Tag Archives: temple

Japan

Japan has long been on my list, and has been recommended to me by virtually everyone who has ever been here.

The issue that has kept us away for so long was the perception that it was prohibitively expensive. The Japanese pricing just did not fit with our cheap and cheerful travelling style.

Japan is made up of over 6,800 islands but with four main ones being Hokkaido, Honshu (the “mainland”), Shikoku, and Kyushu. Tokyo is the capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. About 75% of its area is mountainous. 

The most fascinating thing about Japan is the obscure blend of ancient traditions and cutting-edge modernity. Rich and often ancient cultural heritage combines with groundbreaking technology all set in a land of amazing landscapes and wildlife.

The decision to come happened on two fronts, the first was convenience, our journey to Mongolia was easiest with a transit through Japan and secondly, the exchange rate with the AUD was the highest it had been in over two decades.

Our arrival saw us entering Tokyo, Japan’s bustling capital in mid evening, only to be jumped upon by a TV film crew, who wanted to interview us for a local travel TV show. It was a fluff show about where have you travelled to, why did you come to Japan and what did you want to see. The answer to the first question blew them away and we spent the next 30 minutes answering questions about our travels so far. Jill’s hat (with all of the pins on it) drew amazement and the thought that two people would just pack up and disappear seemed totally impossible to the Japanese mindset.

We have no idea if we were selected to be on TV (as we had left by the time it would have aired) but it was to be on Monday evening at 6:30 pm on Channel 7 TV Tokyo.

After this, we very quickly learned that our language skills were heavily lacking. Some serious bumbling about in the train station and we were on our way headed for the hotel. Some weather prompted a train change and some more confusion, but for the most part, getting about was fairly manageable. We finally landed in the hotel after 11pm having left metro Manila 14 hours earlier.

The next morning it was up for a quick breakfast and out exploring. The first thing that strikes you about Japan is how clean everything is. The footpaths are at least 4 meters wide and can be up to 10 meters wide in the busy areas. There is not a rubbish bin in sight but there is zero trash, anywhere. It was even a struggle to find a leaf laying on the ground. And there is no obvious person sweeping up or cleaning anything, people are just tidy and don’t make mess..

Not only is it clean, it is quiet. Having spent the last 2 months in the Philippines and Indonesia, this place is absolutely silent. No honking, beeping, screaming, yelling.

It was lovely.

It was so quiet that there were even decibel meters on the outside of constructions sites to make sure that things stayed at a reasonable level.

Our walk around was on a 30+ degree day with high humidity. Our first stop was to the Nihombashi Bridge that has been linking the city for centuries. The first wooden bridge was completed in 1603 and the current one dates from 1911. In reality the bridge is dwarfed by everything around it, but it is nice.

Next we aimed for the Imperial Palace, but to get there we went via the Tokyo Central railway station. Within no time of getting to the train station we immediately felt that we were in the world’s most populous city with over 37 million people inhabitants. And the majority of them were here.

To say that this place is a maze is an understatement. There is quite literally an entire underground city here. There are kilometers of underground tunnels and passageways that link the high speed rail (shinkansen) to the subway and you can even walk to the nearest five stations completely underground (the furthest a distance of over 2 km), but is faster by train. There are more than 4,000 trains arriving and departing daily.

Having been lost underground for what seemed like an eternity, we popped out relatively close to the Tokyo Imperial Palace and Gardens Area. Here we learned an important lesson. In the most populace city in the world, if you want to do something, you must book, days in advance, and you must queue up for your allotted time slot.

We did not do this, so were content enough to view the palace and gardens from the outside and did not venture in. But suffice to say that the surrounds were also pretty amazing.

Being a cool 33+ degrees with high humidity we chose to walk. From the palace we walked through parks and gardens, stopping at the various shrines and temples that we came across on the way.

From here our exploration took us into the Ginza District which is considered to be one of the most expensive, elegant, and luxurious city districts in the world. It is a popular upscale shopping area (something that we typically try to avoid). Our aim was to go to an interactive digital art museum that offers galleries of immersive and surreal installations (but guess what, you had to book, days in advance). So we wandered around lost for a while, found a place with an (happy hour) amazing lunch which set us back $26 for four beers and a feed. We did however make the booking for 4 days later.

The next morning it was up and on our way to see the lively hub of Shibuya. This is arguably the youth heart and soul of the city. For us it is the home of the scramble crossing, the busiest pedestrian crossings in the world, with sometimes over a thousand people crossing the multi-cornered intersection at a time. The view from the Shibuya Sky observation deck offers an epic view.

When we were there, extensive roadworks had stifled the flow of both traffic and pedestrians. But the tourist trade and normal business activity still meant that the place was manic, god knows what it would be like in full flight.

Japanese Street Fashion – To say that Shibuya is eclectic would be an understatement. The streets of Shibuya are the birthplace to many of Japan’s fashion and entertainment trends.

Just down the road we headed into Shinjuku to see the Godzilla, towering over the Toho Cinema. It is probably the most famous statue in all of Tokyo but on closer inspection, it is just a head and claw.

The area is busy and lively and I was offered sex at 11am by some random dude who wanted to take me to the nearby brothel. I just had to follow him down the alley.

Next it was on a train to the old part of town (Yanaka) where the old town ambience and atmosphere (shitamachi) reminds people of Tokyo from past decades.  It was a funky little neighbourhood without the lights and bling of those we had visited before. The main attraction was the Yanaka Cemetery where many of the tombs are elaborately decorated and nicely landscaped. Paths are well-kept and wide, making it a good place for a tranquil stroll (even in extreme temperatures).

From here we hopped on the local bus and made our way to the Asakusa neighbourhood. Our main reason for going there was to see the Samurai and Ninja Museum, but guess what, you had to book. Thankfully the wait was not too long so we went exploring first.

The first thing that we stumbled across was the Asahi Beer Tower and Asahi Super Dry Hall with its characteristic Flamme d’Or. This was completed in 1989 and is the headquarters of Asahi Breweries.

With some time to kill we kicked back in the backstreets, checking out some funky little shops and restaurants, and even a Kabuki theatre.

Asakusa’s main attraction is Sensoji, a very popular Buddhist temple, built in the 7th century. Having snuck in around the back (it is free to enter we just came the back way) through the side streets we came out from what is usually the main entrance Nakamise. This is a shopping street that has been providing temple visitors with traditional snacks and souvenirs for centuries.

Having seen the masses of people, the temple and bought out our souvenir trinkets we headed back to the Samurai and Ninja Museum which turned out to be a great way to kill an hour or so. Some interesting history, and lots of swords and armour. You can even throw ninja stars against walls and dress up for photos if you want (we passed on the dressing up). The coolest bit was that there was some seriously good artwork on the walls.

Space being a premium here in Japan, even the parking structures were a bit different to what we were used to. I had heard of the stacking system, but had not seen it in action before.

Jill being a raw fish fanatic had been humouring me in the preceding days giving me actual cooked meals, but the time had come for her to get her sashimi fill. We found a restaurant around the corner that allowed here to load up on raw fish and all was right (for her) in the world.

Japan is highly regulated (socially) and it is easy to inadvertently do the wrong thing. But a little bit of preemptive reading and the sort of things that will cause offence are actually pretty sensible and easy to avoid, if you only bother to look. Things not to do in Japan:

  • be late
  • be loud
  • talk on the phone on the train
  • tip at restaurants
  • stand on the right side of the escalator
  • wear shoes on tatami (woven straw) mats

These are actually really really easy to avoid, and for the most part, make life a little more pleasant. Virtually everyone that we came across followed these rules easily. Except the Americans and the French. Whether these two groups are just above such petty conventions or are just too arrogant to care, I do not know. But the only voices that could be heard splitting the silences were always one or other of these two accents, consistently.

The next day was the closest thing to a fail as we have had in years. Don’t get me wrong, we had a lovely day, but apart a fleeting glance (of Mount Fuji) from a train window we did not achieve our goals. We had seen photos like the ones below and thought what a great way to spend a day, so we hopped on the fast train (it is 140km away) to see it.

Japan’s Shinkansen, or bullet trains were our transport. They are world class with some reaching speeds exceeding 321 kilometers (200 miles) per hour. The newest versions have reached speeds of up to 603 km/h (374 mph) in testing.

While in transit, Jill did snap this photo (and a few like it) out of the train window.

So we did see the mountain, just not in the way that we had planned.

Getting off the train we hopped on a slower train that (we thought) would take us closer to the mountain and more specifically Lake Kawaguchi.

Lake Kawaguchi is located at the northern foot of sacred Mt. Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain. This is one of the Five Lakes of Fuji and you can enjoy magnificent Mt. Fuji views from the lakeside. But we got on the train to Odawara and then another to Hakone (still 60kms away from the mountain). To be fair there are about six locations in Hakone where you can enjoy good views of mount Fuji (but we did not go to any of them).

Instead, we got on the Hakone Tozan Cable Car thinking that it would give us the views that we sought. This is one of Japan’s few mountain railways where passengers can enjoy scenery and be wowed as the train climbs steep slopes. In order to climb the mountain, the train zigzags up the slopes using switchbacks where the conductor and driver switch positions. The cable car connects Gora and Sounzan and meets up with the ropeway to Owakudani (which was of course shut due to the winds). So we got near the top of the mountain with the views (on the opposite side) and could go no further.

So a long story short, we left our hotel at 7 am and got back late in the afternoon, in that time we had traveled on fast trains, slow trains, cable cars and saw some amazing sights of rural Japan. But what we actually came to see we got in fleeting glimpses as we went passed it on a super fast train.

As we waited to head home, I did manage to get a few videos of the superfast trains going past.

To say that these are fast and impressive is obvious. These ones even slowed down as they were passing the station.

We did have a great day, and we did see some amazing sights, we just did not really achieve what we had set out to do.

Sumo is a thing that we missed out on while we were here. It is a Japanese style of wrestling and Japan’s national sport with grand sumo tournaments (each lasting 15 days) held six times a year (the odd months).

While we were in Tokyo, there was a tournament on 350 km away in Nagoya. When there is no tournament you are able to head to one of the Sumo Stables to watch the early morning practice sessions. But these are suspended when a tournament is on (so we missed out).

As big as Sumo wrestlers are (many over 200 kg and the heaviest ever maxing out at 288kgs), doctors reckon that they don’t suffer from heart attacks, strokes, or display other symptoms of obesity. Sumo wrestlers consume up to 7,000 calories a day. The secret is in the name, as wrestlers the regular intense exercise prevents the build-up of visceral fat, which causes metabolic and heart disease.

Manga is the Japanese term that refers to both comics and cartooning. The origin is believed to date back to the 12th and 13th century.

After WWII the manga were distributed widely to the population as a distraction from the harsh realities that Japanese people had to face after the war.

They are characterised a distinctive art and narrative style. Genres include action, romance, fantasy, science fiction, and more.

Anime is a Japanese style of film and television animation.

The style is distinctively Japanese and immediately recognisable.

Kabuki is a form of Japanese theatre that mixes dramatic performance with traditional dance.

It is known for its outlandish performances, glamorous costumes, and the elaborate makeup.

Not wanting to miss out, our reservation for the interactive digital art museum finally came up on our last evening in Japan.

The creators describe itself as an international art collective existing at the intersection of art, science, technology, and the natural world.

The group consists of a variety of artists, programmers, engineers, animators, mathematicians and architects; the collective aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world, through new forms of perception.

In reality it was a really high tech maze in darkened rooms with images and lights projected on the walls.

This is actually an over simplification, the lights sensed the presence of a person and bent around you, the exhibitions flew from room to room and around corners.

And colours changed, kids drawings were brought to life and flew across the walls, it was all pretty surreal.

To be honest we have seen almost nothing of Japan. Everything that we did see, we enjoyed but it is a seriously weird place. It is like nowhere we have ever been. Both relaxing and infuriating at the same time. I got totally sick of being lost in underground bunkers, railway stations and shopping malls. We were constantly staring at the GPS trying to work out where we were in an underground land of no reference points.

The exchange rate doubling made it actually really affordable for us, so if things remain favourable, I could envisage us coming back at some point. The food was magnificent.

A bit of island Hopping (Part Four)

Leaving Sorong (thankfully), we hopped an early morning flight to Jakarta and than on again to Belitung. While it was just a transit we were struck with the ingenuity shown at Jakarta airport with their fire extinguishers. Rather that being necessary ugly lumps on the wall they have been painted in a way so as to simultaneously disguise them while at the same time highlighting their location.

Belitung

Beltung is an island north of Jakarta and off the east coast of Sumatra , Indonesia. It is famous for white pepper, seafood products and tin mining.

It is slowly becoming known as a natural tourism destination, particularly for its white sand beaches and granite boulders. 

The first thing that struck us about Belitung was that the place was really clean. The telltale (Indonesian) rubbish was not everywhere, there were not burning piles of green waste polluting the air and the whole feel of the place was good. The roads are in great shape and compared to almost everywhere else, the traffic is surprisingly light. 

We either stayed too short or too long on the island, depending upon your point of view. It is a place that you can blitz in a day or two, or it is a place that you can kick back for a month.

When choosing location Jill picked the close to town (and food) option rather than the further away beach option. Our hotel was nice, right on the water with an infinity pool facing west. During low tide there was almost a kilometer of sand before you hit the water and at high tide you were surrounded. Facing west, the sunsets were pretty good.

There are not too many things to do in Belitung, with the majority being on the northern part of the island. It is surrounded by lots of tiny islands and granite rock formations. With such surrounds it has made it the perfect place to get in a boat and go island hopping, which was written up as by far the best thing to do.

With that as the benchmark, after a couple of days we signed up to do the day tour. The majority of these involve a pickup from and drop off to the airport or sometimes a hotel. This suggested that the island was a literal day trippers location from Jakarta (one hour flight). The itinerary of the tour was to include: Tanjung Kelayang Beach, Sand Island, Batu Berlayar Island, Lengkuas Island, Kelayang Island & Kelayang Cave, Tanjung Tinggi Beach.

Tanjung Kelayang Beach was the boat meeting and launching point.

Tanjung Kelayang also has the Tanjung Binga Fisherman’s Village nearby for those that want a taste of local traditional life. The beach itself was nice with the renowned granite boulders.

A short distance away you get to Garuda Island With the mythical bird shaped rock formation poking high above the others. Here it is a quick stop (for us at least) for some photos. The local tourists spent about three times as long making sure that they got their pictures.

Next was Batu Berlayar Island and this is when both Jill and I looked at each other and decided that this is where we should have stayed. Not the island, but on the mainland opposite. The stunning white sand beaches, turquoise water, rocky granite islands, underwater coral reefs, and even the Dutch lighthouse were all visible and it was amazing. Oh it was also the location of the big 5 star chain hotels, but there were a few cheapies interspersed in there for us.

Just off the beach (and not mentioned in the spiel) is the Lenkaus Island and the Old Indie Lighthouse. This is an old Dutch lighthouse dating back to the 1800’s.

After the lighthouse we had our obligatory snorkelling stop. The snorkeling was ok quality, however after Raja Ampat really did not compare. There was certainly lost of (hard) coral and small fish but the turtles, tropical fish and larger predators where nowhere to be seen. I did however manage to perfectly capture on film (above and below the water) exactly why the reefs of the world are in such a terrible state. It was a group of local tourists pausing for a selfie while standing directly on a live head of coral.

The next stop was to our lunch location on Kepayang Island. A nice (clean) sandy beach a restaurant in the sand and an included local lunch. A beautiful mix of prawn, crab, calamari, and grilled fish all served with steamed rice, grilled water spinach and a healthy amount of sambal and chilli on the side.

Last stop was possibly the most photogenic of the beaches in Belitung, Tanjung Tinggi Beach. It has perfect blue-green water and giant boulders.

Most of the clouds that had been stalking us all day had mostly burnt off and this was very clearly a beach for the locals. Tons of local restaurants, more inflatable animal floaties than I had seen in years and a nice, flat calm ocean.

But most importantly for us, they had beer. We had been dry for the preceding five days. On a local, Muslim island, beer can sometimes be a bit tough to find. Our hotel did sell them but at prices that exceeded what you would pay back home. So we stopped and had one and took a couple home. Oh the beach is a good sunset spot too.

The tourist walk to town was fairly uninspiring, with very little around to see or do. The roundabouts were a little entertaining, but for the most part we were just in a local community on an out of the way island.

On our tourist wander we went past Pendam Beach which is the beach closest to the main town Tanjung Pandan. As a west facing beach it is popular as a spot to watch the sunset.

Penyabong Beach is a more secluded beach in the southwest about 1.5 hours from town. We did not make it but reports say that it has white sand and no crowds, but recent commentary indicate that trash has built up over the years.

As I mentioned at the beginning, we either stayed too short or too long on the island. A short trip could be done and dusted in 2-3 days but we stayed six. This was mostly to avoid being in Yogyakarta (and the temples) on the busy weekend. But the island is nice, accommodation and food is very affordable and if we had stayed further north (which we would do next time) the access to beer is a little easier.

But paying local prices and staying close to the beach up north, could warrant a bit more time and some further exploration.

Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta is one of the foremost cultural centers of Indonesia it was the seat of power during the 8th and 9th century and was the driving force behind the creation of the temples of Boribudur and Prambanan. It is a city that maintains the traditional concepts of Javanese culture.

The town itself was nice. It was clean with plenty of food and drink options available. The sights around town were interesting enough, without being amazing. But the real attractions were just outside of town. While I say just outside 42 km (Borobudur) and 17 km (Prambanan) respectively. But these still take at least an hour and a half to two hours to drive to due to the terrible state of the traffic. Not the roads, they are fine, the traffic.

Prambanan Temple

Prambanan Temple was our first port of call, it is the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia. It is not certain when this temple was built but it is thought that it was built around the middle of the 9th century by the king of the Sanjaya dynasty.

The complex is actually a series of four temples (Prambanan, Lumbung , Bubrah and Sewu) with the main one giving its name to the complex.

The original plan of Prambanan Temple was rectangular, consisting of an outer courtyard and three courtyards. The outer courtyard is oval in shape with an area of ​​390 sqm and was surrounded by a stone fence which is now in ruins.

The second courtyard, is rectangular covering ​​222 m2. This courtyard consists of four terraces, with a total of 224 identical (​​6m square and 14m tall) temples. Almost all the temples in the central courtyard are currently in ruins.

The inner courtyard is considered the most sacred place it has a rectangular floor plan covering an area of ​​110 sqm. Three of the 8 main temples are called Trimurti (“three forms”) temples, dedicated to the 3 highest Hindu gods: God Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer (the biggest and central one).

In front of the Trimurti temple there are 3 smaller temples that have been dedicated to the transportation of the gods (the ox Nandi is Shiva’s vehicle, the swan is Brahma’s vehicle, and the Garuda is Vishnu’s vehicle).

At 3pm every day you are kicked out of the main temple (zone 1) but can hang out (in zone 2) for the next few hours. In the same complex as the Prambanan Temple you will also find the Lumbung , Bubrah and Sewu Temples (allegedly the best place for the sunset photos). Added to this is the Archaeological museum.

There has been a lot of effort that has gone into the restoration of these temples and the newer works are quite obvious (possibly even amusing). There has been an element of improvement as opposed to restoration that has been taking place.

In reality it was only the western tourists that ventured beyond the main temple (on foot anyway). The local tourists looked at Prambanan and the really adventurous ones caught an electric golf cart to Sewu and ignored the rest. It was only the few of us that hiked the whole complex and viewed each of the temples.

Borobudur

Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple or shrine in the world, it was established in the ninth century and covers a square of 123 meters, with 9 platforms – the first six are square and the last 3 are circular.

In the 14th century, when Java’s population converted to Islam, the temple was abandoned and people forgot about it. In 1814, the British ruler of Java (Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles), re-discovered the temple with the help of a few locals. According to Buddhist teachings…this monument is a model of the universe and was built as a holy place to glorify Buddha as well as functioning as a place of pilgrimage to guide mankind from the realm of worldly desires to enlightenment and wisdom.

Borobudur built in the style of Mandala which symbolizes the universe in Buddhist teaching. This structure is square shaped with four entry points and a circular center point. Working from the outside in apparently the three zones of consciousness are represented, with the central sphere representing unconsciousness or Nirvana.

The temple walls are decorated with 2,672 relief panels and (originally) 504 Buddha statues, the largest and most complete collection of Buddhist reliefs in the world. The main stupa crowns the building and is surrounded by three circular rows of 72 perforated stupas (with a Buddha statue in lotus position in each).

As a tourist 400,000 ($40) rupees will get you in and the price for locals is 50,000 ($5). It is an extra $7.50 to climb to the top but be warned, these are bought out by the tour operators days in advance. They are available on the day but at full price (even if you have already bought the normal entry ticket on line).

Borobudur is on all a bunch of the bucket list items that generally surface. The spiels say that it ranks with Angkor Watt and Bagan as one of the great archaeological sites of Southeast Asia. Having been to all three, suffice to say that Jill and I were underwhelmed. It was ok but it was not worth the flights, accommodation, hellish car ride, high entrance costs and return journey. This will go in the OK been there done that category rather than the wow box.

Siem Reap (Cambodia) again…

Well we’re back in Cambodia and back in Siem Reap again.

This time it was to play host and hostess for long time friends Boof and Bec and family. Having spent heaps of time together over the years the subject of holidays arose and their experiences had been a little more flash (and therefore more expensive) meaning that they were less frequent.

So in a chat (before we even left) we suggested trying Cambodia and Vietnam which would be more budget-friendly than their previous attempts (in France etc).

A plan was hatched and the timing was set to coordinate with the Easter school holidays to minimise disruption for the children. So the first port of call was to be Siem Reap in Cambodia to let the kids run up and down all over the temples for a few days.

But first we had to eat and drink and sample the night markets, just to get into a taste of Asia. So we hit the street stalls, pub street, night markets. We shopped, grazed on weird and unusual (for the kids) foods and just generally soaked up what was on offer.

The next morning it was up and into a couple of tuk tuks and off to visit the temples. Given the time of day that we set off, we boycotted Angkor Wat as it was peak hour and did that later in the day. I did a full temple breakdown last time around so will ignore that and just show some of the highlights of the day’s exploration.

The heat and walking saw us all drinking our body weights in water and everyone was struggling by the time the day was over. So after a pretty amazing lunch, we made our way to the main attraction, Angkor Wat. This had Bec and Boof excited but some hot and bothered kids were less enthused. So after some cursory exploration (by the kids) Jill and I took the kids to the nearby market to sit and have cold drinks while the parents got to explore in peace.

We had a plan to visit something new for us (the hero rats) but due to the heat overload, we pushed it off to day two. What are hero rats you ask, well we didn’t know either. but Bec had found them so the first thing that we did on day two was head to Apopo. This is a non-profit organisation that started in Belgium 25 years ago that uses animals (primarily dogs and rats) to detect landmines around the world. There is another arm that uses the animals to detect tuberculosis.

The sensitive whiskers and noses allow the animals to detect the explosives without the false positive results that metal detectors give (from bottle tops and the like). This means that the detection and removal can happen much faster than using metal detectors. A trained rat is tethered between two operators along with a tape measure and they detect and mark the location of landmines for explosive technicians to come back to and disarm or detonate.

This was new to us. We had done the land mine museum before but did not know about the rat detection squad. Speaking of which, the land mine museum was next, closely followed by a few more temples and lunch. The boys had seen the whole roasting pigs on the side of the road and the lunch option was chosen.

A few more temples and it was back for a swim and a much-needed foot massage (for most). Jill tried to have a sexiest feet poll on Instagram (after my claiming that clearly, I would be the winner) but it was pulled under community guidelines as they thought that she was trying to upload some foot fetish porn.

Anyway, that was our (very) rapid exploration of Siem Reap and the temples with the Ballinger’s. Next stop, Vietnam.

Serbia

Serbia is a landlocked country in the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungary (north), Romania (northeast), Bulgaria (southeast), North Macedonia (south), Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (west), and Montenegro (southwest), and Kosovo.

Serbia has about 6.6 million people.

Having loved our (240 km and 8 hour) bus ride into Bosnia and Herzegovina we decided to fly out for a 40 minute puddle jump into Serbia, more specifically Belgrade.

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the junction of the Sava and Danube rivers with a population of around 1.6 million. Belgrade is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world with the first dated records of habitation going back to the the 3rd century BC.

Our accommodation saw us perched between the old and new town directly opposite the old main railway station and associated park.

The park is amazing with an incredibly impressive monument to Stefan Nemanja (over 20m high).

He was a medieval Serbian nobleman who together with his son Sava (who the big church is named after) are considered the fathers of the Serbian Orthodox Church).

As it was early enough we dropped off our gear and headed out on a walk to see the sights. We chose to hit the ones that were away from old town, where we would be spending most of our time the following day. So we turned the corner from our hotel and started our way up the hill aiming towards St Sava Temple.

But within two blocks we had already landed upon the railway museum, which was incredibly impressive in its own right.

Half a block up and across the street we came upon the Government of the Republic of Serbia building.

This was built in the 1920s and was the first public building built in Belgrade for the purposes of the public administration of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Next came the Department of Defence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Belgrade city museum, public health department. And they were all housed in amazing soviet era architecturally designed buildings that were incredibly impressive.

Anyway, we did eventually make it to St Sava Temple which again, blew our socks off. The church is dedicated to Saint Sava (son of the dude with the big statue opposite our hotel), the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church and an important figure in medieval Serbia. It was built on the location of St. Sava’s grave.