Enjoying an Aikido Seminar and Dojo Visits in Prague, Czech Republic -16
November 2nd, the final day of the trip.
Although we were scheduled to fly back to Japan the following morning, we had hardly made any plans for the day.
The Czech Republic had been the main focus of this trip. Even though we had set aside an entire day for sightseeing in Vienna, the only thing we had decided on was visiting a restaurant serving a pork dish that had caught our eye on the map we received from the hotel reception.
So, after giving ChatGPT a few preferences and experimenting with different suggestions, it came up with a sightseeing route that looked quite appealing.
We left the hotel at 10:30 a.m. and headed first to the restaurant.
It was located inside the Prater amusement park. Just after 11:00 a.m., the park was still relatively quiet, and most of the attractions had not yet started operating.
The restaurant, however, was open, so we ordered the pork dish we had come for, along with a salad and a beer.
When the staff suggested adding fries as well, Mike was about to order them, so I quickly stopped him.
"Let's see how big the main dish is first."
That's one of the golden rules of traveling in Europe.
Then the food arrived.
...It was enormous.
Not just enough for two people. It looked like it could easily have been shared by six.
I'm very glad we didn't order the fries.
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In the end, we managed to eat only about a third of it, and I found myself silently apologizing to the gods of food waste.
Still, the taste lived up to our expectations. It was a truly delicious pork dish.
By the time we left the restaurant, the amusement park had come to life.
Often said to be one of the oldest amusement parks in the world, Prater has a charming atmosphere with a nostalgic feel that makes it easy to imagine what it might have been like generations ago.
Afterward, we wandered through the historic city center.
Modern shops stood alongside elegant old buildings, creating an atmosphere quite different from the old towns we had visited in the Czech Republic.
While walking through the city, I noticed a €50 note fall from someone's pocket as they pulled out their phone.
I picked it up and handed it back.
At first, he spoke to me in German, but when I replied in English, he switched languages and thanked me repeatedly.
I felt that I had simply done the obvious thing, but being thanked so sincerely still made me feel rather pleased with myself.
When we arrived at St. Stephen's Cathedral, its grandeur took my breath away.
I feel this every time I visit a great cathedral. Standing before such extraordinary beauty and intricate craftsmanship, I always experience a strange sense of wonder. It's as though I've stepped into a dream world, where admiration, awe, and curiosity blend together into something that is difficult to put into words.
We continued along Graben and visited St. Peter's Church. We also stopped by the Albertina Museum, but since the admission fee was a little higher than we had expected, we decided to admire the exterior only.
After that, I needed to find a restroom. We headed to a public toilet in a nearby park, only to discover that it required a €1 coin to enter. Unfortunately, neither of us had one. Mike was beginning to feel the same urgency, so we set off in search of a café where we might find a restroom instead.
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After a bit of searching, we finally found one and rushed inside.
What a relief.
Once the crisis had passed, we took a well-earned break with coffee and cake.
Afterward, we made our way toward the Vienna State Opera.
Around the area were ticket sellers dressed in eighteenth-century-style costumes, offering tickets to an evening concert for €25.
It sounded tempting, but attending one of these concerts wasn't part of our plans, so we decided to pass.
The problem was that turning down one salesperson simply seemed to attract another.
Even when I said, "I've already said no," the response was, "You said no to that person, didn't you?"
Perhaps this sort of thing is common in major tourist destinations, but I couldn't help feeling that it took away slightly from the elegance of the city and Vienna's reputation as the City of Music.
One thing that did impress me, however, was how often we encountered street musicians.
Even outside the State Opera, a young violinist was performing.
And the performance was genuinely wonderful.
Perhaps only in Vienna can you hear music of such quality on an ordinary street corner.
When I dropped a tip into the violin case, the musician gave me a small nod of thanks.
Our final sightseeing stop was the Anker Clock.
According to ChatGPT, there was supposed to be some kind of event at 5:00 p.m., but no matter how long we waited, nothing happened.
When I checked again, I discovered that the clock's famous performance actually takes place at noon.
To be fair, this wasn't the first time I had been led astray by an AI hallucination.
That evening, we enjoyed our final dinner of the trip at a slightly more upscale Italian restaurant.
The next morning, we woke up at 6:00 a.m., took the train to the airport, and boarded our flight home. The outbound journey had been filled with severe turbulence, but the return flight was thankfully uneventful, and we arrived safely back in Japan. With that, our Czech seminar trip came to an end, leaving us with countless memories to cherish.
Before I knew it, this travel diary had grown into a sixteen-part series.
The early chapters took their time, while the later ones moved along at a slightly faster pace, but I hope you enjoyed following the journey all the way to the end.
More than six months have passed since I started writing these articles, and during that time, this year's Czech seminar has already come and gone.
https://aikidotravel.com/seminar/2118/aikido-seminar-with-hiroshi-fujimaki-shihan-7th-dan-aikikai-hombu-dojo
I hope to attend this seminar again someday, as well as many others around the world.
If our paths happen to cross at a future seminar, I hope you'll come and say hello.
Until then, I'll see you on the next journey.
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