We arrived in Tagbilaran on Bohol around midday and took the Bus to Jagna, where the dive resort we were staying in was. The bus dropped us off directly in front of the hostel and we were greeted right at the door. We had a private room with private bathroom, which was a small luxury we indulged in.
After one day in the resort Max decided to get his divers license there, which meant four days of studying and diving. Paula just relaxed in the meantime and read a lot. Silvio, the Italian guy who owned the dive shop took Paula for a hike in the forest one day while Max did his diving. We also met Carry, an australian women who also did some diving and could exchange stories with Max. She left a few days before us to the diving resort on Camiguin.
On the last day in Jagna the hostel owner took us and two of his friends to a underwater cave near Anda, which was basically a hole in the ground and an underwater river. We had to jump down a few meters into the cave, and could then swim around down there. After the cave we went to the white beach and got some food at the market. At the market there are a lot of restaurants that have a lot of different dishes, which you get on a small plate once you order it. With that we got some rice, so we could try a lot of different food. All in all we reached our goal to relax after all the sightseeing in Japan.
We took the train from Kyoto to Osaka in the morning, since Osaka is only one and a half hours away. After some searching we found our hostel, which was a business Hotel. Apparently it is mostly for men, since for all of the six floors in the building there was only one bathroom for women, on the first floor and for men one on every floor. We still has some time for the day, so we went into the city and had a look around. We visited one of the temples around the city center and looked around the stores and the food streets. On our second and last day we slept in and woke up way too late to really do anything, so we just descided to go to the castle. When we arrived we found out that it was only half an hour until closing, so we walked around the castle and the surrounding gardens.
For dinner we went to one of the food shops in the food street and got some sushi. We met two old men there who tried really hard to communicate with us, but the language barrier was very high. They also started ordering a lot of food for us, that we absolutely have to try, and which we could never afford. They payed for everything they ordered for us, all while trying very hard to figure out how Google translate works on Max‘ phone. We finally left to stop them from ordering any more food for us.
On the way home we noticed that they asked us whether we are from West or East Germany and wondered if they know that Germany is now one country.
The next day we took the train to the Airport, which is on an Island near the the coast. When we tried to check in the guy at the counter told us that we need a flight out of the Philippines to enter the country, so we looked up the cheapest flights out of Manila and booked a flight on the 7th of April to Kochi in India. Since we now had our flight, we were allowed to leave for our vacation from travelling in the Philippines.
In Kyoto we stayed at a hostel which was very different to hostels in south america. In Japan they are very private, so each bed has his own view block and there is a common area, but the people don’t talk much or drink together. If you want that you have to pursuade them. And the other point is that the hostel is of course very clean and everybody is very considerate. That is a common theme in Japan, for example on the trains there are signs and announcements that you should not talk on the phone.
Kyoto is different than Tokyo in a way, it has an older and more original feeling with a lot of old buildings and temples. We visited a lot of temples, some small and some are huge areas with a lot of buildings. We adjusted the yellow car game and hit each other on the shoulder when we saw a temple or shrine. There really are a lot of them.
One of Max favorite things we did was the botanical garden, which was beautiful despite most flowers not blouming (beginning of march) but thanks to the climate change we could already see some sakuras (cherry blossoms). They were one month earlyer than they should be. The also had a lot of bonsaiss and a tropical area.
The manga museum was also pretty nice with manga ranging from 1930ties till today, and explanations about the industry. Sadly, most mangas were in Japanese so we couldn’t read them.
We ate a lot of udon which are Paulas new favorite kind of noodles and Max had the best curry he ever ate. And also visited the bamboo forest.
Together with another German women we visited the imperial palace and a big castle which was pretty nice. It is kind of contradicting how the people life on so small spaces and then have this huge areas around their historical buildings but it’s very nice to have a park in all that city jungle.
Paula bought herself a kimono in an second hand store, after seeing so many people wearing them on the street. We wanted to go to a japanese hot spring, but Paula got sick so we couln’t go.
We found out that our flight to the Phillipeans was from Osaka, so we decided to spend our last few days in Japan there.
After a long flight we arrived in Tokyo airport. The first thing what was kind of strange were the toilets. They have like three different ones and some are just holes in the ground. But the toilets in Japan are awsome. They all have heated seats which is really good when it is so cold outside,
We took a bus form the airport to a station in Tokyo where our friend Eriko, who we met in Argentina, picked us up. That was very lucky because else we would have gotten lost in all the train and subway lines. The train system is actually pretty easy to figure out, but at first we were quite overwhelmed. Since we are already talking about the public transportation, it is pretty awesome even better than in germany, as far as we could tell. You have only one card on which you put money and it works for all train lines and public busses in all of Japan. And they are always on time.
After we arrived at Erikos place we relaxed half a day and in the evening we decided to go dinner at a restaurant. We went to the district Shibuya in Tokyo which is a huge shopping district. It also has a famous dog statue, a really famous crossroad and a pretty big love hotel street. The really nice part about going to eat in Japan is that they are really fast in preparing and delivering the food. At most 5 minutes after ordering you have the food, in South America you would be lucky to have the menu at that time. After an hour Erikos sister joined us and we had a few beers and sake and very delicious food.
The next day we went to the government building where you have a nice view over Tokyo from the 45 floor, and we could see all the way to the white mountains. After that we went to Akihabara, the electrical town and mekka for all anime and manga fans. There Max bought some manga and we went to a maid cafe. That’s a cafe where all waitresses wear maid outfits and you have to do magical charms to get the food. And in the evening we ate our first Japanese Ramen.
Max got sick, so he had to stay home for a day, while Paula went to the imperial palace and gardens. But in the evening we made tokyaki together with Eriko and her sister. It is a really nice way of eating because you do all the cooking and eating together and talk and drink.
The next day we got up at 4:30am that we could take the first train to the Tokyo fish market, the biggest fish market in the world. It really is freaking huge and they have all kinds of aquatic animals, but mostly fish, squid and clamps. They also sell stuffed animals, like you could actually buy a stuffed polar bear, eagels and other exotic animals. After we went through the market we went to one of the many sushi and fish restaurants directly outside of the market where you could get the fish from the days catch. It was very good, but not the very best we ever had.
And after that we went to to zoo where we saw a lot of cute animals like the giant panda ( white black) and the small red panda and lots more. We also saw a lot of animals we had seen in south america in the jungle.
In the afternoon we went to the shopping district Harajuko, which is for young people and fashion. We ate some creeps and looked at a lot of cute dresses and outfits. That was sadly our last day in Tokyo and we took the night bus to Kyoto.
We really liked Tokyo, and are very thankfull that we had Eriko to show us around, otherwise we would have been a little bit lost.
After a 8 hour flight from Santiago de Chile we arrived at the Mexico city airport at 6:30am. Our connecting flight was supposed to leave at 12:30am so we had 19 hours to kill. First we visited a Mexican fabric exhibition directly at the airport and after that we drove into the city. After meeting a nice guy at the airport we were less afraid of the crime rate and eager to get some Mexican food. In the city we met a Brazilian couple, who only had 4 hours in the city. With them we spend the next few hours sightseeing and tasting Mexican food, Quesadillas and tacos.They had to leave early so we visited some famous ruins on our own. We were pretty worn out so Max was way too tired to enjoy it, and Paula could enjoy it more than him, since she slept on the bus to the ruins. It would have been more awesome After the ruins we checkt in and waited the last few hours at the airport before we left to Tokyo.
After a 5 hour wait at the border, we arrived at Santiago de Chile with 7 days until our next flight.
Since we by now have adapted to the south american style of „we can do it tomorrow“, it took us 4 days to send our stuff to Germany. Sadly, there is some kind of new international regulation for sending batteries, so the tablet can basically only be sent to Germany for half the price of the tablet, which is way too much. So now we hope it can be repaired in one of the next countries.
We went into downtown Santiago a few times, and they have some really nice things to see here. We were really surprised to find out that there is a mercado central in Santiago, since everybody told us about how western Chile is. We met a lot of people in the hostel and had some nice evenings with people from all over the world. It was sometimes very confusing with the languages, since there was a mix of English, Spanish, and Portuguese, but we managed.
Today is our last day in South America and at 11 in the night we are off to Japan, with a 20 hour stopover in Mexico city. We will arrive in Japan on the 29th. Our plan is to stay in Tokyo for 4 days and then go to Kyoto until the 14th. From Kyoto we then have a flight to the Philippines, where we will probably stay for a few weeks. Then we will try to get to Nepal, since we don’t want to go hiking in the rain season.
So much for our plans, next time we write, we will be in Japan. If you have any recommendations on what to see, feel free to leave us a message!
After 36 hours and a few stops on the way we finally arrived in Mendoza. We basically only went to Mendoza to drink wine and eat a good steak. But the city is very nice, even if we didn’t see a lot of it. Since we still had to see about sending home the broken tablet and some souvenirs, we wanted to arrive in Santiago de Chile early and only stayed in Mendoza for two days. After that we drove off to Chile.
After Asunción we were thinking about where to stay at the Iguaçu waterfalls. There where three options: Paraguay, Brazil or Argentina side. After a few suggestions we decided to stay in Argentina because everything is just half an hour away by bus and we have to go there any way to get to Santiago.
So after we arrived in Ciudad del Este ( Paraguay ) we saw a lot of people with huge shopping bags, because electronics are really expensive in Argentina and they all come to Paraguay to buy them. So the bus to Puerto Iguaçu was just 45 minutes and we arrived happy but not knowing where to go and without money and a functioning bank in Argentina. Apparently you have to try multiple banks until you find an ATM that works with your credit card. Luckily we could exchange our Paraguay money to a sufficient amount of Argentinen pesos to go to a cafe and (with its WiFi) look up hostels and ATMs.
We found a nice hostel just 10 minutes walk from the bus station. It had a pool which we couldn’t use because it was dirty. The owner found always a new reason to clean it the next day till we left. South America – a place where productivity is tomorrow. But else it was quite nice with a good kitchen and the power and WiFi worked almost the whole time. Nice chill out area where we met a lot of very nice people. So we had always someone to cook with or visit various places.
At the second day we went to the waterfalls from the Brazilian side. It was quite nice and you get a good overview but it didn’t really compare with the next day and the Argentinan side off the falls you just get much closer and feel more than of the falls. Sadly, after the charger fiasco in Asuncion, now Max’s phone gave up. That is now 2 chargers, 2 phones and a tablet that broke in South America. At least Max got to go phone shopping in Paraguay.
On our last day prima, our dragon mascot was stolen. That confirms what everybody says about Argentina. If they can steal it, they will.
So we left Puerto Iguaçu pretty pissed of, but we still had a nice time with a lot of awesome people. The next stop was Mendoza, next to Chile and just a 36 hours bus ride away.
By the way, the weather is awesome. Sunny and hot.
The way to Asunción was different with unique landscape and a lot less people. We drove for hours without seeing any sign of civilisation. The bus was checked for drugs 5 times on the way, one time we had to take our luggage out of the bus and they first searched it with dogs and then went through it by hand.
Asunción was a small culture shock because it was really western. After talking to a few people living there we had a taxi take us tothe cheapest hostal from the lonely planet, together with another German guy we met on the bus .
The hostel was nice with air conditioned rooms and a pool but being the cheapest one still means that it is double the price from Bolivia or Peru so 10€ per person and night. But because of the currency we still felt pretty wealthy. Our first time withdrawing half a million from an ATM 🙂
We stayed 3 days because we wanted to watch the superball and didn’t know whether it would be possible in other cities. We went to a public viewing in the streets with Simon, the guy from the bus and a few other people.
Other than that there wasn’t much to see. Some nice buildungs, an old palace with slums right next to it where we nearly walked through by accident .
In the hostel Max met someone from the village he spent most of his school live in and who knew some of the same people he did. The world is a small place. Besides from him we met a lot of other Germans, more than we saw during all of our time in Bolivia.
On our last day the hostal had some electric problems and an electrician came to repair them. The hostel owner didn’t tell us and they didn’t check for plugged in devices before starting „to fix“ the electricity as a result all of our and Simon’s chargers and power cabels were burned trough and the owner didn’t see what he did wrong so we had to buy new ones from our own money. Other than that it was a nice time in Asunción with a lot of relaxing in the pool and drinking beer.
After an overnight bus we arrived at 3 am in Tarija. We first tried to get a hostel around the bus station but they were ether full or way to expensive. So we found a nice taxi driver who drove us around till we found a good hostel which would open their doors at this time (we tried 5 hostels).
The place was actually really nice so we stayed a whole week. The food in Tarija was excellent for the first time in a long wile there were multiple types of meat and they were very good. We were kind of tired of chicken. Tarija is famous for its wine since it is one of the highest farming areas for grapes with special soil the wine taseds a little different than elswere. So we spend our dayes releaxing and walking around the city.
We visited the world largest wine cup. On one day we did a tour trough multiple wine yards of course with wine tasting and ended up buying a preety delicious one for just 3 euro.
After that we took a bus in direction of Asunción, the capital of Paraguay.
