Kanazawa – the pearl of Japan Alps

Spending only a week in Japan and being on a really tight schedule, we still wanted to get out of Osaka for a day to get to the Japanese Alps. Have you heard of Kanazawa – a city called “Little Kyoto”? Like Kyoto, Kanazawa avoided bombing during World War II. The city name literally means “golden marsh” – in its peak period it was considered to be the richest region in Japan producing about 180 million kg of rice! In addition to samurai and geisha districts you will also see there many interesting temples, museums and the Omi-cho market resembling a bit Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market. Honestly our aim was to come mostly for the views, yes! – gorgeous views of the mountains from one of the 3 most beautiful gardens in Japan, Kenroku-en. Arriving at this place only for a few hours was definitely worthwhile even though the one-way trip from Osaka to Kanazawa took us 3 hours. Have a look how beautiful the place is 🙂

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Vietnam: what things disappointed us vs. what made us want to come back for more!

Before going to Vietnam we kind of couldn’t wait for this experience counting the days until we got there. We heard a lot about Vietnamese cuisine considered to be one of the best in Asia, we heard about friendly and hospitable people we were going to meet there and we hoped that it would be less touristy than Thailand. We got a little disappointed by some situations and people and we thought that at some point Vietnam turned out to be jinxed in our case (especially we had the impression that we had bad luck with people that we were coming across during our journey). Later we changed our minds a little bit and found some pluses in regards to people, tourism and Vietnamese cuisine.

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Vietnamese New year – how is it celebrated in Hoi An?

Tet Nguyen Dan (known as ” Tet ”) is the most important Vietnamese holiday. This is the period when the Vietnamese celebrate the Lunar New Year (the date is taken from the lunar calendar). It is a movable feast, which falls at the end of January or in early February – at exactly the same time as the Chinese New Year. This year the Vietnamese have celebrated the New Year on January 28. It is said that the celebration lasts normally 3 days, but in practice we saw it continued up to 1 week and it significantly differed from the typical New Year celebration in Europe.  There are no grand balls and parties, it rather resembles the Polish Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, when gifts are handed in to relatives who gather together at a big table covered with lots of nice food. Let’s have a closer look at it then 🙂

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Swastika on marble statues of Buddha in Da Nang! Where does it come from?

Swastika for most of us has been a symbol of Nazi concepts. Germany during the 2nd World War completely usurped this sign and left it with its negative connotation up to present times. Why did we start to wonder whether this symbol has always been associated with nazism? Well, we went to a place called Marble Mountains located near Hoi An in Da Nang and surprisingly we found the sign of swastika on the marble statues of Buddha, and exactly in the center of his chest .. besides, the symbol was also illustrated separately and it was quite big, so it was not difficult to notice it .. at first it seemed abhorrent for us, then later awoke our curosity and we wanted to find out more about it … and dig into the history of the sign..

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Laos – the things that surprised us…

Previously we knew Laos only from stories. Firstly, we heard that this is an extremely cheap country. Secondly, that we would easily be struck by poverty as it is the case in Cambodia or Myanmar.. Hmm, we started to doubt it as soon as we arrived there and noticed Toyota Hilux vans and other cars of leading automotive brands passing the roads here and there, even in small villages. There are very few old cars on the roads, the rest of them look like brand-new ones. What’s more? We also heard that Lao people are extremely open and communicative (resembling Sri Lankan people in this way).. Hmm, well, and here again we have a doubt .. So how does it really look like?

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Yangon – the most interesting places to see in 1 day

Yangon is Myanmar’s largest city with a population of over 5 million people, being the economic and cultural center of the country. You can see that this is practically the only prosperous and ” civilized ” city in this country, focused on business development and having a vibrant life. It is also the most diverse city with a mixture of cultures and religions.

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Mandalay and its neighbourhood – temples dripping in gold vs sad reality

Mandalay is the second largest city of Myanmar with a population exceeding one million, yet not looking like a well developed and organized city. Chaos on the road is nothing new in an Asian country and it’s there. What strikes a contemporary traveller is poverty, decrepit buildings, someone would have said ‘the grunge everywhere’ and general backwardness in thinking and technology as well.

 

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Living on water in Inle Lake

Inle Lake – a magical place, especially at 7am when boats can start traversing this most famous and second-largest lake in Myanmar (its surface area: 116 square kilometres). You can take a longer trip to get to distant villages. It will cost you only 10,000MMK / 7,50USD per person (the boat for 2 people) to set off on a 6-8h trip and to enjoy the views of life on the water, and much more.

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