After five months of nothing but working (with only two long weekends) it was finally summer time!! A trip to China for 2 weeks, one week of half days, then back to school for 3 quick work weeks and it was time for another holiday!! Second term is amazing. Absolutely amazing!
Gifts AND a five day weekend for Chuseok right at the being of term!?! Chu-really don't-seok! Absolutely, freaking fantastically, amazing!
I hear Japan calling my name!!
Actually, Japan called my name months ago. Nearly three months ago, while I was out to dinner for Shannon's birthday, our friend Dave mentioned he was going to Tokyo for Chuseok and we said we were coming. Next thing I know my ferry ticket was booked and I was really going to Japan.
I should admit, that I did not have strong desires to go to there. I don't know why. I just never put Japan on my list. -- I think I blame 'The Cove'. They kill dolphins! Why would I go there! But lots of places do bad things (or rather a small group of individuals do bad things, not the entire nation) so I shouldn't have let that cloud my judgement; I could have missed out on seeing a truly wonderful country -- but back to the point...
I had another Asian vacation to get ready for. After my love-hate trip to China, I didn't know if I was ready for it. But I did the essential prep work: ordered the book (Fodor's, a first for me. I have issues with them though - huge issues!! but that's another post), read the sites, checked the blogs... I was all over it. But I still wasn't excited. August was a weird month. First term had ended, people were leaving, things were feeling unsettled, dislocated. I felt dislocated. And here I was, about to take another trip, to a place I really wasn't that interested in. Ok. Just let me pack my bag.
What really helped switch my mind was when my rail pass arrive. The thing cost a TON-a-won, but it meant I was taking the train! (Sheldon voice)
Skip forward to Saturday (9/10) and we were on the 7:30am ferry leaving Busan heading for Fukuoka, Japan.
Thank goodness I live 5mins from the ferry port. I didn't have a big night out on Friday, but we had to check in by 6:30. Which meant I had to wake up at 6. A.M. That's just not a nice time to be waking up on a weekend. Going home... it's a good time! Not getting up. But I did it. I met Shannon and Dave ready to start our Japanese whirlwind tour.
Despite some rocky weather, we arrived in Fukuoka with no troubles. We grabbed our bags and caught the first taxi to the train station with our rail vouchers in hand looking for the right place to cash them in. A sad smile, a warm question and you jump the line - getting your rail pass 10mins faster than you would have if you had waited in line. Being a foreigner is great!! Add to it how extremely nice the Japanese are... golden!
The JR (Japan Rail) Pass is a truly amazing thing. To get through lines and tills all we had to do was flash our pass and gates were opened for us!! Celebrity style!! It was so cool! Cool until the train attendent kicked us off the train for being on the wrong one. Definitely not celebrity-like. Apparently with the JR pass there are only two trains you can't ride, and of course we picked one of the two that were no-go's. No bother, we got to ride it for the majority of the trip to Kyoto, and were only 30 minutes outside the city when we switched trains. Pop off. Pop on. BAM Kyoto by 3pm.
With little time, and lots to see, we dropped our luggage at the hostel and headed out in search of Kiyomizu-dera Temple. We got a bit lost, but after asking a police officer (?) we were back on the right path and making our way through the Higashiyama streets, browsing the goods being sold by street vendors and cooling down with a sweet ice.
Kiyomizu-dera Temple was very beautiful. Its cover a vast area of land, but the most breath-taking views are seen from the main hall's huge veranda that extends out over the valley making you feel as if you are suspended out over nothingness. A further walk through the grounds revealed a lot of cool things - things I don't know what they were, but they were temple-y and cool to look at as you strolled.
Finally, it was time to eat! We went back to the hostel to pick up two of Shannon's friends who were in the area, Marilena and Thure (it's German, we weren't sure how to say it, even he said it was hard for Germans to pronounce, so we just called him Thor) and headed out for the night. Marilena is half Japanese, half German - we used the Japanese side to help find the real food - an omelette full of some type of meat, onions, other stuff, covered with a sauce that was suppose to be spicy but fell somewhere short. It was good though.
After dinner we tried to find a bar to have a few drinks, but all we found were hookers, and that wasn't what we were after, so instead we walked up and down Geisha street for a few turns. We saw one!! I real Geisha!! She was dressed beautifully! and moved so gracefully. So gracefully, that the little minks was too quick for our cameras to get a shot of her! The best shot I got was dark, fuzzy and you can only see a bit of her as she quickly ducked into the waiting car. After a bit more Geisha-stalking we gave up, dropped by a Family Mart for drinks and headed back to the hostel to have a few sips to unwind. Two or three rounds on the rooftop and we ready for a bar. A Brazilian, guy who was staying at our hostel, told us he knew just the place.
On the way to the bar my attention was caught by a bridge we were walking over.
Me: It'd be cool to jump off the bridge into the river.
Dave: And kill yourself.
Me: You wouldn't die.
Dave: You'd hurt yourself a lot.
Me: Ok, so it'd be cool to run across the river. Let's have a race.
Dave: You're on.
But since we were heading to a bar we put off running across the river till afterwards. However, after didn't happend because we got a bit lost on the walk home. We were too determined to find our way back that we passed every bridge and river without even thinking of running it. And then when we finally found the hostel the moment had passed and no race was had. We did talk a lot of smack, which was fun.
Sunday (9/11) we started the day back down on Hooker street to have a little food at an apothecary's coffee shop. Some toast and egg and we were running to catch the #12 bus up to Kinkaku-ji (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion). Which, besides a beautiful pond that reflects the grandeur of the Golden Pavilion, there wasn't much to see there. I bought some nice wasabi nuts and saw a Praying Mantis, but that about topped it.
From there we headed towards the center of Kyoto to see the Imperial Palace, which we couldn't see because we didn't have reservations, but we walked passed it and enjoyed the park surrounding it. We found an old residential house that someone important used to live in. It's now been converted into a mini-museum that we walked through, but we had limitied time so we were off again and on our way to the Nijo-jo Castle.
There were about four signs in the whole castle, with one sentence each that explained what we were seeing. Very informative as you can imagine. The floors were cool though. They "sang" as you walked on them, nightingale floors they're called; designed to make any movements within the castle know. Clever or paranoid? I'm not sure which I'm leaning towards.
Back on the move, we stopped to get some Ramen for lunch before going a bit out of town to Fushimi-Inari Taisha. Gorgeous. Stunning. Just... awe! The toriis were magnificent. There's 10,000 of them there. All painted with red lacquer, lining the pathway up the mountainside, bringing you to various shrines, mausoleums and alters along the way. It was an amazing sight! Had the bugs not been so bad that day it would have been inspiring to walk the entire path, but after 20 bites I couldn't take anymore - I had to get out of there!! Back through the toriis and we were on our way out of Kyoto enjoying one last sweet ice on our way to Tokyo.
Love it! Looks like you guys had a good time! :) I've never been to the castle or one of the other spots you went to... can't remember now. Anyway, glad you're back safe and excited for our coffee date/ catch up tomorrow! <3 Jill
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