the long and winding road
So, dear readers, I am sure you have all been anxiously hitting f5 wondering when the next time I was going to write anything would be. I don't know how far into my journey I will get, since it's 9:30 at night, but I will at least start.
Thursday:
I went to meet my mom at the airport. Rather uneventful. I ate some leftovers for dinner, she wasn't hungry. Also had some mochi.
Friday:
We walked to my school and back and went to the grocery store and the 100 yen shop. We bought some sushi in the train station and had that for lunch and made rice and had crab on it for dinner.
Saturday:
We took the train to Asakusa and then got kind of lost walking from the JR station to the touristy area to avoid taking the second train. We wandered a bit and had a lady ask us if she could lead us around. Apparently the Japanese government pays people to be English guides at major tourist attractions. She was very nice. We saw the temple and the shrine and some sad looking monkeys being made to stand up straight and bow. We ate yakisoba and crepes and then walked back through the shopping area and bought stuff and then walked over to Kappabashi, the area with all the restaurant stores. Most of them were pretty boring and sold a lot of dishes, but there were a few of the plastic food shops open and I got a mochi keychain. Then we walked back to the train and made it just as it was starting to rain. For dinner back in my room we used up the last of my frozen hamburger from Costco and cooked some onions and had it on the noodles I'd used for the beef and broccoli.
Sunday:
We left and headed to the train, and went to Tokyo Station, bought my Shinkansen ticket and got on the train for Kyoto. It took about 3 hours to get there. The information booth was on teh 8th floor of a department store, but the lady there gave us a map to get to the ryokan (japanese style hotel) we were staying at. It was a bit of a walk pulling the suitcase and wearing my backpack, but the map was accurate. The landmark to turn off the main street was a Tony Lama western wear shop. The street it was down was narrower than American alleys. Once we got there, they were very nice and showed us our room andthe bathroom and the shower. The room was very cute, it had tatami floors and the futons were folded up and had sliding doors. We left pretty fast and looked at a couple temples on the Eastern side of Kyoto. It was pretty dark when we were done (and actually the one temple was closed both Sunday and the next day by the time we got there). We walked through the entertainment quarter, but it didn't look too entertaining to me, it was all shops. Eventually we got to a big department store and went in the basement and bought yogurt for breakfast and a loaf of french bread and some yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick) for dinner. Then we ran into Jesse, the Canadian guy, on the way out. We went back to the hotel and ate and slept.
Monday:
We got up and ate our yogurt and walked to the former Imperial Palace in Kyoto but were too slow and missed the 10 am english guide, so we went on an 11am tour in Japanese of a different palace, which was very nice and they had pretty gardens andit was a nice small group. We ate lunch at the palace cafeteria, I had udon with a piece of sweet fried tofu on top and my mom had something with seaweed and other things. Then we went on the english tour of the palace, but it wasn't so photogenic and the group was wayyyyy too big. A lot of the people on it didn't speak english as their first language, so they were talking and the guide had areally strong accent so she was pretty much impossible to understand anyway. Afterward, we walked up to another temple and managed to get there before they closed, even though we walked around pretty much the whole wall before finding the gate. It was getting cold and dark onthe way back, but we'd seen a grocery store the previous day so we stopped there and bought sushi andmore yogurt.
Tuesday:
We took the bus in Kyoto to a building entirely covered in gold, inventively named the Golden Pavilion. Then we walked to a rock garden that sounded much more impressive than it actually was. On the way we stopped and had bowls of rice with toppings. After the rock garden we walked back toward the train through a complex that had a bunch of temples in it. Near Kyoto Station there was yet another world heritage temple and we managed to get there before they closed too. We started walkingback to the hotel and weren't very far when mom decided she wanted to look at themap to decide whichwasthebest way to get to the hotel and a older Japanese lady decided to help us. Theonly problem being we weren't lost. And the fact that she didn't know where ourhotel was and started going in the wrong direction was not so helpful either. Eventually she asked someone and the guy told us to keep going down the street we had been walking on until she made us turn. She was very nice, though, and walked all the way there with us and then gave us some little origamis she had in her purse. We went up to our room and dropped off some stuff and then ventured back out to the grocery store. We got gyoza, which were really good, and tempura, which looked really good, but the breading was kind of greasy and not so tasty.
Wedneday:
We packed up and left Kyoto for Nara. We went to the hotel and left our luggage - I thought the guy wasn't going to be able to pick my backpack up. Then we ran out and saw the three big Nara attractions - a temple with a pagoda, a giant buddah and a temple with lots of lanterns. We had been planning to get ice cream for lunch but Nara was full of deer and stands selling deer cookies, and they kept coming up to us looking for food. So we didn't eat. We went to a grocery store and got a half pizza and gyoza and a carton of yogurt and a box of granola for breakfast. Then we walked past a bakery and got two pastries and a half loaf of french bread with pesto paste and a bun with cheese. We ate lots for dinner.
Thursday:
We got up and ate yogurt and went to the train and took it to Horyuji temple, outside of Nara, which has the distinction of having the oldest wooden buildings in the worldd, dating to the 7th century. It was very nice. Then we went back to the train, stopping to eat ice cream (finally!) and at a bakery, where we got two pastries to compliment our ice cream cones, a small loaf of bread and a bag of miniature crossaints. Back in Nara we went to another temple, but didn't pay to get in and just saw the outside, but then walked around in what the information lady had said was like Japan 100 years ago. There was a model of what a house would have been like and it was pretty interesting, although it did look an awful lot like the samurai house. Then we did some shopping on the way back and went to a restaurant for dinner - I had tenzarusoba (cold buckwheat noodles with tempura) and my mom had a tempura set that came with udon soup and rice.
Friday:
We took the train to Osaka. I had wanted to not take the shinkansen because itwould be cheaper, but it wouldhave taken 6 hours to get to Hiroshima and only been $40 less, so we went to the shinkansen station and were to Hiroshima by about 1:30. We took a streetcar to the ryokan we were staying in. The lady there was extremely nice. Then we went to the peace museum (which the guidebook said would take half an hour but we were there for 2 and didn't really get to look at the end very much because they were closing). We walked through the park and saw a burned out building. Then my mom wanted to see the castle so we started walking there and went around their baseball stadium and eventually got diagonally across the corner from it. But there was no way to cross the street, so we went back and found a grocery store and got more yogurt for breakfast and a fancy bread pastry thing and sushi for dinner.
Saturday:
After eating breakfast, we walked to the train and took it to a ferry, where we went to an island that has a temple gate built out in the water so it looks like it's floating when the tide is in. The water was actually coming in and we saw it surrounded by water. Miyajima was nice. We ate oysters (a regional speciality), I had deepfried oysters on rice and my mom had oysters on noodle soup. We had been planning to take the cable car to the top of the mountain and walk down but the cable car was closed for maintence, so we walked up the mountain. It was a very slanty mountain. It was nearly 5 when we started going back down but that turned out to be okay - we saw a whole group of wild monkeys! They were very cute but also very loud. It was getting pretty dark by the timewe got to the bottom. We got to see the gate illuminated in the dark too, but the tide was all the way out and people had walked out to it, so it wasn't reflecting. The shops were all closed. We took the ferry back and stopped at a store on the way to the train and I got some ice cream. After getting off the train we went to another convienence store (it was about 8:45) and bought some premade steamed buns and ate them when we got back to the room.
Sunday (today):
We slowly walked to the peace museum and hit the shop because they were closing when we were there friday. They didn't really have much, though. Then we walked to an area that had a lot of okonomiyaki (a thing with pancake on the bottom, cabbage, bean sprouts and meat and an omlette on the top) restaurants. It had just opened, though, so we watched some Japanese people's food get cooked and then went there ourselves - it was very filling. And tasty. Then we went to the train on the streetcar. The next shinkansen back to Tokyo didn't have any seats, and the next one from Hiroshima to Osaka had nonsmoking seats but the only seats from Osaka to Tokyo were in the smoking car, so we decided to go with smokey seats but be guaranteed to be able to sit for the 3 hours. It wasn't nearly as smokey as I had expected it to be and there weren't many people smoking. We got lucky at Tokyo station and didn't have to wait long for a train going all the way to Chiba, so we got off the Shinkansen at 7:15 and were back to Inage by 8:15.
Now I am going to bed, as it's taken an hour to write this.
Thursday:
I went to meet my mom at the airport. Rather uneventful. I ate some leftovers for dinner, she wasn't hungry. Also had some mochi.
Friday:
We walked to my school and back and went to the grocery store and the 100 yen shop. We bought some sushi in the train station and had that for lunch and made rice and had crab on it for dinner.
Saturday:
We took the train to Asakusa and then got kind of lost walking from the JR station to the touristy area to avoid taking the second train. We wandered a bit and had a lady ask us if she could lead us around. Apparently the Japanese government pays people to be English guides at major tourist attractions. She was very nice. We saw the temple and the shrine and some sad looking monkeys being made to stand up straight and bow. We ate yakisoba and crepes and then walked back through the shopping area and bought stuff and then walked over to Kappabashi, the area with all the restaurant stores. Most of them were pretty boring and sold a lot of dishes, but there were a few of the plastic food shops open and I got a mochi keychain. Then we walked back to the train and made it just as it was starting to rain. For dinner back in my room we used up the last of my frozen hamburger from Costco and cooked some onions and had it on the noodles I'd used for the beef and broccoli.
Sunday:
We left and headed to the train, and went to Tokyo Station, bought my Shinkansen ticket and got on the train for Kyoto. It took about 3 hours to get there. The information booth was on teh 8th floor of a department store, but the lady there gave us a map to get to the ryokan (japanese style hotel) we were staying at. It was a bit of a walk pulling the suitcase and wearing my backpack, but the map was accurate. The landmark to turn off the main street was a Tony Lama western wear shop. The street it was down was narrower than American alleys. Once we got there, they were very nice and showed us our room andthe bathroom and the shower. The room was very cute, it had tatami floors and the futons were folded up and had sliding doors. We left pretty fast and looked at a couple temples on the Eastern side of Kyoto. It was pretty dark when we were done (and actually the one temple was closed both Sunday and the next day by the time we got there). We walked through the entertainment quarter, but it didn't look too entertaining to me, it was all shops. Eventually we got to a big department store and went in the basement and bought yogurt for breakfast and a loaf of french bread and some yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick) for dinner. Then we ran into Jesse, the Canadian guy, on the way out. We went back to the hotel and ate and slept.
Monday:
We got up and ate our yogurt and walked to the former Imperial Palace in Kyoto but were too slow and missed the 10 am english guide, so we went on an 11am tour in Japanese of a different palace, which was very nice and they had pretty gardens andit was a nice small group. We ate lunch at the palace cafeteria, I had udon with a piece of sweet fried tofu on top and my mom had something with seaweed and other things. Then we went on the english tour of the palace, but it wasn't so photogenic and the group was wayyyyy too big. A lot of the people on it didn't speak english as their first language, so they were talking and the guide had areally strong accent so she was pretty much impossible to understand anyway. Afterward, we walked up to another temple and managed to get there before they closed, even though we walked around pretty much the whole wall before finding the gate. It was getting cold and dark onthe way back, but we'd seen a grocery store the previous day so we stopped there and bought sushi andmore yogurt.
Tuesday:
We took the bus in Kyoto to a building entirely covered in gold, inventively named the Golden Pavilion. Then we walked to a rock garden that sounded much more impressive than it actually was. On the way we stopped and had bowls of rice with toppings. After the rock garden we walked back toward the train through a complex that had a bunch of temples in it. Near Kyoto Station there was yet another world heritage temple and we managed to get there before they closed too. We started walkingback to the hotel and weren't very far when mom decided she wanted to look at themap to decide whichwasthebest way to get to the hotel and a older Japanese lady decided to help us. Theonly problem being we weren't lost. And the fact that she didn't know where ourhotel was and started going in the wrong direction was not so helpful either. Eventually she asked someone and the guy told us to keep going down the street we had been walking on until she made us turn. She was very nice, though, and walked all the way there with us and then gave us some little origamis she had in her purse. We went up to our room and dropped off some stuff and then ventured back out to the grocery store. We got gyoza, which were really good, and tempura, which looked really good, but the breading was kind of greasy and not so tasty.
Wedneday:
We packed up and left Kyoto for Nara. We went to the hotel and left our luggage - I thought the guy wasn't going to be able to pick my backpack up. Then we ran out and saw the three big Nara attractions - a temple with a pagoda, a giant buddah and a temple with lots of lanterns. We had been planning to get ice cream for lunch but Nara was full of deer and stands selling deer cookies, and they kept coming up to us looking for food. So we didn't eat. We went to a grocery store and got a half pizza and gyoza and a carton of yogurt and a box of granola for breakfast. Then we walked past a bakery and got two pastries and a half loaf of french bread with pesto paste and a bun with cheese. We ate lots for dinner.
Thursday:
We got up and ate yogurt and went to the train and took it to Horyuji temple, outside of Nara, which has the distinction of having the oldest wooden buildings in the worldd, dating to the 7th century. It was very nice. Then we went back to the train, stopping to eat ice cream (finally!) and at a bakery, where we got two pastries to compliment our ice cream cones, a small loaf of bread and a bag of miniature crossaints. Back in Nara we went to another temple, but didn't pay to get in and just saw the outside, but then walked around in what the information lady had said was like Japan 100 years ago. There was a model of what a house would have been like and it was pretty interesting, although it did look an awful lot like the samurai house. Then we did some shopping on the way back and went to a restaurant for dinner - I had tenzarusoba (cold buckwheat noodles with tempura) and my mom had a tempura set that came with udon soup and rice.
Friday:
We took the train to Osaka. I had wanted to not take the shinkansen because itwould be cheaper, but it wouldhave taken 6 hours to get to Hiroshima and only been $40 less, so we went to the shinkansen station and were to Hiroshima by about 1:30. We took a streetcar to the ryokan we were staying in. The lady there was extremely nice. Then we went to the peace museum (which the guidebook said would take half an hour but we were there for 2 and didn't really get to look at the end very much because they were closing). We walked through the park and saw a burned out building. Then my mom wanted to see the castle so we started walking there and went around their baseball stadium and eventually got diagonally across the corner from it. But there was no way to cross the street, so we went back and found a grocery store and got more yogurt for breakfast and a fancy bread pastry thing and sushi for dinner.
Saturday:
After eating breakfast, we walked to the train and took it to a ferry, where we went to an island that has a temple gate built out in the water so it looks like it's floating when the tide is in. The water was actually coming in and we saw it surrounded by water. Miyajima was nice. We ate oysters (a regional speciality), I had deepfried oysters on rice and my mom had oysters on noodle soup. We had been planning to take the cable car to the top of the mountain and walk down but the cable car was closed for maintence, so we walked up the mountain. It was a very slanty mountain. It was nearly 5 when we started going back down but that turned out to be okay - we saw a whole group of wild monkeys! They were very cute but also very loud. It was getting pretty dark by the timewe got to the bottom. We got to see the gate illuminated in the dark too, but the tide was all the way out and people had walked out to it, so it wasn't reflecting. The shops were all closed. We took the ferry back and stopped at a store on the way to the train and I got some ice cream. After getting off the train we went to another convienence store (it was about 8:45) and bought some premade steamed buns and ate them when we got back to the room.
Sunday (today):
We slowly walked to the peace museum and hit the shop because they were closing when we were there friday. They didn't really have much, though. Then we walked to an area that had a lot of okonomiyaki (a thing with pancake on the bottom, cabbage, bean sprouts and meat and an omlette on the top) restaurants. It had just opened, though, so we watched some Japanese people's food get cooked and then went there ourselves - it was very filling. And tasty. Then we went to the train on the streetcar. The next shinkansen back to Tokyo didn't have any seats, and the next one from Hiroshima to Osaka had nonsmoking seats but the only seats from Osaka to Tokyo were in the smoking car, so we decided to go with smokey seats but be guaranteed to be able to sit for the 3 hours. It wasn't nearly as smokey as I had expected it to be and there weren't many people smoking. We got lucky at Tokyo station and didn't have to wait long for a train going all the way to Chiba, so we got off the Shinkansen at 7:15 and were back to Inage by 8:15.
Now I am going to bed, as it's taken an hour to write this.
posted by Magdalena @ 7:34 AM
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