Japan 2012 Travel Diary, Day 6

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After an early night, we hit the streets relatively early to get started on our first culture day in Kyoto. After grabbing a pair of 2-day passes at the hotel’s reception desk that covered most of the local public transport we’d planned to use in Kyoto (only selected lines were covered by JR services, so this made it easy to use the Karasuma and Touzai lines, as well as the city bus services), we jumped aboard the subway to the main Kyoto Station and then transferred to the JR Nara local line to head to the beautiful Fushimi Inari Shrine. By the time we got to the station the rain had started coming down pretty hard, so I dashed out to the nearby convenience store to grab a pair of clear plastic umbrellas (¥550 each, and they were much more robust then equivalent-selling umbrellas back home!).

To some people the rain may have been an inconvenience, but for us it made the experience that much more amazing as going through the temple and taking the scenic route back to the train station in the rain was so awesome. While going down a couple of the back streets filled with residential houses, the whole thing seemed reminiscent of walking through the streets in Sakuragaoka in Shenmue, especially since it was raining (Japan Is Shenmue was/will continue to be a big part of this holiday :)).

Once we made it back to the station we headed out to the bus terminal to catch the 101 Raku bus (can’t remember which terminal, but I think it was either D2 or D1) to the Kinkakuji Temple, helping a young Italian couple struggling with the maps and instructions who were also going to the same location. Their confusion was understandable given the Englsh language maps can be a bit tricky on their own, but adding into that another layer of translation (i.e. Japanese – English – Italian), and I think they were doing an amazing job, not helped by my terrible command of Italian either (haven’t spoken it in years!).

The bus ride through Kyoto city proper was really interesting – the streets aren’t anywhere near as congested as Tokyo, which suggests that using a taxi service would actually be useful if needed. In comparison, it seemed like it wouldn’t be all that cost/time effective in Tokyo compared to hopping between subway stations.

Anywho, we hopped off and took a short walk up to the temple, and it was absolutely beautiful. What was interesting for me is that my impressions (or expectations?) of the temples in Kyoto are that you’d walk through a gate, and see the temple or shrine, and that’s about it. In reality the temples and shrines in the city seem to be situated on extensive land holdings with immaculate gardens and beautiful architectural companion buildings that make for a nice walk around the place. While there we also picked up a good luck charm for Wifey, made an offering to the local deity and also picked up a fortune each, both of which were favourable 🙂

From here we weren’t sure how to knock out the rest of the day as it was starting to get a bit later than we anticipated, so we opted to jump back on the bus service to visit Nijo Castle instead of visiting Ginkakuji and treading down the Philosopher’s Path. Nijo Castle was amazing and awe-inspiring. Not only are the grounds massive and immaculately cared for, you also have the opportunity of walking through the main castle and view all the rooms and what-not that have been preserved over the years.

Having watched, read and studied texts around Japan’s history over the years, the tangible experience of walking through the hallowed halls of dynasties past was incredible. After exiting the castle we followed the route around to the inner castle within the grounds, and to celebrate I picked up my umbrella and ran along one of the paths while trying to look like a ninja, much to the chagrin of my wife and to the bemusement of the Japanese tourists walking through the grounds wondering why another crazy gaijin was making an arse of himself in public.

With Nijo Castle sorted we exited to head back to the bus stop while walking past a group of middle school students who I swear commented that we looked like a cute couple, unawares my terrible command of Japanese could actually pick up on what was being said (yay for eavesdropping!). Cramming into the bus, we eventually found ourselves back at Kyoto Station at sunset and figured we’d have a look around, starting at the department store attached to the station itself. While the luxury prices reflected the fancy surroundings, it proved to be a worthwhile experience to get an idea of the price of adding another piece to our luggage as we had been quickly filling up our bags with stuff (especially video games :P), with the realisation that the price of bags in the department store was obviously going to be at a premium compared to going somewhere else since most of the gear was at the more pricier end of the spectrum.

We ended up jumping up to the 10th floor of the building for dinner, as the entire floor was dedicated solely to ramen restaurants! We picked a place that offered a choice of different broths, so I went for a miso-based ramen with some sliced barbecued pork on top, while Wifey settled on a soy-based broth, also with some extra sliced pork on top, accompanied with some chilled oolong tea to drink. After polishing off the amazing meal we were originally planning on heading back to the hotel, but given we’d has an early dinner on account of not eating a proper lunch, we decided to explore a bit more around Kyoto Station.

We began by heading out the main entrance and walked towards where the big Kyoto Tower Hotel stood lit up like a Christmas Tree, then decided to poke out way through some of the streets directly in front of the sightseeing bus terminals out the front of the station. The glowing love of gatchapon machines attracted us like moths to a flame, so we decided to grab some assorted stuff from the 50-odd machines lined up in a row, then figured we’d follow them to the entrance to the department store they were sitting outside. This store in question was actually a multi-story Yodobashi, and having never been in one since arriving in Japan, we thought we’d give it a whirl.

Like many department stores, the place was an assault in the senses with glowing lights and TV screens complementing the running commentary advertising all the goods and specials in the store. We decided to hit the place one floor at a time, and I think it was the second floor that absolutely made our day, because it was the toy floor 🙂

I’m pretty comfortable being a big kid, so this was like a crazy trip back in time when toy sections in department stores used to be chock full of interesting stuff, with amazing displays and what-not to enjoy. There were sections dedicated to Transformers, One Piece, Gundam, Kingdom Hearts, Naruto, Hello Kitty, Godzilla and all sorts of other paraphernalia I didn’t recognise. We also found an entire subsection of the floor dedicated to gatchapon machines, so we got a little carried away there too! We walked away with a couple of goodies, but didn’t go too crazy since we were being conscious of our luggage size and weight at this stage of the trip.

While we there we also jumped to the basement floor to have a look at their supermarket section, where we were able to pickup a strawberry flavoured corn flakes/Special K thingie that would suffice for some brekkie for those hotels where we didn’t secure breakfast as part of the package.

At this point it was starting to get late, so we slipped past Mister Donut to grab an aperitif and head back to our hotel. Thus ended the first culture day in Kyoto.

To view all posts on the Japan 2012 Travel Diary, just use the 2012 Japan Trip tag, as the whole series will be added to it over time.

Japan 2012 Travel Diary, Day 3

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Thursday started off on a sour note – a combination of late night, rich food and left-over jet lag kept Wifey and I in bed for half the day nursing some unintended nausea. Once we got over this setback, it was go-time again! First stop was heading out to Suidobashi, near Tokyo Dome City, to go budo shopping.

Having studied karate for a number of years with some limited experience in kobudo, I was keen on bringing something back that was practical as well as being a momento from the trip. Following some advice from Sensei Chris Gillies (of Soukoban) and using Google Maps, I found a couple of places opposite Tokyo Dome City to check out. One of the bigger stores were closed up from 2pm onwards so we missed it by the time we got there (my Japanese wasn’t clever enough to ascertain why), but we ended up walking down a bit closer to the Suidobashi Station and happened upon the legendary Suidobashi budo shop run by a now-elderly couple after decades of service in the area (it was also incidentally the store I wanted to visit after reading up on it online).

While my command of Japanese was poor, with some discussion I was able to explain what I was after (a shorter, wakizashi-sized iaito, since I wasn’t confident of squeezing a fuller-sized iaito in our luggage). This done, the sword was bought, wrapped in a purple slip and boxed up and ready to go. Full of gratitude (which I offered profusely, as it was an amazing experience), we jumped back on the train to head to Akabanebashi for the next stop – Tokyo Tower!

As a comfortably-nerdy anime fanboy, visiting Tokyo Tower was a bit of a pilgrimage – it’s been a focal point of so much anime, from Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, X, and has also found its way into a handful of game titles (the most memorable to me being the Tokyo Tower-inspired level in VF3). By the time we made it down to Tokyo Tower it was starting to get dark, and combined with a clear sky, it was an amazing sight to behold as evening gave way to dusk, and then eventually dusk gave way to night.

After navigating back to the first floor (we came up the street ramp which was actually the second floor) and paying the admission price, we headed up to the main observation deck for an amazing night-time view of Tokyo. The night was capped off by a trip to the food court for some ramen to nurse our slightly wonky stomachs before heading back to the hotel.

While it certainly wasn’t the day we had originally planned, the end result was still amazing 🙂

To view all posts on the Japan 2012 Travel Diary, just use the 2012 Japan Trip tag, as the whole series will be added to it over time.