Kyoto (Day 1)

Today I just wanted to take some time and explore the city a bit. I ended up going to the Imperial Palace Park and wandering around there for a bit. Unfortunately the actual palace part is closed to public. The park itself reminded me a bit of the Plains of Abrahama, in that it had a lot of open space and seemed to be a popular place for people to hang out or have picnics. I then walked to Ginkakuji - the silver shrine, and checked out the shine and garden there. So far I think the various gardens are my favourite part of Japan. I wandered back through Gion and walked along the river for a good stretch. I figure in total I probably walked 20-25km today, and my feet were feeling it. I don't really like taking buses, because you miss out on the feel of the city if you're just shuttling back and forth between touristy places. I think I'll take the middle ground and rent a bicycle tomorrow so I can see more without spending all day walking from one place to another. I also need to mark down all the places I want to go on the map I have. I made up a list of places I wanted to see, but I don't really know where a lot of them are, and it would be much easier if I knew all the things in one area, and do them all at once.

Nara Day 2

Relatively short post today because I'm pretty tired. It was overcast and drizzling in Nara again this morning, and I spent most of the morning just wandering around the commercial part of the city window shopping. I checked out two more museums/exhibits - one containing mostly statues, and the other of pottery, coins and scrolls from as far back as 1400 BC. The real highlight of the day was visiting the Yoshikien and Isuien gardens. Isuein Garden especially was amazing. You can't really capture the serenity of beauty with pictures, but here are some I took to give you an idea.





Once I was done in Nara, I got back on the train and headed to Kyoto. I had another very tiring walk around looking for a place to stay. Lugging my backpack and laptop around for hours is really starting to tax my body. Everywhere I tried was either full, or way to expensive for me. I managed to book a dormitory-style room at a small boarding house type place for 3 nights, but there was nowhere free for tonight. In the end, I got a different boarding house to let me sleep on the floor of the common area for the night. Not the fanciest living, but better than sleeping outside (in the rain). These boarding house places are cheap too, costing around $20 Cdn. Time to go to bed so I can get up early and plan my day in Kyoto. So much to see...

Nara-koen (Part 1)

I spent my first day in Nara-koen which is a huge park on the east side of Nara. It contains a variety of shrines, temples, gardens, museums and enough wandering deer to put Miyajima to shame. The thing that I found a little strange is that the deer aren't fenced in at all. The ones in Miyajima are stuck on an island, so they can't really interfere with the city at all, but in Nara, there's nothing stopping them from running across roads or heading into the main part of the city.

In various places around the park are vendors selling deer biscuits that you can feed to the deer. I didn't buy any, but it was amusing to watch a little kid get a bunch, and then run screaming while 20 deer stormed after him.


Once in the park I headed for the northern part, which contains a lot of the most famous places in Nara. First I passed through the Nandaimon gate, which contains two amazing demon guardian statues made out of wood.

I continued through the gate to Todai-ji Daibutsu-den (Hall of the Great Buddha). The hall/temple itself is the largest wooden building in the world.

Contained inside are a variet of Buddha statues. The one shown here is one of the smaller ones flanking the Great Buddha.

(more coming...)

Nara-koen (Part 2)

The main attraction of course was the Great Buddha himself. Over 16m tall and made of 437 tonnes of bronze and 130kg of gold, it truely is massive.

On my way out I gave in and bought a t-shirt describing part of the Kegon sutra. Next I went to Sangatsu-do/Hokke-do. It is the oldest building in the complex, dating back to somewhere around 740 AD. It contains a group of 16 different statues, made around the same time, ranging from the angry warrior statues Shukongo-jin and Kongo-rikishi, to the serene Gakko-bosatsu and the central figure of Fukukensaku-kannon-bosatsu. No pictures allowed in this building, but if you're curious, a few of the statues can be seen at http://www.pbase.com/bmcmorrow/image/38462124 and http://www.taleofgenji.org/todaiji_hokkedo.html. Next I visited the Kasuga Taisha Shrine Botanical Garden. It supposedly displays the plants described in the poems of Man-yo-shu. It has sections devoted to showing different crops, fruit trees, field plants and of course trees and flowers. It wasn't too spectacular, but certainly an interesting walk.

I was starting to get a bit tired after all this, so I decided to check out a small museum where I could slow down for a bit. The Kasuga Shrine Treasure Hall is a shrine museum that mainly contains swords and armor from the Nara Period (646-794 AD). After this, I made my way to a group of large ponds in the south part of the park, and sat in the Ukimido Hall to relax for a bit.

This is about when it started to rain. I was feeling about done for the day anyway, so I headed out of the park. On my way home I took a quick stop at the Kofukuji Temple to take a peek at the 5-storied pagoda (notice the rain).

It was still a bit too early to return to the hotel, so I wandered down the covered shopping arcade road in Nara. I stopped at a restaurant and had a plate of some of very good spaghetti, and topped it off with an elaborate ice cream. There was an ice cream on the menu that costs around $25 CDN, and is a culinary masterpiece, but I could neither afford that, or manage to finish it, so I went with a much more conservative, but still very artistic looking one. I then made my way home for a much deserved rest. Tomorrow I'm going to explore the southern area of the city, which has a bunch of temples, and probably check out a few more gardens. Hopefully the rain has cleared up by then.

The White Heron (Part 1)

Well, I survived the night. I ended up getting virtually no sleep, and spent the night looking for an outdoor outlet to recharge my computer and just lying there staring at the sky. At one point I came across a 24-hour McDonalds, so I had some chicken nuggets too. Around 5:00am I headed back to the train station and rented a locker to dump my computer in backpack in. They clean them out every day at 4:30am, so I had to lug them around until that point. Even though the castle didn't open until 9:00am, I had nothing better to do so I headed in that direction and just started wandering along the path around it. That walk is one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. When I started it was completely dark, and I watched the entire dawn while walking along a path along the outer wall, right next to the moat. I can't really describe it properly, and the pictures I took couldn't capture it, but the combination of the sun rising, the soft mist coming off the water, the green lichen and rounded rocks of the wall made it feel like a set out of Lord of the Rings. Everything just had this aura around it. So, I ended up wandering around the castle for something near 3 hours (I ended up walking around the outside 3 times), and then headed back to the main entrance to get ready for the actual walk up to the castle.

The White Heron (Part 2)

The entire tour took about 1.5 hours, and you follow it up through the fortifications, through one of the long buildings that would have been housing as women's quarters (and for defense when needed), up past various storage buildings, through the large inner courtyard, and finally up through the castle itself. I took a bunch of pictures of all the fortifications and details inside the buildings, but it would take me forever to upload everything, so I'll just include the main shots right now.

First the bridge aross the outer moat.

The castle from up close.

Looking down at the fortifications and city from the top floor of the castle.
From a different window...

A model of the city as it would have been when the castle was in use.

After finishing at the castle, I came across a pottery fair/festival going on in Himeji, so I hung out there for a bit. I decided there wasn't much left to do in the city, so I got my train ticket to Nara. I got a bit lost along the way in Osaka, when I took the wrong train by accident, but eventually got everything figured out. I wandered around Nara a bit today, but didn't do anything very exciting. I hadn't slept in a couple days, and I was starting to get extremely sore from lugging around my laptop, backpack and coat around everywhere, so I got a hotel room to relax in while in Nara. It was pretty cheap (about $40 cdn/night), and while it's compact, it's really hi-tech which is fun. Going to get up early tomorrow morning and go siteseeing after breakfast.

Cross Country Voyage - Beginning

Well, here I am, sitting in the middle of a park somewhere in Himeji, at 1am, stealing internet from some nearby resident. It's pretty chilly tonight, and I have to lug my laptop and backpack with everything in it all over the place, but at least I'm out of Hiroshima and on my way. I took a train to Okayama, and then transferred to another train to Himeji, which went relatively smoothly. I don't have a place to stay here though, and I figure I'll just hang out outside and sleep under a tree for the night. I tried to find a place to get a late night meal, but instead ended up in the red light district being asked if I wanted massages every 5 minutes. One of them was rather persistent, but finally gave up when I told her "I worked for Nova, no money." This city in general seems a lot shadier than Hiroshima, but I'm only here for a day anyway. I'll do the castle tour and check out the gardens tomorrow, and then onwards to Nara.

The Plan

Due to issues with money and random loose ends, it has taken a bit longer to get going than I had hoped. My ticket is paid for now, and I have a loose plan as to how I'm going to spend the time until I go home. I need to wait until November 3 to get my ticket and get underway. Here is my rough itinerary:
November 3:
Train from Hiroshima to Himeji
November 4:
Check out Himeji Castle, which is likely the most famous castle in Japan
Take train from Himeji to Nara
November 5,6:
Hang out in Nara, visit temples/gardens, etc.
November 7:
Train from Nara to Kyoto
November 7,8,9:
Spend time in Kyoto. Lots of temples, shrines, gardens and other historical things. Still haven't really decided exactly which ones, but I'll whittle down the list I have now before I get there.
November 10:
Shinkansen (bullet train) from Kyoto to Tokyo - pricey, but taking regular train that far requires like 14 transfers and around 9 hours, while the Shinkansen is 1 train the entire way, and under 3 hours.
November 11,12,13: In Tokyo. Sightseeing, hanging out, spending the remainder of my fictional money. Maybe a day trip to Nikko if I have time.
November 14: Fly out of Narita Airport in Tokyo at 5:55pm, transfer planes in Chicago, and hopefully landing back in Toronto at 6:26pm. (Yay! 31 minute flight across the world, silly time zones.) I'll try to get in touch with people shortly about giving me a ride somewhere from the airport.

I'm going to have somebody in Hiroshima use the parcel delivery service to send all my luggage to the airport in Tokyo. Hopefully that goes smoothly, as it will suck to get there and not know where my luggage is. If anybody has any requests for anything, let me know!

Frustrations

Grahh. It seems the entire world conspires against me at times. Today I went and after wandering a good portion of the city found a travel agent and got a ticket from Tokyo to Toronto really cheap. It costs more to pay directly onto credit card, so I told them I'd come back with cash. I need money from my visa to get through the next couple weeks anyway, so I went to an international ATM to take money out on it. At this point I am told by the machine that "Your card issuer has declined your transaction." I asked the people at the bank if they could call the number provided with the message and try to straighten it out, but they wouldn't do anything. I'm guessing it's flagged as suspicious because it's a withdrawl in a different country than Canada, but I called just before I left and told them I was moving so things like this wouldn't happen! My original plan was to leave for Kyoto tomorrow, but now it's looking like that might be impossible. Now that I have a date booked for my plane home, I don't want to waste that time dealing with all this mess when I could be seeing more of Japan. What a hassle. I can't call the Visa people for a few hours because they're closed right now (2:30am in Canada), and by the time I *can* get through to them, the bank and travel agent will be closed. Hopefully things come together tomorrow and I can get an overnight bus out. Still need to figure out what to do with my luggage (I called the embassy in Tokyo, and they were pretty much clueless, and just redirected me to someone's voicemail).

Intersection

Short post. Todd mentioned before that he'd like some pictures of an intersection, so as I was wandering today I came across a Y-intersection with a small bridge across it, so I took pictures of the various roads joining together. Not the most interesting of intersections I'm afraid, but here it is. (The last one is from the ground, looking up at the bridge the others were taken from.)