Konnichiwa - Japan Part II (Kyoto Day 1)

Kyoto is one of the most popular tourist destinations in all of Japan after Tokyo. Unlike the major cities of Tokyo, Osaka (and obviously Hiroshima), Kyoto was spared from heavy Allied bombing during World War II. This means that their centuries old temples still exist without heavy restorations or even rebuilding after the war. Paris is called the City of Light; NYC is the City that Never Sleeps. Kyoto should be the City of Temples. There are so many temples that one could easily spend several days exploring Kyoto, never seeing the same temple twice. My husband and I spent two full days here. For as much as we enjoyed it, we became saturated with temples. The same thing is true if you visit too many castles or cathedrals in Europe. After a while a pagoda is another pagoda, a buddha is another buddha, and you see tori gates everywhere. That should not discourage you from going to Kyoto, but just a suggestion that you pace yourself. See the really unique temples and find some other interesting things to do. 

We arrived in Kyoto late in the afternoon after a 3.5 hour Shinkansen train ride from Tokyo. I was so excited to take the trains from city to city so that we could see the countryside and rice fields in between the cities. Well, I was slightly disappointed with the train from Tokyo to Kyoto because there was no countryside. Japan is one densely packed island, and between the two cities was neighborhood after neighborhood. The city never seemed to end. I loved seeing Mt Fuji off in the distance but the peaceful countryside I expected, didn't exist. 

Our train arrived at Kyoto station, and much like Tokyo station, Kyoto station also beats out any USA train station in terms of grandeur, amenities and beauty. This multi-level architectural marvel had floor after floor of restaurants above ground and an underground shopping mall called Porta with more eateries.

Kyoto Station

Upon arrival we first set out on foot to find our hotel. We booked our first hotel in Kyoto on Agoda.com. Kyoto gets incredibly expensive during Cherry Blossom season, and hotels quickly sell out. We had difficulty finding anywhere to stay and thought ourselves lucky when we found the Hotel Hokke Club for around $200/night. We prepaid for the rate and noticed on the webpage that only smoking rooms were available. We're not smokers but not seeing any other options, we went with that room hoping we could ask for a nonsmoking room when we arrived. Unfortunately, the hotel insisted on giving us the room we booked which we endured for 2 nights. The horrid smoke smell aside, the room size and bathroom layout made things most difficult for us. Overall, this was our worst hotel stay of the entire trip. You can read my full trip advisor review for some more specifics.

Photo taken from the doorway. Could this room be any smaller?

Look very carefully at the plumbing.
One could not shower and use the sink at the same time.

In Kyoto, they have one or two underground subway lines that are on the JR passes that we had, but those train lines weren't suited for our tourist needs. Instead, we planned on using the bus system. During our research before the trip, we read high praise about the Kyoto busses. We bought 2-day tourist passes for Y4,000 ($50/for 2). 

We set out for our first temple of the day, Sanjusengen-Do or the home of 1,001 Buddhas. Each bus stop had one of these signs. The sign told you each numbered bus that came to this particular stop, and the green circular button you see below moved indicating which bus arrived next. The tourist/bus map we got from the ticket office had excellent directions on which busses went to which temples. We found it incredibly easy to figure out which bus we needed to take.

Kyoto bus stop

While seated on the first bus, we noticed quickly that the automated bus stop voice thingy only announced the stops in Japanese. We frantically pulled out our tourist map and tried to count the number of stops until we needed to get off when all of the sudden in clear English, the automated voice said, "exit next stop for Sanjusengen-Do temple." <<OMG! Thank goodness!>> This happened again and again throughout the day. Someone later told us that prior to the Nagano Olympics in 1998, the International Olympic Committee told Japan that they needed to make their more popular tourist attractions more foreigner friendly. So, they added English to the popular bus stops which helped us know where to exit. 

Our days in Kyoto were on the chilly side. I mentioned in my post on Tokyo that Japan had an unseasonably cold winter that lingered into March when we visited. At all Japanese temples (and in Thai temples too we later learned), we had to remove our shoes. This certainly didn't bother us, and out of respect we were only too happy to comply, but walking around in socks in an unheated temple on a 40 degree morning was a little unpleasant. 

The age of these temples really impressed me. Inside this particular temple, there literally stood 1,001 Buddhas all in a row (about 5 Buddhas deep and about 200 abreast). We weren't allowed to take any photographs inside the temple, but they did have postcards available for purchase at the small gift shop. Has that ever happened to you while traveling? You see something amazing, but photographs aren't allowed? Read my postcard tip from a previous blog post. I bought postcards all over the place in Japan.

Sanjusengen-Do Temple - Home of 1,001 Buddhas

Walking around the grounds of Sanjusengen-Do

After Sanjusengen-Do, we hopped back on a bus to one of the most famous temples in all of Kyoto: Kiomizu-Dera. If you have to choose a season in which to visit Japan, it will be tough choice between  Spring and Fall. Spring, while chilly and often cloudy, is full of beautiful blossoms (even though we missed them during the first half of our trip). If you go to Kyoto in the Fall, however, you have the chance of seeing Kiomizu-Dera surrounded by brilliant red maples. Cherry blossoms are the first flowering trees to bloom in the spring, often before any other trees are even budding. Japan was no different. The cherry trees were just starting to bud and no other deciduous trees even had leaves on them yet. But look at this image below and imagine all of the trees having vibrant, red leaves. Google Kiomizu-Dera in the Fall to see what it can look like. Ah! Stunning!

Kiomizu-Dera, Kyoto

After Kiomizu, we took the "scenic" route to Ginkakuji also knows as the Silver Pavilion. We went for  a walk and found what we thought were the tori gates marking the entrance to Ginkakuji, but they weren't. We walked down a lovely shaded path that eventually led to a small tea garden. I wish I had taken a picture of that place because what remains of it in my memory is slowly fading away. On the way back, my husband took advantage of this detour to explore some more, founding a different route for us. Although terrified that we were lost, I really enjoyed walking through the residential neighborhood that we found. I loved seeing laundry hanging out to dry and women pulling weeds from their flower beds. Sometimes when I travel, I forget that although a destination is foreign to me, it's home to others.

After a 10-15 minute walk off the main street, we reconnected with the route to Ginkakuji. Before too long, we came upon the actual entrance to Ginkakuji and laughed that we ever mistook something else for it. A classic tourist attraction, there were food vendors, souvenir shops, etc. A sight that would normally make me roll my eyes, instead was quite welcomed by my famished stomach. We enjoyed hot dogs, fried potato spirals, and sesame and chocolate ice cream before making our way to the actual temple.

Ginkakuji - The Silver Pavilion

After Ginkakuji, we made our way to the historic Geisha district, Gion. Our main objective was to find an ATM. We took out Yen at the airport when we arrived in Tokyo, of course, but we didn't realize how cash dependent Japan would be. By day 3, we already found ourselves low on cash. This did not bode well for souvenir shopping! :) We walked for a very long time without any success of finding a compatible ATM. We read ahead of time that this could be an issue, and that the best way to find a ATM compatible with American cards was at 7/11's. In Tokyo, 7/11's are everywhere. In Gion, apparently they were scarce. After walking down street after street, we finally found one. Crisis averted! Now I can buy me some pretty things!

Crossing a pedestrian bridge looking over Gion

With colorful Yen in hand, I wasted no time. I bought two decorative fans and a handmade piece of fabric with a beautiful design on it that I later framed. 

At night, we went to Nijo Castle. During certain times of the year, they have an exhibit called, "Nijo Castle at Night" where they have special spot lights set up to highlight the different flowering trees. Unfortunately for us, this was a bust. There were trees. There were lights. There were no blooms. See my picture below. Can you imagine how beautiful this grove of trees would be when the branches are full of blossoms? So, what did I do? You guessed it. I bought post cards of what we were supposed to see. In my photo album, I have a page that says, "Nijo Castle at Night. What we were supposed to see vs. what we actually saw." 

We purchased the tickets in advance, so even though we knew the trees weren't blooming, we still went anyway. It's an experience we'll never forget even if it wasn't the experience we expected. 

Niji Castle at Night

Back to our smokey hotel for the night, we have one more full day in Kyoto before continuing on to the big city of Osaka. Click HERE to keep reading. 

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Konnichiwa - Japan Part I (Tokyo)

Japan, how do I love thee, let me count the ways....

Those of you following my blog have hopefully realized by now that my goal is to be very frank and candid about my experiences visiting different parts of the world. I simply adored Italy, was rather disappointed by Paris, felt at home in the French countryside, enjoyed England very much, was pleasantly surprised by San Francisco and Yosemite, and felt highly taken advantage of in Alaska. After such a let-down in Alaska, my husband and I took an entire year off of traveling by ourselves. We spent two of our vacation weeks in 2011 traveling with our families instead. We traveled to Las Vegas with my husband's parents, brother, and nieces, and then to Disney World in Orlando with my parents, sisters, their future husbands, and some aunts, uncles and cousins. In the fall of 2011, almost full year after Alaska, we started thinking about where else in the world we wanted to visit. Europe fell off the list for the time being as we started considering more exotic destinations like Egypt, Morocco, Fiji, and Asia. Political and social unrest kept us from Northern Africa for the time being, so we started looking more seriously at Asia. Immediately we circled around Japan. We already liked the Japanese things we could experience in America like sushi, Anime, Square Enix video games like the Final Fantasy collection, etc., and I was only too excited to visit historical sites like Hiroshima and all of the ancient Japanese temples. 

Not wasting any time, we started looking at the calendar for the best times of year to visit. One thing that stood out to us immediately was cherry blossom season. Having previously experience the mania that is the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC, we knew that the Japanese cherry trees wouldn't be more beautiful anywhere else than in Japan itself. Now the difficult part: figuring out the timing of the blossoms. Like the USA, Japan had websites that tried to predict the peak bloom dates for their cherry trees, but you can never rely on that completely. We booked our trip around the best dates that we could and hoped for the best. One thing we learned quickly while planning, Japan is expensive! OMG guys, Japan is SOOOOO expensive. I've said before that I always start with a $10,000 budget for any international, 2 week trip. After seeing how expensive the hotels were and the transportation sticker shock, I bumped my budget up to $11,000. I am very pleased to report that, however, that we successfully spent to amazing weeks in Japan for just over $8,000 which is similar to almost all of our 2 week trips.  Here is the breakdown of what we budgeted vs. what we spent.

                          Budget Actuals

Flight $2,500 $2,162.20

Hotel $3,000 $2,437.13

Food $1,500 $484.42

Activities $1,200 $243.14

Souvenirs $500 $450.13

Transportation  $1,300 $1,373.38

Misc. $1,000 $871.29

Total $11,000 $8,021.68

For more details on how I get create my budget in the first place, check out one of my earlier blogs: Planning Your Budget: Domestic vs. Foreign Travel. The long and the short of it is that Japanese hotels and transportation were wildly more expensive than we ever thought, but while there, we unintentionally ate very cheaply. The activities we did also ended up being much cheaper than we planned. But more on that later. 

In advance of our trip, we booked our flights, all of our hotels, and we purchased our Japan Rail (JR) Passes. The Japanese drive on the opposite side of the road than the United States (same as the UK) and many tourist books and websites cautioned us against driving. If we ever go back, we might consider driving to visit the more remote parts of the country, but for our first adventure, we got everywhere we needed to go with the amazing Japanese high speed train system called the Shinkansen. All of our hotels were within walking distance to a major train station, and the JR passes took us everywhere we wanted to go. 

There were several flight options we could have taken. United Airlines and All Nippon Airlines both offered 1 nonstop flight per day from Washington DC to Tokyo/Narita, but they were very pricey. We instead opted for an American Airlines flight with a connection in Dallas/Fort Worth. The flight from Washington to Tokyo is a horrid 13-14 hours (which we ended up doing in 2015 as part of our 20 hour flight from Washington to Bangkok), but from Dallas, it was only about 10 hours. Rest assured, 10 hours on a plane is still pretty lousy, but surprisingly, the time passed quickly. We slept for the first half of the flight in our best attempt to adjust to the time change as early as we could. Our flight from Washington left at 6AM on a Wednesday morning, and we landed at the Tokyo/Narita airport at 1:30PM on Thursday afternoon. It sucks that traveling to the other side of the world makes you lose an entire day. At least you recover that day (sort of) on the way home. 

The Tokyo/Narita airport is a good bit of distance away from Tokyo itself. Our first order of business in the airport after landing and clearing customs was to take our voucher for the JR passes and pick up the cards that would be our lifeline for the next two weeks. I'm not going to lie. The JR passes are crazy expensive, and I mean cra-cra expensive. (We're talking $600/each.) BUT, the ease of travel we got from having them was nothing short of fantastic. The JR passes mean that we could travel on any sort of JR transportation line (city subways, intercity high speed trains, etc) without any sort of additional fees. We didn't have to stand in any lines at a subway station for tickets, and we could go to any ticket counter we wanted, flash our JR passes, and immediately go through. When it came to traveling between cities, we showed them our valid JR passes, and we could get timed tickets for any outbound train with assigned seats. I can't gush enough over how convenient these passes were. Expensive? Yes! Worth it? OMG, yes! Yes! Yes! 1,000 times yes! (And just a quick side note. I intend to talk lots more about how amazingly friendly and honest the Japanese people are. My first example is the fact that one day, we DROPPED one of our precious JR passes. This golden ticket that gave us unlimited transportation for the entire duration of our visit could have been gone in a moment. Had we been in NYC or really any major metropolitan city outside of Japan, we never would have seen it again. Instead, a very kind and honest Japanese person turned it in, and we got it back.)

Yikes!  This blog post has already gotten way too long, and so far we haven't even left the airport. So, after we got our JR passes, we hit the ATM for Yen, and found the Narita Express which is the high speed train that takes you from the airport to Tokyo Station. In just over 50 minutes, we found ourselves in the heart of Tokyo in their famous, historic Tokyo Station. The closest comparison we have in the United States to Tokyo Station would be Grand Central Station in NYC. In terms of sheer size, Tokyo Station is its own little city. With a plethora of restaurants, shops, and platforms for different types of transportation, one could very easily get lost (an we did...often). Our Tokyo hotel: the Hotel Metropolitan Marunouchi, had an entrance just outside Tokyo Station. The problem? There were lots of exits out of Tokyo Station. Which one was ours? After wandering around like a mouse in a maze, we finally found the right exit, and cemented its location into our brains. You can read more about this hotel in my Trip Advisor review. Bottom line, it was expensive, tiny and perfect! We even recommended it to friends who stayed there a few months ago. They praised it highly as well! 

After checking into our hotel, we washed off the airplane scum, and ventured out to enjoy our first evening in Tokyo. We took the Yamanote circle line to the Akihabara station. This place gave us our first taste of the modern/technology side of Japan. This neighborhood was full of electronics stores selling everything from video games and gaming systems to the tiniest electronic parts where you could build/repair your own computer. We got our first authentic Japanese dinner from a ramen restaurant and called it a day.

Akihabara, Tokyo

Our tiny room at the Hotel Metropolitan Marunouchi hotel

Our view from our Tokyo hotel at night! Amazing!

After a good night sleep, we woke up bright and early for our only truly full day in Tokyo. Our first stop was to visit the Imperial Gardens which was just a short walk from our hotel. Unfortunately, the Imperial Gardens are closed on Fridays. Oops. Well this threw a slight wrench in the day because it was only 6:30AM and most things didn't open for quite some time. But we didn't let that get us down. We walked back to Tokyo Station and took the train to Ueno Station. Ueno Park is famous in Tokyo for having a street lined with cherry trees and also being the home of many different sorts of museum (history, science, etc.) in addition to a wildly popular zoo. When we got there, of course, everything was still closed and the park was pretty deserted. Why, you ask? Well, see for yourself....

Ueno Park & Cherry Trees...do you see any blossoms? 

How about now? I see 1 tree in bloom. The others? Nothing...

Looks like we got to Tokyo too early for the cherry blossoms. Unlike Washington DC where the cherry trees bloomed early that year, it was an unseasonably cold winter in Japan, and the trees were all slightly behind schedule. 

Ok, so far we went to the Imperial Gardens that were closed, Ueno Park without cherry blossoms, and its still too early for things to be open. Hmm...not the best start to our first day. But determined not to get discouraged, we looked down our list of things to do and decided to walk for about a mile to the neighborhood of Asakusa to the Senso'ji Temple (free entry). It was opened when we got there, but the pedestrian street that led to the temple lined with shops on either side, were all closed still. Honestly, that didn't bother us. They looked like a bunch of trinket and junk shops which I happily skipped. The temple was lovely and smelled of incense. The morning was cloudy, so my pictures didn't turn out too well. 

Senso'ji Temple - ancient Buddhist Temple

From the Senso'ji Temple, we backtracked to Ueno Park now that things were starting to open up. We went to the Tokyo National Museum (about $15 for 2) for about 1-2 hours and learned a great deal about Japanese history. Both my husband and I commented on the fact that throughout all of our years of schooling, we never studied Japanese or Chinese history. I loved seeing all of the artifacts from the different periods in history and appreciated all of the English translations. 

From Ueno Park, we headed over to one of the most famous historical sites in all of Tokyo: the Meiji Shrine. This Shinto shrine is enormous and the grounds are very extensive. In the court yard in front of the shrine, we saw this traditional wedding processional coming through. It would be the first of several weddings we saw throughout our trip. 

Wedding at Meiji Shrine

After the visiting the shrine, we paid extra money (Y1000 or about $13.00) to visit an Iris and Azalea garden near Meiji, but since neither were in bloom, the garden looked rather barren. If you're not visiting during the right time of year to catch these flowers, you can skip this. Otherwise, I'm sure it would have been lovely. 

From the gardens near Meiji, we hopped back on the Yamanote circle line to Harajuku and home of the Tokyo Tower (aka Japan's version of a mini Eiffel Tower). We took the elevator up to the observation deck for about $10/pp and enjoyed the views of this massive, sprawling city. As the sun reached mid-late afternoon, we set out for Odieba, a small island in Tokyo that can best be likened to Coney Island without the amusement park rides. This fun-house island is filled with shops, restaurants, arcades, and other forms of entertainment. 

Tokyo Tower &  Zojoji Temple

The monorail to Odieba is not on the JR pass, so we had to purchase round trip tickets for that (about $16 for 2). Having somehow gotten ramen for two meals in a row, I was determined to find something else that I liked eating. We found a restaurant with stunning views of the rainbow bridge and the setting sun behind Tokyo. We soon came to realize that most Japanese restaurants had plastic food displays of what they served or pictures of their food in the menus. We found this very handy since we didn't speak any Japanese beyond hello, goodbye, and thank you.  This evening, we enjoyed ourselves some miso soup and shrimp tempura.

Shrimp tempura dinner. Don't ask what the shrimp tails are sitting on!

Odieba - views of the Rainbow Bridge and the miniature Statue of Liberty. 

After dinner, we walked around the boardwalk-type island for a little while, and then headed back to our hotel. 

Up early again the next morning since we had limited time left in Tokyo, we wanted to make sure we were able to visit the Imperial Gardens. This time, they were open, and we really enjoy our time there. Most of trees didn't have blooms or even leaves on them, but the bonsai trees, bamboo groves, and other things were all very beautiful. 

Guard tower near the imperial palace

Imperial Gardens

A single flowering tree in the Imperial Gardens

After the Imperial Gardens, we hopped back on our favorite train line, the green Yamanote circle line and took it to the Shinjuku station. From there we walked about 15 minutes it what must have been the single windiest day I've ever experienced in my life. It wasn't windy in the gardens, but somehow on the train ride from Tokyo Station to Shinjuku, the weather shifted and the winds went nuts. The walk shouldn't have taken us 15 minutes but we had to fight every single step as we walked down the street. Our mission? Find the Square Enix store. Square Enix is the merged video game brand that created the legendary Final Fantasy franchise and the Dragon Warrior/Quest games. The Square Enix store sold games (which we couldn't buy due to USA/Japan console compatibility issues) but we did enjoy seeing all of the memorabilia and figurines that they sold. For anyone who played Dragon Warrior/Quest knows that one of the cutest monsters in the game are slimes. The Square Enix store sold stuff slimes, slime key chains, slime candy, etc. I bought some slime stickers for my photo album, and Justin bought a music CD (surprisingly compatible) of Final Fantasy orchestrations. 

Shinjuku, Tokyo

We walked back toward Shinjuku station and reluctantly ate lunch at McDonalds. This experience was...different. For as obsessed as we are in the United States with white meat chicken, Asia serves mostly dark meat chicken. It's like the chicken industry ships the white meat to the USA and ships the dark meat to Asia. Haha! At McDonalds, I got chicken selects. Not only were they dark meat, but they still had the skin on them...underneath the breading. Beyond gross! We also ordered an "American Cherry Shake." Is this the Japanese think Americans like? Imagine a cherry popsicle melted and mixed into a vanilla shake. Not terrible, but certainly not something you would find at any McDonalds in America. The whole experience made us chuckle even though we left McDonalds still kinda hungry. 

But we had no time to waste. Our time in Tokyo had come to an end, and we had to make our way to our next destination: Kyoto.

We went back to the hotel who had stored our bags for us since check-out, make our through Tokyo Station to the Shinkansen platform. And using the tickets that we got with our JR pass, we boarded our train for the 3 hour ride to Kyoto. 

Shinkansen Train Platform

Getting to Kyoto was easy. Finding our hotel and navigating Kyoto was a little trickier. More on that next time. If you made it to the end of this blog post, I heartily thank you...and apologize for babbling on so much! After a month hiatus from blogging, I feel it only fitting to hit you all with a doozy of a post. Furthermore, I wanted to thank you all for your kind words of encouragement. I am so touched when I see some of you and one of the first things you mention to me is how much you're enjoying my blog. I appreciate it more than I can say!! 

For the next blog, please click HERE. 

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler