Kyoto (8/17/07 – 8/19/07) and Osaka (8/19 – 8/26/07):



Friday – 8/17/07
Having spent 2 weekends in Tokyo (one of which was spent at Mt. Fuji), my co-worker, Holly, and I decided to venture to Kyoto for the weekend on our way to our “new” work cities (mine being Osaka and hers being Katsuyama). We took the Shinkansen (Japan’s Bullet Train) to get there and it was pretty sweet. The ride is extremely smooth, you have LOTS of leg room and it’s a really user-friendly (booking tickets, etc.). It was definitely much easier than flying all over the place. Plus, since I had to work in Osaka for a week and a half, I was able to get work to pay for my Japan Rail Pass, which allowed me to use any JR rail (both the Shinkansen and local trains) for free. The Rail Pass is somewhat expensive, but actually cheaper than buying tickets individually.
So the ride took about 2 ½ hours – almost the entire time was spent sleeping (big surprise right?). I arrived in Kyoto around 9pm Friday night which didn’t really leave us much time to do anything outside of grabbing some dinner. We walked around our hotel to check out what was nearby and ended up at some restaurant called Mary Island or something. It was actually REALLY good! We went to bed early that night knowing that we had lots to do the next day and we wanted an early start.

Saturday – 8/18/07
Kyoto is the old capital of Japan (and literally translated so) as well as being one of the few cities that was actually untouched by WWII. It definitely was a tourist city, but had a mix of city-life as well as maintained the cultural aspects (temples, shrines, castles).
So we woke up around 9ish (ok, so not much of an early start) and it took us a while to find a place to eat breakfast. Tired of eating hotel breakfast, we ventured out to see what was close or on the way to our first stop, Nijo Castle. We crossed the street and smelled something soooo good. It smelled like bread, but we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from! After searching for about 10-15 minutes in every direction, we finally gave up and went back to our hotel to grab breakfast. Once we finished with all that, we finally got on our way to see the castle. We decided we needed to get some walking in since we didn’t do enough in Tokyo. Little did we realize HOW HOT it was going to be!! We had to take multiple water and ice cream breaks on the way there and back. The heat also made it a bit difficult to enjoy our sight-seeing spots, but we did our best and took lots of pictures (probably not as many as I could have though!). The castle itself wasn’t THAT impressive, but the gardens were beautiful! Here’s the link to my Kyoto pictures:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=vd2ejfo.1igx11qw&x=0&h=1&y=-z7hpbo

So we decided that we needed a break from the heat and walked back to the hotel to get a little AC and rest before heading to our next destination – Kiyomizu-dera Temple (one of the finalists of the Seven Wonders of the World). On our way back to the hotel, we got a little distracted….shopping! I haven’t really done much shopping on this trip 1- because it’s pretty expensive in Japan, 2- the girls here are tooo tiny and the clothes don’t fit me, 3 – I didn’t allow for much room in my suitcase to bring back a whole lot.
But the shopping arcade (as they call them here) was shaded and looked like a good place to find postcards and other nick-nacks. We definitely got distracted and ended up staying here for at least a good 1 ½ hours before grabbing some pizza buffet for lunch (not my idea, but it really hit the spot!). So after lunch we finally made it back to the hotel where we took a short nap before heading back out into the heat. This probably wasn’t the best idea because we ran out of time and were only able to see 1 other “tourist” spot. The Kiyomizu-dera Temple. We also wanted to go see the Sanjusangen-do Temple, but everything closed by 5pm, so we were outta luck. The Temple we saw was really nice though!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera

It had a gorgeous view of the mountains and was really peaceful despite all the tourists. After hanging out there for a while, we headed back down this long winding hilly street (full of souvenir shops I might add). We walked back to the hotel since we had some time now before going to our “cultural show” recommended by the hotel. Turns out we walked a little over 10 miles that day! We got back, napped again and got ready for the show. It was supposed to be a 45-min view of various Japanese cultural activities such as a Tea Ceremony, Geisha dance, flower arrangement, some musical piece, a comedy skit and a puppet show. It sounds good right? Unfortunately Holly and I were pretty disappointed. They did the Tea Ceremony off in a corner where most people couldn’t even see. The flower arrangement was such a joke, I could have done better…literally all she did was take her flowers, cut the stem and put them in the vase. It didn’t seem like much thought was put into the arrangement and it didn’t even look that nice! The music was good and the Geisha dance was good, and I liked the comedy performance, but the puppet show was something else! I was so confused despite the fact that they provided us with a synopsis of the plot. It was so ridiculous I couldn’t help but laugh. Anyways – the show definitely wasn’t worth the cost, but I’m still glad we went. Maybe we had high expectations, I don’t know. So after the show, we wandered around trying to find some place to eat. I think we just got in a bad mood after that so nothing seemed appealing. After about 30 minutes of walking around and being indecisive, we finally settled on some random restaurant just to get some food in our stomachs. After a discouraging night, we headed back to the hotel so we could get up early on Sunday to head out to Nara before departing from Kyoto.

Sunday – 8/19/07
We actually got up early today (I think it was around 6am), so we could check out of the hotel and catch a train to Nara to go see the Great Buddha and Holly wanted to feed some deer. I’ll get to that in a minute. Nara was over an hour train ride from Kyoto, but housed the Great Buddha so it was a must-see. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tōdai-ji

You can’t tell from the picture, but this statue took hundreds of tons of bronze, mercury and vegetable wax to create. The head is not the original due to fires and earthquakes. The original was created in 752, but the most current head dates back to 1692. I was surprised to see deer EVERYWHERE! I thought that they would just be restricted to a park or some area, but they were literally everwhere….on the sidewalks, hanging around all the temples, etc. You could buy some deer food to feed them but I refrained due to a bad experience feeding monkeys in India when I was little. Good thing I did too because Holly didn’t know what she was getting herself in to! She tried to feed one and 4 more came up to her. Then they got really anxious so a couple of the deer nudged her with their horns and started getting a little aggressive. I don’t think it was as fun as she expected, but we got some good pictures and now she has another story to tell J. We were pretty short on time today, so this was a rushed trip but still a good one. We had also stopped to see the 5- story pagoda (picture), which was pretty amazing too. Nara was definitely a good stop for us to make during our weekend in Kyoto. We got back to Kyoto and Holly still wanted to see one more thing…the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji). It was about a 45-min bus ride from the Kyoto Station, so we took our chances with only having about 30 min there (in order to get back to the hotel to get our luggage and get back to the station to catch our trains). We ended up having plenty of time there because the Pavilion is really the only thing there. So we got our pictures and headed back with enough time to grab some Starbucks before leaving Kyoto. Speaking of Starbucks, they are ALL OVER Japan (at least in the big cities). On every corner, just like in the states. The sizes are a little smaller, but the prices are fairly comparable to those back home. They have a few variations, such as Green Tea flavors, but in general it’s the same. I think I saw more Starbucks than McDonalds!
So I arrive in Osaka around 6pm Sunday night and grab a quick dinner in our hotel so I can unpack and settle in for the following week.

8/20 – 8/24: Osaka
Unfortunately this week was extremely busy at work for me since I realized early on that I needed to be back in Tokyo earlier than expected. I was back to working public accounting hours (12 hr days) – boooo! But the affiliate in Osaka was really great and helpful, so it made things easier. Who knows – maybe I’ll come back to work in Japan after my 2 years of audit is up! Tuesday night the affiliate took us out to Korean BBQ, which was just as yummy as when I went in Tokyo. The only problem is that they have this thing in Japan where it’s “all you can drink” and you just pay by the hour for unlimited drinks. I got peer pressured by the Affiliate to have some beer since everyone else had some…it was good, but really filling! I definitely ate wayyyy too much and drank a lot too, so after 2 hours of eating and drinking, I was ready for bed!
The rest of the week was spent working late and just heading back to the hotel, so nothing exciting there. Friday night I was in need of a good time, so the Affiliate took us out for Karaoke (or Kalaoke as they say)!! We had a private room and about 20 people. Food and drinks just kept on flowing and at 9pm on the dot, we started karaoke. It was pretty serious stuff! They had really nice TV’s and this amazing karaoke machine that ranks you among other karaoke-ers in Japan as well as remembers your favorite songs etc (if you’re a member). They definitely take their karaoke seriously, but are REALLY good at it! A lot of the songs were love songs, but Team Japan out-sang Team USA hands down. We even broke out the tambourine and got the rest of the group involved in our songs. Some of Team USA’s favorites were: Sweet Home AL (my choice!), Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Meatloaf – I would do anything for love, Dixie Chicks – I’m ready to run, and Jackson 5 – ABC.
By midnight, I was exhausted, so we headed back to the hotel so I could meet up with Christina and Kathleen (2 other co-workers who were in Osaka for the weekend) early Sat. Morning.

Saturday – 8/25/07
Happy Birthday Kristen Keating!
Today I woke up at 7am anxious to get the day started. Christina, Kathleen and I grabbed some breakfast at the hotel and headed out to take the train to Himeji. We’re getting pretty good at using the local subway and train systems! We got to Himeji around 11:30 am or so to check out the Himeji Castle – one of the most famous (supposedly the “grandest” of Japan’s 12 remaining feudal castles).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himeji_castle

I wasn’t too smart and drained my camera battery the night before at Karoke without recharging for the day, so I was only able to get a few pictures in before my camera died. Christina and Kathleen took lots of pictures, so I’ll share those once I get them. This castle was way more impressive than the Nijo Castle in Kyoto, hands-down! The Nijo’s gardens were much nicer, but this castle was 6 stories tall and covered a huge land area with surrounding walls.
(pictures) We spent a good few hours here and then headed back to Osaka around 2ish, stopping in Kobe along the way for lunch. Christina wanted to get Kobe beef from the source, so we stopped at a local restaurant and had some sushi, tempura and beef (we’ve been eating LOTS over here). The beef is apparently much cheaper there as well as really fatty, which is why it’s so good. She enjoyed it and we proceeded to get back to Osaka as we were all thoroughly exhausted from the long day and dealing with the heat.
After getting back to the hotel around 6pm, I was done for the day!!
I couldn’t bring myself to leave the AC of my hotel room and as there isn’t much sight-seeing to do in Osaka, I didn’t feel too bad about resting and staying in for the night.

Sunday – 8/26/07
Back to Tokyo I go! Now on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, it’ll take about 3 hours in total but it’s a pretty relaxing ride so I don’t mind – I have my Ipod to keep me company J. I actually have some work to do too, so it would be good to get that over with. I headed back a little early so I can take my boss (who is currently in Tokyo by herself) to the Harajuku area of Tokyo since Sunday is the best/most entertaining day to go.
Japan has definitely been my favorite country so far, despite the heat and I know I’ll want to come back at some point. I thought it would be a little more difficult to be away from home for 5 weeks, but the past 4 weeks have flown by! Mostly due to craziness at work, but it’s not too bad. We’re going to try to go to a baseball game this coming week, which should be interesting since they’re so big over here. I’ll be ready to get back home on Friday to see my girl Neha and to start packing up my apt (again) for my final move for a few years hopefully. I’m also excited for my parents to come up and help me move/get settled and spoil me with some good home cooking!! Not like I haven’t been spoiled enough on this trip!
I’ll try to add one more entry before I leave to go back to the States to recap on my final week in Japan…I may work on it during my 13 hour plane ride home!
I hope everyone’s doing well!!! Please email and keep in touch!!