Our first few days in Japan

Konichiwa from Japan.

We've been here in Japan for the past week and a half or so and have had a great time thus far. Here's a brief rundown of our experiences:

Landing in Osaka early in the morning and enduring another painfully long train ride to the city, we made it to our hotel only to find that our room was on the 5th floor with no elevator. So with the help of the reception clerk, we muscled our 3 suitcases, 2 camera bags, one backpack and one large purse up the stairs to our $80/night, 30sft, bunk bed room with a shared toilet. The shower was two floors down and shared amongst about 15 people. What a bargain! To its credit, the hotel was clean and the beds were far better than those in Korea so it wasn’t a total rip-off. The other guests were friendly and I made friends with some Scotch lads on vacation from Edinburgh. They were just finishing their 2 week tour of Japan and gave me some great tips for Tokyo.

The city of Osaka is known as the working heart of the Kansai region of Japan. That’s a nice way of saying “industrial.” There were a few highlights though. We rode the world’s largest Ferris Wheel (112m high) and saw the world’s largest aquarium tank that houses, amongst other things, two whale sharks and one manta-ray. Alexa had read about the whale sharks and was excited to see them even before we got to Japan. She may look all grown up, but she's still a little kid inside.

LINK TO OSAKA PHOTOS


From Osaka, we took a 15 minute bullet train ride to Kyoto, the cultural capital of Japan. We dragged our bags 10 or so blocks to our next home - "Kyoto's Cheapest Inn." No kidding. That's the name of the place and it's a pretty good description as well. We had a private room with an ensuite bath (ooohh la la!) but it was pretty basic. We spent that afternoon at the Golden Pavilion - literally a building covered in gold - and some other smaller temples. We turned in early that night as Alexa was feeling a bit under the weather. The next day, we checked out the main sight seeing district of Kyoto, home to most of the famous temples and shrines. We spent the afternoon meandering through ancient neighborhoods and Zen gardens soaking in the Japanese atmosphere. The fall colors were just beginning to show and we got some great pictures. We even ran into some Geisha in the backstreets. Such a quintessential "only in Japan" moment.

After we walked the equivalent of about 7 miles, we were feeling pretty beat and headed back to the hostel. Alexa was feeling pretty sick at this point and called it quits early. I stayed up and made friends with a British couple who was taking 2 years to travel the world. They were taking a break from a 6 month tour of Australia and had come to Japan for a while for something different. Alexa and I are planning on seeing Aus sometime soon, so I picked their brains for a while to get some good ideas.

Alexa woke up the next morning feeling terrible and decided that it was best for her to stay in that day. I ran some errands and did some light sight seeing but not much worth mentioning. We met with the Brit couple that night for more Aus talk though.

The final day in Kyoto was a quick blitz down to a famous shrine seen in the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha." At this particular shrine called Fushimi-Inari, there are thousands of orange colored toriis (Japanese style archways) lined up one after another. They create tunnels through the woods and make for some really cool pictures.

After the shrine, we made our way to the train station and had a great meal overlooking the city before we left for Tokyo.


LINK TO KYOTO PHOTOS

LINK TO FUSHIMI-INARI PHOTOS

I'll pick up where I left off soon. As you can tell, we've been pretty busy as of late. We're having a blast though and wouldn't want it any other way.