On to China

On Friday we did not do much except hang around the hotel area.  We packed for our trip to China, we packed for Okinawa where we are going the day after China, we hung around and we packed the rest of our stuff because once again, we were checking out of the hotel.  Already we have accumulated stuff so we had to buy a couple of boxes from the concierge and pack them as well.  We have not yet decided if we will mail them back to ourselves or if we will take them as additional carry-ons.  We will have to see how much we can fit in our luggage when we are ready to pack for good in another couple of weeks.

On Saturday we slept in a little bit before heading up for breakfast.  After breakfast we ran a couple of errands including hitting up the ATM one last time and buying our train tickets.  We called the concierge about a half hour before checking out asking them to send someone to our room to pick up our luggage for storage over the next week and once again they sent a tiny little woman.  We checked out of the hotel at 11 giving us more than enough time to make the 3 minute walk to the train station.  The train to the airport is actually not in the main train station where we have been taking all of our trains from since we have been in Nagoya.  Those trains are close enough but the airport train runs on a private line which has a station next to, but a little closer to the hotel.  We got to the platform at about 11:05 and waited exactly 15 minutes for our 11:20 train.  The train to the airport is very convenient.  When we were last here we took a cab to the airport.  It was about $100 and took over an hour to get there.  We knew the price at the time but we took the cab anyway because Chris thought at the time that work was paying for the cab ride (this is another story altogether).  The train, however, costs about $14 per person and gets you there in 24-34 minutes, depending on the train.  It also drops you off right in the terminal about a 2 minute walk from the check-in counter. 

We arrived at the airport at 11:48 and by 11:50 we were standing in line to check in.  The previous night we had asked another of Chris’s co-workers who travels to Japan several times per year how much time to give ourselves prior to check-in.  He told us that the airport is probably only 30% utilized and it is rarely busy.  Even though our flight was an international flight we allowed ourselves just about 2 hours.  We figured this would be plenty of time.  Every airline had no line at their check-in counters, except Korean Air, which we would be flying.  The line was HUGE.  There were self-service kiosks available but they seemed to be broken.  We did not check in online because there appeared to be some glitch in their on-line software which only allowed their frequent flyers to check in online.  We signed up for their frequent flyer program but not until after we bought our tickets and another on-line glitch seemed to not allow you to marry up your previously bought ticket with a frequent flyer number.  Chris never got around to calling the airline to match up our flyer number with the ticket number so we were unable to check in online.  It seemed from the line that no one else was able to check in online either because we waited in line just about 1 hour to get to the check-in counter.  Along the way there was a sign warning us that due to high winds our flight may be delayed or cancelled so we should stay outside of the secure area until they called us.  We decided that if no one said anything to us we would enter the secure area because based on how long we waited in line for checking in, we would likely miss our flight because we still had to clear both customs and security.  We got our boarding passes and were happy to see that security and customs only took us another 10 minutes.  We got to our gate to find only about a dozen others already waiting and by now the flight was scheduled to start boarding in less than 20 minutes.  All signs in the airport indicated that the flight would not be delayed but based on the amount of people waiting we did not believe it.  Finally, about 10 minutes later, everyone started showing up. 

Empty airport

our plane.  boarding and de-planing from two doors made things smooth

If it was not for the long line to check in, Korean Airlines would be our absolute favorite airline of all time.  The series of events that happened between the time they started boarding and when we got to China is what we feel makes them so good.  Honestly we aren’t sure if it was the airline that was so good or the fact that we were in a country where people actually follow rules and are more polite and orderly that did it for us.  They started the boarding process in three different languages, Japanese, Korean, and English.  This was good because we didn’t speak enough Japanese to know when it was our turn to board and we speak no Korean.  As they called the rows everyone lined up in two single file lines, one for each person taking tickets.  There was no cutting, no pushing, no one trying to sneak in to board when they weren’t supposed to.  It was very nice.  When we got on the plane the flight attendants told us which aisle to go down.  As we walked down the aisle they asked people who were standing in the aisles to please move out of the way so that people (like us) who were behind them could pass.  And the people moved.  We loaded our small carry-on suitcase into the overhead with the intention of putting our backpack between our feet.  We did not want to be greedy with the overhead space but the flight attendant came by and took the bag and put it in the overhead.  The flight attendants were not rude, they smiled, and they were generally pleasant.  The plane left the gate exactly on time.  It was like we were living in some kind of fantasy world but then it got better.  They served a meal even though we were in coach.  They served us juice and they asked us if we wanted seconds.  Every seat had a personal television loaded with TV shows, music and movies, even though it was just a 2 hour flight.  When the plane landed everyone got up just like they do back home but again it was pretty orderly.  The people from rows behind us did not pretend they didn’t know we were trying to get out.  From the time the plane arrived at the gate and everyone stood up, we were off the plane in under 5 minutes and we were sitting in row 52!  On the way out the flight attendants all lined up and thanked us and wished us a good day.

We were now in Seoul, South Korea where we had a 3 hour layover.  Since we were only transferring to another plane we did not have to go through customs but we did have to go through security again.  This process took about 15 minutes.  On our way to the next gate we saw an interesting little ceremony taking place right there in the concourse.  According to the sign it was a “Reenactment of the Lives of Joseon Royal Court, Walk of the Royal Family”.  The participants were dressed in what we could only guess were traditional clothing.  We stopped and watched for a few minutes and took some pictures.

 

After watching this reenactment we were hungry.  We found the food court in the airport and had some Korean barbeque, which was much spicier than anything we’ve had at home.  Even the salad had spices on it.  We each ordered a different disk and a beer and took our time eating before heading for our gate.  The next flight was pretty much just as nice as the first except it was an hour and 50 minutes instead of 2 hours.  We finished watching the movie that we had started on the first flight and we had another small meal.  The flight was pretty empty and we had three seats for the two of us.  We arrived in Beijing Airport on time at 8 PM.  We cleared customs, immigration, grabbed our bag from the baggage carousel and exchanged money all in about 20 minutes. When we walked out into the concourse the driver which we had hired to take us to the hotel from the airport was waiting for us holding a sign with our names.  He drove us to the hotel where we arrived a little over a half hour later.

Lunch in Korea

Even though it was dark out our first impression of Beijing was that of a dirty city. There was smog everywhere and you really couldn’t see more than about a half mile in front of you. It seemed like fog but it smelled like burning coal. Everything was covered in grime. The drivers were chaotic. Using a turn signal was rare and it seemed that the only rules of the road were that if you had the bigger vehicle then you had the right away. The odd thing was that they pretty much drove speed limit though. When we got off of the expressway we learned that pedestrians are given zero respect. The next day we would learn this firsthand. If you are trying to cross a street you better watch out for the cars, trucks, bikes, motorcycles, busses and anything else that moves because it seems they are out to get you. Crosswalks are nothing but a waste of paint. If you are driving (foreigners are not allowed to drive in China we learned) and you want to get to the front of a line at a red light all you have to do is drive on the shoulder to the front of the line and cut the first car off. Then when the light turns green you’re first! If you want to be in the lane next to you and there is already a car there all you have to do is start drifting and they’ll move. Sometimes they beep but as long as you are bigger they move.

We got to our hotel and checked in. We were upgraded to a nicer room or so we were told. When we got to our room we found we had indeed been upgraded. We seem to have a suite with a bedroom, living room and 1 ½ baths. The view is nothing special, just an office building next to us but we do have lounge access which includes happy hour from 5:30 to 7:30 which includes free drinks, appetizers and desserts. We also have a free breakfast that is included. We hit the bed within an hour of arriving at the hotel since we had been travelling much of the day.



Our nice big room

Chinese money.  They sure love Mao.

Kyoto Day 2

On Thursday we headed back to Kyoto.  We left Nagoya on the same train as the day before, 9:10 AM.  This time, however, we were ready.  We woke up on time, we had breakfast, and we headed down to the station with plenty of time to spare.  In fact we were probably there early because we had to wait about 15 minutes until our train arrived.  We got to Kyoto station 34 minutes later and found our way to the local train that would take us to our first destination of the day. 

Chris had come to Japan without Jackie in the summer of 2007 for what was supposed to be a 5 day trip but ended up being extended to nearly two weeks.  As a result he had a chance to do some exploring.  Since we had just spent 3 months in Japan earlier in the year and we had seen the major sights, he had the opportunity to explore some off the beaten path places.  One of the places he stumbled upon was Fushimi-Inari Shrine, just outside of Kyoto, Japan.  What brought Chris to this shrine was a geocache, but what brought us back was the amazingness (is that a word?) of this place.  The shrine is at the bottom of a mountain and there is a trail up the mountain to many smaller shrines.  What really makes this place stand out though, is the thousands of Torii gates lining the path up the mountain.  According to Wikipedia, Inari is seen as the patron of business.  Each of the Torii is donated by a Japanese business.  Merchants and manufacturers worship Inari for wealth. Donated torii lining footpaths are part of what makes this place so interesting and different.  We got off the train and immediately saw a giant Torii gate with a couple of foxes on either side of the gates.  We were not able to understand the importance of the foxes but throughout the walk up the mountain, at each of the smaller shrines, we saw tons of fox statues.  We later found out that the main shrine, on the bottom of the mountain, was founded in the year 794.

We started walking up the mountain along with thousands (or so it seemed) of other people.  Lining the path almost completely up the mountain, for probably close to 2 miles, were thousands of Torii gates.  This was probably the most impressive place we have been to in Japan so far.  The people seemed to thin out the higher we got on the mountain but the scenery got even better.  If we said that the walk was easy, we would be lying.  Much of the walk was climbing stairs.  Stairs are not hard but when you are climbing stairs for a mile at a time it gets old (and difficult) fast.

 

Near the top of the mountain we took a break and had a drink at one of the many little shops that were set up every 10 minutes or so.  We had two drinks: Amazake, which is some kind of rice drink with ginger; and Ameyu, which is some kind of sugar drink, also with ginger.  Both were hot and actually quite good.  We enjoyed these while sitting at a table enjoying the viewpoint near the top of the mountain.  After our drinks we headed back down the mountain towards the train station.  We waited about 15 minutes for our train, which took us back to Kyoto.  

From Kyoto we headed for Osaka, which is one of the major cities in Japan.  We had been to Osaka before; we saw a Sumo wrestling match there with Jackie’s brother when we last visited Japan.  This time we were here for the Hard Rock Café in the city.  We are collecting Hard Rock Café magnets and we hadn’t been to the two in Osaka before.  The Shinkansen station in Osaka was only a 15 minute ride from Kyoto.  From there we boarded a subway for a 12 minute ride to the Hard Rock.  What we were looking forward to more than the magnet was a hamburger.  We hadn’t had a really good burger since we had been home and we were really craving a burger with fries.  We sat down, placed our order and eagerly anticipated our meal.  When it arrived it was absolutely delicious.  We drank a couple of beers with our burger before heading to Osaka Castle.

Osaka castle was only about 5 minutes away by subway.  From the subway stop though, the castle seemed so close but it probably took us 20 minutes to walk to the actual castle.  The castle was quite impressive, probably the nicest we have seen in Japan so far.  While the castle is a replica of the original, it is still impressive.  The castle and the area surrounding the castle sit on about 15 acres in the middle of a major city in Japan, which make the views kind of impressive.  We paid the couple of hundred yen to a vending machine in order to get in and climbed to the top where we were treated to some impressive views of the surrounding city.  Within the castle is a museum and we walked around learning the history of the castle and its surroundings.  Since the castle was getting ready to close at 5, we started heading out.  We made our way back to the nearest train station where we boarded a local train towards the Shinkansen.  We bought tickets for the 6 PM bullet train back to Nagoya, where we arrived just before 7.

Vending machine where we got our tickets

Life sized replicas of the animals on the roof of the castle

 

Once we got back to Nagoya we called Chris’s co-workers to confirm that we were still on for the night: we had plans to see the Beatles perform at a local bar.  Well, not exactly.  The Beatles were actually a Japanese cover band covering the Beatles. They play every 3^rd or 4^th Thursday of the month at a small bar in Nagoya called Armadillos.  We were lucky enough to be there when they played this month.  We met Chris’s two co-workers plus one of the girls from the office. The bar was about a 25 minute subway ride from the hotel and we were meeting at 8:15.  We arrived about 5 minutes before the others; we grabbed a table, and ordered some beers.  Since everyone else had eaten already we only ordered appetizers.  We got some popcorn and some nachos.  The popcorn was normal popcorn. The nachos were by no means normal.  They actually gave us Doritos with melted cheese and salsa.  At first we knew they tasted familiar and it was not until the way out when we saw several bags of Doritos that we knew what we had eaten.  The Japanese band was actually pretty good.  If you closed your eyes you would have thought that the Beatles were actually playing.  The interesting thing about these guys was that when they were finished playing they let members of the audience come up on stage and play or sing with them.  We were not bold, or drunk enough to come on stage with them  and sing or play Beatles songs, but we enjoyed watching everyone else play and sing.  We left the bar a little after 11 and headed back for the hotel.  For the first time since being in Japan we were fortunate enough to have a subway that was not too crowded, which we welcomed.

Not a member of the band, just a dedicated fan

Kyoto Day 1

We had plans on Tuesday to take advantage of our rail pass and do something somewhere but it was raining, the forecast was for more rain, and all of the things we wanted to do were outside activities.  Instead we did some laundry and hung around Nagoya all day.  We ended up going to a Brazilian restaurant for dinner with Chris’s co-workers (there are now 2) and one of the girls from Chris’s office in Japan.  We had gone there a few times when we were in Japan six years ago and we were glad to see that the place was still there.  Like every other restaurant we have been to the place was tiny inside.  We enjoyed this for several reasons: for a set price they had unlimited food for two hours which included a buffet and a guy coming around with food that he carved off onto your plate; they had unlimited drinks (the adult kind) for 90 minutes; they spoke Portuguese which is close enough to Spanish that we were able to communicate better than any place we had been to so far in Japan; and they had good music in the form of a DJ playing Brazilian music.  The highlight for Chris was when they brought out pork shoulder.  Chris told the waiter that he loves the skin and the waiter returned a few minutes later with a bowl of chicharrones that he had made just for us.  After dinner we went for Karaoke again.  Of course we got a private room and we stayed for a few hours.

Yum!

Inside the karaoke rooms.  This is a small room, probably for 3-4 people

Big Echo seems to be a chain of karaoke bars

On Wednesday we went to Kyoto, a city that we had been to several times before.  Kyoto is classic Japan.  There are over 2000 temples and shrines in the city as well as well-preserved architecture and lots of history.  The city was mostly spared during World War II resulting in it having lots of pre-war buildings.  There is so much to do in Kyoto, you could probably spend a month there and still have a list of things to see or do.  Our plan for Wednesday was pretty specific; we wanted to go to the Golden Pavilion, a bamboo forest, and possibly another shrine famous for its thousands of Tori gates just south of the city.  On previous trips we had seen many of the other larger shrines and temples so this time we would see other parts of the city which we had not seen before.

We bought tickets for the train the night before.  We would be taking the 9:10AM bullet train to Kyoto, a trip that only took 34 minutes for the 145 KM trip (88 miles).  We woke up with more than enough time to shower, get dressed and eat but we ended up dilly-dallying again.  By the time we left the lounge where we had eaten breakfast it was 8:55 and we still needed to go to our room before heading to the train.  Of course the elevators that normally take seconds to arrive took up to a minute.  When we changed elevators on the 15^th floor it took almost another minute, or so it seemed, for the elevator to arrive.  We got into the station area and hurried across to the bullet train tracks.  We arrived trackside with about 3 minutes to spare, which is plenty of time.  We boarded and were in Kyoto before we knew it.

Our train pulling in

When we arrived we went immediately to the information center and bought a combined bus and subway day pass for 1200 yen each.  We also got a bus map and a city map before getting on another train for a 10 minute ride to where we would get off for the bamboo forest.  The forest was about a 15 minute walk from the train station down narrow residential streets.  The forest itself took about 15 minutes to walk through in each direction and was really kind of cool.  There was a narrow, paved road cutting through the forest and we were startled to see cars and small trucks driving down it.  It didn’t seem to go anywhere and it was so narrow we thought it was just a pedestrian path through the forest.  While in the forest we also saw some workers cutting down some of the bamboo trees and replacing the fence that runs alongside the road with some of the newly cut branches.  We do not know exactly what they said while we were taking their picture but we know they were talking about us (we have picked up some words here and there) and they were laughing at us.  We think they found it comical that we were taking pictures of them doing a seemingly normal task.

Harvesting the bamboo

The fence that is being replaced

These are the guys who laughed at us.  Also in this shot you can see the finished product.

This is what the fence looks like before they replace it.

After the bamboo forest we got back on the train for a short 5 minute ride to the bus stop where we boarded a bus for the Golden Pavilion, or Kinkaku as it is known in Japanese.  The pavilion is actually a Buddhist hall containing relics of Buddha.  The pavilion is part of a temple which contains gardens and other buildings besides the golden pavilion.  The temple dates to the year 1397 but the Golden Pavilion is a replica which replaced the original that was burned down in 1950.  The building is covered in a gold leaf coating, thus the name Golden Pavilion.  We thought this was one of the more impressive places we have seen on our trip, it was absolutely beautiful.  We decided that if we ever return to Japan in any other season or on a clearer day we would definitely return there.   The place was also pretty crowded.  Guidebooks warned us that no matter what day of the week or time of the year you visited, there would likely always be people there.  They were right.  There seemed to be more school children than anything else but this made sense since it was the middle of the week.  One such group of kids approached us with a camera and asked for a picture.  We thought they wanted us to take their picture but they wanted someone else to take a picture of their group with us in it!  We could only assume they had been given an assignment to speak English with tourists and this would be their proof that they completed their assignment.  We spent some time strolling around the grounds a little bit, walking through the garden and seeing several different views of the pavilion.  We also paid a machine 100 yen to receive our fortune.  The machine said that if your fortune was negative then you had to tie it to the appropriate place to get rid of the bad luck.  This seems to be popular at almost every shrine we have been to in Japan; there are usually places set aside with pieces of paper tied to them, apparently they are people’s wishes or bad fortunes or something.  Lucky for us our fortune said “excellent” which is always a good thing.  According to our fortune, “our wish may seem hard to be realized, but soon it will be realized with ease.  An expected visitor who we have not heard from in a long time will come soon.  And that missing thing?  It can’t be found.  It is too late”. 

This guy sits on top of the pavilion

Fortune tellers

Bad fortunes tied to a bush

After not tying our fortune to the fortune tying place for all to see, we headed back to the bus stop where we got on a bus bound for another shrine.  When we got off the bus we got sidetracked by a Mexican restaurant which is quite unusual.  The margaritas were calling our names so we went in.  They were still serving lunch and there were only a few other diners there at about 2:30 when we arrived.  We ordered some traditional Mexican fare served by none other than Japanese people (we thought there might be Mexicans there) and the food was actually very good.  The biggest differences between this place and back home are first the margaritas are a fraction of the size for the same price.  As a result we only ordered one each.  Second, there are no chips and salsa brought out.  There was a chip (yes, one chip) and guacamole served with our lunch.  We wondered how the chips don’t go stale serving them at that slow rate.  Lastly we had tea with our meal.

Margarita.  Notice the lemon inside..that is a normal sized lemon so you can see how small this drink was

See the chip with guacamole?

 

After a very satisfying lunch we became sidetracked and headed for the Kyoto Handicraft Center which sells Japanese made crafts and goods from different parts of the country.  We had been here before and found it to be a good place to buy nice authentic Japanese souvenirs.  When we finally left the Handicraft Center it was getting later.  We then headed to another shrine, Heian Jingu Shrine, which was only a few blocks away.  We arrived there a little before they were closing for the day but what we were able to see was quite impressive.  The shrine is very large.  The grounds take up about a city block with a good portion of it being a large, open, gravel covered area.  We were surprised to see a little old man raking the gravel in the corner and we wondered if he would be raking the entire grounds with this small rake.  He soon stopped to close the gates to the temple so we would not know if he was going to rake the whole place or not.

Entrance to the shrine

Cool Tori gate across the street outside of the shrine

Raking the gravel

After the Shrine we wanted to make one more stop.  We got on a subway for a short ride to the Kyoto Castle, which we knew would be close since it was now after 5.  We were right, it was closed but we wanted to check it out from the outside.  Since it was now quickly getting dark we were only able to get a few pictures from the outside.  This will give us another reason to return one day.

This not the actual castle but part of the wall surounding the castle..we could not get inside to see hte castle

We then started making our way back to the train station to buy our tickets for the return trip to Nagoya.  We arrived back at our hotel room a little after 7.