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If my previous post about my dream-trip to Japan hasn't convinced you to join me yet, than I surely do hope this post will change your mind.
Last time I suggested visiting Mount Fuji, Shibuya, Yokohama, the Harajuku area and the city of Nara. I found all of them very interesting places, five locations you definitely should NOT miss during your stay in Japan.

Today's tourist attractions are as fantastic as the other ones I've already mentioned. Without further ado, this posts' must-see in Japan are:

The Disneyland in Tokyo

It is a 115 acre theme park next to Tokyo. I believe its name speaks for itself, but you should know the Tokyo Disneyland features both traditional elements of Disney and anime.

Tea ceremony in Kyoto, at Jotokuji Temple

If you visit Kyoto, then you should certainly participate in the Way of tea or The tea ceremony. It is a traditional ceremony, handled with utter care, that is even considered a form of art in Japanese culture. It has its roots in Zen Buddhism and I believe it is a great opportunity to get a deeper look into the ancient Japanese way of living. (You can also taste different kinds of natural, hand-made tea which, I heard, are extremely tasty and flavoured-packed.)

Visit an onsen

Onsen is a thermal bath well-known fot its health benefits. However, if you decide to go there, you should ALWAYS respect 8 rules. These are:
1. You should go naked, as no swimsuit is allowed.
2. You should be clean.
3. You are not allowed to swim there.
4. Be sober. Obviously drinking alcohol inside the bath or before entering the water is forbidden.
5.Don't bring fragile things with you.
6.You shouldn't use shampoo in the onsen water.
7. Be mindful of others.
8.Don't put your hair or towel inside the water.
If you follow these easy rules, I'm sure your onsen experience will be a relaxing one!

Meguro River during Spring

Located in Tokyo, Meguro River gives one of the best views during Spring, as it is the cherry blossoms' season. Pictures of the beautiful area are everywhere on the internet and it sure seems like an unforgettable view. Each year during the cherry blossom season, countless people gather there to celebrate this lively event.

Ise Grand Shrine

Ise Grand Shrine is located in Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu.
The shrine is fully made out of wood and I believe its simplicity gives it its beauty.

These are my other 5 must-see locations in Japan! So... are you coming with me to explore the Japanese beauty and to take a deeper look into the Japanese culture?
I hope you are convinced!... Or should we go for part. 3?

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Probably you've never heard about it before, but the Ainu term refers to the indigenous population, the people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese (authentic Japanese) and Russians.
Official estimates place the total Ainu population of Japan at 25,000. Unofficial estimates place the total population at 200,000 or higher, as the near-total assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society has resulted in many individuals of Ainu descent having no knowledge of their ancestry. As of 2000, the number of "pure" Ainu was estimated at, believe it or not, only about 300 people.
In 1966, there were about 300 native Ainu speakers, but in 2008, however, there were not more than only 100.
Early Ainu-speaking groups were mostly hunters and fishermen who migrated also into the Kamchatka Peninsula and into Honshu, where their descendants are today known as the Matagi hunters, who still use a large amount of Ainu vocabulary in their spoken language.
Other evidence for Ainu-speaking hunters and fishermen migrating down from Northern Hokkaido into Honshu is through the Ainu toponyms which are found in several places of northern Honshu, mostly among the western coast and the Tōhoku region.

The Ainu and Japanese cultures differ a lot, as according to Tanaka Sakurako from the University of British Columbia,

the Ainu culture can be included into a wider "northern circumpacific region", referring to various indigenous cultures of Northeast Asia and "beyond the Bering Strait" in North America.

The Ainu men had long beards and full moustaches, as they would never shave after a certain age. Another iconic thing is that women would tattoo themselves from a young age, especially their mouths and sometimes their forearms. Their traditional clothing would be a robe made in different forms and colors. Women also wore an undergarment of Japanese cloth. Men used to wear a crown made of wood for different special occasions illustrating the animal gods. They would also carry a traditional sealed sword with them.

I hope these paragraphs got you into the Ainu culture and made you a bit more curious and interested in it.

Thank you for reading!

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This time I feel like I need to talk about anime, written in katakana as アニメ.
Animes are the Japanese cartoons which became well-known world-wide because of their genre variety and iconic drawing technique.
As I previously mentioned, the term anime is used for cartoons hand-designed and computer-generated in Japan. The word is written in katakana, because it has its origins in the word animation from English. So even though anime is 100% a Japanese good, its name is written in katakana.
At first glance, this type of cartoons may seem designed only for children, but you'd be surprised to find out that animes are not kids' shows. There are a lot (and I mean A LOT) of genres of anime, which include horror, serious drama animes, bloody scenes and even 18+ rated animes.
These cartoons also depict different subjects, including serious and up-to-date matters, racism, equality and many others.
An anime is usually based on a manga series, which is mostly the hand-drawn plot, including the scenes, the characters and their feelings, gestures and the general mood. Mangas are animated by studios. Some of the most famous studious of this kind in Japan are:  Studio Pierrot, Toei Animation, Madhouse, Studio Ghibli and Nippon Animation.
A fan of anime is named in Japan otaku (おたく), unfortunately in a derogatory way. Otaku comes from the Japanese word for home, as it is believed that true anime fans will stay at home all day doing nothing but watching anime.
Animes are usually series, even though they can be movies as well. One episode usually takes up to 30 minutes, including an intro and an outro, which you can obviously skip. There could be shorter or longer episodes as well. There are anime with only 5 minutes episodes. An anime movie can last anywhere between one hour and three hours.
Here is a list of short anime series (about 10-20 episodes) and movies that I really enjoyed and I do warmly recommend to everybody:

Violet Evergarden (My all time favorite short anime, I cried during every episode)

Another (horror anime)

Erased

Spy X Family

Jujutsu Kaisen

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

Orange

To sum up, anime is such a good way to relax and catch a breath from your everyday life, no matter your age and preferences. If you can't find an anime to suit your taste, leave me a message and I'll help you find one! (because there are plenty, believe me!)

I hope you enjoyed and now you are willing to try (at least one) anime to convince yourself whether or not they are made only for kids :)

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Shodō is te term used in Japan when referring to traditional Japanese calligraphy and it has its roots in Chinese calligraphy. Shodō is considered a valuable form of art in Japan, defined by a complex technique, a lot of hard work and, of course, practice.
There are different types of calligraphy writing: sigillary script, clerical script, regular script, semi-cursive and cursive script.
The sigillary script  is called in Japanese language tensho (篆書) and it was firstly used in the Nara period. The work is made in six different panels, each divided in two columns with eight characters and called Torige Tensho Byobu.
The clerical script is also called reisho (隷書). Its main characteristic is its bold style that is now reserved for large text applications such as plaques, signboards, titles of works, etc.
The regular script, also called kaisho (楷書) was heavily influenced by the Sui Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty. The earliest examples of this style in Japan are mostly statue and temple inscriptions.

The semi-cursive script, named in Japan gyōsho (行書), is a slightly more cursive version of kaisho script. These two scripts were used at the same time. The style of gyosho utilizes a softer and rounded technique, while kaisho is more sharp. The Japanese version of gyosho became more popular and also the basis of many schools of calligraphy. This was a result of gyosho mixing very well with both kanji and hiragana as writing with this technique was both natural and very fluid.

(Check the Japanese language post to better understand the terms of hiragana and kanji.₎

The cursive script is named sōsho (草書). It was used as a cursive version of reisho for taking notes. This writing technique can be easily recognized by many strokes ending with a sweep to the upper right in a breaking-wave type form.
In order to practice Japanese calligraphy you have to be very well prepared, as you need to carefully use a lot of traditional tools and to have a good posture.
You need the so-called Four Treasures of the Study:

A brush (筆, fude), brushes coming in different sizes

An inkstick (墨, sumi), this being the hardened mixture of vegetable or pine soot and glue in the shape of a stick, the best inksticks being between 50 and 100 years old.

Mulberry paper (和紙, washi)

An inkstone (硯, suzuri) to grind the inkstick against, mixed with water.

You would also need, a paper weight (文鎮, bunchin) to keep the paper in place, a cloth (下敷き, shitajiki) to place under the paper and a seal (印, in).

Trying Japanese calligraphy is a time consuming process, but indeed a pleasant experience to try at least once in a lifetime! Trust me, been there, done that! :)

Even though there are many things left unsaid about this little part of the Japanese culture, I surely hope you enjoyed reading these few paragraphs and got a bit more curious about Japan and its cultural treasures.

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If you are an anime or manga enthusiast, learning Japanese language has probably crossed your mind at least once or twice.
Learning a new language in general can be a lot of things but an easy task. As far as Japanese is concerned, it could be a little scary due to the three so-called alphabets used in the everyday writing.
The Japanese language uses three writing systems that work together : hiragana, katakana and kanji. They have no letters, only symbols that are being read as different sounds.
Hiragana and katakana, referred together as the kana syllabary, represent two different ways to write the same 46 sounds. For example, both  あ and ア are being read as the sound /a/ in hiragana and katakana. The main difference between these two Japanese syllabaries is that hiragana is primarily used to represent Japanese words, while katakana represents foreign words. As there are many borrowed words in Japanese, the katakana syllabary alerts the reader, so they know how to properly read that certain word.
Kanji is a lot more different than the kana. Its origin lays in the Chinese writing system, as kanji are actually simplified Chinese characters. They are inspired by nature and the surroundings, as they started as drawings of natural elements, such as fire, trees, different bodies of water, soil, rice fields, etc... The characters have Japanese pronunciations. Most of the kanji have two, with one based on the Chinese sound.
Furigana is a Japanese reading tool consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji in order to help the readers who do not know different  types of kanji to understand and read fluently.

All this being said, the title 日本語  is written using kanji, にほんご is written using hiragana, and is pronounced as nihongo.

I hope this helps to make a clearer view on what learning to read and write in Japanese really is like. Even though it might seem impossible at first, your work is always rewarded and it brings a lot of satisfaction in the long run.

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Music has been and will always be a significant part, a pillar  of every culture around the world.
Music is influenced by beliefs, trends, economy and more importantly, it perfectly portrays the society it comes from.
When we talk about Japanese music, compared to the European or English music, I believe the Japanese one kept its innocence though years and even now, when there is a lot of demand for adult content, the songs and artists are very popular and loved for their simplicity and authentic style. What I love about Japanese people in general is that they are true to themselves and their culture, they are not influenced by others and you can easily observe that in the music Japanese artists produce.
Furthermore, the songs have deeper meanings than expected (or, at least, they are not as shallow as European and English songs). For example, the names of the songs are also coded, so there might be a song called "Sunflower" and it would be about the joy and confort the singer's lover brings him, the way she glows when she is smiling, the positive attitude she has, all of this reminding the writer of a sunflower and how it always turns to the sun, to the light.
Another example would be one of my favorites, the song Hanabi (Fireworks). It sings about time and how nothing lasts forever. I surely like how the sand and the sea are pictured in the music video, because these elements don't change. The only one changing through time is the human being.
I believe the Japanese have a unique style of producing song and music videos. They create something beautiful and pure, art.
Needless to say, of course that they have their own old, traditional music, but I found the subject of pop music more up to date and quite underrated, I would say.

While there are serious, meaning and depth-packed songs, there are also funny songs about Japan, especially made for foreigners and for their better understanding of the Japanese language.
There are also songs made for children, which are obviously less serious than other pop songs.

I do hope this paragraphs made you at least a bit more interested and curious about the Japanese view on music and its pop artists.

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The cat symbol in Japan -      Maneki-neko

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The cat symbol in Japan -      Maneki-neko

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The maneki-neko symbol of Japan is also known as the welcoming cat, lucky cat, money cat, happy cat, and beckoning cat. It is one of the most popular features in Asian culture and dates back to the 17th century.
The iconic statue of the cat has its unique characteristics, like the pointy red ears, an inviting raised paw golden coins and accessories and a cute happy face.
Its history is quite a fascinating one as it is tied with different legends.
One legend starts with a cat born at the Gōtoku-ji temple in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo during the Edo period (1603–1868). According to temple historians, while hunting with falcons, the daimyo (regional ruler) Ii Naotaka was saved from a lightning bolt when the abbot’s pet cat Tama beckoned him into Gōtoku-ji.

Grateful to the cat for saving his life, the ruler made it a patron of the temple where it has been venerated in its very own shrine ever since.

Today the tranquil grounds of Gōtoku-ji are dotted with thousands of beckoning cat statues of varying sizes. Visitors come to see the array of white cats—commonly shaped as a Japanese bobtail, a breed that makes frequent appearances in local folklore—and pray for luck. The statues can be purchased at the temple and are usually left behind as an offering, although many take them home as a souvenir.

Japan's relationship with cats could be easily described as a love-hate one, as cats are everywhere in Japan. While it is easy to see they are loved, Japan also fears cats. The country has a long, terrifying history of folklore involving monstrous supernatural cats. They range from the fanciful, magical shapeshifters (bakeneko) to the horrendous demonic corpse-eaters (kasha). Having this into consideration, it's quite understandable why Japanese people are still confused about their feelings towards cats.

However, the maneki-neko still remains a statue that is believed to bring good fortune and money.

What do you think about cats? Are they some kind of demonic creatures or do they actually bring amazing things into our lives?

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Naturally, a trip to the mystical and culture-packed destination of Japan could find its place on anybody's traveling wishlist. As far as I am concerned, going to Japan is my ultimate dream.
Frankly, if somebody was to give me a one way plane ticket to Japan, they would never see me again. I would be living my Japanese dream, minding my own business far away from Europe.
Even though it may sound a little bit edgy, it's true. I am way too passionate about everything linked to this country (as you might've realized already due to the topics of my padlet), although I don't have any connections to it besides knowing a bit of the Japanese language.
I've never been to Japan. However, my dream trip would certainly include these tourist attractions and places:
• Mount Fuji, pronounced in Japanese Fujisan ふじさん (富士山)
The sacred location is one of the worldwide well-known mountains. Fujisan is the highest in Japan and it's located on the Honshū Island. It is also an active vulcano that can be seen from all over Japan and is an iconic element of Japan's culture.
• Shibuya area
The Shibuya area is located in Tokyo. The most popular thing here would be (believe me or not) a crossing. The Shibuya crossing is known to be the busiest of its kind in the whole world! It consists of 5 crossroads and at the busiest time of the day, more than 3000 people can cross the street at the same time without bumping into each other. How is that even possible?!
• Yokohama Minatomirai
It refers to a very popular sightseeing location, frequently shown in anime and Japanese movies and series during matsuri. Matsuri means festivals and they always end with an amazing fireworks show, named hanabi. The view is something out of fantasy books, truly dream-like. Of course it's every otaku(anime lover)'s dream to see something like that in real life!
• Harajuku
It is the area in Tokyo located right next to the Harajuku train station and the centre of Tokyo's teen edgy fashion. Words cannot describe the diversity of clothing, the colours and the creativity of Japanese teens. There are more styles of the Harajuku fashion, but it surely stands out because of the electric tones of the colorful clothes.
• City of Nara
Nara is the deer's city. Here you can take a relaxing walk while watching the deers. There are many shops with special biscuits for the tourists to feed the deers. But beware of the deers! They are known for stealing your hat and your child's food and toys! Really now, these deers seem restless...

Now what do you think? Would you come with me to Japan?
If you are not sure yet, I have a lot of other places left to tell you about!

Get ready for the second part of this journey to Japan with me!;)

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Even though there are many ignorant people in this world believing that all Asian languages sound the same, nothing could be further from the truth.
There certainly is a lot to talk about this three particular languages and the many things that help us identify them.

First things first, Chinese. Chinese is the oldest language of the Chinese - Japanese - Korean trio. Referred to as the Land of the red dragon, China actually has the oldest spoken language in the whole world and it dates back to 3.000 years ago!
China has only one written system, but hundreds of dialects and quite a few spoken languages, due to its size and greatness.

While in our everyday lives we use the alphabet and form our ideas with words made of letters, the Chinese people use characters that picture a whole meaning by themselves. So if we wanted to say: I saw a horse yesterday, in Chinese we would write the symbols for: <yesterday>  < I>  <(to) see>  < horse>. These characters are called “logograms” or  “logographs”.
It is the most complex language, but it is quite easy to identify because its symbols look square and have a lot of sharp edges.

Did you know that, in fact, Chinese could be considered like an ancestor to Japanese and Korean, because it had great influence on both of them?
Long ago, Japanese language did not have a writing system of its own and can you guess what they did in order to change that? They began to adopt the Chinese symbols, named the Chinese Script, and to alter them in their own style, resulting the Japanese kanji.
Even though Japan used the Chinese Script, it carefully kept its own grammar rules.
Shortly after, the Japanese people created not one, but two other writing systems, called hiragana and katakana.
The Japanese language can be identify by its rounder characters and by it being rather satisfying to hear.
( if interested, see the Japanese language post to find more information about this subject) :)
Korean language was naturally influenced by Chinese due to its location next to China. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Korean language adopted Chinese characters, too. Some characters were taken on for their sound values, others for their meaning, and some for both their sound and meaning.
The Korean language only really started being used more widely in the 20th Century, due to economic growth.
An easy way to recognise the Korean alphabet is from the main circular shapes it features, which are unique to it and are 100% not found in Japanese or Chinese languages.

I hope you enjoyed these few paragraphs about Asian languages and made you interested to look up each one of the writing systems' looks!

Till next time!:)

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The Japanese patterns are unique, colorful prints that depict traditional and cultural elements of Japan. Their origin lays in the Heian period of Japan, in the 8th century. They are called wagara  and are inspired from nature and the Chinese calligraphy.
Wagara consists of different styles and types of tiny and complex prints and patterns. Each one of them has an individual hidden meaning and story, their meanings being deeper than we'd expect at a first glance.
There are many famous patterns that found their way through the decades and are popular even now. Fashion has evolved but the traditional compound has remain.
Some of the most popular and world-wide well-known Japanese patterns are: Kozakura or the tiny cherry blossoms, Shochikubai or the pine, bamboo and plum blossoms, Seigaiha or the wave pattern. Each one of them has certain characteristics that led to their fame and usage through history.
For example, The Wave pattern is made of layers of concetric circles. This style portrays good fortune and its up and downs, but it could also represent strength and resilience. It was firstly used to represent the masses of water on ancient Chinese maps and shortly after, it was being used in Japan as well.  Through years it became an aesthetic motif used on clothing items like kimono and yukata.
The pine, bamboo and plum blossoms print represents a mix  which consists of flowers, usually associated with the New Year in Japan. The plants suggest strength, longevity, good health and a long life despite any obstacles.
My personal favorite, The tiny cherry blossoms suggest, despite being considered a feminine composition, the samurai's general belief and their way of living and fighting. The symbol is a flower with 5 petals, the sakura flower, and it can be found on men's equipment for kendo, a sport in which are used swords, katana. The image of the pink, tiny, flower encourages the worriers to fight every time like it's their last, like their lives depend on it, to bloom beautifully and then, when their time to live has came to an end, to whiter gracefully and quietly, just like a cherry blossom.
I whole-heartedly believe this hidden meanings should be known in order to fully understand a culture and see the beauty behind its art forms.

I hope you enjoyed and that it made you curious to explore by yourself the true connotation of your favorite patterns!