Thursday, July 23, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Travelling in Japan - Day 3 - Another side of Kyoto
After a restful night, the plan was to explore more of Kyoto before finishing our journey to Osaka later that day. Our party first visited Fushimi Inari-taisha, known for its vibrantly colored gates and stone shrines.
The gates lead up to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, the walk was taking longer than we hoped, so we only made it about a 1/3 of the way up before heading back down.
On the walk back down, we found many shrines and altars.
Our next destination was the beautiful Tenryu-ji. You can take mass transit between Fushimi Inari-taisha and Tenryu-ji.
The temple is beautiful. Full admission is 600 yen. Added appeal of this location is its proximity to the Path of the Bamboo, which is free.
We had a really good and reasonably priced lunch in Kyoto. Just watch out, as a reminder, many places do not take credit card (cash [yen] only).
#Sashimi to die for @ #osaka #japan #japanesefood #japanesecuisine #heaven
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Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Travelling in Japan - Day 2 (part 2)
For much of the afternoon and early evening, our group was on foot, exploring temples in Kyoto. We walked to Ryosen, Kiyomizu, and Yasaka temples.
Tokyo and Kyoto are very humid right now, with varying clouds and clear sky as the days progressed. Portions were also very crowded. It's very easy to unintentionally bump into people.
I don't know if this is a daily thing, or we visited Kyoto at the right time, but there were a lot of Japanese dressed in traditional attire, both men and women. It kinda reminded me of Renfair in the US.
I don't know if this is a daily thing, or we visited Kyoto at the right time, but there were a lot of Japanese dressed in traditional attire, both men and women. It kinda reminded me of Renfair in the US.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Travelling in Japan - Day 2 (part 1)
After a somewhat restful/restless night, I woke up on my day 2 in Japan with a mild recovery from the previous day's 13hr flight (to a location 12 time zones out of sync with my own). Our party all had to get up and get out early, since our JR bullet train ride from Tokyo to Kyoto was early morning.
The ride is about two hours on the bullet train. Our JR train commonly maintained speeds between 150 to 160 mph. We watched the city, suburbs, countryside, suburbs and city wiz by. Of note, there were an unusual number of Ferris Wheels visible from the train, along with a rather high number of netted driving ranges.
Once in Kyoto, we dropped our bags off at our hotel, then went exploring on foot. We found a good place along the river for lunch.
I had the Chicken Salad. This dish was a 'salad' in name only. The chicken was great, and the lettuce was really unnecessary. The noodles where good too. I was suprized that I liked the tofu skins that came with the appetizer.
The view we had while dining was of the river, but the river isn't much of a view.
The ride is about two hours on the bullet train. Our JR train commonly maintained speeds between 150 to 160 mph. We watched the city, suburbs, countryside, suburbs and city wiz by. Of note, there were an unusual number of Ferris Wheels visible from the train, along with a rather high number of netted driving ranges.
Once in Kyoto, we dropped our bags off at our hotel, then went exploring on foot. We found a good place along the river for lunch.
I had the Chicken Salad. This dish was a 'salad' in name only. The chicken was great, and the lettuce was really unnecessary. The noodles where good too. I was suprized that I liked the tofu skins that came with the appetizer.
The view we had while dining was of the river, but the river isn't much of a view.
There were several types of birds that were up to their bird-antics nearby the river, which did serve as mild entertainment while we enjoyed our lunch. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel to properly check-in and prepare for the afternoon exploration around town.
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