Kyoto, Osaka, impressions and feelings

So now it's post number 3 - I've got the feeling this might get a bit longer...

First I want so begin with the stuff I've been doing and seeing and later get to general impressions about Japan and my trip.
So on Sunday, my last day in Tokyo I had another nice overview over the city at the Metropolitan government building and then got to see the probably busiest intersection of Japan:

In the evening I took one of the famous Shinkansen trains to Kyoto - and that was impressive! I like driving the German ICE trains as its comfortable and fast - but this was just on another level. Even though the ride was quite smooth, you could feel the immense power of the train. It felt more like beeing in an airplane than a train! Unfortunately there was no indication of the actual speed but it was probably around 300kph and the surroundings were just flying by. However it comes with a price and I paid over 100€ for the ~3h trip to Kyoto. Another thing I found quite amusing during the ride was that the train personal was bowing whenever entering and leaving a wagon of the train. So when they arrived at the end of a train partition, they moved around, bowed, and moved on :D I wanna see the German personal doing that!

In Kyoto I was lucky to be able to stay with Yumiko, a couchsurfing friend of my good friends Jakob and Karl. Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan for more than a thousand years and is stuffed with tempels and tradition, so that was what I wanted to see there! Here some impressions:

its sooo hot here! I'm sweating literally all the time outside

never forget to take off your shoes before entering a room with Tatami mats - worst sin you can do ;-)

massive temple

inside the temple

impressive gate to a temple

After getting tired from the sightseeing I also visited a Japanese Onsen to relax a bit. Even though Yumiko told me that the one I had been to, was not a particular good one - more like a public bathhouse -I liked it a lot and felt pretty good after enjoying some hot tubs.
The next day I walked through the city quite randomly, got to see some more stuff and moved to Osaka in the evening, where I am now. Here today I visited a Japanese style castle that was pretty impressive and checked out the city center.

japanese style castle

Osaka, view from top of the castle

I need to get one of these - so handsome! xD

Now some general impressions about Japan:
Firstly people are generally very polite and friendly here. Even though many people don't speak Engish at all or not very well, the try their best to be helpful. For me its quite expensive - even though I heard that it used to be much worse here, my money is flowing away like nothing. I think I've spent about a 100€/day including accomodation and transportation -.-
Secondly I'm getting lost all the time - thanks to minimaps at most streetcorners its not as bad as it could be but I really miss having a smartphone with google maps. Today I somehow managed to exiting at the wrong metro station without noticing and then wondering why the temple I wanted so visit was so small and looked so different on the pictures^^
Then here it seems umbrellas are not used as a mean of protection against rain, but against the sun. Whole crowds walk around with umbrellas when its perfect sunshine - looks quite weird to me^^
Everything is extremely organized and clean - especially in Tokyo. Overall it sometimes feels lile a higher stage of civilisation. For example in subways there are often screens that show maps of the upcoming subway platform so you know where to go, right after leaving the train. And pedestrians regard traffic lights that unfortunately switch only veeery slowly. It's like they wanna test your perseverance in regarding rules -.-
And finally the food: Its sooo different - there is only a minimal overlap with European style food. Sadly I couldn't try a whole lot thanks to my stupid stomach! During the last days my diet consisted mostly of pure rice and bananas  :-/ (the internets answer against stomach issues ;-) ).

All in all, so far the trip has been quite an adventure - more of it than I've had planned.
I've had quite a few issues: primarily the jetlag and my stomach have been a pain in the ass and I ended up seeing and doing only about half of the stuff that I had planned (I guess I need to get back sometime). Secondly getting accomodations has been much more complicated than I had planned.Couchsurfing failed, where my ~15 requests got denied or left unanswered. Experiencing a Japanese traditional ryokan failed, because there was a national holiday and everything affordable was booked out, staying at a budhist temple failed because there were firstly much less temples offering this than I had expected and those offering it had a buddhist holiday --.- Well, and trying a capsule hotel failed because I decided that I'd had enough shitty experiences already^^

Furthermore its quite an experience for me to travel a country as foreign as this (actually most foreign ever for me) completely on my own and I've been through quite some emotional rollercoaster. Feelings like excitedness, tiredness, loneliness, pure joy, stress and curiosity are taking turns constantly - sometimes a few times just in one hour.
Worst was Saturday night when I was in my hotel room with stomach cramps, tired but couldn't sleep, alone, feeling like shit and depressed to be so far away from home in this condition. Then two days later in Kyoto I had goosebumps when seeing the beauty of the temples and gardens, was euphoric about the excitement of my situation and later felt completely relaxed in the onsen. In fact there is so much I experience here that the day before always feels like a week ago because there is so much happening in between.
I'm alive!