I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since my friend and I first started thinking about making a MoB trip around Japan. And now at last, despite a bit economically harder times, we got through with it and I am really happy for that.

The main mirage places we visited mostly deserve an entry of their own, but here is a brief summary of our trip first:

The whole tour lasted 14 days, the exact term was from the 7. to the 21. April. We didn’t have much choice about the timing, because we wanted to do the tour during the sakura blossom period (which is from the end of March to the first weeks of April, varying from place to place) and we had to squeeze it somewhere between the all-Japan holidays (on the 6. and 29. April), when the transportation and tourist spots are crowded and prices of hotels higher.

Soon after we started planning the itinerary, it became clear it wouldn’t be possible, or reasonable, to travel around all mirage places within just the two weeks of our vacation.

Therefore we decide to concentrate on the mirage sights from the first few novels, mostly shown in the anime and the OVAs, and also from Gunjou. The most important places we visited are: Utsunomiya, Nikko shrine complex, Kegon Waterfall, Lake Chuzenji, Hachiouji Castle, Matsumoto, Asama Onsen, Kyoto, Nara, Hakone Onsen district, Lake Ashi, Odawara and Tokio.

There is a future plan for Mirage Tour II, which would cover the localities of the later story (like Hiroshima and Hagi, perhaps Ise…), but so far it is still vague and with uncertain term, yet I am sure it will be worth organizing.

I also have to say that during this tour I realized there are places I definitely want to see again, especially Matsumoto, Chuzenji lake and Kyoto, plus Kurobe, Nagano and Uozu. So for me it looks like this Mirage tour would be just the first one in a line of future travels around Japan.

We planned the tour with several objectives:

First of all we wished to see the places from Mirage to get a new perspective of the story and better understanding of its characters. I can only speak for myself, but I believe we accomplished this point alright. As the tour proceeded, I realized my view of the cast as well as the plot was gaining the missing dimensions and I started seeing naotaka as much more of ‚flesh and blood‘ people than before. Through my physical presence in the places I have dropped not only the imagery of the anime, but also the pictures my mind created for the novels. The resulting feel of Mirage I have now is very different and much closer, even „personal“, so to say.

We wanted to get some mirage goods, but because the series is not exactly new, there isn’t much to be found in the stores nowadays, except for the novels and doujinshi. In the end, my 40+ books of mirage and Y.vonne’s works were enough to make the delivery guys in hotels sweat with my luggage, and I can only wonder what were the room-maid’s thoughts as she came to redress my bed one day and found literaly the whole room filled with yaoi stuff. You know, Toyama Mako can get pretty indecent, too… XDDDDD

 The trip was planned to give an overview of different kinds of accomodation facilities as well as some onsen experience. We included normal hotels, high-class hotel, minshuku style hostels, small family ryokan and big hotel-like ryokan. These were in different price cagetories and offered different level of comfort and service, thought not always did the price go along with that service. But now I think I have a good idea about what to expect of Japanese hospitality.

My hedonist self wanted to explore all of Japanese cousine I can handle and sensei’s excursus into local specialties (as she mentions them in the drama CDs) seemed an elegant way to start. So it happened that for almost every destination we had a few dishes we wanted to try. XD As a result, I ate things I would never touch in my country, things I could not name, and things of which I couldn’t even tell if they were prepared from a plant or an animal. I am afraid I probably ate some stuff meant solely as A DECORATION, too…XDDD

A note on the tour organization: Because of the nature of this trip, we got to see a good deal of Japan’s biggest tourist attractions as well as many (aside for mirage fan) completely insignificant places. Some might say there are better ways to spend your time in Kyoto than by sitting on the river side and observing water birds while chewing your fish-burger. (Remember Haruie’s reminiscence of Shintarou?) That’s certainly true. There are many shrines and museums we could have seen instead. But in our search for the mirage spots, as we had to turn away from the notorious sights and deeper into nameless streets, as we kept losing our way in concrete suburbs and residential quarters, as we talked to local folks and tasted the local food, I was given an opportunity to see a bit of the more ordinary and civil side of Japan‘s life. This is what I find most valuable when exploring a foreign country. And I believe my picture of Japan is much more real and colourful than any mainstream tourist could ever have.

Off now to write about our first stop: Utsunomiya, the home of the Tachibana family and Nikko, Unesco World Heritage site and the home of the Tsutsuga beast. XD