Archive for the ‘Japan’ Category
Japan to Malaysia
I just got to Kota Kinabalu on the island of Borneo in Malaysia after a day and a half of travel via Beijing and Kuala Lumpur. I got into Kuala Lumpur late, stayed in an airport hotel and left early this morning, but I’ll have more time to spend in the city after the next tour. We leave tomorrow for Mt. Kinabalu which we’ll attempt to climb in two days, camping over for one night on the mountain.
The last days in Japan just flew by. One day we went to Miyajima an island close by to Hiroshima where we climbed the twin peaks in the center of the island. The views were amazing.
Tokyo was like a blur. We saw as much as we could in the little time we were there and again I found myself saying goodbye to another group. I spent two and a half weeks traveling with Mill, Ken and Natalia who I also traveled with in China and I will miss them very much. China and Japan were both very different and it would be hard to say which I enjoyed more…but I know that I’d like to return and spend more time exploring both countries.
Kyoto and Hiroshima
Today we are in Hiroshima and the Peace Memorial and museum were very moving. We spent about 3 hours in the museum which was sobering and gave a fair and interesting account of the events that led up to the atomic bomb being dropped. The ruins of the only surviving building in the city center has been left as it was after the bomb (the building on the left):
On a lighter note, we enjoyed our time in Kyoto, even managing to see some real geishas. There is a geisha district called Gion where we went to dinner and whenever a geisha walks down the street masses of tourists take pictures of them like paparazzi. One of the guys in our group was so aggressive that he knocked me over and almost pushed one of the geishas in front of a car. My photo didn’t come out too bad considering. Then we went to a sushi bar for some of the best sushi I think I`ve ever had. Later we went to a small karaoke bar which was like somebody`s living room. We sang in groups which was better than when I frightened the young Japanese girl on the ferry with my rendition of the B52s Love Shack. I can still visualize her staring at me in disbelief with her mouth hanging open.
They are really into the Pachinko parlours here and we had to go in just to experience the insanity. We wanted to play but couldn’t figure out what to do with the steel balls. Today was the first sunny day we`ve had since Beijing.
Koyosan
Yesterday we traveled by train to Koyosan, the headquarters for Shingon Buddhism. We stayed at a monastery, ate traditional Japanese food and attended Buddhist ceremonies. The town is about 1200 years old and we visited lots temples and shrines.
Today we took the Bullet train to Kyoto. There are so many things to like about Japan…some of my favorites:
- Hot coffee in a can from vending machines
- Green tea and white chocolate muffins
- Super powerful hand dryers
- Heated toilet seats
- Blueberry KitKats
Shanghai -> Osaka
We arrived in Osaka, Japan after a 48 hour ferry ride across the Yellow Sea from Shanghai. Only 3 of us from the China portion of the trip traveled across with our tour leader Mill. We’ll meet up with 12 new passengers for the Japan part of the tour this evening. We spent most of the 48 hours on the ferry playing ping-pong with the Chinese and Japanese friends we made onboard. We only took breaks for meals and in the evening, karaoke. The ferry ride was a nice break from the hectic pace of our activities in China.
Shanghai is China’s largest city and it felt that way. Extremely modern, the skyline is filled with unusually designed skyscrapers. At times it felt as if I were in New York and Nanjing Road, the main shopping street was always chaotic. The highlights of Shanghia were the Chinese Acrobats show that we saw and the trip to Zhujiajiao, the ancient canal town about an hour outside of Shanghai which reminded me of Venice at times.
We’ll spend just a day here in Osaka before traveling by the Bullet Train to Hiroshima, Kyoto and finally Tokyo.
