movies.wine.travel.

I won’t argue I’m one of the travel elite, but I have wandered around several popular countries in search of ‘experiences’. Most tourist sites are magnificient and worth seeing: but after seeing dozens of galleries / churches / museums, they start to look the same.

I’ve trawled my travel photos, and put together this list of places or sites which were a) unique to their location; and b) I had a connection with. They are arranged chronologically according to when I visited them. Accordingly, I will drop and add as I come to further my travels this year.

Are you a traveller? Well, make

your own list: I’m always looking for amazing places to go.

Heian Jingu during Cherry Blossom, Kyoto, Japan.

During WWII, most of Japan’

s history was destroyed. Famously saved, Kyoto remains fat with historical sites and structures. Forget all other cities in Japan: if you visit one place, this had better be it. Essentials: Kiyomizu-dera, the massive centuries old Buddhist temple perched above the city; Kyoto Station, a massive modern structure; Nijo Castle, with its nightingale floors; and Arashimaya, a small town just outside the city that is not commonly visited by foreigners. Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) is beautiful, but a 1950’s recreation, so less real for me. Kyoto is magnificient

at any time of year, but especially during cherry blossom season (April, usually).

Heian Jingu, a Shinto shrine built in the late 1800’s, is beautiful, and it’s gardens lovely, but not particularly spectacular. It’s torii is one of the largest in the world, which makes for a great photo. But it was when I returned late in the cherry blossom season that I really was blown away.

The garden I had seen previously was awash with the darker purple pink blossoms that bloom later (the softer pink blossoms more commonly seen bloom earlier in the season). It was like walking into

a fairyland with a purple canopy, and rich green floor. Our timing was perfect: the blossoms had started to fall, and the ponds were covered with a layer of petals. Remarkable. Stunning.

If you plan a trip to Japan, plan it in April: it is well worth wading through the hordes of Japanese tourists who go crazy for the cherry blossom.

Mt. Fuji, Japan.

Every foreign resident of Japan is virtually obliged to climb this little mountain of volcanic rubble. Yo

u start halfway up, walk uphill for 8-15 hours, get caught in the stampede to the top, and then watch the sunrise. If you are extremely lucky, as we were, you will have good, clear, weather, and then

you will be spiritually blown away. There is no other mountain of this height in the world which has a post office, inn, restaurant and entertainment at the top: however, no other mountain in the world is as heavily traversed as this one.

But it was the light at sunrise which was my ‘ah!’ moment: I’d never seen clearer skies (except directly after typhoons, Japan’s h

orizon is impossible to see due to the pollution), or such barrenness in Japan. Or crowdedness (the top was incredibly crowded).

Harajuku (Takeshita Street) and Akhibara, Tokyo, Japan

I found most of Tokyo a little same all same all, as I’d been in Japan for a year and a half by then, though everything there was bigger, better, brighter. Kyoto is better for temples, shrines and palaces and history; any big city, anywhere, will give you the same

big cityness. However there were two places very uniquely Tokyo:

Harajuku area, in particular Takeshita Street, is the home of the ‘Harajuku Girl’, that special brand of Japanese fashion craziness Gwen Stefani loves so much. As a teen, I was a rebellious goth, so to see brand-name designer Goth fashion was somewhat disturbing (it’s very Japanese to take the superficial elements of a Western craze and commercially transform it, without understanding the tensions or connotations behind it: hence Lolita Goths, Avril Lavigne viewed as ‘hardcore rock’ and scooter-riding bikie-boys). If you visit, go on the weekend: apparently the Harajuku girls, cosplayers and Lolita Goths congregate on the bridge linking Harajuku to Yoyogi Park.

Akihabara Electric Town (Akiba) is an area in Tokyo where all good electronic nerds come to die. Every chain of electric stores in Japan has a shop here, as well as thousands of s

mall family owned shops. We’re talking cheap, nasty, and scungy, but if you’re going to buy a camera or a computer, you’ll have plenty of range. I bought a camera, and immediately started taking photos of the crowded conglomeration of neon lights (return at night, for sure).

Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

I have no photos, only memories of this cramped, empty building. Deliberately left unfurnished, the simple impact of these tiny, labyrinth like rooms is in our awareness of what happened there.

http://www.annefrank.org/

East Berlin and Checkpoint Charlie House, Berlin, Germany.

A podcaster recommended the ‘Heart of Gold’ hostel, a Hitchhiker’s themed backpacker haven built in the first floors of an office building in East Berlin. The area nearby was derelict and somewhat the artist’s haven: I loved it. It was so core, so real, modern and genuine. Walking around the local area, with empty lots, rotting buildings full of artists and squatters, random brand new office buildings, checking out the street art, netted a different view of this city which I doubt I would’ve seen if I’d stayed in West Berlin. Museum Island was nearby: a lasting memory is the shrapnel scars which pock the columns of the Pergamon museum. Magnificient.

To this day, Checkpoint Charlie House is my favourite museum. Raw, genuine, and untouched, this museum is more a conglomeration of artifacts that tell the story of this building, which was instrumental in smuggling East Berliners out during the days of the Wall, the Berlin Wall, and East Berlin itself. I loved the ‘casualness’ of the place. Get there, get the audio tour, buy the book, and get yourself a small chip of the Berlin Wall in a bookmark.

http://www.heartofgold-hostel.de/: which features doors, elevators and furniture that will always be polite, and thoroughly harvested mattresses for your safety.

Update: The podcast where I found out about Heart of Gold is http://www.ipodtraveller.net/ , by Nick Hall (I just found it again). It was one of the earliest travel podcasts and is still one of the best; unfortunately now discontinued.

Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, Italy.

This

basilica church was not on my guide map, not mentioned in any of the travel guides, and from the exterior looks much like any other Roman church. Directed – I’m somewhat ashamed to say – by Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons – to find this tiny church (which required a phone-book search for the address), to see Bernini’s ‘Ecstacy of Saint Theresa’, I found my favourite church in all of Rome: quite a claim, considering Rome is the seat of Christianity and features thousands of magnificient opulent churches, in particular St. Peter’s Basilica.

A masterpiece of high baroque, the church is so overdone and ornate, I could’ve spent hours photographing its bizarreness; let alone the most sexually suggestive Christian statue in the world.
Find the church on the southwest corner of the intersection of Largo Santa Susanna and Via XX Settembre. I suspect it is more popular these days due to the novel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_della_Vittoria

Oscar Wilde’s Grave, Pere Lachaise Cemetry, Paris, France.

It was this tomb that gave me the idea to start this list.

Pere Lachaise is a uniquely Parisien cemetery: home also to Jim Morrison, Chopin and Edith Piaf, it is worth a half day wander in its own right.

Oscar Wilde is someone I have admired for a long time: overtly sexually diverse in a time when such variety was considered unseemly, he was witty, spectacular and vicious. His tomb is stone, 1980’s ugly, was donated – according to a plaque – by an anonymous admirer.

It was the lipstick that has endeared me: much to the gravekeeper’s dismay, thousands of admirers have kissed Wilde’s tomb with red or pink lipstick, leaving oily traces of affection. So Oscar Wilde. So my kind of thing. Small notes and other affectations are frequently left (and frequently cleaned away). Even now I think back to that tomb with a smile. I plan to return to leave a rose – much like ‘Mandy and Shirley’, random Wilde admirers who left this message: “Thankyou for being the man you were”.

Manneken Pis, Brussels, Belgium

Bronze statue of baby boy, happily pissing. That would be great all on its own. Imagine then, bronze statue of baby boy, dressed in a uni shirt and cap, pissing beer, and dozens of uni students drinking said beer. Not too sure what was going on (my friend said it was some kind of uni tradition). Belgium is usually louded as too dull for tourists, but I heartily disagree. Bruge is one of the best tourist city’s I’ve visited; and Brussels has flemish architechture, Tintin murals, Art Deco and Manneken Pis. Worth a visit.

Mission District Murals, in San Francisco, USA.

Many forum writers advised me to take one of the Precita Eyes tours of the murals of the Mission District of San Francisco, and it is to them that I owe a large debt of gratitude. The main Latino area of SF has the most magnificient and damn well meaningful murals. The sentiment, stories and emotions given in these murals are worth learning about from the hippyish and passionant muralists who run Precita Eyes.
http://www.precitaeyes.org/tours.html

St. Paul’s Chapel, New York, USA.

The place that I resonate with the most in New York (besides Phantom of the Opera, but that is a whole other kettle of fish), was St. Paul’s Chapel. Directly opposite Ground Zero, the old church played an integral role in the aftermath of 9/11, as priests and volunteers cared for firefighters and rescue workers. Now, its exhibits act as a memorial to the events that followed. Even though I’m usually repulsed by American sentimentality, I was stunned and moved by som of the things I saw in there, and it brings tears to my eyes now.

Again, I found that rawness and realness of a place that has evolved into what it is, rather than artificially come to be (such as Anne Frank House, and Checkpoint Charlie House).

Please do visit it.

On a similar vein is Koenig’s Sphere sculpture that once stood in the World Trade Centre plaza. Now a crumpled, bronze wreck, it has been placed near the pier which takes you to Ellis Island. It reminded me of the Atom Dome of Hiroshima.
http://www.saintpaulschapel.org/

Almost made it to the list:

Ste. Chappelle in Paris: A gorgeous church hidden and sparsely visited in comparison to Notre Dame. The lead light work is magnificient.

The Appia Antica, Rome: A thoroughfare leading to the city walls of Rome, which has existed since the days of Caesar. It is bizarre to find such beauty and countryside so close to a major city.

Headstone in the famed Bonaventure Cemetry, Savannah

Savannah, Georgia:

Visiting the home of Jim Williams was a great thrill: before visiting, you must read ‘The Book’, i.e. Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil. Savannah is exactly as described.