After 12 hour long exhausting trip in Airbus A340-300, we finally landed to Narita International Airport at 11:30AM. I looked outside from the window and read the phrase ‘ Yokosa Japan ‘ on huge plane which belongs to Japan Airlines (JAL ). Immediately my memory went back , in 2005 at Japanese course our teacher Mr.Sugiyama told us that ‘ yokosa ‘ means ‘ welcome ‘ or ‘ hoşgeldiniz ‘ in Turkish language. This time I was not at the classroom but I was in Japan. Then our next short trip from Narita to Tokyo started, this time by Airport Limousine. Although it was July, Narita City was green. After one hour trip we reached Tokyo City, massive buildings nearly touching the sky, swarms of people, three layer roads, etc. We settled in Toranomon Pastoral Hotel, excellent business class hotel, clean rooms, good service, nearby McDonald’s & convenience store ( Seven Eleven ). After the rest we visited Nippon Foundation, Mr. Karashima met us there. Some staffs of the Nippon Foundation & students from Turkey, Russia, Turkmenistan & Kirgizistan joined us and we went to nearby Italian Restaurant. I really enjoyed that dinner, foods were delicious & atmosphere was multinational.

After the nice breakfast, our Tokyo tour is started with Hato bus of Sunrise Tour. We first went to Meiji Shrine; green trees, huge torii gate, donated sake barrels & wooden main building fascinated me a lot. We were lucky enough to see Japanese style wedding ceremony. Our next station was Imperial Palace East Garden. Before coming to Japan I wanted very much to see Imperial Palace, so this was my dream come true. Large garden with decorated green plants and flowers, that was definitely a Nikon moments for me. Also garden was full of tourists. After the Imperial Palace we went to Asakusa Kannon Temple. Before reaching to temple there was along Nakamise Shopping Arcade, I was surprised because of the crowd. Finally we reached the temple, I threw some coins into special box and prayed to finish my master thesis as soon as possible :-) Then with ferryboat we went to Odaiba, it was very exciting to see huge buildings & Rainbow Bridge from ferryboat. Also I liked the design of the special seabus, it was like a space-ship of Star Wars movie. We directly went to Sega Joypolice. There I really enjoyed the Wild Jungle, you feel yourself in a real jungle!

After sightseeing at AquaCity we had a dinner with Chinese students at Kyoto style restaurant. It was a great pleasure for me to share ideas with Chinese students.

We took taxi to go to Akihabara Electric Town. Inside of the taxi was like NASA’s Discovery spacecraft :-) It was full of electronic devices, one is showing the map of the road, another showing the price,etc. Also taxi driver was wearing white gloves, which impressed me a lot. We started Akihabara tour with Yodobashi shop, a nice six floor shop with reasonable prices. There I bought myself Sony’s Digital Music Player. After visiting many other shops we came back and had a lunch at nearby McDonald’s, I liked the taste of Fanta Grape which was special for Japan. Then we went to Tokyo station to go to Yokohama. Train was full of ladies & gentlemans wearing Kimonos, they were also going to Yokohama Minato Festival, like us. Yamashita park was full of people waiting for the start of the firework show. Then, absolutely breathtaking one hour long show started, I have seen many firework shows before but this one was special. After the show we visited Yokohama China Town. We passed huge Chinese style gate and visited many shop, some shops were full of souvenirs with red color. I think Chinese people like the red color, for that reason their flag color is red :-) Finally we had an unforgettable dinner at Chinese restaurant, I was not surprised when I realized that Chinese cuisine & Japanese cuisine were similar.

This day was a national holiday in Japan. At 08:30 we had a breakfast, then we left Toranomon Pastoral Hotel to go to Tokyo station as one day before, this time to go to Odawara. Travelling to Odawara by famous Shinkansen ( Bullet Train) was absolutely breathtaking, I can say that it was more confortable than Airbus A340-300. Odawara was small, serene city, much different from Tokyo. There we visited Odawara Castle, four floor historic castle full of historic clothes,swords, weapons etc. Unfortunately taking photos was prohibited.Watching the city with binocular from the final floor was fascinating. Inside the park, where the Odawara Castle located, was zoo full of small monkeys, elephant, peacocks, etc. After that we came back to Tokyo and had a dinner at Toranomon. At that dinner I tried Sashimi (Sushi’s big brother :-) ) for the first time, honestly saying I didn’t liked it, it tasted strange.