Travellers: Trip Japan(by Ian)

Last year, I had a chance to travel Japan for a few days. Although it was a short trip, I was so excited and looking forward to it, as I had always wanted to be in Japan to feel Japanese culture, smell and taste Japanese foooood !!!(lol my favorite). So today I am going to take you for a glance around Tokyo, the capital of Japan.

The first place is Mi Ji temple where most people would choose visiting, if they were only allowed to visit one place in Tokyo. Mi Ji temple is located in a green corner of Tokyo. It has been standing there for 90 years. It has been well preserved, so what we see is almost its original look.


this is one column of the entrance bridge of Mi Ji Tample


The stained wood arch with the ground covered by scree give me a feeling that I am back in the time of 90 years ago

There is a residence in Mi Ji temple once in use by
the king who built Mi ji temple

What are they waiting for?

After one hour waiting, I finally get to touch the blessed spring.

Washing your hands with this water will bring you good fortune.

Center of Mi Ji temple

Staff in a traditional suit

Wish wall, you can write your wishes on a wood board and hang on it.
One day, it will be your turn dreams coming true.

Blessed water for you to drink

Traditional Japanese wedding ceremony

What I found very interesting was I noticed a feeling of quiet and peace, as soon as stepped through the front gate, despite it is Tokyo city right out side of temple, busy and noisy.Mi Ji temple is a good illustration of a typical traditional Japanese building design which have a lot of elements of paper, wood, granite. As you may have noticed in the photos above, there are two distinctive features from other Asian architecture designs.There is an absence of hand-crafted columns and eaves, and gently curved roofs extend far beyond paper-thin walls. The design with those neutral colors and elements gives a peaceful and august atmosphere.

I am one of some people who believe "local food" plays an dominant role in culture experiencing. With having mentioned about local food, we don't go to any restaurants at tourist spots and central city, because their cuisine tend to be internationalized. In the four days of my stay, 12 meals, every restaurant I picked was always a result of research and in person observation and I enjoyed every single one. Here I am going to introduce a bit of raman and bbq, two of my favorites. What do we expect for a good raman? First is the soup. It is always cooked in a way that boiling chicken or pork bones and some other veges such as sweet corns and cabbageswith a lot water for hours to bring the flavors of chicken or pork and the veges into the soup. This is a natural way to have the soup rich of taste and flavors. However, it costs money and effort to do so.A lot of restaurants therefor use heaps of seasonings instead. Although seasoned and not-seasoned soup can taste quite similar, there is a few ways to tell. First, thy massively seasoned can make you thirsty, because the additives are always chemical and it requires hydration when digesting them. Second, some of these seasonings stay on tongues, we can feel our tongues covered by wired flavors. Moreover, in Japan, vending machines are everywhere and providing a variety of products such as instant noodles with "hot water", cigis, beer and "dining tickets". "dining tickets are something very interesting. In Australia, we order food when we have meals with a person in restaurants. In Japan, in a lot of cases, we order food with a vending machine for dining tickets then we give tickets to the chefs for our meals.