Tough to blog... (and two excuses)

Thank you all for your emails and reading our blog. Unfortunately, it was rather difficult for us to blog over the last two weeks.

SORRY!!

But at least we have come up with two excuses, why the line was dead for a while:

Primo, when we left Osaka in Japan and flew to Shanghai we got the luck to stay at Claudia's place for a couple of days. It was just great, we cooked some Hoernli with Ghaketem and even made our own Apfelmus. But was does this have to do with the blogging ?? Well the Chinese censorship agency simply thinks it's not a good thing if their inhabitants have access to blogspot.com. This meant, when we tried to blog, we got a nice Chinese page explaining us that we should try another site...
The time in Shanghai passed very quickly. We went up to what is probably the highest building you can go up to (Shanghai World Finance Center), strolled through the garden in Shanghai's rebuilt old town and enjoyed superb Chinese food thanks to Claudia's and Matthias's help pointing us at the best places. Also it was a once in a life time experience to use the Shanghai subway system during rush hour. Boah, we got really squeezed both, into the trains and also through the whole stations. Mass panic is probably a bad thing down there...

Secondly, the internet connection here in Lombok, Indonesia is f***ing slow... But step by step. From Shanghai, we took the plane to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. However, we only stopped over there for one night and then floated through the skies to Indonesian Bali, an island just east of Java. Again, just one night in Bali and the next day a small prop airplane took us to Lombok, an island east of Bali. We were almost there, but it took us another 2h drive by car over bumpy roads until we reached Kuta, a very calm small town on the south coast of Lombok. The reason for us to get to the south coast are the swells from the ocean that hit Lombok and generate nice waves to surf. We will post pictures as soon, as we find decent internet access speeds, but this is highly unlikely here in Lombok.

Let's see. We keep you posted!

PS: Evelyne is already a surf champion. After just a couple of days on the board, she surfes the waves like a pro

The bright side: Japan`s top 5 surprises

For us travelling through Japan was full of surprises. The top five we list here for you.

5. Energy drinks

The Japanese discovered Energy drinks way ahead of the Austrians. Here just a small selection of available energy drinks we found in every small store.

4. Manga Kissa

Many times when we wanted to go online to write on our blog we looked for an internet cafe. Not really what is usual in Japan. What we call Internet cafe is in Japan a Manga Kissa. However, it offers a bit more: a vast selection of Manga comics to read while you are in, DVDs to watch and computers to use. They even offer Love Seats for couples

Tons of manga comics in the Manga Kissa

More mangas

Making of our blog

The `Love Seat` (romantic, huh ;-)

3. Bell on backpack

Japanese hikers are cute. They walk with full fledged gear (sticks, mountain backpack, even gas bottle to grill something on the way) but the coolest is: they have a bell attached to their backpack. Well somehow you need to make sure, you don`t get lost, right?

2. Pachinko

Somehow the Japanese have an affection to very loud settings. They play their favourite game (Pachinko) in halls which are extremely loud. We couldn`t stay in there more than a couple of minutes, but the love to play this game which is more or less a combination of vertical pinball and a slot machine.

Pachinko players in Tokyo

1. Toilets

After some time in Japan we got used that the toilets are usually heated so they are nice and warm when sitting on them. However, the cooles model we found had an additional function apart from the usual heating-washing-drying features (see video).

Have you seen the male tinkle setting...?

Miyajima and Kyoto

Our last days in Japan we spent on a small island near Hiroshima called Miyajima and then we went to Kyoto our last stop in Japan.

On Miyajima it was very relaxing and we enjoyed the nice temples there and of course also took a picture of the most photographed item in Japan the Tori which is standing in the water in front of the temple. Its indeed very impressive.

Tori Miyajima, Monkey in the woods

By coincidence we could follow a Japanese wedding in the temple. It was very funny to see how the wedding couple had to prepare for the wedding pictures. Everybody was tearing and putting the hair and the nice traditional cloth in place before the photographer could take his picture. Even he feet and the fingers had to be in the right place (thanks god it wasn`t the same at our wedding). The bride was wearing a very nice and traditional wedding kimono and her hair was miraculously placed above her head. I am sure she had spent about 4 hours at the hairdresser ;) Our conclusion was that Japanese weddings are far more traditional and strict than our weddings.

Kyoto is said to be like Rome or Paris in Europe. It is crammed with historic places. They have 17 UNESCO World heritages (but you can`t see them all because after a couple of temples and shrines you have an overload of it). But the places we saw were very impressive and all of them have to tell a long and different story.

Old Imperial palace Kyoto

What it is also special in Kyoto that they still have the tradition of having Geisha's. We were lucky to see some on the public holiday strolling through the city because they had there day off. They are very beautiful and nicely dressed in Kimonos and have their face painted white. Geisha's are woman which have to do everything the men which comes to the restaurant at night want her to do except sexual business. They dance and perform for the men, serve them dinner, lighting the cigarettes etc.

Geisha in Kyoto

Chinese dragon festival

Japan - so what was it all about?

After 30 days, our trip to Japan comes to an end. Here the key facts and figures:

• Close to 5000 km travelled by train (i.e. on average 167 km a day)
• 15 cities visited
• 4 mountains climbed
• 1 car factory visited (Evelyne refused to visit Mazda in Hiroshima)
• 43 temples visited (Ralph refused to visit the umpteenth temple in Kyoto)
  

Other than that it was great fun: we ate almost everyday something we have never seen in our lives before, and it was even tasty (at least in most cases - I couldn`t get used to the vinegar plums though).

All the Japanese we met on our way deserve a huge "THANK YOU!" for helping us to navigate through the intricacies of traveling in a country where we could neither understand nor read any signposts, maps, menus, timetables, etc. It was amazing how they almost bent over backwards to make sure we get to where we needed to. So anyone who plans to travel a bit: put Japan on your list of destinations, it`s an amazing country.

Here a couple of pictures to enjoy.

Sunset over Nagasaki

Temples in Miyajima (notice the nice cans of food that Buddha recieves)

Hiking on Miyajima

Some nice food we ate

Palaces, hiking and shrines

The dark side

After having spent 2 weeks on Honshu - Japan`s major island with multi-million cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka we headed south to the Kyushu island. A bit larger than Switzerland, Kyushu is the southmost of the large Japanese islands (although there are smaller islands like Okinawa even further south). Also Kyushu is the island, were the Europeans first landed on Japan.

Now, take a guess, which European nation came to visit Japan first... The Portuguese! It is strange, but we found even today clues on he Portuguese influence, e.g. the ATMs here in Japan usually offer 3 languages: Japanese, English and - surprise - Portuguese. That`s cool we thought: we can operate the ATMs and get our cash in two out of the three languages on an ATM more than 10`000km away from Zurich ;-)

Back to the first European visitors to Japan. Apart from a little christianity the Portuguese also brought technology with them and soon the larger cities in Kyushu (mostly Fukuoka and Nagasaki) became hubs for technologic companies (e.g. Mitsubishi at the time a ship building company in Nagasaki).

Unfortunately, a couple of centuries later, more exactly on the 9th of August 1945 on 11:02am the large ship building facilities in Nagasaki became the target for the second nuclear bomb the Americans dropped on Japan in WW II. However, due to the clouds, the aiming officer on the US bomber mistook another Mitsubishi sign for the targeted Mitsubishi shipyard and the bomb detonated a couple of kilometers away from the intended target.

A 1:1 model of the `Little Boy` dropped on Hiroshima (3.5 m long)

This however did not change much of the destruction the `Fat Boy` (this was the name of the Plutonium loaded bomb) caused on Nagasaki. The costal city had 250`000 inhabitants at the time. Within seconds the bomb (which exploded 500m above ground to cause even more devastation) killed 75`000 people on the spot and the same number died suffering from the post effects of the bomb. The energy of the`Fat Boy`s explosion was about half going into a mechanical blast, 35% to heat and 15% to radiation. So whatever the blast did not blow up was burnt by the heat and whatever wasn`t burnt by the heat was radiated. The pictures of charcoaled bodies whose body fluids evaporated in seconds from the heat were tough on our minds and keep hunting me every time I think back on this event.

The memorial is built exactly beneath the explosion in Nagasaki

Hiroshima the day after the explosion (10th August 1945)

Walking through the museum we realized that much of the history leading to the bombing was focused on the American`s wanting to try out their new weapon. That the Japanese started the Pacific war with their attacks on the British on an Malay Island and on the Americans on Pearl harbor, both in December 1941 somehow was not explained in much detail at all. Three years ago we spend a couple of weeks on Hawaii and also went to Pearl Harbor, so it was very interesting now to see how the Japanese told the same history from their view point.

This dome stood almost right under the hypocenter of the explosion and therefore was not completely destroyed from the blast - now a reminder of the past tragedy

I have no clue about history, but it sounded amazing what the US government put together to develop the nuclear bomb. A letter from Albert Einstein to Franklin Roosevelt (the US president at the time) was shown in the museum. The writing indicated that the making of such a weapon using nuclear technology would be possible. Apparently the US feared that the Germans were also developing such a bomb and Roosevelt decided to start the biggest research project ever in human history (and it is still the biggest using today`s measures) to develop the nuclear bomb: at the peak the Manhattan Project as it was called employed more than 120`000 people throughout the US involving key scientists from universities and corporate research labs (as for example General Electric).

As the Germans capitulated unconditionally according to the Potsdam Conference, Japan was the only target left for the US military to use the newly developed weapon. Somehow the massive investment into a research project needs to be justified... But before bombing Japan, the US tried at least the diplomatic way: Japan was urged to unconditionally surrender, however, the continuation of the emperor system (which was key for the Japanese) wasn`t guaranteed for the Japanese, so they did not surrender.

The US now increased the pressure on Japan in two ways. First, they agreed with the Russians that Russia (at the time in a peace contract with Japan) will declare war on Japan within 3 months of Germany`s surrender. Moreover, even before Russia could declare war on Japan, the US dropped on August 6th 8:15am the first nuclear bomb (an Uranium bomb called the `Little Boy`) on Hiroshima. Soon after that Russia declared war on Japan. So Japan was under an immense pressure: the US continuously air bombing the Japanese cities and now the Russians also advancing against Japan. Still the unconditional surrender was (apparently) not an option for the Japanese and three days after the first nuclear bombing, the second nuclear bomb was dropped on Japan. This time - as mentioned - on Nagasaki, the town of a large Mitsubishi shipyard.

The explosion over Hiroshima photographed from a US plane

(by the way: I am by no means a historian, so any comments very much appreciated)

First capital of Japan - Nara

We visited Nara the first capital of Japan. It was the capital from 784-795 a.d. and you can still visit lots of historic places from this time because Nara never got hit by a war.

It is not a surprise that Nara is hosting 8 UNESCO wold heritages because of this and it was really amazing what we saw. The biggest attraction and I mean this also literately it the great Buddha from Todai-ji. This Buddha is massif and built with 385 tons of bronze and it is inside the biggest wooden temple of the world.

Around the temple is a big park with other temples and shrines and in the park are lots of deers which are the messenger of gods in the Buddhist religion.

We spend a day looking at the historic places and it really felt that we strolled through an ancient and for us very different world.

Hiking in Japan

Japan also has a mountain range called Alps the Japanese Alps. And because we like hiking this was one of the places we definitely wanted to go. So we went to Hakuba a mountain village in the Japanese Alps and therefore mainly a ski resort because when we arrived it was nearly calm and lots of things were closed. But we could sleep in a nice and very friendly Ryokan and it felt god to be away from the crowd for once. The next day we wanted to climb one of the peaks Mt. Kusumizawadake (2640 m.M). First we had to pick a cable car and then two ropeways. This are the lifts the skiers take also in winter and from there also the world cup races from Happo take place each year and in 1998 the downhill races in the Olympic games took place. When we started it was misty and fizzy but when we started to walk the sun suddenly came out of the clouds and the Japanese alps range emerged in front of us. It was amazing.

Amazing was also that suddenly lots of Japanese tourist appeared and they started to climb the mountain together with us. It is still a miracle where they all came from because the town was so empty. Anyway it was very nice to climb the mountain but also very exhausting and it felt like being on a hiking highway with all this Japanese hikers. We sometimes even had traffic jam at the steep places and had to wait until the Japanese were through. On top of the mountain we had a nice view and enjoyed our rice sandwich together with the other Japanese who made it. Some of the other Japanese even brought a small gas grill to the top and they cooked hot coffee and hot noodle soup on the peak.

On our map it was said that the hike will take 6 hours but as good trained Swiss hikers we did it in 3 1/2 hours up and down. I never imagined that Japan is so similar to Switzerland but in the Japanese Alps it was very much like home. And the icing on the cake was that the trees started to change their colours already.

How a Toyota Prius is made

Soon when I was in Japan, it seemed very intriguing to me to visit one of the Japanese robotized production lines. What would be better than to try and see if Toyota offers such a plant tour?

Soon the Internet helped us out and we could book a plant tour in Toyotashi (Toyota City) which is close to Nagoya. Not surprisingly, accommodation was not so easy to find in Toyotashi - who wants to spend his vacation near one of the biggest car plants in the world?? The closest we could get was Nagoya. The challenge then was how to get to the Toyota plant from Nagoya. Trying our best communicating with hand and feet we found our way and landed on time in front of the Toyota Motor Corporation headquarters. The picture below shows how unpretentious the HQ buildings are - no flags no sings, very modest for the largest car manufacturer in the world.

First we strolled through the line up of Toyota`s car models. From the small iQ up to the large Lexus models we could find everything. It was even allowed to sit into the cars and play around with them. Unfortunately, there was no racing track around to really try out the cars ;-) Then finally, at 11am we could board the bus that brought us to the plant.

Manufacturing a car sounds very easy listening to the plant tour guide: "It is a five step process. Primo, the steel delivered in coils is stamped into the right shape. Secondly, the steel parts are welded together (95% automated) and thirdly, the steel body gets painted to its desired color. Then the assembly starts - all the interior and exterior parts (drive train, seats, etc.) get assembled and put into the steel body - all just in time. The fifth and final step is the scrutinizing of the product: more than a 1000 tests are applied to every single Toyota Prius before it leaves the factory. "

WOW! I was amazed walking through the plant and seeing how smoothly and efficiently it run. Every worker knew exactly what to to and they seemed to really enjoy to work for one of the most admired companies in the world.

Now take a guess: how long do you think it takes to produce a full Toyota Prius starting with the steel coil (i.e. flat rolled up steel) and finishing with the 1000+ tests? It`s a mere 20 hours. Now, if 20 hours does not sound quick to you, imagine on top that the factory produces 1500 Toyota Prius in ONE day, more specifically in two shifts. That`s a lot of cars, and this is only one of Toyota's 50+ plants worldwide.

By the way, 2008 was the first year for Toyota to build more cars outside Japan than in Japan. Today Toyota has plants in the US, Europe, South America, India and China among others.




The main HQ building of Toyota Motor Corporation


The Prius 2009 model with solar roof



The iBoｔ - how Toyota sees the future...




Lexus IS250C... nice!

iQ - cute