So we just got back from an amazing week in Japan. We tried to pack as much as possible into six short days and it was fantastic. We want to tell you about all the great stuff we did but hopefully we are able to keep it brief. Ali will write about our time in Kyoto and Jesse will talk about Tokyo.
Wednesday:
Jesse had the day off on Wednesday so he ran errands and figured out a lot of the logistics while I worked. When I finished work at 7, we grabbed our bags and headed into Seoul because we wanted to sleep near the airport because we were flying out early. We had dinner and got a motel right by the airport called SkyGrande. The owner came to the airport and picked us up and then dropped us off there again the next morning. It was pretty nice for only $40 and we got a good sleep.
Thursday:
We woke up early and got to the airport around 6:30, had breakfast, and flew out at 8:30. The flight to Japan is only an hour and twenty minutes so it was nice and easy. We landed in Kansai airport and got right on the train from there to Kyoto, about 40 minutes away. We arrived at Kyoto station, a huge glass building with amazing architechture, and had lunch there at an Italian restaurant because we were a bit overwhelmed by many of the Japanese places because you had to choose your meal first from a vending machine (all in Japanese) and it would give you a ticket which you would then exchange for food - it was all a little much for me.
It was pouring rain all day Thursday but that couldn't dampen our spirits. We checked into our hotel, the Sunroute, right near Kyoto station, and then headed out to do some sightseeing.
The first stop on our itinerary was one of the three most iconic sights in Japan: The Golden Pavillion（the others being Mt. Fuji and the Great Buddha). We took the bus and found the temple pretty easily. The Golden Pavillion (also known as Kinkaku-ji) is one of Japan's best-known sights. It was absolutely stunning, even in the rain, and was a great way to start the trip.
After the Golden Pavillion, we walked through beautiful back streets of Kyoto to visit the Funaoka Onsen. Onsens are just like Jimjilbongs in Korea in that they are public bathouses. Our Japan guidebook insisted that you must visit an onsen while in Japan and this was said to be Kyoto's best. It took some time to find it and my shoe broke on the cobblestones so I walked barefoot most of the way so it was a relief to get out of the rain and into hot tubs, saunas, cold baths, and outdoor baths. We had a very relaxing few hours and then met up again and went back to the hotel.
We read about a district of Kyoto called Ponto-cho, which apparently has some really good nightlife so we went to a bar there called A-bar and had some Japanese food and sake. Then we walked around the narrow back streets, all lit with lanterns and along the river. It was a really beautiful area of town and we had fun exploring.
Friday:
On Friday we woke up early, had breakfast in a cafe in our hotel, and headed to the train station. It was beautiful, sunny, and hot and we got our tickets to a place called Kameoka. From there we walked to a dock and bought tickets for the Hozo-Gawa river cruise to an area in Kyoto called Arashiyama.
The boat was a little wooden boat, paddled/pushed by three men. We spent an hour and a half winding our way through rapids, forest, and beautiful mountains. We saw some very cool birds and absolutely stunning scenery.
When we arrived at Arashiyama, we headed straight to Tenryu-ji temple with a lovely Zen garden. Tenryu-ji is one of the major temples of the Rinzai school of Zen.
The gardens around the temple were beautiful also but the real highlight was the bamboo grove just outside the gates. It was cool and shady among the bamboo and so eerie. It was absolutely beautiful.
After the bamboo grove, we wanted to see some other stuff in the area so we started in the direction we thought we were supposed to go but ended up getting a bit lost in these back streets through a neighbourhood of beautiful houses, which we imagined to be the 'cottage country' of Kyoto. It ended up being a really lovely detour and we eventually came out on the main streets again.
Our next stop was a Japanese monkey sanctuary. The only downside is that it was at the top of a small mountain and it was sweltering hot and blazingly sunny. By the time we got to the top, we were both drenched with sweat but it was so worth it. Japanese monkeys are the ones with the red butts and faces and they were everywhere. They were sitting on the hiking trail, in all the trees and all over the place. At the top of the mountain you could see a gorgeous view of Kyoto and could also go into this 'cage' of sorts, through which you could feed the monkeys. We bought peanuts and chesnuts and the monkeys would snatch them out of our hands with their tiny claws. It was really cute and lots of fun.
After that we took a long bus ride back to our hotel, sent some postcards, and relaxed. For dinner we went to a sushi place with a conveyor belt of sushi dishes going around the restaurant. You could make special requests or grab anything you wanted and it was only $1.30 a plate. It was really delicious and lots of fun.
Saturday:
On Saturday we got up early again and had breakfast in our hotel cafe again. Again, we went to the train station, this time headed for Nara, a city about 40 minutes from Kyoto. The first thing we saw getting off the train, and one of the most exciting things ever, was that there were deer EVERYWHERE.
You could buy little crackers to feed them and they were fine, for the most part, with being petted and photographed. It was a bit of a mob scene if you got the food out though. The deer would swarm, headbutting you, biting your clothes, and snatching crackers out of your hands. It was so much fun, I could have played with them all day.
Fortunately, while we were doing our Nara sightseeing, the deer were everywhere so I didn't have to leave them while we went exploring.
The first thing we saw was a 5-storey pagoda, the second tallest in Japan, called Kofuku-ji.
It was very cool and, from there, we followed a walking tour outlined in our Lonely Planet book that took about 4 hours total. The next stop on the tour was Isuien - a beautiful garden with ponds and landscaping that was very Zen and calm.
From there we went to Nandai-mon, the main gate of the Todai-ji temple. This gate has two giant wooden statues of Nio guardians that are some of the finest wooden statues in the world (I'm told, I have no idea in actuality but they were really cool).
From these impressive front gates, we went to the main attraction of Nara, the Todai-ji temple. It's another of Japan's three most iconic sights because it houses the Great Buddha. The building itself is the largest wooden building in the world and is really amazing.
Inside there is the massive Giant Buddha, which is so awe-inspiring that I can understand why people have such a religious experience there. The Buddha is more than 16m high and is made of 437 tonnes of bronze and 130kg of gold. The Giant Buddha has two littler Buddhas on either side and, together, there are absolutely amazing.
That was the most famous thing to see in Nara but, after that we saw Nigatsu-do Hall where we climbed up pretty high but got some beautiful views of the city.
We stopped for lunch at a little shop called Kasugano and we both had tempura and noodles in broth. It was really good but the tempura got a little soggy. Jesse ordered a drink which was described on the English menu as 'ginger drink' but the waitress said 'not ginger'. After he got it, the waitress came back with a description of what it was that she had obviously had to look up and the description was 'arrowroot starch gruel'. It was a thick gelatinous and burning hot concoction but he seemed to enjoy it.
After lunch we spent some time feeding and playing with the deer. We finished the walking tour which led us through some beautiul wooden paths, lined with ancient stone lanterns and we saw more shrines and temples. By the end of the day we were pretty hot, exhausted, and starting to get a little templed-out.
We took the train by to Kyoto and Jesse really wanted to see one more temple that was not that far from our house. I was a little crabby but grudgingly went and we had to climb a massive hill for a long time to get there. In the end, I'm really glad Jesse forced me to go because it was the second best temple we saw, next to the Golden Pavillion. It is called Kiyomizu-dera and is really high up above the city. Before we entered, we did this 'walk' which is supposed to represent entering a womb. It was totally bizarre. You had to hold a bannister and walk in the absolute pitch dark. You kept smashing into the person in front of you and the bannister twisted and turned so, if you let go, you were totally lost. After ages of curving in the dark, you saw a dim light and a round wooden stone whih you were supposed to spin and make a wish. We both forgot to do that though. It was really crazy.
After that we saw the actual temple, which was amazing. It had a huge balcony overlooking the city and we washed off our sweaty faces in the natural springs.
After that we took a long and scenic walk back to our hotel and, both being way too exhausted to head out again, just ordered pizza (which is ridiculously expensive in Japan - not worth it).
Sunday:
So Sunday marked our last day in Kyoto and first day in Tokyo. We got up at about 7:30 and ate a breakfast buffet at the hotel. The buffet was a hybrid of Western and Japanese food which was interesting. I'm not sure if I'd ever had rice at eight in the morning but I wouldn't mind doing it again. After the breakfast, Ali and I ventured into Gion, an old-fashioned neighbourhood in Kyoto with thin cobblestone alleyways and traditional Japanese houses. We had read about a place that would turn you into a Geisha with the full make-up and costume. I'd thought that would be a great photo oppportunity for Ali so I told her we should do it. They also could make men into Geishas but it was a bit on the pricey side.
We arrived at the place twenty minutes early - our Japanese map navigating skills improving by the day - and Ali went inside while I waited at the doorway. Even though this place had a write up in the lonely planet guide book - a book we saw many foreign people carrying in a variety of languages over our week in Japan - I still had the idea that this would be something not a lot of tourists do, partly due to the apparent small scope of the neighbourhood and the thoughts that most tourists seek out places and buildings to look at. But while I waited, more and more tourists (Japanese and foreign) kept arriving, including a father who was paying for his 4 daughters to be transformed.
First she got her face painted white and her eyebrows and lips painted as well. She was then fitted with a kimono, which has many layers and weighs as much as hockey equipment, she says. Then she had her wig put on, also really heavy, and that was it - she was transformed.
When Ali finally emerged I was surprised at how good it looked. There she was, a non-Japanese person looking like a Geisha. I came inside and the lady who worked there asked us what kind of photo we wanted. We just took the simplest one because we could take our own photos for the low low price of zero yen.
We had originally discussed going to a park that was mentioned in the guide book as one of the best 30 features of Japan but we decided that we didn't want to short-change Tokyo too much. So we went to the train station to get on the skinkansen - a train that reaches 300 k/h - bound for Tokyo.
Being at the train station, you can't help but notice all the different trains and tracks. It's staggering how many stations and tracks are across this country; you can get from one end of the country to the other in hours and at any time of day. Here we are going a distance of 400 km and there were trains going there every 15 minutes like it was a simple bus route. Not to mention all the choices of what kind of train you want, contingent on how much you're willing to pay and how fast you want to get there. We ended up going on the fastest train avaiable with the fewest stops since, after all, when in rome, do as the Japanese commuters do.
The train felt like a plane with the way the seating was structured. It was only 2.5 hours and was fairly comfortable.
Similar to Kyoto, the guidebook had divided Tokyo into sections so we had tried planning on seeing a few attractions in each section. We started with the Imperial Palace Gardens in the Tokyo station section. After leaving the station, it felt like we might not have been in Tokyo; our idea of Tokyo consisted of the popular images associated with the city: impossibly high skyscrapers, neon lights and hundreds of people all jammed together at every intersection, but we didn't see any of this. Instead, we saw something maybe reminiscent of Toronto. We made our way to the Imperial Gardens and were a little underwhelmed at first; it was a beautiful park with great architecture but we were coming from a city with the country's best shrines and temples while Tokyo isn't a city known for representing ancient Japan. Nevertheless, we stuck it out and wandered through the park for awhile before we eventually found a beautiful large garden with a nice waterfall that was different than some of the ones we'd seen in Kyoto.
Afterwards, we decided to check into our place we'd booked for the night, the "Kinshicho capsule hotel." Ali and I wanted to get the full Tokyo experience so what better way to capture that than by sleeping in a glorified drawer. The capsule was actually much more spacious than I had imagined. There was a tv and a clock inside and plenty of leg room. The place also featured a spa room complete with a sauna, cold bath and hot tub.
After checking in, we went to the Ueno area of Tokyo, which was supposed to have a big street market and a really nice park. For dinner, we stopped at the Tempura restaurant located in the subway station. Although there are restaurants in Japan where you can get a variety of food, themed restaurants are very common in Japan. For example, there are ramen restaurants, sushi restaurants, and tempura restaurants (plus a few more I can't think of) and you really can only get varieties of those foods there. I guess when large groups go out, they must all have the same craving? Anyway, it's actually kind of cool because you can usually count on really good food since the restaurant specializes in that one particular dish.
Once in Ueno we went shopping in the street market - does 1 shirt and a pair of socks count as shopping? - then headed over to the park, Ueno-Koen. This park "is not Tokyo's sexiest but packs the biggest cultural punch" according to the guide book since the park was filled with 5 or 6 musuems all over it. Unfortunately, it was past 5 so all the musuems were closed so all we were left with was an unsexy park. Nevertheless, the guide book highlighted this park as one of Japan's 30 best features because there's art everywhere including the sewer manholes. Since most of this art was currently behind locked museum doors all we were left with were the manholes.
I must say. They are prettier than Kyoto's manholes.
After getting our fill of manholes, we headed over to a temple in the Akasaka area. I know, we had already seen the best temples in Kyoto but this one was special since it was open 24 hours a day and seeing a lit-up temple at night qualified as something new. So went to Senso-ji temple and were pleased by what we saw. There were 2 scary looking statues that were the God of thunder and the God of wind, a long path to the temple highlighted by various souvenir stores, and finally the temple itself including a tall lit-up pagoda. The temple wasn't large in the exploring and discovering sense, but the night time visuals were certainly eye-pleasing.
We made our way back to the capsule hotel and went our separate ways. I had a great sleep in the capsule and found it very comfortable. I did expect something more futuristic though with a front load washing machine kind of door rather than a curtain, but perhaps those are more prevalent in downtown Tokyo rather than the outskirts, which was where we were situated.
Monday:
We woke up at around 7 to get our first full Tokyo day started. After grabbing a quick Starbucks breakfast we headed to Shinjuku, an area more representative of the previously mentioned images associated with Tokyo. We were on the subway during the morning rush hour and while it was jam packed with people, we didn't witness the professional subway pushers we'd heard about. Our first stop in Shinjuku was Kabukachio, the red-light district of Tokyo. It was early in the morning so the sleaze factor wasn't at it's peak. It was actually a lot tamer than you might expect.
Walking around Tokyo, we were becoming increasingly sweaty; the temperature felt as if it were in the 40's and the humidity was unbearable. Our next stop was going to be the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices (city hall) in Shinjuku, and knowing we could go inside for a bit made us want to get there even quicker. So we followed the highest skyscrapers and eventually came across some very impressive architecture. Both towers offer an observatory floor where you can overlook the Tokyo skyline. On a clear day you can even see Mt. Fuji, one of the world's tallest mountains, but today was not a clear day. However, the view was great and there was a cafe that we could relax in for awhile.
Our next stop was the Shibuya area, a trendy shopping district that might be called Tokyo's fifth avenue. The crossing in front of the subway station there is famous because all 5 walking lights leading to different streets turn green at the same time so the crossing just becomes filled with people. It was only 3 o'clock when we went so we didn't see thousands of people flood the road but we did see quite a bit. We walked around the back streets a bit and stopped for lunch. We decided to go to an art gallery of some sort mentioned in the book, but we couldn't find it. Like Korea, there's very few street signs in Tokyo it seems. You can easily walk the wrong way for a good 20 minutes before realizing it.
Bothered by the heat, and not sure what to do, we decided to head to Roppongi, the night life district of Tokyo, a little earlier than anticipated. Our plan was to end up there and see a Beatles cover band and sleep at a manga kissa, a Japanese cyber cafe but with makeshift beds. We decided to go to the Manga Kissa an hour before the show and we were quite impressed with what we found. First of all, the cubicles are very private and everyone is quiet so it kind of feels like a library, despite the fact that most people there are playing video games. You can take magazines to read, DVD's to watch and even browse through their collection of thousands of Magna (Japanese comics) if that's your thing. Comics are very popular here even with the girls. And the drinks! They offer free drinks from coke to flavored milks to a variety of teas and coffees to slushies to soft serve ice cream all with unlimited refills.
We had made our plans for that night in advance when looking through the guide book, we found a place called the "Cavern Club" - bonus points if you know the signifigance of that name - where "4 Japanese mopheads perform Beatles covers that sound eerily like the real thing." So we reserved a table the night before and headed out there that evening. Before we were even seated we saw the chart displaying the $20 cover charge and rules about no dancing or acting unruly. Clearly this was a bar for the more older crowd which was fine by us. After deciding which $10 dollar drink to buy - after all this was the most expensive city in the world - and which overpriced food to get, the band came on. They played songs spanning different time periods of the Beatles catalogue plus a few Paul McCartney songs and like any dedicated cover band, they played a lot of the less popular songs like "Old Brown Show" "Goodbye" "Act naturally" and "Martha, my dear." They spoke Japanese in between songs - and were very funny judging by the frequent laughter of the audience - but 3 of the 4 members sang the songs in convincing British accents. Ali and I stayed for about three hours (1 and a half of which they played) before calling it a night.
We went back to the Manga Kissa, got private cubicles and went to bed watching movies on the computers. It wasn't the most comfortable sleep but all the free tea and coffee you wanted in the morning helped quite a bit.
For our last day in Japan, we had to be at the airport by three o'clock so we figured we probably had to begin making our way there around 1:30. So we decided to make it a light day by just going to the island of Odaiba in Tokyo Bay. It was a man-made island that was supposed to have some great views of unique buildings, a smaller replica of the Statue of Liberty (huh?) and an onsen made up to look like an old fashioned Edo-era town. We decided to head to the onsen first since that sounded the most interesting. On our way down though, we saw plenty of the bizarre architecture previously mentioned.
When we got to the onsen, we were given Yakutas, a Japanese bath robe, that we could choose ourself. There was also a sign saying no tattoos and no Yakuza (Japanese mafia) members allowed, which was a bit funny but I guess you might as well be honest about your prejudices. The "edo-era town" atmosphere of this onsen was fantastic though. Everyone, men and women, walked around the area in their yakutas. There were a variety of restaurants and souvenir shops. The onsen also featured more than the sauna and hot tub rooms that usually come with the territory; there was an outside foot bath area, relaxation rooms, and an outdoor hot tub. The foot bath area was mixed gender so Ali and I went there. It was a very nice outdoor area looking like some of the beautiful Japanese gardens we had seen. The pools of water for our feet had rocks on the bottom that were supposed to stimulate our feet but we just found them to be painful for the most part. There were some gentler areas however.
We then went to Dr. Fish, which is very popular in Korea as well. Basically you put your feet in a pool filled with some sort of carp that specialize in eating the dead skin off your feet. As soon as we put our feet in the pool we squirmed and giggled because the fish just swarm your feet and tickle them with their mouths. After a few minutes we got used to it and it was very relaxing.
After a sushi lunch where the woman kept questioning whether we actually wanted 36 pieces of sushi - apparently they don't each much in Japan compared to us gluttonous North Americans - we headed to our separate bathing areas. The onsen here was much nicer than the one we stayed at in Kyoto mostly due to the bigger size of the room and a larger outdoor bathing area where you could get some sun and see the low flying airplanes leaving and arriving from the airport.
After relaxing for most of the day, our trip had finally come to an end. We made our way for the airport and took the barely 2 hour flight from Tokyo to Seoul. The 6 days went by pretty fast but we had a lot of fun in Japan. Despite the short duration of the vacation, we felt we really saw the 3 cities of Kyoto, Nara and Tokyo in depth. I wouldn't say we've seen most of Japan since there are other popular places such as the islands of Okinawa, Hiroshima, and Mount Fugi that many tourists go to but we're glad we chose the cities we went to. Japan ended up being very different from Korea in a lot of ways so it was a great vacation destination. We would definitely recommend to anyone vacationing to consider Kyoto.
Unfortunately, it's back to work now in a city that doesn't feature golden pavillions, bamboo forests, and giant Buddha statues, but I'm sure we'll manage.
Love,
Ali and Jesse
