We chose a perfect day to visit USJ: a rainy school day. You think that would keep the crowds away right? Wrong! Supposedly it was much quieter than it could be, but there were still 2 hour long queues for most rides! Luckily, we had 12 hours to spend there!

To start the day we raced straight for Harry Potter World, which is one of the worlds inside USJ. It's by far the most popular part of USJ so you have to line up to receive a timed entry ticket to the world. Because we'd arrived early it was only half an hour before we were wondering through a forest of pine trees with that comforting, magical, Harry Potter music playing in the background! That was until we turned a corner and heard the laughter and excitement erupting from inside the gates to Hogsmeade!

There was the Hogwarts Express at the station, a range of crazy sweets for sale at Honeydukes, wands at Ollivander’s, and wizarding goods at Dervish and Banges! After wondering through all the shops and deciding that we didn't actually need any muggle versions of Skiving Snackboxes or Fizzing Whizbees, we left Hogsmeade in search of Hogwarts Castle!





We found it and couldn't believe how impressive it looked! If you look closely you can see Harry and Ron weaving between the turrets on their broomsticks!

‘The Forbidden Journey’ ride is inside Hogwarts Castle. Being the most popular ride in the park, it had a queue a few hours long. Pre-empting this, the park made the queue wind through Hogwarts, giving you plenty to see during the wait. We passed through Professor Sprout’s greenhouse and Dumbledore’s office, and passed talking portraits and the Sorting Hat (all speaking in Japanese though)! The ride was the best 4D ride I’ve ever been on! It felt incredibly real flying around the castle and ducking under bridges, playing Quiddich and trying to catch the Snitch, and escaping the Dementors where you could see your face bring sucked into their mouths as they tried to kiss you! Luckily we escaped with the help of the famous Griffindor trio!

To celebrate we feasted at The Three Broomsticks. A huge platter of meat and vegetables was served with either a brew from the Hogs Head or a delicious cup of Butterbeer, which tasted like liquid cake! I’m still dreaming about how good the Butterbeer was and wishing that I could find Hermione to enchant my keepsake cup to be a never ending one!

Because we visited USJ around Halloween, come 6pm the park became infested with zombies! These zombies were incredibly scary and would limp after you, groaning with arms outstretched or carrying chainsaws! There was a SWAT team on patrol that occasionally were able to take control of a zombie and put them in the back of their van, but if they weren’t careful, just down the road the SWAT team would burst out of the van having been turned into zombies! The only way to escape the zombies was either to run fast, or wait for the music to start every half an hour, upon which the zombies became transfixed and would start dancing to this scary song:

The next time I come back to experience the magic, the snow on the rooftops will be real, and I'll be with a group of crazy muggles who have decked themselves out as Hogwarts wizards and witches (aka my family)!!

Working on weekends has its perks. Two weekends ago a group of us used our days off in lieu to make a long weekend out of the Halloween weekend and headed to Osaka! The weekend wasn’t filled with any cultural excursions, just Halloween parties, eating Osaka’s infamous street food, visiting the Glico man, and of course the main reason we visited Osaka: to visit Harry Potter World at Universal Studios Japan!

Racing along with the 80 year old Glico running man billboard.

After arriving at the busy Osaka station in full costumes and face paint for some, we made our way through the busy streets to the club our party was being held at. What was supposed to be a 10 minute walk was closer to 45 minutes, and ended up being the best part of my night! The long walk was due partly to people asking to take their photos with us, but mostly me asking to take photos of other people! Check out some of the cool costumes below:

Cloud and Aerith, the all male Power Rangers, the Teletubbies with Princess Mononoke, and 2 Madelines with an adorable little girl. 

The incredibly scary zombie, cross-dressing Sailor Senshi! 

The not so scary Monkey D. Luffy and Minnie Mouse! 

One of our days consisted purely of going from breakfast, to lunch, to dinner! We went to a lovely English tea house in the morning where I had real Eggs Benedict and a pot of Chai tea! Unheard of in Japan to me until now! After walking for an hour or two and not knowing what else to do, we tried some of the local specialties. We had Okonomiyaki, which is a Japanese savoury pancake where you choose the ingredients (pork, squid, cheese etc.) and grill it on a hotplate. We also tried Takoyaki, small balls of batter with a piece of squid inside, grilled on special hot plates that look really similar to a Poffertjes hotplate. After a nap at home, it was out again for some delicious Mexican food and frozen margaritas! Ahhh Osaka, my waist line does not love you!

When I closed my eyes it felt like I was back at Tilleys! Apart from the side salad though, that was a bit random.

We stumbled across what appeared to be a huge, unused, unorthodox ferris wheel while meandering between meals.

I know these Okonomiyaki don't look very appetizing but they were delicious and Tom's favourite meal of the trip!

MANGO MARGARITAS!! 

The highlight of the trip though was our final day, when we visited Harry Potter World at Universal Studios Japan!! Stay tuned for the next installment to read about the magic of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts!

October is one of the best months in Japan because of the spectacular yellow, orange and red autumn colours that can be seen amongst the changing trees. What better way to observe this fiery brilliance than by hiking through the national parks in Norikura? So a few weekend ago, that’s what we did!

A group of us set out nice and early and headed for Mt Norikura, a dormant volcano in Gifu prefecture. As we drove further north, we headed away from the last wisps of summer in Gifu city, through the gorgeous autumn scenery, and eventually up the mountain, where winter had well and truly arrived.

The weather wasn’t as pleasant as the views on the first day, so instead of hiking to the summit we decided to do some of the waterfall hikes instead. Due to the lack of signage (or more likely our lack of Japanese), we took what we thought was the long walk to the most popular waterfalls. Instead of heading right, up the well-trodden mountain path, we of course went left and started climbing our way up a ski slope. None of us thought it unusual when the track disappeared, or when we saw no people around and just large ski signs indicating black and blue runs behind us. We could always hear the waterfall to our right, so we weren’t too worried, that was until the noise of crashing water started disappearing… As we deliberated whether to turn back around or to continue, we came upon another carpark, except there was a huge chain blocking access to the path we happened to be walking along, whoops! Somehow, we had made our way to the other carpark where the short walk to the waterfalls began! This path was of course perfectly marked out with wooden steps and signs every few hundred metres. The Sanbondaki waterfalls consist of 3 separate waterfalls that flow in to one river. They were beautiful, and not just because we hiked 2 hours to get there!

Can you see all 3 waterfalls? The all flow into the one river just below us.

We finally found the right path! Yay!

The following day we awoke to clear blue skies and were stoked that we chose today to walk to the summit of the volcano! After just making the early bus, we were driven up the windy, narrow road to the level of the clouds where the hiking began. The bus took us past trees covered in stunning autumn coloured leaves, but these eventually started to disappear and instead made way to a barren ice land shrouded in fog. Everyone laughed when I said to pack warm clothing, they weren’t laughing anymore!

The beautiful autumn weather!

Mitch half frozen to death, definitely not laughing anymore.

The howling wind brought the temperature down below zero and covered whatever was still standing in icicles (this included us)! Unfortunately, the weather was terrible in the clouds and we never made it to the point that we were above them. Instead of the clear views of other mountains from the summit, we couldn’t see more than 20m and were covered in ice! Granted, the frozen tori gate at the top looked pretty cool in this weather!

Check out how the icicles have formed in the wind off the back of the Torii gate!

Despite the atrocious weather, it was still a really fun and memorable trip. We might just have to do it again, but maybe in summer instead!

Last weekend was the 415th anniversary of the Battle of Sekigahara. This battle was the largest and most decisive samurai battle in Japanese history. To celebrate the event we attended the Sekigahara Matsuri and samurai school! Firstly though, for those of you that don’t know the story, I’ll give you my rendition of it now. For those of you that would prefer a super short summary, you can skip to about half way down the page instead!

The not so super short summary:
Oda Nobunaga was a great samurai who unified most of Japan and became the Shogun back in the 1500's. The Shogun was the country’s Military Commander and he effectively ran the country. Officially the Emperor was the highest rank, but the Emperor rarely had any power so the Shogun tended to run the show. Nobunaga was betrayed by one of his closest comrades who wanted the power for himself, so he committed seppuku, the honourable samurai suicide where they slice their stomach open, so that the betrayer wouldn’t get the glory of killing Nobunaga himself. This left Japan without a leader, until a loyal successor called Toyotomi stepped up and fought to preserve Nobunaga’s name and legacy. Toyotomi managed to maintain power and peace in Japan for 20 years before dying and leaving only a 5 year old son as his heir.

               Oda Nobunaga                                     Toyotomi Hideyoshi                                  Tokugawa Ieyasu

A political officer called Ishida, a Toyotomi clan loyalist, decided to act as a figurehead and help rule the clan until the young boy came of age to be able to rule himself. However, one of the highest ranked military lords in the clan, Tokugawa, decided it was his time to shine and saw the opportunity to gain power for himself! He split the clan in half, taking control of all the military generals, and leaving all the loyalists to Toyotomi. Of course, two leaders doesn’t work very well, so this indecisive period resulted in the epic Battle of Sekigahara.

Ishida tried to trick Tokugawa by forming a secret pact with an Eastern Lord who would raise his army against Tokugawa and draw him east into a battle. Tokugawa took half the samurai army in Osaka and marched them east to settle this rebellion. Ishida then took the other half of the army, rallied more lords and their soldiers from the west and marched to try and take Tokugawa by surprise. But Tokugawa was too clever and he discovered the trick. Firstly, he made sure his samurai would support him in battle and not turn on him for loyalty to the Toyotomi clan. They all agreed, but they were still greatly outnumbered. Secondly, Tokugawa was a very clever man and so he managed to convince a few of Ishida’s eastern lords to secretly pledge their allegiance to him instead of Ishida, and they were only to reveal this during the battle.

Ishida thought he had this battle in the bag. He had a much larger army, and he got to the battlefield first so he was able to strategically place his army around the mountains of Sekigahara. He even managed to position part of his army on a mountain to the east and south of the battlefield, so that when Tokugawa’s army came through the eastern valley Ishida’s armies could surround Tokugawa’s in a brutal sandwich! Unfortunately, Ishida didn’t realise how clever a man Tokugawa was.

On the day of the battle, Tokugawa’s army came through the eastern valley and started to fight on the battlegrounds between the east and west mountains as planned. However, when Ishida sent the signal for his eastern mountain army to come down and surround Tokugawa, two of his armies turned on him instead and decimated his side within hours.

After winning the battle, Tokugawa returned to Osaka, where he was declared the next Shogun by the Emperor and began the 265 year reign of the Tokugawa Shogunate This period of time is called the Edo period, and is when Japan shut themselves off from the rest of world. This resulted in the longest period of peace in Japanese history, and enabled the Japanese culture to develop with limited influence from the outside world to become the incredibly unique culture it is today.


The super short summary:
Two great Samurais, Oda Nobunaga, and his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, successfully unified all of Japan. Unfortunately, when Toyotomi died, he left only a young child as his heir, and this threw Japan into disarray. Two men then both decided that they should be the new leader and fought the largest battle Japan had ever seen on the battlefields of Sekigahara (30km west of Gifu city). A man named Tokugawa won after employing some clever and sneaky tactics, and was declared the Shogun of Japan. His family’s reign as Shogun lasted 265 years and is known as the Edo period, which was the period of time where Japan closed itself off from the rest of the world and developed the incredibly unique Japanese culture we see today.


The Matsuri:
While in Sekigahara we checked out the museum which had the actual samurai swords used in the battle (cleaned of course), the battlefields, and the decapitation area! Also, being a Japanese festival, there were many performances, food stalls and adorable festival mascots! Japan loves having cute mascots for everything and anything, and this was no exception. They managed to make the dangerous war lord, Tokugawa, look cute in his soft and oversized samurai costume. There were also a few different cats dressed as samurais roaming around the festival, just in case one mascot wasn’t enough!

Tokugawa mascot

A range of the adorable samurai cats! 

The Lord Generals awaiting the next head for inspection at the decapitation area. 

Samurai School:
We started the day by getting dressed into basic samurai clothes, which were pretty much just comfortable cotton pajamas and uncomfortable size 6 straw sandles! Once we were dressed appropriately, we had a lesson on how to wield a sword and a spear. Hot tip: if you’re ever in a battle, always choose a spear! A swordsman will rarely get near you if you’re poking at them with a 5m long spear! We then got to try on some samurai battle gear and fought each other again! It was pretty fun, but Tom didn’t follow the instructions and improvised his own moves, so I died a few times. Second hot top: always choose Tom to go into battle with you over me. According to our certificated, in the spirit of the samurai we successfully and honourably learned and used the weapons and armour of the samurai like a pro (minus the like a pro part).

Learning the overhead slice action with a katana

If looks could kill! (Probably has a better chance than his plastic spear).

One of the many times Tom killed me in battle! (Always choose the spear...)

The students of Samurai School

Silver week is an ingenious invention by the Japanese where they string 3 public holidays in a row to make a 5 day holiday for the public! So a group of us JET's decided we'd venture through the wonders of Tokyo!

Arrgh! What's that big, scary thing next to the skyscraper?! Oh, it's just Tom.

Tom and I visited Disney Sea, which is more of an adults version of Disneyland. There's less kiddy rides and they serve alcohol! It was also decorated for Halloween with the Disney villains running the park and the shows. The most surprising part of the park was the overwhelming number of people that were decked out in full Disney paraphernalia! At least half the people in the park were wearing matching Disney character hats, shirts and bags. People went even further though! If you were there as a couple or in a group, you had to match your already matching character outfit to the rest of the group's already matching character outfits (shoes, socks and hairstyles included)! Luckily, we managed to each win an over sized stuffed Daisy and Daffy Duck which we were then able to (had to) carry around all day, helping us fit into the unwritten dress code a bit better!

Hello handsome! Oh, and hello to you too Gaston.

Daffy and Daisy got in trouble because the use of selfie sticks is banned in Disney Sea...

Sundays in Yoyogi are awesome for checking out the crazy Harajuku Girl fashions, as well as being able to catch glimpses of beautiful Shinto weddings at the Meiji Shrine. Luckily we, and the hundreds of other tourists at the shrine, managed to observe 3 different weddings occurring! The brides wore beautiful white, silk kimonos with large, rounded headpieces called Watabōshi, which shield their faces from the audience but not from their partner. Brides are able to choose between wearing the Watabōshi, or the more traditional Tsunokakushi. The latter is a headpiece that was designed to ”hide the bride's horns of jealousy" and shows her willingness to become a kind and obedient wife. From what I've read, younger Japanese woman are starting to move away from the traditional Tsunokakushi, opting for the Watabōshi instead.

This bride is wearing the traditional Tsunokakushi

This bride is sporting the more modern Wataboshi

It felt like we were walking in a forest instead of the middle of Tokyo!

That night we went to one of Tokyo's infamous themed bars. We chose 'The Lock Up', where a policewoman handcuffed us and led us to our cell. Pretty exciting so far, except it looked like we were being led into a haunted house, and the waitors were dressed more like ghouls and monsters than policeman?! The accidental change in theme suited us well as we began being served colourful test tubes and beakers of alcoholic concoctions, amusing the crazy scientists within us!

No trip to Tokyo is ever complete without a visit to Akihabara, the electronics and Otaku (Japanese anime and manga fans) district. Just to make sure we had covered it all, we went 3 times! The big red Sega building below is filled with arcade games and managed to keep us busy for a few too many hours! We quickly learnt how terrible we are at most games, especially the dancing and taiko drumming games! Tom and I were so bad at the Taiko game that we actually broke it and it could no longer be played!

We also visited a cat cafe (the owl cafe was booked out), accidentally walked in and quicky out of adult only shops, and we tried the crepes that all the girls at school kept telling me to try (they're filled with whipped cream, chocolate cookies, strawberries, and a little bit of heaven)!

So glad Tom finally got that haircut!

Mitch's face gives away how good this decision was!

We also managed to find the time to dabble in the Tokyo nightlife! The best night started inoculously with a group of us having a few casual beers on our terrace. At about 10:30pm, one of the boys realised it was his birthday the next day (they're easy to forget when you get to our age)! So we dressed him up in a party shirt and headed out to one of the best clubs in Tokyo's party district! The club we chose was filled with Japanese drag queens, lasers, shot bars, dancers dressed in LED robot costumes, and girls posing in skimpy outfits on podiums, staring hazily off into the distance like they were pondering deep philiosophical questions (like why they were posing on podiums in a nightclub in very little clothing at 2am on a weeknight). We had an awesome night, and Caleb was able to celebrate the start of his birthday in style, in a party shirt in a night club in Tokyo!

The awesome LED robot dancers in the club

Not as cool as these robots though!

Unfortunately this magical week of public holidays has ended and its back to normal school weeks until we stumble upon the next of Japan's many long weekends. So, later this month.