Big Buddha and big luck.

 

Let's start this post with saying that this picture is pretty cool. Because I am standing next to the 2nd biggest statue in the world. Yes. 100 meters high plus a 20meters base. A total of 120 meters, and a very very impressive statue. A Buddha that makes the one in Kamakura, no matter how much I love it, look really really small. The pictures don't pay it justice at all. 

Back in April of last year, my sister and I travelled through Japan, and after visiting Kyoto, Nara, Akameguchi and Takao san, coming back to Tokyo and its skyscrapers felt a little bit too much like the end of this wonderful trip. 

My sister and I spent the evening looking online for a daytrip from Tokyo, a last but not least adventure in Japan. Hiking spots and trails were many but we were both way too tired (don't underestimate how much you'll walk in Japan), so we decided to look up our other main interest : religious buildings. And we saw that less than two hours away from Tokyo you could see the 2nd biggest statue in the world, an amazing Daibutsu that you could even enter... our choice was made!

One of the things I love about Japan is how easy it is to navigate between cities, villages and sightseeings. Yes, knowing japanese does help but the buses, metro, trains are so efficient, the people so helpful that it's never a real issue. And if you remain in the most known and urban areas, most signs are in english anyway.

Finding the daibutsu wasn't very difficult thanks to the lovely lady who asked for us (twice) to the bus driver whether he was driving there or not. With us in the bus, two chinese tourists and other japanese people. We were the only non asian tourists, and even when we reached the park in which stands the Daibutsu, there weren't that many visitors.  A surprise, given how affordable it is and most importantly, how beautiful both the statue and the surroundings are!

so many little buddhas in the big one

While we were sitting a few meters away from the Buddha, next to a pound an old japanese man came to us and we started chatting, in my rather meagre japanese. He had just gone through a surgery on his leg, and was talking weekly walks in the park, enjoying the nature and lack of crowds or cars. I had to agree with him, it was a wonderful place. Peaceful, beautiful, interesting and out of time. Out of the city. 

I felt very lucky. I felt so lucky. To be there, to see those monuments, to meet those people, to share those moments with my sister. I can't even count how often I felt this way : lucky, while on the road. In Italy, in Ukraine, in Japan, in Portugal ... Lately I have been reading a few posts about how privileges and luck are important in travelling. Why it matters, and why no, a desire to see the world and savings don't necessarily make it possible to travel. Because there are many factors in my life that made it possible for me to enjoy a bento box in Ushiku, other than me working and saving money. 

Here is a wonderful post by the brilliant Brenna, and another one by the blogger Oneika. 

I will perhaps write a bit more about it, in a next post, because just like anyone who travels a bit, I get the question very frequently "but how do you afford to travel?", and the answer is much more complex than I'm saving and have a part-time job.

Lisboa

I have been lucky enough to travel quite a bit within Europe. I have been in the north, the east, the west and the south of the old continent, yet there was a little piece of land that I had never set a foot on. I had never been to Portugal nor Spain. Not that I had no interest, I had actually been wanting to visit Portugal for a while, but ... it just never happened. There would always be a better deal on Germany, or another amazing eastern european country to discover, or... well, Budapest.

I am one of those travellers that is always torn between discovering a new country and visiting a good old lover. So this time, when my friend and I were planning this trip I naturally found myself in that position again. Venice or Lisbon?
To be honest, I really wanted to visit Venice again, despite having already been there twice. We eventually ended up booking flights for Lisbon, and I am SO glad we did.
Don't get me wrong, I would have loved walking in Burano again, and hearing italian all around me, but Lisbon exceeded my expectations. I knew the city would be lovely, what I didn't know was how much I'd love it. Almost as much as Budapest, which, if you know me, says a lot.

 

There are a few things that make me think " I'm going to live it here". Among those, architecture, people and the vibes of the city. I have a thing for slightly hectic, old, messy architecture. When different kinds of buildings, eras, styles and colours are all blended together in a street, I feel happy. When I get to experience multiculturalism, I'm happy too. I perhaps strangely, feel at home when I see asian supermarkets, indian restaurants and hear several languages in the same metro wagon. I also love narrow streets, little shops and restaurants, laundry hanging from windows and colorful walls. 

 People were also very lovely. I felt safe, comfortable, the metro was efficient and clean, the metro stations really impressive and artsy ... To make it brief, I loved Lisbon. As soon as I stepped oustide the plane, felt the sun on my face I knew it would be a good trip. Later, when we met the fruits&vegetables sellers down the road where we were staying, and we started chatting and ended up leaving with free oranges, I knew it would be a really good trip. 

And when I saw all the blue walls, blue azulejos, the blue sky, I knew it would be a wonderful trip.

I still have loads of pictures from Lisbon, including some of the most beautiful religious monuments I have seen and many pictures of the amazing Sintra. So I shall see you very very soon, to share all that beauty with you!

Piran.

 

 While in Slovenia, my sister and I went to Piran. A wonderful and charming city in the south of the city, that is very blue. Blue the sky, blue the sea, blue the sheets at the window, blue the shutters... There's not much I want to write about Pyran, pictures speak a thousand words in that case, and yet... they don't really pay justice to this peaceful, sunny day we spent in... October ! I can hardly believe it was merely a month ago! Definitely a highlight of the trip, where the sea is you can hardly go wrong, that's for sure.