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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Our day started out with a quick trip to Don Quijote (or Donki for short). What is Donki you are wondering? Well, it’s great is what it is! It’s like a mix between a Marc’s and a Publix/Giant Eagle (and apparently Marc’s are not in Columbus and I know they aren’t in Tampa, so it’s like a much smaller Walmart) now keep that in mind and add in a Spencer’s Gifts with a dollar store. That’s what Donki is. So, needless to say we got some souvenirs for them and what we really went for which was water proof shoes, since rain is still in the forcast. However, we did not find water shoes until the fourth day at a different Donki. Here are some pics from Donki: But when in Japan…… do as the japanese do! There it is, throw up the peace sign. A quick side note too, I’m going to drop the image quality a bit and not edit many of the pictures for now as I don’t have enough time to get it all done and stay current with the data. Upon my return to the States I will re-upload in higher resolution. Onward to more […]
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Picking up where we left off in the last post, we made our way to the Imperial Palace East Gardens. The entire grounds here cover 250 acres and are home to Japan’s Emperor and Empress. The gardens are situated in downtown Tokyo, so again, you have a beautiful serene area and quite the step out of time just settling right in the middle of the city. First, walking into the gardens you cross a bridge surrounded by a large moat. Once inside and past the walls, is an area with a 90 degree turn and then block by yet another wall with giant wooden and iron reinforced doors. The 90 degree turn we were told was a strategic placement that would cause any invaders to be forced to slow down to negotiate the turn, thus providing a bottle neck by which the defensive soldiers could lay waste to the enemy trapped between the double gates and their own slowed pace. After passing the second gate, you walk down long, wide roads that expand over gardens. Situated off of these roads are old structures that housed powerful dignitaries as well as served as tea houses for performing tea ceremonies, an old, […]
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Today, we had an all day tour that started in Shinjuku and ended in Akihabara. We woke up around 5:45 am as our room turned extremely hot and humid during the night. I woke up once during the night and noticed it seemed a bit warm, but I figured the blankets were just working too well, so I fell back asleep without much thought of the temperature. At 5:45 I woke up again and Sara was wide awake too, she said she had been up a while due to the temperature and then it hit me. Let me explain what happened. When we entered our hotel room yesterday for the first time it was hot and humid in it. The lights also did not work, but I noticed a small box on the wall that said to insert the key card into it. Once inserted, the lights turn on and you are able to operate the wall mounted AC unit.
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