A glimpse of Japan through my stamps and travel mementos along the way

One of the things we enjoyed in Japan was the stamps upon arriving at the train stations. Some stamps are in plain sight after the gate but some stamps have to be asked from the train attendant or officer manning the gate booth. 

Eki is the japanese word for it but I failed to use that word as when I say stamp with a gesture of a fist over an open palm, they easily understand me!

Stamps are available for ordinary train stations but there is no stamps for shinkansen or the bullet trains. The Japanese would cross their arms each time to tell you "No." 

At first, I was able to label the stations we were in but later, I got a few unlabeled ones. We uncovered that not only do train stations have stamps but also the Information Centers, and some of the sites itself.

 Sometimes, we just enter a building and our moods lighten up every time we see a stamp.  We did not take the Hakodate Ropeway because we wanted to explore its vicinity at night but we were able to have stamps there at the lobby, and i got commemmorative coins too!

Stamps lightened us up despite our DIY wrong turns since we sometimes end up in a wrong station.

Speaking of the Information centers, we enjoyed the senior citizens of our park in Sapporo. We call it our park because that is where we should be so we won't get lost as it is near the train station and our hotel. Okay, I am in a nice mood today so I will share to you the name of our spot in Sapporo. It is the Odori Park, the park where the Sapporo tower can be beautifully seen at any time of the day and at night. 

Back to stamps, I decided to do the Fushima Inari 10,000 torii gates because at the __th station, there is a stamp. We missed the closing time by 30 minutes. So if you can do the stamping in your own trip, please share a photo to me. It's nice to see the stamp that made me decide to go up and pass more Torii gates despite the warning that says BEWARE OF WILD BOARS AND MONKEYS. Well, I must confess held on the promise of nice view on top. 

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This is the Welcome Suica Card which you can buy without deposit as opposed to the Suica card. It expires after 28days but you can use it at the convenience store such seico mart, 7/11 and family mart to buy. Tokyo City trains of any line accept it too and one can reload it in the train station. Some lines in Tokyo is not JR so this comes in handy especially after our JR pass expired on our last day in Japan. 

The JR PASS looks like that in the photo, just a paper card. It costs more now as of October 1, 2023 but this pass had been a great use to our outbound long-hour travel from tokyo since we went to Osaka/kyoto/nara/kobe/shizuoka/

sapporo/hhakodate/otaru in Hokkaido.

Some of our tickets to the temple in Nara, ropeway in Kobe, Goryokaku Fort ticket, receipts with Japanese writings of course and my Cebu Pacific boarding passes for my flights via CEBU-NARITA.

I bought stickers that are replicas of wax seal to organize my mementoes in a 100yen store and a colorful tape they call washi. Japanese loves to wrap the goodies in a gift wrapper or in boxes even if it's only a bean cake sold in the stalls, and the box of the baked goodies in the photo here became a happy home to my stamp book and mementoes.

Postcard from Arashimaya

In Arashimaya, we met an old photographer who gave us his four-season Arashimaya postcard for free and with some quotes from the Bible. Too bad, I was not able to give him piaya from Negros. If you happened to bump on him, please give him your smile and a little pasalubong. His picture is below. 

Odawara Eggs are said to increase one's lifetime by 7 years per piece one eats. It is cooked in the geothermal energy coming from the mountains. I was excited to taste it and was a bit disappointed to report that it is what it should be, boiled eggs. I immediately ditched the idea to bring some home so thst I finished 2 eggs. Thank you Odawara mountains for 14 years of extension to my lifespan. 

I got the lavender after a photo with the dog statue in Otaru. I assumed that that he was Hachiko but now I know that he was Bunko who died on 3 February 1938 (aged 24) Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan and he was known as "the firefighting dog" since he took part in over 1000 dispatches during his life.

The dandelion abounds in Goryukaku and having watched the 1985 Japanese film entitled, Tampopo, I picked some to press in my little book. I knew from the film that Tampopo meant dandelion but it also means "damn good ramen." The red petals came from grounds of Goryukaku Fortress. Meanwhile, the paper crane come from the Information center in Odori Park. It is said that if you fold 1000 paper cranes, one's wish will come true. 

The pine cone is not part of the little book but ir is surely part of my Japan journey. I got it from a Nara temple which is just so charming because of lack of flocking tourists. The mother tree of my baby pine cone is in the picture below. 

Got more stamps from train stations. Just visit my youtube for videos of collating all of them. Visit my memento here and stamps here.