Japan Trip Recap, Day 2, Temples and Surroundings

Random Facts/Stats

• Japan has 15 national holidays per year.
• The probability of a random day being a holiday is ~4.11%.
• I was there for 12 days, which gives me a ~49.3% chance of being there on a holiday.

The most cultural Japanese city is Kyoto. Conincidentally, it was November, 3rd--Culture Day! Ron had created an itinerary consisting of cultural sites (temples) and a couple other places. So after eating sandwiches at the train station we took a train to a nearby temple.

On the way to the "main" temple there were a lot of smaller temples like this one.

From what I've heard it's not really sanitary to drink the water since people aren't supposed to touch their lips to the ladle but do so anyways. So I'm just posing here.


a wall inside the temple with a cool dragon painted on it

One thing to note about temples is that you generally have to pay to get in. The amount varies, and you have to consider if it's worthwhile (both time/money-wise). Although this temple seemed pretty cool, my brother and I are both of the opinion that if you've seen one you've seen them all. This would seem to be especially true since the one that I saw was in Kyoto which is supposedly where all the best temples are.


bamboo forest


Ron and a zillion other tourists in bamboo forest


It's only the beginning of the hike, and I'm tired already. I'm also looking extra touristy with my jacket tied around my waist.


It's a long climb to the top...

While we were hiking through this area there was a family that passed us up. I'm really out of shape, so it probably wouldn't surprise most people if I mentioned that the husband and kids passed us. However, the wife was leading in front of everyone, and she was carrying one of her kids!


This is a picture from way above looking down at what I thought was the top in the previous picture. We're just past half-way.

Upon arriving at the top we found an employee. Apparently, his job is to take your picture with this monkey. Well, maybe not, but it's a pretty convenient/coincidental that he and this monkey are there. It just just sits in the middle of the visitor area away from all the other monkeys spacing out all day.




a view from the top. It's mid-fall and trees are starting to change color. It's worth noting that Kyoto doesn't really have any skyscrapers in contrast to other cities like Osaka and Tokyo.

This brings me to the most important point of this post. Hiking is super awesome in Japan! A lot of the paths are paved well, and some even have restaurants/snack places along the way. Although it seemed hard, this was basically the first and easiest hill I tried to climb.

Maybe I just like hiking in general. Half of the fun is seeing what interesting things there are along the way. There's also something about completing a climb. There's almost always a view at the top. It's stuff that you would've missed if you hadn't put in the effort to make it there.

Blogging Experiment

It's not easy for me to consistently write a ton of stuff and tie it in together in a single blog post, so I'm just gonna try posting random bits...

Japan Trip Recap, Anti Bread Crust

I remember as a kid I would always peel the bread crust off slices of bread and eat them first. I guess the crust wasn't as good and the taste just didn't mesh well w/the center? If you feel the same way, then you'll love Japanese sandwiches. There's no crust! The one time I had a sandwich in Japan it had no crust. I thought that it was just this particular restaurant, but Ron said that bread w/o crust is actually the norm.


eggs and ham


Ron's breakfast

mine: fried shrimp

BTW, did I mention that wasabi mayo is awesome? I don't know why Ron dislikes it.

Japan Trip Recap, Day 1

If anyone's planning a trip to Japan, here's a couple interesting things to note regarding arrival at Narita terminal 1.

• Expect to arrive early. When I was doing research for my trip I read that Narita is the most on-time airport in the world. I didn't really believe it though since almost all my flights have been delayed, but as expected, my flight arrived over half an hour early.
  
• Stuff's easy to find. You don't have to wander around. After exiting baggage claim and heading down to the basement you might be wondering where everything is. E.g. information, tickets/reservations, train gate, cell phone rental, etc. It's really easy to find since there's basically just one central area with all these things surrounding.

The plan was to meet my brother in Shinagawa before heading to Kyoto. However, since my flight arrived early I had almost 2 hours to kill by the time I got to Shinagawa. I was really hungry so I decided to get something to eat. I picked a restaurant just outside the station and ordered some katsu curry:

Sorry, this is the only photo I have. I meant to take a photo before I ate it, but when it appeared in front of me I just ended up inhaling it. I didn't realize it then, but I was really being impulsive that day...

I eventually met up with my brother and got tickets for the Shinkansen to Kyoto. Unfortunately, by the time he got tickets there wasn't any reserved seating available. Since I had gotten reserved seating it meant we would have to sit in different cars. So we ended up in different areas waiting for the train. A couple minutes passed and I saw a train with a pointy nose, a bullet train--Shinkansen! I hopped aboard. Moments later I called Ron...

Me: ...where do I put my luggage?

Ron: ...

Ron: ...

Ron: I think you're on the wrong train. Our train hasn't arrived yet.

Me: !!

It was a scary few minutes there as I tried to figure out what to do. I just decided to get off at the very next stop, Shin-Yokohama. Little did I know that I had gotten on the worst possible train--a Kodama. They stop at every single stop all the way to the end of the line. The train that I meant to get on was the Hikari, which makes infrequent stops. There was a possibility that the Hikari wouldn't even stop there. Luckily for me all three shinkansen (Kodama, Hikari, and Nozomi) stop at Shin-Yokohama.

Fortes fortuna adiuvat (fortune favors the bold)...or the incredibly stupid? I'll pick the former since it sounds cooler. Anyways, I almost missed the Hikari again. Just as I called to ask Ron when it was going to arrive he said that they'd just gotten there? I thought that was weird since I didn't see a train in front of me. As I spun around I saw the rest of the train station behind me. It never occured to me that there may be several different platforms for the same tracks. Again, as luck would have it, I was already on the right platform so I finally boarded the right shinkansen for Kyoto. Good thing I rented a cell phone at the airport. I can only imagine how things would've turned out if I hadn't.

We stayed at a ryokan, Station Hotel Seiki.

Our room.

Ron posing for sleep.

Yogurt pepsi?