Today we set out to see a lot of different sites all around Tokyo. I believe today will be the day with the most walking and getting about, we tallied 11 miles of walking according to GPS today. Palett Town, Odaiba: We started the day out by traveling to Palette town which is in Odaiba, that extends south of Tokyo into Tokyo Bay and is actually an artificial island and a big one at it. We went to the famous Daikanransha, a 377 ft (115 m) tall ferris wheel. Unfortunately it was closed for inspection while we were there due to the typhoon yesterday. Time permitting we will try to get back there later in the trip as it offers a beautiful view of Tokyo and the bay. Here are some pictures: At the base of the ferris wheel, there was a Honda car exposition so we walked around it and sat in a car with the steering wheel on the right side of the car, it was definitely different than what we are used to. We then walked further south and entered a mall there. The Odaiba area has many large malls. What was neat about this mall was […]
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Forward: Hello, this is our first entry for our second time to Japan. This entry is going to be really short since we’ve been running on very little sleep and have been traveling for about 17 hrs or so. Plane Ride from Detroit to Japan: The plane this time around was very similar to our first trip; it was very big with an aisle running up and down either side of the plane. The section we sat in had 3 seats along the walls and a row of 4 seats in the center. Using a tip from our first trip, we booked our seats on the aisle and the window, leaving the center seat open to allow for more room. Usually no one will book the seat, but this time around the plane was filled to the top. We just asked the guy who sat with us if he’d mind taking the aisle or the window seat, he chose the aisle. The only other difference with this plane was there was less room between each row and to make matters worse the row in front of us all reclined their seats all the way pushing the TV screens on the […]
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Today is our second full day in the Cayman Islands. We’ve been pretty busy so far and haven’t had a chance to post anything yet, so here’s the first post. We had left Tampa Monday, October 16, for our honeymoon in the Cayman Islands. We first flew to Atlanta and quickly transferred to our flight down to the islands. As soon as we had boarded our plane in Atlanta, our pilot had said we’d be flying right back over Tampa all the way down Florida and then over the ocean to the islands. About 2 hours after leaving Atlanta we had our first glimpse of Grand Cayman: On the way in, a giant rain cloud was lingering over the south end of the island and we ended up having to fly through it. Out our side of the plane we could see the bluest waters while out the other side was complete grey rain cloud, almost touching the wing. As we approached the runway the wind was picking up a bit and you could feel the pilot holding against it. We landed well and at the end of the runway the pilot had to turn the plane around on the […]
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Today, will be our last full day in Japan and we first start off in Kyoto. Our itinerary had us to take the bullet train back to Tokyo to be in town by 1:30 pm but we decided to reserve an earlier train to get back around 11:30 am to spend more time there. Here we are waiting for the shinkansen to arrive to take us back to Shinagawa Station in Tokyo: We took the Hikari 512 back to Tokyo, here’s what one of the electronic train arrival boards looks like at a station. They change between japanese and english: And lastly, looking outside the train station in Kyoto you can get a slight feel for the enormity of the rail system, but only just in this photo: The day before we left Kyoto we arranged to have our luggage forwarded to our hotel in Tokyo. This is the second time we made use of this service, the first being when we left Tokyo for Miyajima. However, that time we sent our luggage to our hotel in Kyoto and only packed backpacks for Miyajima and Hiroshima. If you ever visit Japan, definitely make use of this service, just ask your […]
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Today we woke up and mapped out our travels to hit the three locations on our wish list: Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine, Tofuku-ji Temple and the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. Just a heads up we did not make it to Arashiyama. We ended up spending a huge amount of time at Inari, which was a lot bigger than we thought it was going to be as well as running into some navigation issues in finding a viable way to actually get to Arashiyama. Long story short, we were unable to read some crucial maps due to being in japanese as we were deeper into the subway system than what seems most tourists venture as english was becoming fewer and farther between for us. We made a call to scrap the endeavor and head to Gion instead. Ok now let’s break down the day. First we headed out to Inari, which was a very short train ride from Kyoto Station. When we got off the train here we felt more like we were in the thick of Kyoto, as opposed to more well kept stations. I say that because the train station was very small and looked more like an afterthought just to […]
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Many of you know, but in case you are one of the few who don’t, I am a chocolate milk aficionado. I drink chocolate milk like there’s no tomorrow and I relish in its aroma and taste as much as a wine drinker prefers wine. With that said, on our way back from dinner after touring Kyoto I finally found it. I’ve been on a quest since I got here and the moment had come when I found japanese chocolate milk! I will tell you too, the taste… was superb. It was creamy, rich and slightly grainy from the cocoa. Mmmmmm too good. In fact I went back later on to get another three only to be drunk in about three minutes. I will drink a ton on our last day in Japan that is for certain. Here’s what it looked like: I sure hope I can import some of this when we are back in the States. Return to top
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Today, we had a full day tour of Kyoto and various historic sites around the city. We met with our group at the base of our hotel at 8:30 am and our first stop was at Nijo Castle. Nijo Castle was built in 1626 and was the home, when needed, of the Tokugawa Shogun. It was also used for the Kyoto Imperial Palace. The castle itself was immaculate and meticulously maintained. When entering the main building, which was huge, we had to remove our shoes and no photography of any kind was permitted. Inside, there were large rooms set off from each side of the corridors we walked down and within each of these rooms were giant painted murals. The murals themselves were all gold plated. What this is, when the light hits it right you can see that each panel, was plated in gold squares that were about 5 inches on a side. On top of the gold then a painting would be done, which often had trees painted, landscapes or animals and in some cases tigers. At the time, however, we were told no one in Japan had yet seen a tiger so their paintings were based off […]
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Today we checked out of our hotel in Shinjuku around 9:00 am. We donned our water shoes and headed to the station, about a 12 minute walk. It was pouring down rain too, so we were once again soaked quickly. We had to wear our backpacks on our fronts to keep them covered under our ¥400 ($4) umbrellas we bought our second day in Japan. They have served us well and we carry them still. I also had my camera bag stacked on top of my backpack so ooo the walk to the station was irritable. We caught a quick train over to Tokyo Station to board the shinkansen. This video doesn’t do the shinkansen justice on its speed, but maybe you can grasp how fast the scenery is flying by as we sped out of Tokyo and into the country side. A few hours later we had to change to another shinkansen in Shin-Osaka station. Where had about an hour to kill and we found this little bakery inside. Look at some of these desserts: Once it was time to leave again, we boarded our shinkansen and were underwear again. Here’s the scenery near Shin-Osaka Station. Once in Miyajimaguchi, […]
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Time for the next posting here. Today, our plan was to check out the Fuji TV station building, Tsukiji Fish Market, Ginza and Shibuya. However, we needed to get shoes that could actually withstand the amount of water we’ve been taking on from the rain. With that said, we needed another trip to Donki. This time we went to one a little closer to our hotel and this time we had luck with shoes. We ended up getting water shoes like the ones people where at the beach. However, Sara’s actually looked like regular flats so her’s were alright, mine definitely were water shoes. Here’s the sign to Donki: When all was said and done for with what we had to do in the morning we decided to drop Fuji TV from our list of places to see as the train to it would eat up about 45 minutes and another 30 to get to our next location. After getting our shoes we headed down to Shinjuku station to catch the train over to Yurakucho station (said you-rock-cho). At Yurakucho station the plan was to eat in the area then head to Ginza then to the Tsukiji Fish Market. We […]
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This is a continuation from Day 3: Donki and Sumo in case you didn’t read it. Anywho, after we dried up from the rain, I wrapped my feet in bags then put my shoes back on. The shoes were starting to smell reeealllll wonderful. Sara loved my style and definitely loved the crinkling sounds when I walked, fortunately outside and in the restaurant they couldn’t be heard: Pretty sweet huh? Back out in the rain we got the GPS out to locate the restaurant, only about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. There aren’t really any words to describe this, so I’m not even going to try to. I can only say is that it was ridiculously awesome. The entire show was in english, which was a nice break to be honest. I love hearing the japanese language and trying to get to use it, but you have to be on guard when being spoken to at least to catch the few words we know. This time though, I could enter a low brain-energy state and it was relaxing. Next time though, as in the next time we return to Japan, we will have much better command of japanese. […]
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