going back to Tokyo to get some rest, but instead Andreas wanted to go to a fetish club when we got back there. I'm not into that for real, but I have no problem just going with the flow and having fun with it, so I stuffed a gag ball in my mouth and off we went. They played music that caught me off guard in a positive way like Covenant from my hometown in Sweden, and we had a blast until they ended early and another DJ emptied the dance floor. We ended up at Guinea Pig, a horror bar in Shinjuku, where the bartender asked the guests for body checks where he would cop a feel and then the guests would put their genitals in water that he would drink. He seemed to have the time of his life, and who is to blame him as long as the consent is there.

After that surreal experience we went to Fuji the next day with a mountain train. We went up to the Arakura Fuji Sengen Shrine on the opposite mountain of Fuji to get a good view, but the clouds destroyed the experience and we couldn't see the top of Fuji. Bummed out by that, we went to the Aokigahara forest, also known as the "Sea of Trees", which is a dense 35-square-kilometer forest at the northwest base of Mount Fuji. Famous for its untouched natural beauty, it is also internationally infamous as one of the world's most prominent suicide locations, surrounded by deep cultural myths. Maybe it was projected by myself, but it felt both eerie and special to be there because of this. We went down into the two caves there, Wind Cave and Ice Cave, that are connected by a walk through the forest. Since we didn't see any corpses we decided to go back to Tokyo again, but not before we got to see Mount Fuji in all its glory. When the clouds were gone I could see its majestic force, and it's nice to see how it pops up as the background from all kinds of places nearby.

We went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to enjoy the light show at night. I thought we would be the only ones there, but many people were sitting on the grass in the Tokyo Citizens' Square in front of the building. I love creative things like this when you take something like a building and make it into a cinema screen at night.

The next day it was time for me to go home again while Andreas would stay for two more weeks. I wouldn't fly until the evening, so we started the day off at the Samurai Ninja Museum where we got a history lesson and at the same time got to try some Samurai armor and weapons and even got to throw some shurikens. We were equally as bad at it, and when Andreas hit the roof instead of the dartboard we knew it was time to go before any of us got hurt. We had a chill day at Yoyogi Park, and for the first time on the trip we could relax. It was nice, and at the same time I felt an itching feeling in me that I would want to go on another adventure right away. When I left Tokyo on my own I realized it was the first time I really had the opportunity to take it all in, and I understood that I will both miss and not miss this place. Because there is so much to see, do, and experience, but at the same time there's just way too many people and noises, and I need some solitude to recharge my batteries for the next adventure that is lurking around the corner.

* Best things about Japan – the pure beauty of Miyajima, the historical importance of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park with the Atomic Bomb Dome, the majestic Fuji, the creative spirit of The Open-Air Museum at Hakone and the Nintendo experiences at both the museum and the Universal Studios

* Most mediocre thing about Japan – Bamboo Forest but it would probably be a lot better without the tourists

* Worst things about Japan – There's just way too many people and you could tell that by the que time at Super Nintendo World, and what's up with not ever giving people a chance to rest with all the noises 24/7 everywhere in Tokyo, it should definitely be renamed the city that never sleeps

Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):

1. USA
2. The Bahamas
3. Croatia
4. Montenegro
5. Andorra
6. Cyprus
7. Grenada
8. Turkey
9. Greece
10. Italy
11. Spain
12. Monaco
13. Malta
14. Jamaica
15. Netherlands
16. Belize
17. Panama
18. Saint Lucia
19. Iceland
20. Denmark
21. Sweden
22. Japan
23. Lithuania
24. Macedonia
25. Armenia
26. Mexico
27. Egypt
28. Portugal
29. Dominica
30. Hungary
31. Slovakia
32. Belarus
33. Slovenia
34. Austria
35. Russia
36. Barbados
37. New Zealand
38. Ireland
39. Germany
40. United Kingdom
41. Belgium
42. Poland
43. Saint Kitts & Nevis
44. Vatican City
45. Estonia
46. Czech Republic
47. Switzerland
48. San Marino
49. Honduras
50. Colombia
51. Costa Rica
52. Kosovo
53. Romania
54. Finland
55. Latvia
56. Azerbaijan
57. Georgia
58. Saint Vincent And The Grenadines
59. Antigua & Barbuda
60. Moldova
61. Norway
62. Ukraine
63. France
64. Bulgaria
65. Luxembourg
66. Liechtenstein
67. Trinidad And Tobago
68. China
69. Serbia
70. Bosnia And Herzegovina
71. Albania
72. Morocco