During the last two days of Micha & Bart's stay in Japan, we decided to climb mount Fuji. As this would be quite the undertaking, we made sure we were prepared! Backpacks, headlights, walking stick, ponchos, warm clothes, enough water and some food. The regular climbing season had already ended, but we decided to go anyway. We figured that climbing during the night would be the best option with the arrival at the top planned just before sunrise. We took the...

Initially, we only planned to go to the Gokokuji temple to visit an antique market. It is located near Ikebukero and we had been there before, but the last time everybody was already packing their stuff. This time we were quite on time, but the announced "100 dealers" turned out to be only about 20. So when we were finished in about 30 minutes and looked around the shrine for 15 minutes, we still had plenty of time to go somewhere else. We decided to go to the...

Today Dennis took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, while Michelle was happily shopping at an antique market in Machida. The JLPT test is the official, government regulated method for determining the level of proficiency of foreigners in the Japanese language. It is held not only in all areas of Japan, but in more than 60 other countries. The number of examinees has steadily increased since 2000 and is around 600.000 people now of which only 120.000 in J...

Today we first went to the Yasukuni Shrine. It was erected in memory of soldiers, sailors, and others who served the nation. Many visitors can be seen on Sundays. This is also because of the Antique market which is held there every Sunday. We had never been to this shrine before and when we arrived we were very impressed bij the metal tori (gate) dominating the area. When we walked towards the shrine, we soon found the dealers of the Antique markets in the shad...

When you ever get the change to go to Tokyo and do some research on what to do and what to see, it's likely you will find something about the 'well-known' Flea Markets in Tokyo. After some questions to our Japanese friend we soon discovered nobody really knows if or when they were held exactly. We own quite a lot of touristic guides on Tokyo and Japan and surprisingly such markets were mentioned but not with much information. The first thing we discovered that ...