Torii Gates

 Since Diem and Binh will be a few hours behind us, we looked at a map to see where we could go hang out. Some place nice and fun, but not too nice and fun because we’d want Binh and Diem to enjoy that with us. We picked The Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, a Fox shrine, at the south east end of Kyoto, a bit more out of the way from the rest of the tourist spots.

When we arrived by train at around 4, most of the shops were winding down for the day. We thought we’d take a quick look around and then stop to shop afterwards. The shrine ground is quite vast. After a few initial shrine buildings we soon came upon a trail graced by big orange torii gates, there must be hundreds, or maybe even thousands, each sitting behind each other. The rows of torii gates seemed to go on and on. Click to continue »

Got up bright and early for the bullet train trip to Kyoto this morning. Since Diem and Binh were on their own today, they opted to stay longer in Tokyo to take in Asakusa. It’s really too bad we couldn’t stay because Asakusa looked like it would be a lot of fun once all the shops opened.

The rest of us went back to our old hotel where a tour guide packed us into a coach to take us to the Tokyo train station. Touring by coach is quite different from exploring on your own. You’re less likely to know where you are, what the streets are called, why you’re going somewhere, where you’re going or how you’re going to get back. Instead, you sit back, relax and wait for the driver to take you to the next destination. Definitely not my travel style right now. Click to continue »

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Originally uploaded by silverlantern

The plan was for Diem and Binh to leave us for Mt Fuji early that morning and meet us in Kyoto the next day while Jae, Jason, Di, and I returned to Tokyo. They did not book the hotel/transportation package with us and were not required to go back to Tokyo to take the bullet train to Kyoto tomorrow.

Unfortunately, by the time we made it back to pick up our stuff, we found out that it takes 5 hours on a bus to the Fuji area! (didn’t look that far on the map…that was not drawn to scale…) So, they would essentially arrive at midnight where the hostel they booked may be closed. So instead of going to Fuji, Diem and Binh came with the rest of us back on the Romance Train to Tokyo. Doesn’t that sound cool? “Taking the Romance Train to Tokyo.” Click to continue »

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Originally uploaded by silverlantern

Back at the ryokan we checked out our rooms. We shared a room with Diem and Binh while Jason and Di had their own room. Our rooms were one of the best ones they offer at the ryokan, they each came with their own outdoor private baths! Bathing is quite popular in Japan, especially in Hakone where all the ryokan boast about the number of baths their facilities have. Our room was pretty big, it had a living/sleeping tatami covered space, a separate living room space, bathroom and a bath in the balcony. The living/sleeping space was set up with a low table and 4 chairs. The other room was a little bit smaller but had similar amenities. 

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Originally uploaded by silverlantern

Unbeknownst to us at the time, everything in Hakone pretty much shuts down around 5pm. Well… to be fair, it was probably in the guide books but who really pays attention to all that detail. Anyhow, the cool thing about Hakone was the different modes of transportation one takes to circle the region. From the train to a cable car to a ropeway, to a boat then finally by bus back to the ryokan.

After the Yunessun we hopped back on the train to get to the cable car. The cable car took us on a slow but short ride up the mountain. Then from the cable car we hopped on a gondola that took us across to another mountain via rope (cable). It was getting late and the valley was filled with fog. It felt kind of surreal as we glided along the cable through the thick mist, not able to see anything around us. That was too bad because on a clear day, one could see Mt Fuji. Today, we can barely see the cable our gondola sits on. Click to continue »

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Originally uploaded by silverlantern

The most interesting ‘bath’ at the Yunessun by far was the fish spa. We almost passed this one because there was a line when we first passed it. The line was much shorter when we passed by it a second time so we went in. From the picture it seems like you get to put your feet in with some fishes… ok… interesting… I guess it’s supposed to make you feel like you’re in the ocean?

First we were given some instructions. It was totally in Japanese so we just stood there. Pretty sure they talked about no eating, drinking, splashing, or squishing the fish. Then we were lead to a foot bath. Understandable, gotta clean your feet before putting it into the fish habitat. Then we were given a towl and lead to the pool. The pool was about 2 feet deep with hundreds of little grey fishes. Following the Japanese girls in our group we laid the towel down, then sat on it and put our feet in.

!

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Originally uploaded by silverlantern

The trip to Hakone was scenic, but I don’t care much for scenery so busied myself with a pretty bento box I bought onboard while Jae had a katsu sandwich. At this point, we don’t really eat meals at meal times, we eat whenever we’re hungry or whenever we see food that looked good. The bento box came all wrapped up in a pretty patterned napkin. Inside were all sorts of food, many I’ve never seen before. Everything was placed precisely, almost too pretty to eat. Interesting items included sweet fried eggs, and salty pickled flowers.

Back in the station we couldn’t find any other roads. I suppose the guy we asked thought we wanted to go to the station which is of the same name as the street we wanted to find.

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Originally uploaded by silverlantern

The past three days have been exhausting. Lots of walking, very little sleep. This past night was no different. After we got back we packed our bags and called Ed to coordinate the next few days. They were going to head down to Kyoto before us so we needed to decide how and when we would meet up next. We finally decided that they would meet us in Hakone for the day before going further south to Osaka for the night. We would then meet up again in 2 days in Kyoto.

As we went down the stairs to our train we heard the bell notifying everyone that the train was leaving. Ack! Since this was for a longer haul we didn’t know when the next train would arrive, for sure it would be at least another 30 minutes. Panicking, we made a run for it, entering the train right before the door closed and almost losing Di and Jason who got caught up in the crowd leaving and exiting from other trains in the process. 

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Originally uploaded by silverlantern

So what next? Well, with a few hours until the next time we eat, we thought maybe we should see more of Tokyo. In Shinjuku we walked around trying to find some kind of government building to go up on the observatory. For a while we couldn’t see it, there were so many tall buildings in Shinjuku! While we wondered the streets I saw a most interesting traffic light …um.. fixture… All the lights are fixed in a circle on top of the intersection. Very cool indeed.

Next stop, Shinagawa station to meet up with Ed and Claudia. Claudia heard about this great sushi on a belt place that had very reasonable prices.

I have seen sushi on a belt, never really tried it, but this one takes the cake. On top of having the usual running belt with plates of food, they had beer in buckets and ice cream in coolers. Even cooler is the ordering system.

Each table has a touch screen to order specific types of sushi. Your order then comes on the belt in a red colored container. How do you know it’s your order? First it flashes on the screen and second, it starts to beep the moment it comes within grabbing distance. Very cool.

The method of getting tea is also very interesting. Do it yourself. You scoop a few spoonfuls of the macha powder into your cup and then fill it with hot water from a spigot installed right into the table. Isn’t it great, not having to wait or bother the waitress for hot tea! Ingenious!

When we were done we had collected a huge pile of plates. You then send the plates down a little chute on your table. As you send it down, the monitor counts, and every 10 plates would activate the slot machine. If you win, then a toy from a nearby gasha pon come rolling down. We won once out of our almost 40 plates.

Sidebar: The rating game
While waiting for Ed and Claudia at the train station, Jae came up with a game to play with Diem and I. The first person to see someone wearing a certain color gets to punch the person next to us. The colors were determined by going down the rainbow spectrum. You think colors like purple, orange and yellow would be hard, but the people of Tokyo are fashonable and the game went rather fast, we made it through a few rounds before Ed and Claudia showed up.

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Originally uploaded by silverlantern

After our adventure, we went to a legendary ramen place that was reputed by the internet to have the best ramen in the world, Taishoken on Higashi Ikebukuro in Asakusa. There is a rather interesting history regarding the store too if you care to google it.

The store was packed, should we go in, or wait for someone to call us? I peeked in and the cook waved us in. We waited quietly lined up along the wall watching the eaters slurping their noodle away. Looks and smells so good. Turnover was exceptionally fast. Soon some tables cleared and we gave the cooks our ticket. We paired up and sat separately from the group, no matter, we were there to slurp and go. Within minutes, each of us had a huge piping hot bowl of awesome ramen. The noodle was fresh, the broth, outstanding. For days afterward, Jae and Di the ramen lovers still dreamt of it.

Sidebar: Knowing a few key phrases
I’ve often read that it’s good to know a few key phrases when traveling to a foreign country. That is true, but I find that knowing polite phrases like thank you and excuse me and important words like bathroom is much more useful than knowing ones like Where is x? or How to get there? Because, knowing how to ask doesn’t mean you will understand the answer.