Ari & Nici in Japan: beautiful Kanazawa

Hey guys (^.^)v

today a more traditional entry of my holidays in Japan.

While staying in Tokyo we chose one day to visit Kanazawa.

It is said to still be a very traditional city.

Here is the Kanazawa city homepage:

 www.city.kanazawa.ishikawa.jp

Since we have already ordered the Japan Rail Pass on beforehand,

we could freely choose a train to go there; and even the two

slowliest Shinkansen were included in the pass ^-^

So of course, we chose Shinkansen x3

It's amazing how much space you have on each seat
for your legs and stuff O.O
(never want to ride German trains again >.<)

When we moved to Osaka, we could even place our suitcases in front of us x3

We took the Hikari Super-Express

 On Shinkansen you usually have three seats in a row,
so the place next to Nici and me was free at first.
But after riding for one or two stations, an elderly gentlemen
seated next to us and after a moment asked me in English where we came from.
When I aswered "We are from Germany", he suddenly started  
speaking German to me O.O And really really good German ^-^
He told me, he once studied in Bremen and lived in Germany for some time.
When we told him, we were on the way to Kanazawa,
he replied it was the city of his birth and he recommended
us some beautiful places we should visit ^.^
It was so nice to talk to him and I am really impressed
that he still could speak German so well after so many years.
But already at the next station, we had to change trains
and the wished us a nice day ^.^
After some more time of train riding, we finally reached Kanazawa
and when we left the train station, the city welcomed us ^.^

this is the Main Station

We decided to first go to visit Kanazawa Castle.
Just alone the way to it was very pretty.

Sadly, it became very cloudy when we reached the castle..

After this, we strolled through a beautiful parc,
which we had to pay entrance fee for (this seems
to be very common in Japan though..) 

I think Japan's nature and architecture is really beautiful.
It also surprised me, how closely old and modern Japan are coexisting.
To visit Kanazawa was so nice. It has not been made such a
glamorous tourist attraction, but is much more traditional.
  
After our visit in the parc, we decided to leave because we 
had to go for a few hours by train and it was already getting dark.
But before leaving, we met Detective Conan with Ran and Kogoro Mori at the station x3

Good bye, Kanazawa! ♥

And good bye to my dear readers ^.^
I hope to see you next time again x3

Ari and Nici in Japan: Sanrio Puroland ♥

Hey my dears ^.^

time for a new post about my holidays in Japan ♥

This time about our visit at Sanrio Puroland!

Have you heard of it before?

It's a theme park for (small) children with sanrion characters ^-^

The most famous: Hello Kitty of course

Here is their website, if you want to know more:

http://en.puroland.jp/ 

There even is a Halloween special at the moment ^.^

But now about our visit:

We took the train to get to Puroland and it took so long.. nearly an hour.

When we got out the train at the station, we were a bit surprised,

because there was nothing o.o

Just a small station, a conbini and very few people..

We thought like, omg where are we?

But we were very sure, it was the right station..

So we went out and luckily saw this:

Ok, we are at the right place x3

 

We saw a few people enter the park, but the other parts of the street were

totally abandoned.. maybe because of the 35°C that day..

 We didn't have to wait long at the entrance.

There were several people, who wanted to enter, but since we were

in convenient Japan and not in the lack of service culture Germany,

we just had to wait for about two minutes x3

In Puroland there are several shows and 

some rides and sttractions you can enter.

We decided to first take part in the 'Sanrio Boat Ride'

It was pretty cute but at some times a bit scary..

The rooms became so dark and then a cute music box sound started to play..

like in a horror movie q.q

After this we headed on to 'Lady Kitty House':

We saw a short movie on the screen in the entrance hall

in which Kitty-chan invited us to visit her house ♥

and then we could enter:

There were also some parts where you could take "interactive" photos x3

Tea Ceremony with Kitty-chan

Milk Tea bath

After this we all took a photo together with lady Kitty

but we thought it was to expensive to buy it.

Next we decided to have a little break

and went on to Cinnamoroll's Cafe.

My food:

Melon Soda and Chocolate Hello Kitty Donut

and Nici's food:

I forgot what it was called...

but the waitress obviously didn't undertand her well

and she got the ice cream for free xD

Since Cinnamoroll is my favourite Sanrio Character,

I couldn't resist but take a photo with him ♥

After eating we went on to 'Kuromi's Rent-a-Car' Ride:

You rode in My Melody Cars.

One of them was placed outside the ride and a very nice staff member

took photos of you in the cars ♥

The rode itself was quite short which is why I don't have photos of it..

Since it was summer holidays when we were there,

there also was a Natsu Matsuri special in one room.

At the entrance you could buy some coins and play games

at the character booths each character had.

Near the exit of the park there is a huge fan shop of course.

But although it's that big they barely had merch of

my favourite characters cinnamoroll and kuromi..

this made me a bit sad q.q

But nevertheless it was a funny experience to visit Sanrion Puroland ^.^

I would just recomment you to not go there during summer holidays..

we went there very early that day and already left in the early afternoon.

Just at the time when it started to get really really crowded x3

Most attractions of Puroland are walk-throughs

and there are many cute sceneries which are not listed on the homepage.

For example there are many factories:

a candy factory, a bread factory and some more.

But the main attraction might be the several shows

but since we didn't understand them, we didn't watch any.

That's it about our visit at Sanrio Puroland ^.^

For the rest of our holidays, Nici had a pink-phobia x'D

Make sure to be prepared for this when you're planing a visit x3

Thank you for reading ♥

See you next time (^-^)v