Trip to Japan, May 2005
Going to Kyoto
On Sunday May 22nd we left Tokyo. We made our way to the Tokyo station on
the subway and we took the Shinkansen towards Osaka and Kyoto. I think that
the ride from Tokyo to Kyoto took us about 2 hours and 45 minutes. And after a short taxi ride
we were at Hotel Gimmond where
we had made reservations for 5 nights. The location of the hotel was not
bad. It is located on a street called Oike-Dori and it is only about 5
minutes walk away from the Karasuma Oike subway station and only like 5
minutes away from the “downtown” area. We arrived in the evening so there
first night we just checked out the neighbourhood and had some sushi to eat
:-)
A walk on the wild side with Johnny Hillwalker
On our first morning in Kyoto we got up early. We had read about a tour on
foot with a guy called Hajime Hirooka or better know as Johnny Hillwalker.
So we pitched up near the Kyoto Station and we were not the only ones that
had that bright idea :-). In the end there was a bunch of people from all over
the world waiting for Johnny to start the tour.
After paying 2000¥ in cash
per person we started the walk and the first stop was at Higashi-Honganji
temple. Unfortunately the temples exterior is being refurbished so instead
of seeing a nice temple there is just a big white tent with scaffolding. The
gate to the temple is one of the first things you will notice as you drive
out of the Kyoto Station area. We were taken for a tour inside of the temple
and we were given a bit of information about the religion of Japan and how
Buddhism and Shinto lives hand in hand.
Johnny’s tour continued for about 5
hours and we were taken to crafts areas (e.g. fan production), Japanese
gardens (Shosei-en), to where Nintendo started their business (did you know
they started the business by making playing cards?), to Shinto Shrines, to
the geisha area etc. When we stopped by places where stuff was sold (like
fans) we never felt that we needed to buy anything (unlike some of the tours
that we have been to in China and
Thailand).
The walk was fun but 5
hours were a bit long…even if we got a bit of snack on the way we were still
starving by the end of the tour. The snack we got was a inari sushi by the
way and we also stopped by a pastry place. So my recommendation is that you bring along some food in order to keep
the energy levels up on the tour :-). Even if it was a large group it was still
easy to hear Johnny when he was telling stuff. The tour ended in the
vicinity of the Kiyomizu-dera temple. But it started pouring down when we
were there so our tour of the area was a bit amputated.
Geisha spotting – Gion district
According to Johnny Hillwalker the number of geishas in Kyoto has dwindled
over the years. We were walking in the Gion district in Kyoto one evening
when we saw some tourists with cameras and they were all just standing
around waiting. So we assumed that there was something going on and we
walked around in the area. And it didn’t take long before we saw several
geishas walking fast to their destination. Some of the tourists were
stalking the poor girls and stopping them to take pictures of them. We had
seen several girls in the kimono before we saw the geisha girls but the
geishas were something else with their pale faces, extravagant hair,
colourful kimonos etc.
Hiroshima
I have always been interested in world history and the Second World War is
an important part of our history. Hiroshima became infamous on August 6th
1945 when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city and killed thousands
of civilians.
With our train pass we just got on the Shin-Osaka Shinkansen once again and
we changed trains at
Osaka train station and continued for Hiroshima. The 1
½ hour train trip was a bit boring as quite a lot of the line is put in
tunnels so there is not much of a view. But at noon we came to Hiroshima
without really knowing how to get into the Peace park. Once outside the
train station we just started asking bus drivers and people how to get into
town :-). In the end we met an Australian lady with her two daughters and
she guided us to the right street car. Later on we found out that we had
gone out of the train station on the “wrong” side. If we had gone out on the
opposite side we would have found the tram station that would’ve taken us
directly to the Peace Park :-)
The Peace Park is located more or less at the site of where the atomic bomb
exploded. Most of the houses near the epicentre were wiped out and the only
building still left is the A-bomb dome. The whole area that was once a busy
part of the city has now been turned into a park where the main message is
peace. The first thing we saw when coming from the street was the a-bomb
dome and it is of course scary to see the marks of war.
In the park itself
there is a Children’s peace monument, an eternal flame that will only be
extinguished when all nuclear weapons are destroyed etc. Thousand of school
kids were running around in the park and they were all taken pictures of
each other with disposable cameras. But it was the
Peace Memorial Museum that gave the strongest
impression on us.
We got an audio guide and walked around in the museum and
listened to the explanation of how the city was before 1945, why Hiroshima
was picked as a target, how people experienced the blast, how people died
etc. There are several artefacts in the museum that shows the tremendous
force and heat that the bomb had when it went off. e.g. melted bottles, iron
shutters that have been bent by the shock wave etc. We left the park marked
by all the information that we had gotten in the museum. Let us hope that no
one in the future has to experience another atomic bomb.
We didn’t have much time in Hiroshima. But we had to try a local specialty
while we were there :-). Hiroshima is known for something called okonomiyaki.
When I first heard about it, it was described as a seafood pizza. But I’m
not sure that this is an accurate description. The one we had used green
onion as a base and in it there were squid, shrimp, bacon, egg, noodles etc.
So I guess you can say that it was a combination of a pizza and an omelet.
It sounds strange but it was quite tasty :-)
The real deal or not? - Kobe steak in Kobe
On our way home from Hiroshima to Kyoto we decided to stop by Kobe to hunt
for the Kobe steak. Kobe was struck by a big earthquake a few years back we
didn’t see any signs of that as we jumped of the Shinkansen and used the
subway to get to the downtown area. So what is the fuss about the Kobe
steak? The meat comes from steer that has been massaged and fed beer and
this is supposed to make the meat both tender and tasty…and expensive :-).
According to our guidebook
Just cruisin’ – Biking around Kyoto
Kyoto is not really that big so we decided to rent a couple of bikes to see
a bit of the city on our own. We went over to Kyoto station and since the
skies were clear we went up
Kyoto Tower to
start with an aerial view of the city. This is a combined hotel (the lower
levels) and a look out point at about 100 meters. We paid about 770¥ and got
into the elevator and got a great view of the city and the surrounding
hills. Our ticket also included access to a public bath(?) but we didn’t
have time to check that out :-). The bike rental idea came from a pamphlet we
found at the hotel Finding the place was a bit of a mission - we didn’t
expect it to be located inside a department store. We rented the bikes at
the price of 1000¥ per person plus a 3000¥ deposit.
The bikes were pretty
nice…with good breaks, a few gears, a basket in the front, a lock etc. We
started out by biking past the Nijo castle and it seemed to be pretty
chaotic with tour buses and even a parking fee for bikes :-). So, we headed for
the Kyoto Gyoen National Garden and the Imperial palace located inside it
instead. We had read that there was a tour there and we decided to join in.
The tour was free I think but you have to remember to register at the
Imperial Household Agency first. The tour took about an hour and we were
taken around (not inside) different imperial buildings such as the main
gate, ceremony building etc. Kyoto was the capitol of Japan and home of the
emperor for more than 1000 years but in the end the power shifted towards
Tokyo and that is where the current emperor lives. The tour of the Imperial
Palace was OK but once again the group of people that joined the tour was a
bit big and it was a bit tricky to hear what our guide was saying.
We continued on our bike trip and we crossed the river to find the so called
Philosopher’s walk. But biking makes you hungry of course :-) We stopped by a
tiny noodle place and we asked to see the menu and the old couple behind the
counter pointed at a poster on the wall behind us…all in Japanese of course. But with some pictures from the guidebook
The
little path follows a tiny canal and it is lined with cherry trees. I guess
it must look amazing in the cherry blossom season. The path is named after a
philosophy professor at the Kyoto University that used to take daily walks
here. We didn’t have that much time for philosophy unfortunately as we had
to get back to hand in the bikes. If you have time you will find temples and
shrines along the route. We managed to get lost for a while too but in the
end we found our way back to the river and back to Kyoto Station where we
handed in the bikes at like 5 minutes to closing time. Having bikes was nice
and we were able to see more of Kyoto. But beware that the sidewalks are
crowded with unobservant pedestrians and more experienced impatient
cyclists.
Kyoto Station – more than meets the eye
When we first came to Kyoto I thought that the station was pretty nice and
modern. There was even a hotel in the station building itself. During our
stay we went into the station several times to take the Shinkansen to
different destinations. And slowly we found out that the place was actually
much larger than we thought. There is a big Isetan shopping mall in the
building but the coolest thing was the Great stair case at the station.
This
was an open air stair case which goes all the way from the ground floor I
think up till 11th floor. On the top floors there are a few restaurants, as
with many department stores in Japan. We ate at one of these places one
night, I think it was an Italian place called Wansa Kansa . We were quite
surprised when no one spoke English and they didn’t have an English menu. I
guess we just assumed that there would be many tourists stopping by
restaurants at the station. Fortunately they had the traditional window
display so it was not a problem to point and order :-)
Entertainment in Kyoto
If you want to have some basic fun in Kyoto you can go to an entertainment
centre. We went into one place located in the main street Kawaramachi-dori
called JJ Club 100 one night. We had to be registered members to enter the
building with many floors. Inside there was everything from bowling,
arcades, table tennis, dart, some sort of squash/racquetball, karaoke etc.
I’m not really sure how the payment worked…we played a couple of rounds of
bowling and we played some arcade games and when we left I guess they just
calculated a price based on how long we had been there.
Himeji Castle
In our guidebook
We
got a brochure with a map in English and there were also notices, in
English (even though they were a bit hard to read), at places of interest.
If you stick to the path you are lead towards the main tower where you can
enter (after taking your shoes off) and then we were able to climb to the
top of the tower and enjoy the view. The castle is called the ultimate
samurai castle and it looked like the walls of the castle could take a
beating. The place is a UNESCO World Heritage Site I enjoyed the visit to the castle and it was breathtaking to see the main
tower against the blue skies.
Osaka
On our way back from Himeji Castle we decided to jump off the train at
Shin-Osaka on our way back to Kyoto. We didn’t really have that much
information about Osaka but we managed to take the subway to the downtown
area (Umeda). We decided to go to the Umeda Sky Building to visit the
Floating Garden Observatory. It only took us 10-15 minutes to walk to the
building from the station and it was easy to recognize the Sky building
because of its unique shape. We paid 600¥ per person for the entrance and
once again we were taken to the top of a building by a woman in a nice
uniform. When we got out of the elevator we had to take a long suspended
escalator from the one building to the other and it actually made me a bit
nervous (and normally don't have that much problem with heights).
I asked the woman in uniform if
there was a problem with earth quakes in the area but she just laughed.
Well, at the top we were about 170 meters above the ground and it gave us a
great 360 degree view of the huge Osaka city. We also stopped by a place near the train station which was more or less
electronics heaven. I spent a lot of time looking at cameras at the first
floor before I moved to the next floor. There I found even more cameras and
equipment. It was photo heaven because you could get all sorts of equipment
from camera, lenses, flashes, tripods etc. And what about the prices? Well,
a PSP was about 20.000¥ and a Canon EOS 20D was about 190.000¥.
We returned back to Kyoto at about 11 pm. Our Hikari Shinkansen was cancelled to I guess we looked a bit lost because a Japanese guy stopped and asked us if we were OK. At first we were a bit sceptical because in many other countries this means that you will be ripped off. But this was a guy that just wanted to help out and he took us to the right track and he guided us to the local train to Kyoto. I guess this episode sheds some light on why we felt so safe in Japan.
Back to Tokyo
On Friday May 27 we took the subway in Kyoto to the Kyoto Station for the
last time. After a breakfast at Starbucks we took the Shinkansen back to
Tokyo Station and stayed at
Hotel Akasaka Excel Tokyu. We used the last
day in Tokyo to get around Tokyo a little bit and we stopped by Harajuku,
Shinjuku and Shibuya. We decided to go for Western food for the last dinner
and we ate at Outback in the Shibuya area. I like this restaurant chain and
we’ve had meals there in both Bangkok and
Beijing before. Our meal at
the Outback was about 7000¥ for starter, main dish, and a glass of wine
each. Maybe it’s time we tried real Outback food in Oz?
During our trip we had noticed all the pachinko places around the cities. We
ended up trying this Japanese…eh…gambling. Pachinko is a game where you buy
some steel balls and then you use some sort of wheel to shoot these balls
into the machine and if you are lucky they will drop into a hole that wins
you the jackpot. We bought some balls but we didn’t have any luck :-). We even
got kicked out because it was closing time at 11 pm. The Pachinko parlours
are easy to find…they are extremely noisy.
Going home
We took the
Airport Limousine bus out to the airport since it departed right
outside the hotel itself. We paid about 3000¥ each but at least we didn’t
have to drag our suitcases around on the subway. You will notice how big
Tokyo is when you drive out to the airport…it takes a long time to just get
out of the city. According to the guidebook
Conclusion
When we came to Tokyo we were not sure what to expect. We had read and heard
that it was expensive, that people didn’t speak English etc. But as usual we
managed to get around on our own and the cost level was not as high as we
had feared (well, we live in Norway so I guess we are used to everything
being expensive). We found a huge city with more than 12 million people that
actually seems to work far better than many other smaller cities that we
have been to. People were polite, seemed to have respect for each other, the
city is clean, it feels safe etc. Sato even mentioned that if we got lost we
should ask the police for directions because they didn’t have much to do
anyway. I’m not sure how true this is but it was quite different walking
around in Tokyo compared to
New York City which seemed a bit fortified
when we were there last summer. Even if Japan is quite a wealthy country we
did see signs of poverty but I guess that is just like in every other big
city. Tokyo might not have world famous attractions like
New York,
Paris etc but it was still great fun to travel around in the city and watch
people. In some areas Japan is just like Norway and in other areas it is
completely different and that made it quite interesting. I guess what amazes me the most about Japan is how far they have come since
the end of World War 2. After the war ended they rebuilt more or less
everything and they were able to become leaders in many areas.
So what will I remember from the trip? Well, I think the sumo wrestling will stay with me for a long time :-) But I will also remember things like seeing the Hiroshima Peace Park, travelling on the Shinkansen, seeing the neon lights of Tokyo etc.
We had a great trip to Japan but as usual it is not enough with only 2 weeks
to see a whole country. But we did get a taste of it and I hope that we have
been able to share some of this with you in this trip report. If you are
going on vacation for just relaxation I think it is better to go to e.g.
Cape Town/Thailand. But if you want a city vacation combined with a historic
journey then you can head for Japan. I hope that the trip report has been of
some use to you. Please
get in touch if you have any questions or comments
about our trip to Japan.