Days 5-9: Kyoto and Hiroshima

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DAY 5: Bullet train to Kyoto

Today was our last morning in Tokyo. We took the 10:46am train to Kyoto. Kyoto is about 320 miles from Tokyo, yet it only took us under 3 hours to get there. You really feel how far you are going on the train. Japan’s rail system is amazing, and uses ‘bullet’ trains to travel far distances in short amounts of time; it is truly amazing. Travel Tip #3: If you will be traveling Japan and going to more than 2 cities, get the JR Pass. It will save you a lot of time and money. All you do is show your 7 day pass, and you can get on any JR train. The train seats are also very comfortable. They recline a decent amount, and the legroom is like you’re sitting in first class. Traveling Japan by train is very economical and efficient. I didn’t really take in any of the views as I slept for most of the ride. We got into Kyoto a little bit after noon. We used our passmo card from the Tokyo metro, so getting on the subway was very easy once again. Our hostel was only a few stops away, and right next to the train station. We wanted to make the 1pm free Kyoto tour, but by the time we checked in, it was past then. They don’t do the tours on Sundays, so we had to wait until Monday morning to do it. Travel Tip #4: There are always free tours offered in most big cities. They save you money and are a lot of fun to do. With an afternoon to kill, we set out to eat lunch. We weren’t in downtown Kyoto, so all the restaurants in our area didn’t have English menus for the most part. We found this one steakhouse with a great lunch special and tried our luck there. Luckily, they were able to pull up the English menu on their website from their iPad. Since we were at a steakhouse and near the Kobe region, I had to order Kobe beef. The beef came on top of white rice, and white grilled vegetables. It was so good! I used the two sauces they had at the table, and

it added even better flavor to it. I was definitely happy with my choice. After lunch, we made our way to the Imperial Palace. Yes, it is different from the one in Tokyo. Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan, so this is where the royal family lived before that. The actual park has a lot more buildings than just the palace, so we walked around that area. Unlike Tokyo, we weren’t allowed to enter palace grounds, so we had to look at it through a gate once again. After the park, we went back to the hostel where I took a nap. I didn’t set an alarm and kind of just fell asleep, so Jason woke me up when everyone wanted to eat. I woke up, showered and got ready for our night out. Our hostel was about a 25 minute walk from the downtown area, so that’s where we headed for dinner. We ate at another place where you placed your order through a vending machine, and they brought it directly to your table. I got the Kim chi bowl over rice. It tasted good at the time, but this was the first meal on my trip that I didn’t agree with. I definitely had a stomachache for the rest of the night. Still, I (somewhat) persevered through the night and went out. One of the clubs in Kyoto had a DJ from Hot 97 playing, so that’s where we went. I had never heard of him, but Jason did. The club had a great deal. $6 got us in, along with a free drink, much better than anything I’d find in NYC. It was still a fun time even though my stomach was hurting the whole time. We left a couple hours later and made our way back. It wasn’t that far of a walk, and we felt safe the whole time. Japan is a very safe country, and we never witnessed anything that would make us feel otherwise.

DAY 6: Loads of walking

This was our first full day in Kyoto, and we spent it walking to two different areas of Kyoto. The two areas we visited were Gion and Higashiyama. The first temple we went to see was the Kiyomizu Dera Temple. Since we didn’t have Wi-Fi, we only had an approximate location of where it was located. The areas surrounding it aren’t streets, rather a collection of paths leading to various temples and shrines. We had hoped we would just find it eventually. Higashiyama is a very cool area as its one of the most culturally significant in Kyoto. It is home to the main geisha district, but more on that in tomorrow’s recap. Kyoto is very hilly, and we did a fair amount of walking looking around. The paths leading up to the temple are very old, with shops lining all the alleys. There is ice cream everywhere, and that was a relief as it was very refreshing in the heat. Travel Tip #5: If you are in a country like Japan that has safe water, buy a big water bottle and keep refilling it from a fountain. It will save you a lot of money by preventing buying water every day, and protect you from dehydration as well. I don’t know the name of the first temple we found, but it wasn’t the one we were looking for. To be honest, we just kept walking in the assumed right direction trying to find it. We finally found it on top of a hill. We knew we found it because of the sign, as well as the horde of tourists that were making their way up. The walk was definitely worth it as it was a beautiful sight. This temple is a Buddhist temple, which are very prevalent in Kyoto. It was also one of the 20 finalists for one of the seven new wonders of the world. That would’ve been cool if it won, as that would’ve been the second I have gone to, or will. We were taking in the sites when a group of Japanese middle schoolers came up to us and asked if they could talk to us. They asked us a couple questions,

and then one kid asked me to write his name in his book. It must be an assignment they have to do, because at the time of writing this, we’ve been come up to four times by middle schoolers. After walking around the temple area, we made our way back down. We had a couple other temples planned out but we didn’t know where they were and the streets were kind of hard to navigate without Internet. We walked past a big stone Buddha statue but didn’t go into the complex. We had to pay and we had a pretty decent view from outside. We ended our temple run in Maruyama Park. We saw some other temples and shrines along the way but they start to blend together after a week of looking at them. We walked back into the downtown area and went to Nishiki Market for lunch. For most of the places we ate, they don’t have full English menus so we go based off the pictures or plastic models. We settled on this udon place and we were very pleased with us. I’m a big fan of udon noodles. We were probably the only people in Japan who got udon instead of soba, but it’s worth it. This was later in the afternoon so it was definitely more of an early dinner. We spent the night chilling in the hostel. We sat on the porch outside hanging out with some other people staying there. We ended the day walking 14 miles, so it was definitely nice to sit down for a little.

DAY 7: Did we see this temple yet?

Our first event of the day was a free walking tour of Kyoto, which was exciting because we were actually going to learn about the things we see, instead of just looking at them. The tour was at 1030am, and we used the subway system to get there. While not as extensive as Tokyo, it was still pretty easy to get to the meeting point. Even though it was very hot out, there was still a big crowd for the tour. It being free doesn’t hurt either. Our tour guide studied abroad in the states one year, so her English was pretty decent. Our tour covered the Gion district, which we covered a little the day before. I didn’t mind going back because we saw some new things, and actually got to learn about what we were seeing. That’s the one thing that gets us when we’re walking around the cities; we have no idea what most of the stuff means. The Gion district is home to many of Kyoto’s geishas. We learned that there are only around 300 geishas left in all of Japan. Being a geisha is very hard work, and that’s the reason for such a low count. I’m not going to go into more of geisha culture, but it’s interesting stuff if you want to learn more about it! Our tour ended at one of the shrines we visited the day before, but we actually learned some things about it this time around. The tour lasted a little over two hours. After it was over, we set out to find some lunch. We were walking around and couldn’t find anywhere that looked good to us. We happily saw another location of the steak place we ate on the first day in downtown Kyoto. I’m not sure if it’s just really popular in Kyoto or is a Japanese chain, but we decided to eat there again since it was so good the first time. I was debating on switching my order to the curry, but decided against it and ate the Kobe beef again. It was definitely as good the second time as it was the first. After a good meal we took the subway down to the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. It is very famous for having tons of mini shrines all next to each other on the hike up.

We got there at peak hours, around 2pm, and it was heavily packed with tourists. Most only go up the first part, so after that climb is done, it thins out a lot. It takes about 1.5 hours to hike all the way to the top, but we didn’t do that. We probably had 30-45 minutes left in our hike when we decided to stop. There was a rest area that served ice cream, so I had a cone while we sat down and caught our breath for a little. We had good views of the city from where we were. We walked down the rest of the way, and then took the subway back to our hostel. We got back to the hostel and had some down time before we went back out for dinner. We walked back to the downtown area for dinner, and stopped to eat in a random place for dinner. Couldn’t tell you the name, as most places don’t have English ones. I switched up my order this time and went with the yakisoba noodles. I enjoyed my meal a lot, except I wasn’t the biggest fan of the sauce. It was a little too dark for my taste. Nonetheless, I left happy and full. While looking on trip advisor a couple days before, I came across a bar where they let you shoot guns and I was intrigued. I later came to find out that it was only airsoft guns, but still a 12 year olds dream (or 21 in this case). We went this night and it was a lot of fun. I got to shoot a machine (airsoft) gun, something I’ve never done before. It was a good way to end our stay in Kyoto.

DAY 8: Hiroshima

Hiroshima has always been a place I wanted to go to. As a kid I loved history, especially during World War II. Since I knew we were coming to Japan, we included it in our trip. It was only a short ways away from Kyoto. We got in at 12:35pm, and walked to the hostel. We checked in, and then walked the mile to the A dome site. Hiroshima looks like any other city in the world. It is very modern, with above ground transportation. There are tall hotels and nice malls. Without prior knowledge, you would have no idea of the terrible horrors that the city went through all those years ago. The bomb dome is basically the center of the city. The site was really close to the hypocenter of the atomic bomb we dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. Most of the building is

gone, but there is still frame of the building and the dome on top. It is used as a reminder of what everything looked like after that summer day. We then made our way to the children’s memorial monument. It was definitely sad seeing the amount of children that died that day. 70,000 people died instantly when the bomb hit, all in a 2 km diameter. Many more died after from radiation related illnesses. It definitely one of the sadder places I’ve been to in my life. However, the city has really turned that area into a beautiful park and museum. We made our way to the museum from the children’s cenotaph along a long walkway. The walkway has a lit flame in the middle, to remind everyone never to forget the people that died. The main building of the museum was being renovated for a re-opening next year, so all the exhibits were in the side building. The exhibits on the second floor gave an overview on the development of the bomb, to the designation of Hiroshima as the target, to modern day testimonials of survivors. One of the reasons they are re-opening the museum is to create a new tone. Like most people from that era, there are decreasing amounts of people who lived during it each year. They want to make sure people remember even when all the living survivors are gone. It is very important to remember tragedy, or we are doomed to repeat it. The exhibit that hit me the most was stories from school children that didn’t die instantly, but were able to live a couple more hours. There storied were told first hand from their families who experienced. These kids made there way home, badly burned all over, to have one last moment with their families. It was definitely said to read about them. I forget which year it was, but they had origami ducks on display that were made by President Obama when he visited. That was very historic because he became the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima while still in office, only the second president to ever visit. Whether the bombing was ethical or not is a different question, but reality is that it happened. That is why the museum is very important. I strongly urge anyone who is visiting Japan to make time to see Hiroshima. Transitioning to a lighter note, I had an amazing mango gelato on the way home to cheer me up on the way home. There are ice cream stands all over Japan, so it was easy to come by. We walked back, trying to find a shot glass that said Hiroshima on it, but to no avail. We learned that the Hiroshima Carp baseball team had a game tonight, so we wanted to get tickets. Apparently they are very good, so we were not able to find tickets day off. It was very disappointing, and ticket scalping isn’t a thing here. The people are too nice to charge 5x face value for a ticket. We went back to the hostel and got ready for dinner. While researching Hiroshima, I came across that they were known for their okonomiyaki. We found a great restaurant that served it, and went there for dinner. We sat down and were surprised to see a little grill in the middle of our table. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to cook it or not. From looking at other tables, we learned that it was for keeping it hot while you ate. It is really hard to describe,

but it is basically a pancake bottom, filled with different meats, eggs, cheese, cabbage and udon noodles. Drizzled on top is okonomiyaki sauce, which tastes a lot like a tangy barbecue sauce. They put it on the grill in the middle of the table, and they give you a little spatula to take a little at a time. For how cheap it was, the portions were huge. None of us finished our whole meal because it was so big. The restaurant was very cool, it wasn’t that big at all but it was always crowded. All the walls are covered in sharpie, so we added our names to it. If you are ever in the neighborhood, try and find it! Our night ended after dinner was over, as we went back to prepare for the next day, our last in Japan L.

DAY 9: Trains, Planes and Automobiles

Today was our last day in Japan, which was very sad. 9 days is a long time, but not nearly enough to make a dent in the country. Unfortunately, it was raining when we woke up, and was supposed to rain all day. We still went through with our original plan of going to Miyajima Island. It took us about 40 minutes by subway to get there. The rain held off for most of the day so it wasn’t too bad to walk on the island. The main attraction of the island is the floating Itsukushima-Jinja Shrine.

Usually it is ‘floating’ in the water, but it was low tide when we went and people could go right up to it and take pictures. It is considered one of the top 3 scenic spots in Japan. One is Mt. Fuji and I can’t recall what the other one is. After getting off the ferry, we walked around the island for a little. There is a good hike to the top, but we didn’t do it because it was very wet and all the fog blocked the views anyway. We decided to go to the aquarium since it was a perfect rainy day activity. It wasn’t too big but they had a sea lion show that we got there in time for. I didn’t understand anything they were saying because it was all in Japanese, but it was still entertaining. We then watched archerfish shoot water at targets, which was pretty cool; I’ve never seen that before. We had one more meal, and choose to eat at Ichiran Ramen again. It was so good the first time that we needed a second taste. I made a real bad call and got a 4/10 on the spicy scale. It was way too much for me to handle, and I didn’t really enjoy it as much as the first. It was still amazing, but I had to focus more on how hot it was than the actual flavor. After we left, we made our way back to the hostel to charge up before our long journey ahead of us. Our flight to Beijing was at night, technically the next morning, at 2am. This meant we took the Shinkansen train back to Tokyo. It took about five hours total, with a transfer in Osaka. We got to the airport at 11pm, right on time to check into our flight. We had a couple of hours to kill at the airport before we boarded our flight to our second country, China.