Japan

 

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Tuesday 17 November 2009

Time to go to Kyoto!

Slept in till about 10am then packed up everything and headed to Tokyo station. Bought a Shinkansen ticket to Tokyo. Very exciting! Shinkansen's, also known as The Bullet Train, are one of the fastest trains in the world along with the TGV in France. The Nozomi Shinkansen which we were to be using, reaches speeds of 300km/h and is the fastest out of all the current models.

I was ecstatic to finally get to Kyoto. After having an avid interest in Geisha's over the years I was now about to visit the home of the Geisha, Kyoto! Kyoto is also one of the former capitals of Japan and due to its significant amount of cultural heritage it was not on the Allied Forces hit list during the war so a lot of the places here are the originals whereas in Tokyo many famous attractions are just reproductions.

The Shinkansen was pretty cool. Got us there in about 2 hours (470km away!). The seats were spacious and we bought a little bento box which seemed to be the popular lunch for everyone, out of the million options I could only recognise Pork Katsu.... this proved to be a reoccurring theme.

Got to Kyoto and realised they don't have a subway system like Tokyo, there are only 2 lines! So we went to an information booth and they told us to catch a bus. I usually try to avoid buses when travelling and this was no exception, but after trying it out it was quite easy to use. Felt a bit weird having to pay when you got OFF the bus though.

Hopped off at a stop we assumed was ours and headed over the bridge into the famous geisha area of Gion! I was SO excited! All the many books I had read on geisha's came flooding back. I could now see the old teahouses lining the river so often described in Geisha literature and the small esplanade that followed the river path that many a geisha would have swept down as she tip-toed in her wooden sandals from one party to the next.

We found our hostel which is situated right on the river and checked in. We were to stay 3 nights in a hostel about 100m down the road then on the last night we would stay in the main building.... ok.

Lugged our backpacks up the tiny stairs and met our first room-mate Lorenzo. He was from Florence but had been studying English in Sydney for a few months. There was also a guy called Pete, another Aussie, who I met downstairs, not much of a talker at first but a dead-ringer for Tom Cruise.

Later on we met an Aussie couple who were very entertaining and a Yank mate of theirs. They only stayed the first night however, but gave us lots of tips and laughs.

Lorenzo decided to come out with us to find some dinner and after walking around Gion for ages we ended up going to an interesting place just up the road that looked like it had an old style surfboard attached to its roof and a giant hot plate covered with what looked like crepes with odd ingredients piled on top. Looked ok so we went in.

Inside there were various mannequins all dressed in kimono's seated at each table. Odd. The mama-san came out and said in English, “Our Menu – One Item!” and pointed to a picture of an omelette looking thing. We put up three fingers and away she went. Easy!

She came back with three plates and it looked...well, interesting. Basically an omelette or crepe type thing, filled with various items with soy and mayo on top.

Tried it out. IT WAS GOOOOD! Although the tiny, tiny whole, perfectly formed shrimp were a bit weird, but still edible. It was very tasty, we identified beef cubes, shrimp, pork something, and some vegies as well.

Outside we took some pic's of the guys cooking them and also of a statue that had a boy whose pants were being pulled down by a dog and you could see everything under his pants haha. Those wacky Japanese!.

 

After that we headed to an area where the hostel reception girls said had Karaoke. They had written the word in Kanji for us so I looked out for anything beginning with what looked like an upside down 4. Found one place, paid for an hour and we were taken upstairs to our own room. A massive book resembling the White Pages was given to us and we started checking out songs. Joel went first and did Coolio’s Gangster’s Paradise. Then Lorenzo found the only Italian song he knew which I knew the chorus of so we sang that. I then did Paul Simon's Graceland and Green Day – Basketcase.
Some other songs we did were Offspring – Spare Me the Details, a Queen medley, I then did Nine Inch Nails – Closer, didn't expect that in there!!

It was pretty fun, we had intended to get lots of sake but we weren't sure on the ordering process. Once our hour was up, the phone in the booth rang to let us know and we headed back to the hostel.

 

Wednesday 18 November 2009

Slept in again. Around midday we went to Kyoto station and found a tour that went to a few places we wanted to tick off so we booked that for the following day.

We then caught the train out to see the Fushimi Inari Shrine which was high on my to-do list.

Walked the backstreets from the station to the temple where we eventually found a giant thing, I'm not sure what they're called really, shrine I guess. There's always shrines.
From here we went upstairs and found a long row of really large red Tori gates all lined up, one after the other. This is what Inari was famous for. Inari is the God of Rice but also the Patron of Business and over the years businesses across Japan have donated a Tori gate so that there are now around 5,000 Tori gates all throughout the complex, all lined up in a row that snakes up along the mountains. Makes for great photos!
It's a very old Shrine, the base was founded in 816 and it's present-day main shrine was built in 1499

Wandered around and up the mountain for a while taking lots of pics before getting the train down to the next station, Tofukiji. Here was another shrine/temple that was famous for its autumn leaf (koyo) viewing. We followed the crowds to a bridge that overlooked lots of trees that reached far back to another bridge. Each tree was a different shade of yellow, orange or red with a few evergreens dotting them. Walked along some more till we were inside the complex. Here we could go down stairs to areas beneath the larger trees where there were now smaller trees still glowing with colour. Everyone had their cameras out taking pics, ranging from SLR's and compacts to many using their mobile phone, even little old grannies who I could see had their finger blocking half the lens on the phone.

Headed back to the hostel around dusk and chilled in the room for awhile before setting out to find some dinner. Went to a small place on the main street that had a picture menu. Great! Joel ordered pork ramen, I ordered curry ramen and decided to get a herring which seemed to be the specialty of the restaurant. It was a bit..... um... well it wasn't yuck, but it wasn't fantastic either.

My curry soup was quite thick and I don't think I even got through a third of the liquid, the bowl was that large. So I picked out the meat and udon noodles and other stuff that seemed edible.

Stopped off in a supermarket on the way home. I wanted to buy one of the giant nashi pears they were selling. I've noticed their apples are ginormous here! Pretty much the size of grapefruits.

Also got some snackfood. Japanese snackfood is awesome. Maybe it's just the packaging but they just have really cool stuff. I found these biscuit mushrooms that had chocolate caps on top and also some gourmet Pocky (wafer sticks covered in chocolate and in this case also slivered almonds.)

Back at the hostel, Lorenzo had also been to the supermarket and gave us a cookie he'd become addicted to. They were actually pretty good. He said having them heated up in the microwave was the best. I took note.

Previous nights sleep had been on and off due to the hardness of the mattress. Seems my back is sort of starting to get used to it as I slept a bit better that night.

Thursday 19th November 2009

Got up bright and early and were at Kyoto Station by 8.30am to get our tour. We were the only non-asian people on the bus and the whole tour was done in Japanese but it just seemed like an easier option than doing it all ourselves. Plus we had limited time so was a good way to knock off a lot of the sights.

Our first stop was Kiyomizu-dera. A temple well known for its views of Kyoto. The temple is attached to the side of a cliff and surrounded by, of course, lovely autumn colour trees. This Buddhist temple was founded in 798 and the present temple was built in 1633. Not one nail is used in the entire wooden structure!

The popular expression "to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu" is the Japanese equivalent of the English expression "to grow some balls and dive in". This refers to an Edo period tradition that held that if you were to survive a 13m jump from the stage inside the temple, your wish would be granted. Two hundred and thirty four jumps were recorded in the Edo period and of those, 85.4% survived. The practice is now prohibited.

Our bus parked at the bottom of a very steep hill where a narrow cobblestoned lane snaked up to the top where the shrine was situated. Lining the laneway were many various stalls selling all sorts of things. Packed in between were many, many sightseers, including us. We followed our midget guide to the top and blinked randomly while she explained everything about the temple, in Japanese.
Suddenly from behind, I heard English, furthermore, an Aussie accent.
“Fuck this, why did we get up early to do this?!” it said.
I laughed and turned around to see it was 2 young Asian guys from our tour. I thought this was hilarious. But hooray for some fellow Aussies!

So far on our trip we had not been using watches which we realised we didn't really need until we were on a tour that required us to be back at the bus by a certain time. We found a random with a watch and then programmed our cameras so they had the right time. We now had a watch!

Had a wander around the giant temple complex. From the veranda of the main open-air temple bolstered by huge, dark, wooden pillars we overlooked the entire city of Kyoto. Down below we found a waterfall and further along a pretty pond and garden.

Eventually we headed back down the long steep street we had come up, stopping every so often to see what wares were being sold. Joel was dawdling so I went up ahead and had a look in some shops closer to the bus. Bought a nice purse with an intricate dyed design, in one and some painted tiny fans in another.

Went to the bus with about 5 minutes to spare, but no Joel. I checked the seats on the bus, not there.
I stood outside and tried to convey my thoughts into facial expressions and random pacing so that the guide would know what I was doing. She came up to me and even though she was speaking Japanese, I knew she was saying “Where's your friend, we have to go!” I shrugged my shoulders and mimicked throttling someone's neck. Another guide from the same company but different bus came over and she could speak a bit of English. She asked if we had phones, we didn't. So she said we could go on her bus as it leaves half hour later but does everything the same. I was fully prepared just to think that was the end of the tour for me so I was quite relieved. I tried motioning my apologies and gratefulness to the previous guide and thanked our new one. Just as our old bus was leaving the car park, Joel rocked up. I hoped he had learnt his lesson about his dawdling!

Got on our new bus and found we had lots of room so we got 2 seats each. In the old one we had to sit next to each other and I had a massive pole digging into my back and a box under one foot.

Our new guide came and gave the two of us a quick rundown of where we were now going and what time we had to be back, as this tour was all in Japanese too. It was ok, was kind of funny every time the whole bus laughed at something the tourguide said and we had no idea what was going on.  

The next stop was Arashiyama. I spotted the very long bridge that spans across a big river and giant mountains that laid behind it again in the various colours of Autumn. It was very pretty, and very packed with tourists. Our old guide waved to us as we pulled into the car park. I'm sure she was thinking 'stupid late gaijins' hahah.

Got out and crossed the road to take some pics of the bridge with its scenic background. We then followed the crowds up to Tenryuji temple complex. Here we visited the gardens which were very nice. I spotted a monk in ochre robes standing on a shrine patio serenely overseeing all the tourists.
We made our way to the bamboo forest. Hundreds of 20m high bamboo stuck out of the ground while the sunlight that made it through, dappled many shades of green onto the darkened pathway between the groves.  It was pretty cool and something I'd wanted to see in Kyoto although all the tourists around killed it a bit.

Not wanting to be late again we headed back to the bus area, on the way I spotted some tourists who had obviously been to the 'Lets get Dressed as a Maiko' shop and were now parading around town pretending to be Maiko's. The dead giveaway was the wobbly gait as they stepped along in giant wooden platform sandals, one took a stumble on a kerb and I giggled.
Further up I grabbed a green tea soft serve ice cream to try. It was an odd taste, although very popular in Japan, but after a bit I got used to it and started to like it. Also picked up a steamed bun and a croquette. For some reason croquettes are a favourite of the Japanese.

I spotted the Maiko's again and took some more pics. They still looked pretty for faux geisha's in training.  

Back on the bus and this time we headed to Kinkakuji, aka the Golden Pavilion, a very well known Kyoto icon. We picked a great day as the sun was reflecting off the gold leaf covered pavilion and was nicely reflected in the pond surrounding it. Again, Japanese tourists everywhere, all wanting to take a photo and be in the photo and then take a photo with their friends, then take a photo on their phone, then a photo with their guide and omg I wanted to hurt people!

Eventually made our way through the pretty gardens and back to the bus, again on time, we're good lil tourists now :D

Last stop of the day was at the Heian Jingu Shrine.  Big, Japanese looking, red, green, giant tori gates, I was beginning to get over looking at temples.

There was a wedding going on there and the guide was so excited and made sure that I got to see what was going on. I didn't have the heart to tell her I'd already seen about 8 of them hahaha, she was lovely with her squishy round face that was always smiling. I later showed her a photo I took of one from the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo but she thought it was one from this place and said I was very quick! Again, didn't have the heart hahaha. I showed a few of the oldies up the front of the bus and they ooh'd and aah'd heh. I love old Japanese people, so easily amused, like me.

Finally we were dropped off at Kyoto Station. Caught the bus back to the hostel where we found a new room-mate, Franco, who was from Argentina. I wanted some night-life and seeing as everyone was in the room I asked if they all wanted to join Joel and I in going to a Gion Corner show which is a one hour show that has all the usual Japanese stuff like Maiko dancing, tea ceremony, traditional music etc. I mentioned we should all go out for some sake afterwards and everyone agreed. Even Pete, the mute Tom Cruise lookalike came which was surprising as he hadn't talked much before. So we headed out. The place wasn't far from the hostel but when we got there I realised it wasn't really something for the boys. Pete and Lorenzo just didn't look that interested. So I said we should maybe just go get some dinner and get sake. We'd seen a place that had all drinks for 280 Yen and this seemed like a popular plan.

Headed off, crossed the bridge and found the place. Piled ourselves into a tiny lift and went up to the 4^th floor. We were greeted by the usual Japanese retail greeting which we still have no idea what they say, we just smile and say 'Konichi wa' in return.

We were shown to our own little private table that had semi-see-through screens between them and another table. Had a look at the menu, all in Japanese, but thankfully we had pictures! A cute little waitress came along to take our order, Pete was smitten. Unfortunately she didn't speak a word of English and even us pointing to the menu and indicating the numbers on our fingers wasn't really working, so she went and grabbed another waiter who spoke a tiny bit of English. We started off with drinks and Pete and I got stuck into the sake, he had to mime that he wanted his hot which was a funny moment, I stuck with cold sake. Then we randomly pointed at things on the menu, the usual gyoza, some noodle dish, slices of steak, a chicken pattie thing. We were recommended this dish that just looked like a bowl of cut up cucumbers but the waiter said it was “Our no.1 item!”. So we got one to see what the fuss was. Turned out to be pretty good! It had a dressing of what seemed like sesame oil, soy and garlic but tasted really nice so we got a few more bowls of that.

Had a really good night, everyone was chatty. Pete and I explained AFL to Franco and we talked about soccer and the other local sports of our various countries. All up after a few drinks and lots of food we only had to pay about 1700 Yen each which was pretty good.

Headed back to the hostel and crashed.