Day of activity: July 13^th 2014

Yes finally! It’s personal day! There is so many things that I wanted to do in Japan, but so little time to do so. In the end I decided to go to Universal Studio in Osaka. One of the reasons is because some of my friends happend to be in Osaka at the moment and also because a new area has just opened.

After we got inside the park, the boys and girls went separate ways. The guys probably went on all the rides, while the girls went shopping and taking pictures. Around noon, we meet up at the entrance of the new area.

We were amazed as Hogwarts came into our view from a far. Yes, you heard it right. I said Hogwarts. When we reached the end of our path, there it was … Hogsmead. It was crowded everywhere, and the waiting lines were really long. Soon after we got inside we lost the guys again. We spent more than 4 hours in that place. Everything was really well made, just like in the movies.

I drank butterbeer and pumpkin juice. It was really fun and I also got to spent a lot of money. I also got sunburned but it was totaly worth it;)

Po (Belgium)

Day of activity: July 13^th 2014

Yay! Today we have a whole day to spend for ourselves. I decided to join some people on their shopping trip to Kyoto. We meet at Awaji station at 8:00 in the morning and arrived at the culture city of Japan at 9:00. Macha shops, a temple and some small sweetshops passed us by before we arrived at the shopping street. We went to the magnificent Ghibli store and took a picture with the giant Totoro plushie there.

We visited some really nice authentic shops. Chopsticks, fans, keychains, ribbons, t-shirts, statues and a lot of matcha goodies were available all around. I bought a nice yukata, which I will wear at the the ceremony in Uda, Nara.

My feet were burning a nd aching, but it was well worth it!

Mariska (The Netherlands)