1 Tokyo, Japan (Part Ni)

We had decided to spend a last full day in Kyoto before taking the night bus back to Tokyo (which is less than half as many yen as the Shinkansen bullet train and would also save us on a hotel for the evening), but unfortunately moody Mother Nature got in the way. Typhoon Melor was about to make landfall in Kyoto, and our first taste was a gross, rainy day on which we quickly ran out of indoor activities. We cut the sightseeing short and went to the central station to buy our bus tickets and hunker down until the 10pm departure. This gave us seven hours to invent a scavenger hunt game in which we made a list of items--such as kimono, blue sneakers, a landmark from our trip so far--and each had an hour and a half with the camera to find as many as possible in the station. Surprises were that Louis Vuitton luggage was a cinch to find, and mittens were near impossible. The mittens plus a last minute Santa Claus shot secured Patrick the victory. This time.

In any case the time flew by and before we knew it, it was time to board the bus. We ventured outside to the terminal and found no bus, zero people waiting to board, and a lone bus official making Japanese announcements into a megaphone. We handed him our tickets and he politely informed us that this bus was canceled and we could get a refund at the station. Darn that Typhoon Melor. Rather pissed that we had waited all day only to be forced to shell out for a train after all, we cashed in our useless tickets and made a dash to the Shinkansen sales desk. But the last train left at 9:30, and our next option was a 6am bullet train the next morning. We were not keen on the idea of adding a hotel to our unexpected costs of the day (or returning to Uno House), and figuring what's another eight hours of waiting, we settled in to camp out at the station over night.

But unfortunately for us, the Kyoto Station turns into a pumpkin at midnight. They kicked us out, locking the doors behind us, and we literally spent the night on the street. The rain got pretty bad at 4am on our walk back to the opening station, not to mention the howling winds which destroyed our umbrellas and hurled a branch right off a tree at Patrick's noggin. Now reading the news reports, turns out this was just about the time Melor made landfall in Kyoto.

We were very, very happy when we finally sunk into our warm, dry seats on the 6am Shinkansen. But the typhoon wasn't done with us yet; the ride that took us two and a half hours the first time lasted more than four, as we tiptoed down the tracks towards Tokyo to subdue the effects of Melor's wrath.
Thankfully, we were in no rush as we used the time to catch some shuteye, but the businesspeople with whom we shared our ride were less than pleased. When we finally got to Tokyo we jumped in line behind them at the "Fare Adjustment" booth, not knowing what to expect. In exchange for showing the woman our tickets we got handed a big wad of yen, amounting to about half the fare. Score!

Despite public transportation being in disarray--and by disarray, we mean resembling the daily delays of the Boston T--Melor had left us with a beautiful day in Tokyo. We'd been eager to see Sunshine City, a 60-story skyscraper in Ikebukuro, mainly because of Namjatown. Occupying two floors it's something of a mini Disney World, but with anime characters, and most importantly for us, food "amusement parks". There is a dumpling hall with each booth offering dozens of varieties of the bite size snack, and taking up half the upper floor is Ice Cream City. We were awed by the freezer cases displaying hundreds of flavors, from plain old vanilla to delicacies like viper and caviar. We opted to sample a few that intrigued us: red pepper was delightfully zesty, black sesame super delicious (attention Haagen Dazs!), garlic left a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste, and charcoal was pleasantly smoky with a faint grit.

Across the street from Sunshine City is the Toyota Amulux showroom, a massive adult playground with not only the latest cars on display but "safety demonstrations" that basically amount to video games. There is also a theater that is supposed to be some sort of fun multi-sensory experience, but unfortunately they only have shows on weekends and holidays.

By this point we'd pretty much had all the action we could take on two hours of sleep so we made our way to Ueno to check back in to the Oak Hotel. Oh how we'd missed it. After a week at Uno House we appreciated even more the bed, bathroom, and robes we'd been so fond of the first time. That night we ate up a last satisfying meal of sushi before hitting the pillows for a good, long-awaited, deep sleep.

View more pictures from Tokyo Part Ni at the end of our Tokyo album.

4 Kyoto, Japan

Temples, shrines, and more temples. Kyoto, with the reputation of being Japan's cultural center, is absolutely brimming with them. We stayed a whole six nights in the same city--a record for us on this trip--to take in as much as possible.

Our first taste was a walking tour of Eastern Kyoto beginning with Chion-in. You know how they say everything is bigger in Texas? Well Chion-in is the Texas of the neighborhood, with both the largest temple gate and bell in Japan. We were lucky enough to come when a prayer service was taking place, so we removed our shoes (thank goodness there was lots of incense to mask the odor) and found a seat on the tatami mats of the temple to watch and listen to the chanting chorus of some fifty Buddhist monks. From there we continued on to colorful Yasaka-jinja shrine and the lovely grounds of Kodai-ji, which is also home to two much celebrated tea houses. Nearby in the district of Gion we were thrilled to spot a few geisha scurry by on their way to appointments! The neighborhood quickly turns ultra-touristy on the walk to Kiyomizu-dera temple, though, and the streets become wall-to-wall souvenir shops. On the plus side, many are handing out free samples of Japanese sweets, which made a great mid-afternoon snack! Honestly, many of the temples start running together after a while. Luckily Sanjusangen-do is a nice change of pace; the main hall is lined with 1,001 statues that represent incarnations of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. Neatly and somewhat eerily organized in 20 rows of 50 across, the statues surround a huge statue of Kannon herself with 1,000 arms holding different tools to aid her earthy followers' quests for enlightment. Everything there has been made from wood and it's amazing that it is so well preserved for being some 700 years old.

In Northwestern Kyoto we visited the Zen complex of Daitoku-ji with its many historically important subtemples and beautiful dry gardens. And when we say dry we don't mean you can't drink alcohol in the garden, we mean lots of rocks, like the little, neatly raked zen gardens on people's desks. On second thought, the adjective dry probably could apply to alcohol as well; we didn't see too many monks tossing back Sapporos on the grounds. About a kilometer up the road is Kinkaku-ji, also known as the "Golden Temple", where we took in the mesmerizing sight of the three story gold-leafed temple, with its quivering reflection in the pond below, surrounded by an audience of trees tinged with a hint of autumn.

Believe it or not, we actually found some non-temple or shrine sites in Kyoto. We loved walking down the historic halls of Nijo-jo palace and were excited to find out that it's possible to tour the Kyoto Imperial Palace that was home to Japanese Emporers for a thousand years. We filled out applications, showed our passports, and were expecting quite an exclusive show but were instead led around on a cattle run with one hundred other tourists only seeing sites of note at a distance that can be best described as far. For a more exhaustive regal exploration we took a day trip to Himeji to visit the best-preserved of all Japanese castles. Here we got to go in, around, up, and down six floors of the towering, fort-like structure. There were gun racks, stone throwing holes, and hidden rooms. It was pretty awesome. On our way home we stopped in Kobe for what else--beef! We went to a Japanese BBQ joint where the deal was to pay a flat fee for all you can eat, all you can drink for two hours. Sligthly smokey, and even more tipsy, we pretty much had to be rolled out of there when our time was up.

We took another easy day trip from Kyoto to the first "permanent" imperial capital of Nara. Here we visited Daibutsu-den Hall which is the largest wooden building in the world and houses a Buddha statue made of 437 tons bronze and 130 kg gold. That's a big Buddha. There is a hole in one of the building's wooden posts that is exactly the size of one of the Buddha's nostrils and the story goes that all who are able to climb through it are guaranteed enlightenment. Despite the fact that the average age of those waiting in line to try was probably eight, Katrina decided to give it a go. It took her a little longer than the toddler in line ahead of her, and she might have looked pretty ridiculous, but she squeezed on through to a higher state of being.

The main draw to Nara may be Daibutsu-den, but a close second are the deer. The creatures are everywhere! You can buy deer treats at every corner and apparently people have been feeding them for decades, so they have zero inhibitions around humans. In fact, they are rather pushy. Patrick was finally persuaded by a pair of doe eyes to give her a snack, but the love he got in return was short-lived. When he ran dry of donut and started to walk away he got a firm headbutt in the butt. No wonder those kids in Nara keep feeding the deer.

The fastest and coolest way to travel between our previous stop Tokyo and Kyoto is by "Shinkansen" bullet train. They travel at 180 miles per hour; it's a bit unnerving at first watching the world whiz by at that speed. We hopped on in downtown Tokyo and two and a half hours later we were in Kyoto. That was easy! Unfortunately it was not so easy to find a hotel. We spent three hours wandering the streets in search of a hotel, inn...anything that would cost us less than the going rate of $120 USD per night. Worn out and exhausted, we finally settled on the Kyoto Tower Hotel's offer of $100 for a "Japanese-style" room. We figured we'd be sleeping on futons and have a Japanese style toilet, but our jaws dropped when the concierge showed us to the room. Wall-to-wall rice paper screens adorned the massive space, with sliding doors carving out a foyer, dining room, bedroom, and even our very own shrine. We were blown away by the futons--thick mattresses with luxurious blankets were laid out for us along with some cotton robes. And the one non-Japanese concession was ideal: a Western-style toilet!Since we planned to use Kyoto as a home base for almost a week, Kyoto Tower was devastatingly out of our budget. We set out the next morning very refreshed to resume our search, beginning with the recommendation from our Lonely Planet guidebook that had appeared closed the night before. In the light of day it was much easier to figure out the somewhat confusing system of calling the owner, and we arranged to stay in a private room at Uno House for half the cost of Kyoto Tower. It served it's purpose but we spent as little time there as possible. Keep in mind the guidebook we'd been using was the 2000 edition; we have since seen that this recommendation has been removed from the more current publications. Moral of the story, if you heed the advice of a 10 year old guidebook you might end up at a place that smells a little too much like urine.

View more pictures from Kyoto here.

4 Tokyo, Japan

Our trip to Japan certainly started out on the right foot. When we arrived at the Sydney Airport to check in for our flight we found out that Japan Airlines had overbooked economy class and they had no choice but to upgrade us to first class. We gleefully joined the Japanese businessmen in black suits at the luxurious front of the plane where we must have stuck out like throbbing thumbs in track pants and flip flops. That and the fact that a curious Katrina put her seat in the full 180 bed position as soon as the fasten seatbelt sign went off. In addition to the expected perks (read: champagne) we got bowing flight attendants, on demand udon or soba noodle soup, and a "Japanese style" lunch option that featured a beautiful display of a dozen or so colorful items including fish, duck, shrimp, tamago, soba, and miso soup to name a few. And the cheese and dessert tray that came down the aisle made us feel like we were at an elegant restaurant instead of thousands of feet in the air.

We expected that our arrival in Tokyo would be a rude awakening. Crowds, Japanese characters, and chaos. It took us hours of wandering to find our first hotel in Moscow--and that was just the Cyrillic alphabet. Japan at first glance was, as we expected, different. However not enough to completely catch you off guard but in a more subtle, in the details sort of way that had us smiling from the get go.Finding our accommodations this time was a breeze, especially with English translations on all the street signs. Oak Hotel was just lovely with slippers at the door and two robes laid out by a warm bed to welcome us to our room. It was completely adorable how everything was in miniature, particularly the half-length, half-width bathtub in a closet-like bathroom--even the tea kettle was tiny! Oak Hotel is a short walk from three different train/subway stations which makes it the perfect homebase for exploring Tokyo.

And explore we did! We started out in Central Tokyo with a walk around the moated Imperial Palace, which is surrounded (at a distance) by the National Diet, Supreme Court, National Theatre, museums, and the British Embassy. Civilians are not allowed in the palace and only permitted in a small fraction of the gardens. What we did get to see could more accurately be described as the "royal grounds" instead of "gardens"; there were not many flowers but many historic buildings, including three samurai guardhouses, and some lovely stonework and fish ponds.

The quiet terrain of the Imperial Gardens is quite a contrast to the urban jungle of Shinjuku. We started with a free ride up to the observatory tower of the Municipal Government Building. Amidst the impressive skyscrapers Patrick spotted the Jingu Baseball Stadium not too far away; next thing you know we were sitting among Swallows fans with a game snack of edamame rooting on the home team against the visiting Tigers. Japanese baseball rules are exactly the same as American, but without much power behind the plate the game is played somewhat differently. Think small ball on steriods. Wait, that doesn't work. Think small ball on diet pills. The crowd was extremely lively, but not like we are used to at Fenway. Soccer-style, the fans of the visiting team were segregated to their own section and whoever's team was at bat was led in constant organized singing and cheering by an official leader. We were surprised to see and hear a lot of English mixed in with Japanese in the cheers and on the scoreboard. We were thrilled to catch a team shirt when their mascot pulled out the t-shirt gun--Patrick donned it immediately with the Swallows' motto, "Just play to win", in English across his chest. Oh, and one last difference. Instead of the seventh inning stretch there is "Lucky 7", an opportunity for the crowd to stand, sing, and wave their most dear of accessories- the umbrella.

By the time we left the park it was dark--perfect for seeing the seedy Shinjuku all lit up in neon. We walked by shops, karaoke venues, clanging slot machine parlors, and hundreds of little restaurants before sitting down to a meal of sushi by conveyor belt. The counter had a simple setup: chopsticks, soy sauce, huge jars of pickled ginger, and hot water dispensers for filling up your tea at will. The hard part was deciding which delicious dish of sushi to snap up as it passed by. They use the color and shape of the empty plates to figure out how much to charge us at the end and we were shocked to find out that none of the items we'd selected had cost more than $2 USD.

Conveyor belt sushi was fun, but our sushi experience the next morning blew it away. Tsukiji is the largest fish market in the world, and when we got there mid-morning it was filled with men in trucks and on scooters whizzing around the docks picking up the orders they had secured much earlier at auction. There is a smaller market aimed at the non-industrial customer steps away from the big rigs, and we immediately zeroed in on a tiny sushi restaurant with a huge line out the door. The windows were steamed up and an employee kept coming outside to yell Japanese at the hopeful customers, manually turn us around, and reorganize the line in a strange manner that made sense to no one but her. By the time we got in to sit down we'd figured out exactly how much sushi we could buy before maxing out at this cash-only establishment, which wasn't much, since it was pricey, too. At the counter, we were immediately given cups of green tea and a personal sushi chef who elegantly made each piece to order. And oh my gosh. Best. Sushi. Ever. The tuna glistened like a jewel on its little bed of rice and the freshwater eel delicately melted in our mouths like nothing we'd ever tasted. It's probably a good thing we hadn't come prepared with more cash, because no matter the amount we would have gone through it all.

Living on noodles the rest of the time proved much more economical. Noodle houses are everywhere, dishing out heaping bowls of udon or soba with meat, veggies, egg, fried fruits of the sea, and who knows what else. Every restaurant has pictures and/or plastic food models outside, making it very easy for us to point at what looked good (even if we couldn't identify all the components). Slurping is actually encouraged, which makes for an interesting soundtrack while you dine, and we actually got pretty good at it. Patrick coined the term "broth face" for the messy condition in which the slurping left our chins. Also, encouraged is finishing your dish by sipping directly from the bowl. So be sure to eschew the ladle next time you go to Wagamama.

After Tsukiji we walked a few blocks to the Kabuki-za Theatre, one of the most famous places to see traditional kabuki. A full performance is four or five hours and tickets are expensive, but it's possible to purchase single act passes for around $7 USD each to watch from the fourth floor balcony. We got to see the first act and it was definitely something else. The costumes are incredible and the speech is highly stylized, with actors' voices sliding up and down the scale. We of course had no idea what was going on in the plot but deduced that it had something to do with a rivalry between warriors, the emperor judging a case, and a battle. Bottom line...someone had their head cut off and it was awesome. The audience seemed to be enjoying the show as they yelled out throughout the performance, often exclaiming the name of their favorite actor during one of his dances. Just another charming difference of a world so far away and different from the one we call home.

View more pictures from Tokyo here.