JAPAN: Hippie Buddha Monks – Miyajima

Here is a little story from our Japan-trip about the little funny hippie buddha monk figures we found. After we spend some time in the metropolitan tumult of Osaka, we headed south towards Hiroshima. It started getting greener on the countryside and shrine visits started to become the order of the day. An extensive site was located on the island Miyajima (宮島) which means translated „shrine-island“. The island is packed with temple sites and there is as well the famous Itsukushima Shintō-Shrine ( 厳島神社).

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LATVIA: Riga – Cultural Capital, Fantastic Food and Balsam Booze

Have you ever been to the Baltic States? No, not Greece, that’s the Balkans. The Baltic States are located in the northeast of Europe, between the Baltic Sea and Russia, and include the countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We were in Riga, the capital of Latvia, last week, looking for local street art and graffiti. The city is definitely worth a visit, whether as a stopover during a Baltic trip or as a short weekend trip.

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ALBANIA: Tirana Backpacker Hostel

Tirana is the capital and as well a really cool city for going out, getting delicious food and having a lot of fun. The people are all over the country overfriendly and we didn´t have in any case not even rudimental trouble or anger, we couldn´t even notice some anywhere. In a lot of similar situations in Germany there would have been a crash or fight and not only while driving a car. After our arrival we have been the first two days in the Tirana Backpacker Hostel, which is as well the first Hostel in Albania. They have now quite a lot more.

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BOLIVIA: Cementerio de Trenes – Uyuni

While we drove through the salt desert of Bolivia during our South America trip we made a little stop at an old train cementary. The „Cementerio de trenes“. The scene is just fantastic and a cinematic playground, the perfect place for a new Mad Max movie or a zombie apocalypse. The train cementary is located near the desert town Uyuni at around 3600 meters altitude. And you notice the height with every step for sure. In the big salt desert – the Salar de Uyuni – there is annually the famous Dakar Race on the route between Argentina over Chile to Bolivia with Uyuni as one of the main headquarters.

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LUXEMBOURG: Kasematten and The Grund

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg, French: Grand-Duché de Luxembourg) has 602.000 habitants and is the last remaining Grand Duchy or Grand Princedom of formerly twelve existing ones in Europe. The state borders to Belgium, France and Germany and forms the Benelux or Low Countries with Belgium and the Netherlands. The mainly rural shaped region is marked by the compact forests and natural reserves of the Ardennes in the north, in the east there are the rocky gorges of the Müllerthal and in the southeast the Moselle Valley. A dream for all nature lovers and hiking fans. The capital is called Luxembourg as well and is famous for its medieval old town which is located on a hill.

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BULGARIA: Sofia Streetart & City Tours

On our last trip we went to the Balkan for some days, more precisely to Bulgaria and it´s beautiful capital Sofia. The weather was kind of unfavorable, from rain to little snow storms, but still we could explore this interesting city extensively and brought you a lot of marvelous streetart fotos and graffiti material. The country and the city looks back over 6000 years of history shaped by a lot of different cultures during the centuries. Everywhere you can find protected monuments and archaeological excavation originated from the Roman Empire, which were found during road work or tunnel bores. The medieval Bulgaria is everywhere integrated in newer buildings, you can see architecture from the Ottoman occupation and everywhere in between there is the distinctive Eastern Bloc design of the communism. All of this commingles in different ways with the modern Bulgaria. Very cool!

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