ramblings of returning to India life.

I got so used to updating when we were in Japan that I want to update now, but don't really have anything to say!

Coming back to India was a bit of culture shock, but I guess I've come and gone so many times that it doesn't take much to get back into the swing of things. The biggest barrier I am facing at the moment is the heat and humidity! It is 100x worse than it was when I left. I usually have a policy of not leaving India during the build up to monsoon season only because if you get used to the humidity gradually it doesn't seem to feel as bad. But I have utterly failed at that this year with all of my trips. But I am adjusting ok.. 4 days into it and I am starting to feel a bit better about having to wash my face 5 times a day and just being covered in a greasy slime when not in the AC!

The first day back we went to the grocery store to pick up some items for dinner and I was already ready to call it quits here! After the politeness of Japan I just wasn't ready for the push and shove mentality of India. I mean.. Tokyo had a ton of people, but I don't think I was pushed or shoved once - even when getting on the trains at rush hour! But here.. I can barely look at the vegetables in the grocery store without being pushed aside and being told that i am blocking the 'view'. Uh.. hello... wasn't I just looking at the veggies?!? Shouldn't you just wait your turn? I got so irritated I just walked away and waited until this one rude lady was gone before resuming my veg shopping!

Besides that though.. things have been fine. We broke down yesterday and bought the Nintendo Wii. We have been wanting this for a while, but somehow I never have room in my suitcase when I am in the US and we just couldn't decide on it in Japan. So we had to pay double the price, but at least we have it now. And man are we obsessed! My right arm and shoulder is in serious pain after just one night/day of play. I even had to start bowling with my left hand - luckily I am a little ambidextrous ;)

And that is all from here... looking to help out a bit possibly with the American Women's Newsletter. Somehow I have been bubbling with ideas. I always seem to have ideas, but I don't always have the stamina to see them through - so hopefully with some positive encouragement and pushing from the new editor of the newsletter I'll get some stuff put in!

Stacie and Janikka are both out of town at the moment... so I am feeling a bit alone! Luckily Folo hasn't resumed his insane work schedule so he's been able to hang out much more which is nice.

For now, my days seem to be filled with Wii, editing photos from Japan, returning emails, catching up with blogs and doing some research on prostitute's health and health of their children (for a possible study that is coming to India). Will try to update more often if I have anything useful to say.

Oh.. and the sky in Mumbai has been excellent since our return. Big blue skies with nice fluffy white clouds. I love it. It just makes it feel so much lighter, cleaner and lovely - especially at sunset!

back in bombay

I was definately not happy to be leaving the orderly clean and beautiful weather Japan, but alas our holiday had to end sometime! We made it back to Mumbai without any problems. We caught the train from Shibuya station to the airport (over an hour long train journey - no wonder people don't fly internally!). We did some last minute shopping at the airport and headed off.

We didn't have much time in Singapore this time, so we just ran from shop to shop buying all of our vice items (cigarettes, wine, candy).

Back to Mumbai we were shocked with the humidity again. I don't seem to mind the heat so much, but add in humidity and it's miserable! It was 30 celcius when we arrived at 11:30 pm at night. shew.
Today we are just going through photos and fully relaxing from our holiday ;)
tomorrow back to work and life.
I posted a few photos in the old posts.. you can click on the "japan trip" tag at the bottom of the post and it will bring up all the japan entries so you can see a few new photos. Tokyo photos will come soon. And hopefully sooner than later, we will have tons up on flickr.

last day in tokyo...

I woke up this morning from a dream about the Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa. I felt it was a sign that we better go before we leave. It is the oldest temple in Tokyo and the largest tourist attraction. It was on our list originally, but we were feeling so burnt out of temples by the time we got to Tokyo that we nixed all of the historical cultural sites and decided to stick with modern culture instead! But off we went.

it was insanity! The path leading up to the temple is jammed with souvenir shops selling all the tacky knick knacks possible and it was wall to wall people. And it was hot hot hot. (So much for that cyclone giving us rain!). The temple itself wasn't anything different than we'd seen before, so we weren't too enthused. But we did the 'needful' and went around it all and even checked out the tacky shops. By this point though it was boiling hot outside and we'd already gone through 4 bottles of water, so we decided it was time to do our last minute shopping and prepare for packing!

Off to Shinjuku for some socks and knee highs (all the rage here) and of course to Krispy Kreme to get our supply to take back to India. Today the line was even longer - it stretched around the corner, but luckily didn't take too long. We saw a billboard that said it was 30 degrees Celsius out -- man I knew it was hot today but didn't realize it was India hot! No wonder we were guzzling water - all the previous days it had been 22 maximum!

Donuts in hand, socks and other miscellaneous goodies we headed back to the hotel to pack to make sure we didn't need to buy a new bag! I managed to get everything to fit - so now we just hope that its not overweight!

And for our last night we weren't sure what to do. So we just sat in front of the busiest intersection people watching, commenting on fashion and chatting with an Australian who lives in Osaka. Then off to find our last meal... we couldn't figure out what to eat. Folo felt he wanted sushi, but wasn't in the mood. I wasn't hungry (too many donut snacks!), so we just headed to a local Irish pub to check out the goings on. It was a real Irish pub.... but full of Japanese! they had soda bread, did the beer properly according to folo and managed to get it all right. Folo finished his night off with some seafood and i had irish food! haha.

Sad to say goodbye to Tokyo, but also a bit ready to head home - mostly we want a nap and to rest our feet! But it's been an amazing trip and we'll have tons of photos to go through once we get back home and sort through them. Come back soon to check again for the photo updates.
Sayonara!

neighborhood hopping

Today we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum only to be shooed away by the 'missing' large permanent collection which has been replaced by rotating exhibitions that come with a hefty price tag. So sad! We were really looking forward to the photos. Instead, we bought little toy cameras at the museum shop and set off taking fun photos!!

We pottered around a few neighborhoods that we'd not been to yet - looking for the cool youth fashion and trendy cafe's. We didn't really find them, but seemed to find the neighborhood where the expats live! They were all over in suits and the like. If I didn't pay attention to the language difference I could have easily been in NYC.

Then off to find a tshirt shop in Ueno. No such luck, but we did find a huge market that kept us occupied for most of the afternoon. It was a black market during WWII, but now is pretty legit - just still crammed full of stuff. A peak down one of the lanes reminded me of India. Wires stretching from house to house, people everywhere, smells, random street stalls, etc.

Next stop.. the large Muji we'd run into a day before but were too tired to stop in. I spent ages in there. It was massive! I also bought way too much stuff but could have bought a ton more if we didn't have such small bags to take back to India!

Loaded down with packages, we headed back to the hotel to dump our stuff and rejuvenate for a few minutes before heading out into the night time throngs of humanity. Again we decided to go to a new area - Roppongi. It is supposedly the nightlife (and foreigner) area. First we went to an excellent pizzaria (paul had been craving pizza and that seems to be the one chain that hasn't made it to Japan - not one pizza chain anywhere!). Stuffed full of food, we headed to the bars. The first few we wanted to go into had hefty cover charges - a beatles bar that has had the same band playing for 20 years would have cost about 40 USD for us to just sit down then you had to buy drinks, another one was around 30 USD for another 'cover band' type place. We got lured into an Australian pub that was dead empty, but interesting to see and free to get in!

Next stop.. the best bar in Asia says Time magazine. Man.. we should have gone there first - they were having a screening of a cult Japanese classic horror film!! Still a hefty charge to get in, but would have been so interesting.

Pooped from trying to bar hop, we headed back to Shibuya on the still packed trains enjoying watching the drunken salarymen!

Not an eventful day as far as site seeing goes, but a great day like we like.. just doodling around checking out the neighborhoods.

shopping continued...

Again we had a lazy morning. I think folo is getting worn out with all these early mornings and going going all day like the duracell bunny! I was up and ready, but it took ages for me to get him to roll out of bed.

Since there is construction going on at our building they have the windows covered so we have no idea what the weather is until we get out of the hotel. Once out we saw that it was nice and sunny so we decided to head over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Govt Building where there are free observatories on the 45th floors. It was quite a walk from the station, but it was all underground! I love it.. When you are underground you don't feel like it's such a long walk for some reason. And it didn't hurt that on the way there we had 'moving walk' paths!

Unfortunately even though it looked clear to us on the ground it was quite hazy and the view wasn't so great. We had hoped we might be able to see Mt Fuji from here. No such luck. But we did enjoy playing with all sorts of toys they had in the shop there!

Now it was time for shopping! I'd heard about this Manga shop that had cool shirts, so we went to find it. Paul hit gold there. He bought 11 t-shirts! Add that to his 3 yesterday and he has an entire new wardrobe. And the shirts were only 15 dollars. He's still on the lookout for more though. Since it is all he wears, its good to get as many as he can since he can never find any in India. With a massive heavy bag we decided to head back to the hotel to dump our stuff before heading back out. Before going home we stopped at the grocery and got cheese and bread for our lunch. Gotta stock up on our western goodies that we can't get in bombay.

Heading back out, we decided to just potter around our neighborhood of Shibuya to see what was going on here. I had heard about this shop called Tokyu Hands the "creative life shop" so we found our way there. It wasn't quite what I had thought it would be, but somehow we had fun in there anyhow! The health and beauty section was hilarious. There were nose pinchers to make your nose skinnier, all sorts of celulite creams, wraps, etc and all types of machines that we couldn't quite figure out! But they did have little dvd players showing descriptions of products on a lot of aisles which was pretty cool. So funny that we can spend ages in a beauty section!

Then we doodled around this area called "Love hotel hill". Basically they are pay by the hour hotels, but not seedy kinds for prostitutes. More for couples who have no privacy at their homes. There are all different types - carribean themed, luxury, etc. They actually looked pretty nice! for a "rest" it averaged about 45 dollars and to stay the night it was about 75 USD. I've heard though that you can't check in for the night until 11, so they can make maximum profits on the hourly charges! It was a cute area actually and it is also where all the indie rock clubs were. We had wanted to check out a few gigs, but seeing the price tag of 65 USD+ we decided we'd just search out more free sidewalk performers!

And next we found a conveyor belt sushi place again, so we had dinner there. Not as good for me as the one in Kyoto, but I think folo loved it - 1.15 USD per plate and fresh fish!

Full but still full of energy we headed out to this bar called the Pink Cow that I had read about. It is basically an expat bar. It was stand up comedy night and packed with all foreigners! It was a bit intimidating to go in with all those whiteys! We stayed for a bit, but then headed home to try out our new bath salts we bought. One seemed to say that it made the water even hotter and would make you sweat like crazy to loose weight! haha. It did make it pretty hot and make you all tingly, but doubt I lost a pound! Tomorrow I have a muscle ache one to try out.

No idea what our next two days will bring. We kind of feel like we should do more cultural sites here, but at the same time we have seen plenty of temples and have already done the two big things on our list here - Sumo and the fish market, so we might just keep shopping and doodling around neighborhoods. It's kind of nice not feeling like we have to run around to see things but can wander aimlessly and happen upon things as we do.

I want to buy some more leggings, knee highs and tights! it's so in fashion here which I love. Seriously like 3 out of 5 girls have one of the above on. Now i just have to find the cool ones! til tomorrow...

fish, water and much more!

We made it up at 4 a.m.! We were exhausted but we did it. After getting dressed and ready we looked out the window to see that it was lashing rain. :( But since we were up and ready we had to go on with our plans.

It sucked though getting out in the rain. we were both drenched with umbrellas by the time we got to our first train. There is a typhoon or cyclone or something off the coast of Japan right now, so that is probably going to be bringing us lots of rain for our last few days. so sad!

The fish market was chaos! There are tons of these little carts that they whip around in, scooters and push carts, along with the people all over. I thought we might die by those automated vehicles!! But we made it inside and went through all the lanes. It was massive. And there were fish galore... so much of it that we didn't recognize at all. But tons of HUGE tuna's, octopus, shrimp, etc. We had fun pottering around taking photos and trying to stay out of the way of the carts. One cart was reversing and asked us to move.. as he shifted his attention to us for a moment, he ran into a huge stack of styrofoam boxes. oops! we walked off quickly!!

The plan was to eat sushi after the market as it's supposed to be the freshest in Tokyo. But folo wasn't too interested in that after seeing all the live and just dead fish! hah. so we went to our favorite breakfast - mcDs! Looking out the window at the insane rain and wind, we decided to head back to the hotel and sleep for a few more hours in the hope that the rain would chill when we woke up.

Off to sleep at 8 a.m.! And amazingly when we woke up at noon, the rain was gone. Happy day. We thought the day was going to be a mess, but it turned out to be quite nice - not sunny, but cool and dry. Our first stop of the afternoon was the Sony Building. It's 6 floors of Sony gadgets that you can play with and learn about (stuff that has/hasn't been released). Folo had fun of course! Next stop was the Leica gallery. I was really looking forward to that, but it ended up not being that interesting. Oh well... Back on the train one stop to the Tokyo Advertising Museum. We love old Chinese and Japanese ad's so this was a big highlight. And it's amazing.. the coolest things to do here seem to be free! We spent a long time in this museum checking out the posters and then watching commercials. The whole area where the museum was located was very arty and just a cool area.

Next stop... Harajuku for an amazing Mexican dinner. Both of our guidebooks say that this place is the best mexican in tokyo. We didn't have high high hopes, but it was amazing from the first step inside. We had to walk down about 3 flights of spiral stairs - all the walls were stucco looking and very mexican feeling. We were the first guests of the night - which was fine with us. We just enjoyed the beautiful restaurant and the real live mexican mariachi band!! I even got to speak some spanish to them. They come over from Mexico for 6 months at a time. And the chef is from Mexico. It was seriously a yummy dinner. I ate so much I was about to be sick.. like really. I could hardly breathe!! It was also our most expensive dinner in Japan, but worth it for the excellent Mexican food... for a few hours we got to pretend we were in Latin America!

We had to walk off all that food, so what better way than window shopping! Paul actually bought a few tshirts and we scoped out some more shops that we'll go to tomorrow.

So our rainy yucky morning turned into a pretty cool day. We feel like we've been in Tokyo forever now and we still have 3 days to go. So now we can just visit a little bit each day and focus on shopping which is what we wanted to have time to do. yeah!!

Oh! Sumo!

We got up leisurely this morning and headed across town to the Sumo ticket office. It happens that the May two week tournement is happening during our visit, so of course we had to go! It was at the Ryogoku Kokugikan stadium. We had originally planned to go super early some morning to try to get the cheap tickets that go on sale at 8 a.m. but with a line forming from 6 a.m. Instead we opted to just buy regular tickets and attend today!

Considering our tickets were 50 USD each, I was disappointed with where our seats were -- way up at the top! But to get at the bottom we'd have to fork out a minimum of 400 USD! nope! But it was super cool regardless. We were able to walk around down at the bottom and even sit in other people's seats until they showed up. We also got the 100 yen English translation radio to help us along. it was great having that. Otherwise I think we would have gotten bored, but with it, we totally got into it. My "west side stables" won over Paul's "east side" overall.

We bought a few trinkets, ate junk food and folo drank beer - minimally compared to the Japanese who had boxes at their seats! It was great though. We were there about 4 1/2 hours and could have stayed even longer if he had gone on longer. It's on for the rest of the week.. so we saw some pretty good Sumo guys and will now keep up and see who wins overall on Sunday.

In between ticket buying and the main matches, we came back to the hotel to do laundry. I have to say I am a bit disappointed with how Tokyo doesn't seem to be as technologically advanced as some of the other places we've been in Japan! For example we had to actually do our laundry.. i.e. put it in the washer with soap (and the machine was out of it, so we had to hike to the shop to get some) and put it in the dryer! What happened to the super cool duo machinese?!?! And the internet at our hotel stinks! they don't allow uploads from the guest rooms. They had said they would get it fixed for our stay, but of course nothing is fixed today. grr. So no photos until we get back to our developing country with seemingly better internet!!

tonight we popped into the starbucks overlooking the 'busiest' pedistrian intersection near Shibuya station to people watch and try to get some photos. Then off to a huge Tower records.. quite a bit of foreign stuff, but the prices are no match to the US, so it's not really worth us buying anything here.

And then to some food... On the way home we saw a street band playing near the station and stood in the rain listening for a while. They were really good even though we couldn't understand the words. I just love how musical this city is. It must be hard to break through though with so many bands all over the place.

And even though we are wide awake and probably should go out tonight, we are going to try to go to bed so we can get up at 4 am to visit the fish market by 5:30! We are really looking forward to the insanity that awaits us there.

thankfully we had a mellow day today so our feet are slowly recovering from the brutal schedule i've had us on for the last 2+ weeks!! Tomorrow though will hopefully be another full day. somehow we have to fit in time to shop! Folo was counting on buying tons of tshirts here, but it seems most places carry americanized shirts, so they aren't that interesting. we need time to search out all the nooks and crannies of the shopping neighborhoods. So now our plan is to do a bit of touristy stuff in the first half of the day and shopping for the rest. We'll see how that goes.

Tokyo!

We made it to Tokyo! At first glance from the train window it wasn't as I expected - the buildings aren't as tall as I thought it would be. For some reason I thought it would be a city of massive sky scrapers, but so far its not really.
We managed to navigate the train perfectly and somehow managed to leave from the proper exit and walked straight to our hotel. This was a huge feat. When we got out of the station, the roads didn't quite look like they did on the map, so we just took a guess and I went with my intuition. I looked at this intersection with 3 streets and picked one that was uphill. Paul was not sure I had made the correct decision and was dragging behind a bit, but I said "I feel it's this building up here" and it was!! He was so shocked. I was too.. not sure how I knew it.

Our hotel is a little boutique hotel in the area Shibuya - only about 5 minutes from the station which makes it super easy to get around. And it's up this little hill. I didn't realize that Tokyo had hills! I don't know why, but I had always assumed it was flat as a board kind of like NYC.

Got settled in our 'home' for the next 6 days and headed out to the hustle and bustle. Our first little foray to the hotel hadn't been as crazy noisy as I thought nor as many people as I had thought. But as soon as we began our 'walking tour' we became engulfed in roads jam packed with people. I seriously felt like I was at the world biggest concert or fair or something. It was insane the amount of people. India has a ton of people, but it's not that often that i find myself trying to walk down the street or window shop with 10 million other people!

Our little walk took us through Shibuya where there was some huge festival going on on one of the streets - dancing, singing and waving of flags. No idea what it was for though. Then we carried on through the area, people watching and just walking with our mouths open and few words! It was just insane the amount of people and stuff going on. People drinking beer on the streets all over, a "no nukes" protest went past and then we entered the Yoyogi park which was one of our destinations.

On both sides of the walkway there were bands set up about every 2 feet playing their hearts out. Some were just individual singers with guitars, others full on bands. You couldn't hear a thing since they were all positioned so close to one another. Total sensory overload. Apparently there was also a "Jamaica Fest" at the park as well, so tons of reggae stands and millions of people. Everyone had cameras as well which was funny! It felt like you wouldn't be 'admited' if you didn't have a camera strapped over your neck.

Our walk continued on through the hard core rock bands and then to the rock-a-billy band section with the guys in full on pompadour and girls wearing fluffy skirts dancing away! Here we finally decided to have a rest and sample some street food. It was yummy and kept us going for another few hours.

The next stop was to Harajuku station to see the 'cosplay kids' - apparently a lot of youth get all dolled up (maids costumes, total goth, princess, etc) and hang out near the station waiting for people to snap their photos. there weren't as many as I had hoped to see and really nothing too shocking. I guess the most shocking thing is that all of the crazy counter culture that is common in sf was everywhere and packed the streets. It was hard to determine what is counter culture here and what is normal!

And then we carried on walking through the Harajuku shopping district. Again the streets were packed wall to wall. I was beginning to feel a bit clausterphobic and just needing some silence! I can't believe I can come from a city with 22 million people and feel so overwhelmed in another city of similar size. But I think all of tokyo must have been out on the streets yesterday! I guess we'll see today if its the same or if Sunday was a rare treat!

And to top the day off.. we headed to Shinjuku station for Krispy Kreme doughnuts! I've been waiting for this since we first arrived in Japan! I don't know why i've been craving them, but I have and I knew there was one here. We asked the hotel and he knew exactly where it was.. he loves them as well. So off we headed. Again, found it without any issue... only issue was the 40 minute line out front!! can you believe it?! And can you believe we stood in the line for 40 minutes?! I think it's like that all the time actually. But they gave us free hot off the press donuts while we waited. And then we ordered a whole box - don't want to wait in that line again anytime soon!

We went to dinner and just pottered around looking into the tiny 4-10 seater bars. but we weren't inclined to go into any since they all had 1000 yen cover charges plus min 2 drinks. It was already getting late and we were tired, so no use in spending 20 USD to sit for 30 minutes! But we'll go again when we have more time.

And today.. not sure what is on the agenda. We had planned to go to the fish market, but that entails getting up at 4 a.m. - so we wanted a good nights rest first. I think we'll check out buying sumo tickets and potter around other areas!

Day 13: Yudanaka

This morning we got up for breakfast that was prepared by the hotel. I typically don't like to get the breakfast included as it's way over priced and usually not very good. But in small towns like this you really don't want to be wandering around for hours trying to find anything that resembles breakfast!

Our breakfast was to be held in the terrace... we walked down to a basement room. I guess this is the terrace :) There was a Yamaha piano playing itself for us -- keys and foot pedals moving and all! A cool peice of furniture down there was an old 45 record jukebox. But that wasn't playing for us :( Breakfast was uneventful. They really tried, which was good. The bread was excellent and the Frosted Flakes were very welcomed to our breakfast starved selves.

Over breakfast we tried to determine what in the world we were going to do with this 'extra' day. We could take off and head to Hakone for a chance to glimpse Mt Fuji, we could go back to the monkey park or go back to Nagano. Nothing much left to see in Nagano, too lazy/tired to head all the way to Mt Fuji, we opted to go to the monkey park again!! The hotel owner thought we were crazy. "Again? Monkey Park". Yep!! So we showed in the 'onsen' downstairs and headed out to our long hike again! But today it didn't feel so long since we knew the trail and how close we were!

We were a little worried that day two wouldn't be as exciting.. Oh no worries there. It was just as exciting or maybe more! I wasn't scared at all today so I was able to get right up in the monkey's faces - so close that i really had to restrain myself from petting them. They were just too adorable. I was seriously in love with these little guys. And I was happy b/c i got good photos today being braver.

One little monkey was playing with another one near my feet when he accidentally stepped on my foot. He looked at me with such shock! It was so cute! Another time, i was leaning over this bar where the monkeys play on and when i turned around there was this little guy just staring up at me like "what are you doing on my bar"!

I didn't say in yesterday's post, but this park is basically in the wild. There are no fences, the monkey's are free to come and go, this is their home and we are visitors. And they just run all around all over. It's probably the closest I could feel to being invisible. For the most part they don't even recognize that you are there even if you are right in their face snapping away. It is by far one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. I've met with wild animals in their habitat before, but at least with the previous monkey experiences i've had they were very scary and likely to snap at you or try to steal your coke out of your hand. These guys were so tame. Not tame enough that you could touch them, but if they came and sat next to you on the bench then it was fine.

I was sitting taking photos of this little baby for ages. He was all alone on the mountain side just munching grass and I seriously wanted to pick him up and cuddle him. He was soooooo cute! And these other ones that were running like wild things playing all over just looked like little teddy bears playing.
I have wanted a monkey as a pet for as long as i can remember... and i still do!!! They are insanely adorable. And of course paul was just as enammered with them as I was. It was his idea to go again today!

realizing we'd already been there for a good 3+ hours with another 500+ photos, we thought we better listen to our hungry stomaches and head down to town. Not really looking forward to the 4 mile hike home, we stopped halfway to have some food. And luckily the cafe owner spoke decent english so we were able to ask him to call our hotel and see if we could get a ride home!! We were wanting to catch the 4 pm train back to Nagano so we'd be well rested for our first day in Tokyo tomorrow!
Thank goodness we had our hotel owner come get us.. Our cafe host was a chatty cathy! He wanted to know everything about India and Ireland. He didn't seem to need any info about the US - he said in the papers here everyday they talk about the election and he's well versed in that! haha. But I had to pee and we really wanted to catch this train or else it would mean another 1 hr wait. Our chatty hotel owner rescued us!!

I must make a note about him. He's hilarious. He says "ok ok" all the time. Its so funny. And he kind of just tells you what you are going to do. This isn't so common with the other Japanese here, so it was pretty funny to us. And now I am due to write a review for him on his facebook! He's on facebook and wants me to add him asap! He also took a photo with us.

The other thing though.. the people in Yudanaka are so nice. The hotel gave us complementary chopsticks. I got one pair with the lucky cat and one pair with a traditional japanese woman. At the cafe he gave us some oragami toothpick set for couples. They are just so sweet and welcoming and really just want you to enjoy your time in their town.

We definitely hope to be back in Yudanaka someday.. hopefully in the winter so we can really see the snow monkeys in the snow! This is also the area where the 1988 olympic ski slopes were. It's a hotspot for skiing.. so maybe we'll give it a go someday.

Back in Nagano now - in our exact same hotel room as we were in on Thur! Nothing much to do but load photos, book train/hotel for tokyo and get cash. We saw a Denny's and thought we'd check it out.. i was in the mood for a grilled cheese. unfortunately it did not have ONE item from US denny's so we moved on and headed down the road to a traditional japanese hole in the wall. It was good and run by a sweet little granny who was excited to practice her English.

We are just astounded over and over by the friendliness of the people here and how they go out of their way to make sure you enjoy yourself. Such a change from India. And it's so genuine. I'm absolutely in love with Japan. Already scheming on how we could take off some time and live here for a while ;)

Some random observations from the last few days:

• Japan is very technologically advanced! Today we were looking at our train wondering how they were going to turn it around so that the seats were facing the right way.. Then all of the sudden we look up and the seats were the other direction! We were shocked and amazed! Apparently they all rotate with a little shove. So cool!
  
• The weather is amazing here. Its about 22 in the day and gets down to 15 at night. so perfect!


• When you reserve a room without a credit card with some barely speaking night staff - it really works!
  
• Probably already mentioned.. its so clean even though there are no rubbish bins anywhere! We had 2 coke cans and 3 bottles of water in bag by the end of the day!
  
• The mirrors in hotel's bathrooms are heated (along with the toilet seats!)

Tomorrow we head to Tokyo!! We've extended our time there and are really looking forward to it all.

Day 12: Monkey Park!! (Yudanaka)

On Friday we got up bright and early and headed out to Zenkoji Temple here in Nagano. It's one of the holiest Buddhist temples in Japan and houses the first Buddha statue to ever come to Japan. (Although it is mummified and kept from the public view). It's a huge temple complex filled with tons of photo opportunities. I had wanted to get there super early for services, but that didn't happen! We were fine just pottering around taking photos. We also did another one of those underground 'dark' rooms. This one wasn't as scary, but also didn't have anything to hold on to, so you just had to keep touch with the walls to know where to go.

After several hours taking photos and exploring all the nooks and crannies, we headed for lunch. I had cold soba noodles for the first time and they were yummy! I'd been weary of them since its cold, but it was really good actually. We even got to see the buckwheat noodles being freshly prepared from scratch.

Next it was time to head to Yudanaka... the monkey park! I have been so excited for this destination. When I was in grade school i remember writing a report on the Japanese snow monkey and as soon as I saw that it was near our route it was a must see.

Finding accommodation didn't prove too difficult. We called a few places in the morning and found one with a very characterful English speaking man. On the phone he was telling us to come now to go to the Monkey park and then for an onsen (outside hot bath). He was very insistent, but I told him we'd be there later in the afternoon. Our plan was just to chill for the night and then go to the park the next day. But once we arrived he was all set to take us to the monkey park and there was no arguing with him!

The park was about 3 miles from his place and then at the drop point it was another mile up hill. But we managed and actually enjoyed the quite walk up into the mountains.. with the anticipation growing! We aren't very good hikers.. neither of us had a drop of water, a map, anything - but luckily it's a pretty easy trail to follow!

Before we even made it to the entrance we had stopped at a vending machine (can't go too far in Japan without one) and there was a monkey sitting on top!! I was already so excited. But i'm also a bit scared of the monkeys since I've been chased by them in China and in India. These monkeys seem pretty cool, but it was difficult to get over my scared-ness!

Entering the park we were greeted by tons of monkeys all over the place. I was as excited as a kid in a candy store. But I was a little weary of getting too close. But eventually I noticed that Japanese families were letting their small children right up near them, so I figured it couldn't be so dangerous. I was starting to get my nerve up and then got 'yelled' at by a monkey!! They were so adorable. Little ones playing all over the place without a care in the world, others sitting in the hot outdoor springs, others cleaning each other, etc. Life just going on without a care about all of us watching and documenting their every move. Between us I think we took close to 500 photos. I didn't get anything that I totally loved since I was too wimpy to get right up in their faces, but Paul got some good close ups! Completely enthralled, we stayed until close to dark and then had a 4 mile walk back to the hotel.

The walk was a little brutal.. we had no idea where we were going since neither of us paid a lick of attention on the way - but amazingly we didn't make one wrong turn! We stopped at a police station that ended up being a block from our place, just to make sure..

Once arriving back at the hotel, the charismatic hotel owner told us we needed to do onsen baths. He said we could do it at his place, but we'd experienced an indoor private bath before, so we opted to head out to a private outdoor bath with views over the town and mountains. It was a bit expensive.. 25 dollars for a bath - but totally worth it! Our bodies were tired and looking forward to our 50 minute session.

The private facility had a sauna, outdoor hot spring and indoor showers. All of it overlooking the city below. It would have been great in the sunset, but we got there too late. Not totally sure on which order to do things, we just made our own rules! One thing we didn't realize is that the bath's are full full and anything on the ground beside it will be flooded. We found this out the hard way.. one towel totally soaked, cigarettes soaked and camera almost flooded! Luckily everything seems to be in working order - but a little scary experience to start off our relaxation!
And man.. that water is hot. It doesn't feel so hot until you sit in it for about 3 minutes and then you feel like you can't breathe anymore! Then we'd hop out.. cool off in the mountain air and then head back in. Repeat for 50 minutes. I think the longest we ever managed to sit in it at one go is about 4-5 minutes.

Feeling totally drowsy and about to pass out, our lovely hotel owner picked us up and then showed us where he'd take us to dinner! Haha. He dropped us at home and had us walk down the hill to a small local sushi place. It held about 10 people and there were already 5 in there when we arrived. All 'salary men' as paul loves to say. (he's become obsessed with the salary man and thinks he wants to be one.. mostly b/c he seems them drinking at the bar in their suits all the time!)

The owner of the restaurant didn't speak a lick of English, but seemed to understand. I ordered tempura and paul just asked for sashmi. No idea what we'd really get, but it was excellent. Paul loved the fish and ordered a second plate. I was just trying hard to not fall asleep in my plate. The onsen really drained me of any energy I had left!

I was asleep before my head hit the pillow! Luckily our talkative hotel owner wasn't around to chat before we went to bed!

No idea what is in store for us tomorrow... we just couldn't make any decisions with such heavy heads from food and hot springs. We'll figure it out tomorrow!

Day 11: Ride through the Japan Alps

We are turning into early risers and its a good thing too! Breakfast wasn't chaos this morning which was nice, but the food was still terrible. But we ate plenty regardless - its free!

Having a decision on whether to walk around Takayama a bit more or head out earlier than planned, we decided to head out on the 9:40 bus to Shin Hotaka. Our main point in changing our route was to visit Shin Hotaka for the Cable Car/Gondola ride in the Japan Alps. It's the longest gondola ride in Asia. And this is probably the only place in Asia that I'd trust going on something like this!

The 1 hour bus ride from Takayama was through some beautiful scenery and got the whole bus ohhing and ahhing as we saw our first snow capped mountains. And then around the bend they were all around us. People were snapping photos left and right. I love mountains and add a little snow on top and I'm ohhing and ahhing with the best of them!

I wouldn't say the mountains were too dramatic. Nothing like the Swiss Alps, but pretty spectacular nonetheless.

Arriving to our destination we were at a quandary with what to do with our luggage. The lockers would hold only one of our backpacks. Luckily the tourist office was nice enough to hold the other one (for a fee) so off we headed walking up the mountain. Tickets were not cheap, but its ok.. we knew this was going to be an expensive excursion.

The first gondola was packed tight, so we decided to wait the 30 minutes for the next one and be first on to pick the good seats. During out wait we pottered around looking at the boiling eggs in the hot sulfur spring water (stinky) and beautiful mountains surrounding us. Our turn for the ride... It is split up into two cable car rides. The first is about 5 minutes and just goes up about 1500 meters over the greenery. But that little pop over the first hill gave us all hope for what was in store! That short ride was over and we had to walk a bit for the next cable car. Unfortunately the locals got the clue that it's best to be on first to get a prime seat, so they were high tailing it to the next cable car along with us. Thankfully this cable car was a double decker, so we weren't packed in and were able to move around to see all the gorgeous sites.

Once to the top there was a 4th level viewing platform. We were graced with perfect weather for this adventure. The sky was clear blue with a few fluffy white clouds and clear all the way to another mountain range in the distance. The sign as we arrived said the temp was 0 Celsius (32 F). Burr.. Again all we had on were t shirts and hoodies. But the thrill of being up in the snow and able to walk around it overshadowed the cold and we didn't really notice it.

There was a funny guy up at the top taking photos for the visitors. He'd do all these silly things to make you laugh. We did it and we even got to hold monkey babies! Not what you think... unfortunately. Takayama is known for it's stuffed doll that is called a monkey baby. Grannies used to make them in the war for the kids and now the town and region is known for them. See photo! We didn't have as long to potter around as we probably could have - but we were on a schedule.. the buses don't run too often to this area and we had to catch one to go to the next town to catch another one to take us to Matsumoto before catching our train to Nagano! Busy travel day.
But the scenery along the way was so beautiful. Passed huge dams, lakes rivers, rice fields and went through massive tunnel after tunnel. Paul thought he'd sleep during this leg of our journey but neither of us closed our eyes until we made it into Matsumoto town. We had considered staying here a night, but it didn't hold much for the visitor except a castle. We have seen enough castles for now and headed on to Nagano.

Considering we took 3 buses and 1 train today I have to say that the public transport system here is amazing! We never waited for more than 20 minutes and they were all super comfortable and efficient. If you were set to arrive at 2:32 - you arrived at 2:32!

Rambling into Nagano (where the 1988 Winter Olympics were held) we were greeted with another city surrounded by mountains, cool air and me with the sniffles. It was probably going from hot to cold to hot to cold so much today, but we had to snuff it out quick so i'd be tip top for Tokyo. Our first experience in the pharmacy went well.. we got some vitamin c tablets and some mystery pill that had photos of a red nose, runny eyes and nose dripping --- seems to be what I have!

We wandered around Nagano for a while getting our bearings and just seeing a new town. This one doesn't seem to close at 6 pm which is nice. We know we are getting closer to the big cities when there are other people on the street at 8 pm!

And waiting till the last minute to book hotels didn't work in our favor this time. Our chosen hotel only has a room for tonight and sat night, so we are heading out to the monkey park tomorrow for a night...with no confirmed accommodation! I hope it all works out ok.

Observations:

• We ordered our lunch from a vending machine. The food didn't come that way, but you look at photos on a wall and then match it up with the corresponding number on a vending machine and out comes a ticket. You hand this ticket over to the counter and within minutes your hot and steaming food is ready! So cool.
  
• Getting around Japan on your own is very easy really. You just have to make use of the tourist offices as they have loads of maps and bus schedules/routes, etc. It really makes it an easy place for foreigners to travel with absolutely no Japanese language skills.
  
• This country is beautiful. And insanely clean. I feel that Japan is so much cleaner than Singapore (which is known for its cleanliness) -- I think i've not seen more than 4 cigarette butts or pieces of random trash on the roads through our entire trip!
  
• Next time we come here, we want to rent a car for the mountain areas. The roads are great and marked pretty well, so driving would be a breeze and so much easier to stop along the way.

Day 10: Takayama

We woke up bright and early today - mostly for the free breakfast, but probably also because it gets light here at 4:30 a.m.! Managed to get down for breakfast by 7:30 only to enter a world of chaos! Apparently this hotel is a big hit with senior citezen tour groups and they were all at breakfast. This is the first time that the Japanese effeciency and organizational system has truely broken down.

Our breakfast tickets were taken and we entered into the 'arena' (which is what it felt like jostling for space and food!) to go around the circuit for our food. The eggs were almost liquid and cold all the ladies were complaining, the bacon was barely toasted, most bowls of food were empty and it was utter chaos in there. We had our meager selection of food and then went around looking for a place to sit. As soon as we'd find something, we'd see it was already taken. After 10 minutes of looking around, we finally started asking people if we could sit with them. No one would let us!! And finally folo found a free, clean two person table with no 'reservation' markings (empty tray, juice, etc). He rushed over only to be told by the head waiter that it was for this older couple. I was starving by this point, so I just rested my tray on the side and tried to start eating when i dropped my entire tray and broke everything - in front of the entire crowd. So embarrasing! But it wasn't my fault.. if they wouldn't make us walk around for 30 minutes looking for a table I could have not tried to eat standing up! Embarrased and annoyed, we left our trays (well my broken one and folo's full one) and headed out.

Complaining to the front desk didn't seem to do anything as the lady on staff could barely understand English. Oh well. So instead we headed to the nearest corner store and got some rolls and diet coke. Not the best way to start our early day, but what can you do!

Since we were up and about so early we headed out to the morning market which is recommended. I must say it didn't look so much like a market, but rather a regular day on a street in India! Little stalls lining the road with a bunch of foods, knick knacks, etc. But the great thing here is that each stall has samples! Free food! So we went along sampling all sorts of random things. Most of it really good. This town is known for its salty crackers (like big thin breads) and rice ball skewers. We bought many of these rice ball skewers throughout the day. They are yummy. Paul even found some "Hida beef" skewers that he loved. This area is called Hida (maybe like the county??) and they are also known for their beef. But I've not seen one cow anywhere, even on the train journey in. hmmm.

It was nice to have a leisurely day with no real plans and nothing urgent that we had to see. So instead we walked around seeing all the old traditional store fronts, visiting sake brewerys (where folo got to try them for free or a small fee) and taking photos.

It was raining off and on throughout the day, but never hard and it was almost always still very sunny, so it was actually very nice. And actually a pleasant cold which was just beautiful! I can't even imagine the heat and humidity that awaits us back in India!

Realizing there was one thing we wanted to do, we headed to the bus station to head to the Hida Folk village. It's basically a 'village' that was put together from old houses in the region to show visitors how life was in this area throughout history. We thought it might be a bit kitch, but it was really nice and interesting. And they had a carp pond which folo has become obsessed with - kind of like he was with the deer in Nara! He loves feeding the animals here. I think I have rubbed off of him too much in regards to animals.

Pottering around the 'village' doing my stamp tour and just enjoying the lovely views of the mountains around made for a lovely afternoon. (Note on the stamp tour - I'm such a child... at a lot of these tourist attractions they have little stamp pads to commemorate your visit. I love them. So cute). I only got 4 out of 6 of my stamps though.. must have not followed the route properly!!

Heading back to town, it was time for lunch. Now it has become common for us to have meal #1 and meal #2 - usually because I can't eat anything at the first place or because folo didn't get full from meal #1. The last few days though we had been lucky and only had one meal for each meal time. Not here! The specialty here is hida beef curry and places that have that tend to not have anything else. So Paul had his beef curry and then we headed to a noodle bar to have my noodle soup!

Full and relaxed we headed home for an afternoon nap! Luckily after waking up from our nap, the day trippers were gone and the tour groups had departed so the town was basically ours. We spent hours on a few streets taking photos. During our photo session these little fluffy white things started flowing down our street. It was like a tree pollinating, but also like little snow flakes. You could see their 'route' coming down the street, around the corner and around another corner from near the river. It was pretty cool and interesting. No idea where it was coming from though. Within like 20 minutes the ground was covered in this white fluffy stuff. Fun!

(see this white stuff on the ground and flowing in the air?? its the 'snow'!)

With the entire town shut by 6 pm, we headed for dinner! We chose this place Origin from the guidebook that said it had beef and veg plates. Score! or so we thought. Paul got 6 thin slices of beef that he had to cook himself and I got a tofu steak. I was full, but folo was still starving! haha. We aren't quite used to these tiny japanese portions. We think they must follow the rule of 6 small meals a day.. but i'm not sure it quite works when you have them back to back!!

Feeling a little sick to my stomach we headed back to the hotel to gather our laundry and let me get over my sickness. Luckily it passed and I didn't face any MSG problems. (I'd had a lot of soy sauce today so thought it might be taking effect!)

Dropped our laundry at the laundry mat. Machines that wash and dry and dispense detergent!!! It was so cool. We weren't quite sure what was going to happen, but we loaded the clothes and put it on a 60 minute cycle before heading back to the mexican restuarant for some snacks and beer. The chef/waiter/owner was happy to see us back again. And even though I was full I did enjoy those chips and guac again!!

Right on time we made it back to our clothes and found them totally washed and dried. So cool! I wish we had these all over the world. Granted the machines aren't cheap - 900 Yen for a load (about 9 dollars), but it is worth it. They even had 'sneaker' machines there. Folo wouldn't let me try his new shoes though...

And now time to get online and figure out our next day's plans. Its not easy finding hotels at the last minute and most of the places aren't cheap regardless. But we can't ever make up our minds too far in advance, so we have to spend some time the night before we leave making the next days plans! We've opted for taking the bus to our next destination even though it's not on the rail pass we bought. its shorter and takes us directly through the Japanese Alps. Should be an interesting day. And we are counting down to our arrival in Tokyo!!!

Day 9: Himeji

Today we got up at the crack of dawn and headed to the train station. We easily reserved seats for our 3 trains and were on our way out of Hiroshima. We loved Hiroshima and felt we could have stayed longer, but sometimes its better while the going is good!

Heading out this morning it started raining.. again. It seems to rain when we have travel days which I guess is the best case since it doesn't affect our site seeing!

Our first stop was Himeji, about an hour from Hiroshima by bullet train. Unfortunately the only seats available were in the "silence car". Folo wasn't sure I'd be able to be silent the whole time.. haha. I really wasn't but neither were other people. It mostly means there are no announcements for stops. That made me nervous though b/c I was worried we'd miss our stop. But no problems at all!

An old castle is the main attraction in Himeji. It basicall is a day trip for most people, so we felt it would be fine to do it in just a few hours before our next train. The castle was beautiful and imposing, but once inside the grounds there really wasn't much there. It was mostly just empty rooms with the same few signs telling you to look at the gun racks and wall holes where rocks or boiling water was thrown from. But if we didn't do it, we would have wondered if we missed out.

A joint ticket also got us admission to a wonderful garden next to the castle. We were running short on time and it started to rain again, so we had to whip through it a bit more than we would have liked. But it was still nice to see. And we loved the carp that were all over the ponds!Rushing back to the station to grab a bento box (a take away lunch basically) we picked up our bags from the lockers and made it to the second car of our bullet train! We are in love with the bullet trains. They are so fast! One went through the station while we were waiting and it sounded like an airplane taking off and just whips past so fast that you barely have time to notice it was there! I keep getting on them waiting for us to 'take off'! Definately the preferred way to travel here.

We had an 11 minute stop over in Nagoya to change trains. Of course me the worry wort was scared we'd not find our train. But a really nice station attendant who I asked to direct us actually walked us to the train. The people really do go out of their way to help us out.

The ride up to Takayama (where we are now) was beautiful. A river was running beside the train for most of the ride and mountains surrounded us on all sides. But getting to Takayama wasn't as nice.. It wasn't quite as cute as some of the earlier towns, but after arriving and walking around a bit its growing on us.

Amazingly we had mexican food for dinner! As I looked in the guidebook for dinner options the first one listed was mexican. Of course I can't pass that up. We planned to just get guac and chips and then go to a Japanese place. But the guac was so good that we decided to stay there. I had a burito which wasn't quite what i thought but was very good nevertheless. Also sampled cheese quesadillas and folo got chili con carne! Yum Yum.

And the rain has followed us and being out without umbrellas made us head back to the hotel - with the hope to get the umbrellas. But we are glued to CNN. We don't get tv in a lot of our guesthouses, so it's nice to be able to catch up on world news. And as Paul says we are having 'foot rest' day! haha.

Tomorrow we'll potter around and discover the town more and then head further into the mountains in the next day or so.

Day 8: Hiroshima

Since we didn't have much planned for today we didn't even attempt to make it out of the hotel before 10... which is late for me since i'm usually up by 7! And unfortunately we just barely made breakfast with only 15 minutes to spare :(

Headed over to the hiroshima atomic bomb musuem which was excellent. We were there for over 2 hours. The exhibits were layed out well and all in English as well. I learned quite a bit about it all. Did you know that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was basically an experiment?! I didn't realize this, but the way it was set up was to find out the effect it would have, how wide of an area it would cover, the after effects, etc. And I didn't realize that the UK and US governments had decided beforehand that Japan was the best target even though we were in war with Germany.

After that we headed to another memorial hall for the victims and then headed for lunch! We settled on western for lunch... Subway had a special avocado sandwich that I just couldn't resist! I never get avocado and I always crave it in India, so I was a happy camper. And to top it off we went across the street for haagen das coffee ice cream! Full of western food we decided to have a little rest and check online for our trains for tomorrow. It's going to be a busy travel day!

After resting we roused ourselves up and headed about 1 hr outside of hiroshima to an island off the coast called Miyajima. The whole point for our journey was to see a 'floating torii' that is one of the top 3 photographed things in Japan.

Upon our first glimpse we were disappointed. It looked so small and in the photos we've seen it looked massive! But once we got there and started getting in the water to take photos, we were enthralled! I think we spent a good 2 hrs taking photos from all angles and sky colors! So it was worth our late journey over there.

Getting back to Hiroshima it was getting late and as seems common here things were shutting up for the night. Its hard to remember that things close by 8 at the latest! But we knew our dinner from last night would still be open! There are 27 'cafes' in the building so something would have to be open. And luckily one place still was. So we had the same dinner as yesterday and it was still as good. (always a worry that the first try will be good but the next time it doesn't live up to the hype you create in your mind!)

And now we are back late and getting ready for an early start tomorrow. we are heading out around 7 to hit a castle on the way to the mountains again. And with our luck the warmish weather won't follow and we'll be freezing again :)

Day 7: Koya San - Hiroshima

Rise and shine was around 6 (earlier for me) so that we could be dressed and ready for the buddhist prayers at half 6. Folo got up with a little nudging, but when the monk came barging in to force us to prayer he got moving! hah. I need these guys with me all the time to get him out of bed!

It was absolutely freezing this morning.. and still raining. We could see our breath! We were hearded along with the other guests (very few were foreign actually) to the prayer. Paul did very well sitting in meditation style for the half hour prayer. He couldn't walk though by the end! haha.

After prayers we headed over to watch the morning fire ceremony. This was super cool. I had never seen anything like it before. Folo was thinking he wouldn't be impressed, but after the flames reached 6 ft he was feeling more impressed.

Still aching with sitting and the cold, we headed back to our rooms for breakfast which has been laid out while we were gone. It was traditional Japanese breakfast. I did ok with this type of stuff when I was in China, but I wasn't so good with it this morning! I just couldn't stomach much of it. I managed to have the tofu and seaweed and plain rice. The soup and pickled radishes were pushed over to folo's plate! Still hungry I just had to power on. It was my choice to not eat all the food, so I had to manage!

Deciding that we were going to go ahead and leave as scheduled today, we took advantage of our early morning to do our last bit of exploring. I would have loved to stay longer but with the cold and rain, it just didn't seem worth it. I was doing ok as far as clothes.. i had my leggings on under my jeans, two pairs of socks, my shawl, hoodie and rain jacket along with my beanie that i use for my camera! Paul on the other hand was frozen in just jeans, tshirt and hoodie! :(

But we carried on and did a 2 hour audio guided tour of the cemetary shooting away before heading down to meet our train at 11 a.m.

Now the fun was to begin all over again... bus to cable car to local train to osaka train station to oaska subway to shinkansen (Bullet train) to street car tram! It felt that most of our day was spent travelling, but we did manage to do quite a bit as well. We activated our Japan Rail pass tickets which means we no longer pay for our trains (paid in advance), had a green tea/oreo cookie mcflurry and finally got to sample the famous bullet trains.

They have smoking cars and non smoking. I typically don't like to be in smoking cars, but since it was a short train we decided to try it out. It wasn't too bad.. but still I think I'd prefer the other where we can go smoke when we want! The train was nice though. big comfy seats that recline quite a bit, personal ashtrays and cup holders. Nice clean bathrooms as well! But man.. they do go fast! I could barely look out the window without feeling a little quesy!

After a long day, we arrived to hiroshima around 5 pm and loved it straight away. It is very modern but seems very nice. We checked in to our business hotel and realized we were on the premium floor (and it was cheaper than our other ones!). woo hoo. Oh.. so nice to have a real bed again. Two nights on the floor has been enough for me for a few days! Since it was still light out we just dumped our stuff and headed down the street to check out the Peace Memorial (site of the atomic bombing). We loved it all.. so many photo opportunities, beautiful sky, nice cool weather, but sunny and very walkable. We saw most everything on our agenda (again), but know we want to go back again tomorrow to do the museums!
Dinner time... Still starving from lack of a proper breakfast or much of a lunch, we headed out to find a recommended 'hole in the wall' that served authentic hiroshima food. No such luck... this LP guide sort of stinks! But we chose another option from the book and hit gold! It was this non descript building near a mall (that has muji and gap next door to one another!) that has 3 floors of tiny bar stool eateries. All serving authentic hiroshima food. The dish that is famous here is called hiroshima-yaki. It is basically a thin pancake type thing on a griddle, with sprouts, some other stuff, udon noodles, fried egg and other seasonings. It was yummy and very filling. Finally we don't have to have a second dinner!! And i was even too stuffed for my coffee ice cream that I finally found. There is always tomorrow.....

It's cool out.. well pretty chilly actually, but feels quite nice after the freezing cold of the mountain! And having gotten up at dawn, we headed home again for an early night. One of these days we really are going to sample the nightlife! Perhaps tomorrow since we don't have much on our agenda. I will post photos later as well. For now.. night night.

Day 6: Nara - Koya San

I woke up off an on all night long hearing the rain beat down on the plastic shedding near our window. I kept thinking it was the AC dripping (ours at home drips like crazy)! Not sleeping well and having a day of rain we decided to head out early and see what time we could head to Koya San. Luckily we'd done most everything we wanted the previous day.. and that we had changed our original plans of staying there 2 days. It was an adorable town and would probably be nice to potter around on a bike, but not in the rain!

We went to Muji before heading out.. I just couldn't contain myself! I got some cute little organizational items that I love and then we packed up to head out. We decided to walk to the station even though it was rainy and cold. Somehow we have decided we don't want to take taxi's here!! So funny the little 'rules' we come up with. But it was nice walking actually - we were soaked by the time we got to the station, but we got to wander through some real neighborhoods and see some real Nara.

Our trip to Mt Koya was slated as an adventure.. the book says half the fun is in getting there! We boarded a local train for about an hour 1/2 and then had to change to another train, buying new tickets. I almost made a costly mistake by buying tickets for another carrier, but caught it just in time!! (there are state trains JR, and all sorts of private lines, so it gets confusing sometimes which machine to use -- especially since its rarely in english!)

But problem averted, food purchased (a bento box for folo -- 7 peices of sushi and crackers for me!) and second train boarded. First I have to mention that it was already pretty chilly down in Nara and the guidebook says that Koya san will always be at least 5 degrees centigrade colder than down below. This was seen a great thing when it was boiling in Kyoto, but now that the weather had turned a bit colder and rainy, it was a bit troublesome!

When we were changing trains, we were freezing... and weren't even near the mountain yet! uh oh. Luckily for these good ol vending machines.. they also dispense hot coffee in a can of all things. But these are very good for cold hands.

Our second train was slated as a very windy scenic trip. It was. It was beautiful even through the rain and fog. The houses were much more traditional and it was super green out. Our next stop was at the base of Koya San mountain where we then had to board a cable car to take us up the mountain. It was FREEZING when we got off to board the cable car. Unfortunately all I packed for us were our hoodies!! oops. It wasn't supposed to be this cold. It was probably in the mid 40s F and it was the middle of the day. But I was excited anyhow... I love going into the mountains and I love buddhist sanctuaries!

The cable car went straight up the mountain in about 5 minutes. Some people were scared, but I was too busy taking photos and being excited! Once we got to the top it was even colder! People were going on and on about it all... talk of the day! And now for our final leg of the journey... a bus for 20 minutes. Somehow I always tend to pick places that take ages to get to.. but I usually enjoy the journey and the place more than anything else!

The town was adorable as predicted. High in the mountains shrouded in fog (and still raining). We found our 'hotel' which was actually an operating buddhist monastry. It was beautiful. It was all the castles and temples we've been visiting but not allowed to wander around in freely. Our room was traditional tatami mat with a balcony overlooking the garden.. and thankfully had a portable heater!
We warmed our toes and then bundled as much as we could before heading out to the main site (for me) which is a massive cemetary. The guidebook says any buddhist worth his salt has had their ashes or at least a lock of hair deposited here. I love buddhism and i love cemetaries, so this was a must destination for me. We took the bus further up the hill and started our exploring. It was very vibrant in the rain - so much greenery and moss on the old tombstones mixed with just blooming colorful trees. Freezing but loving it we wandered around until our dinner time of 5:30.
The thing with staying at the monastries is that you have to go by their schedule and your stay includes dinner and breakfast. All food is completely vegetarian with no dairy, fish, also no onions or garlic. Typical buddhist food. But this was good news for me b/c it meant that no matter how funny it looked or smelt I knew it was veg and I could eat it without worry (not that I've been a very good vegetarian here.. been eating fish and pork!).

Dinner was brought to our room on trays with hot green tea as well. It was a beautiful setting. And the food was actually quite good. Folo ate his all of course along with a bit of mine, but I did pretty good and was stuffed. Since it was still light out we decided to head back out to explore the cemetary some more. We were trying to get 'atmospheric' photos.. but it was too dark and rainy to get much.

Again we headed to our room as the town was shut and were in bed before 9! No showers at this place.. only the communal hot bath. We checked it out, but it was full of other naked foreigners, so we decided to give it a pass and just head to bed. But not before trying on our yukata (robes) and modeling for photos!

Day 5: Kyoto - Nara

Today we got to sleep in a bit and have a lazy morning! Much needed for our feet! We pottered down to the station and got breakfast and checked out train options for getting to Nara. Simple enough so we just chilled out in the room packing and watching CNN until it was time to head off.

Nara was the original capital of Japan long ago. The main attraction here for me was Todai-ji Temple which is the largest wooden building in the world and houses some massive buddha's as well.

We sucessfully navigated the train (only 40 minutes) and walked to our hotel. The walk from the train station was only about 10 minutes and was through covered shopping arcades which seem to be the norm here in Japan. I love them!! On the way to the hotel I saw my all time favorite shop - Muji and was happy to have finally found it in it's home country!

We had booked another traditional japanese inn (ryokan). We couldn't check in until after 3 pm, so we dumped the bags and headed out to explore. We ended up doing an entire walking circuit (5 km) that was planned for the next day. To our great joy, there were deer (or as I called them reindeer) all over the place! They just wander around, getting 'reindeer' biscuits from tourists, kids and locals alike who are willing to dish out the 150 yen for a pack! They are pretty rambuctious when they see you buy the biscuits, but aren't too aggressive. It was so cool to be able to pet them, touch their horns and noses and just google at them! Even the most hardend traveller was enjoying the deer! We saw groups of buff male western travellers surrounding the deer for ages with smiles and laughter! After getting over the initial novelty of the deer, we continued on our walk. It was a nice day although it had gotten a bit cool and looked like it might rain, so we thought we better do what we could. We followed gangs of school children down the walking path heading towards Todai-ji. I was highly amused by how all the groups of children (when i say group - i mean like 100+!) are kept together.... they all have color coded hats on! We saw red caps, blue caps, white caps, yellow caps, pink caps, white with red strip, white with yellow stripe, etc. Only after arriving at Todai-ji did we take out the book and learn that this is a huge destination for school outings so you are almost always assured of massive crowds.

Somehow the crowds didn't seem bothersome though.. The deer all over are so entertaining that people seem to be sort of dispersed throughout and not all grouped together. The building was massive and is apparently only 1/3 it's original size. And the buddha's within were amazing as well. It was a bit dark, so we'll have to see how the photos look.
There is a tree sort of thing inside the temple that has a hole in the bottom of it.. it is supposedly the size of one of the buddha's nostrils. If you can crawl through the hole you are supposed to be assured of enlightenment. The kids love it! They all line up to get a go. Folo really wanted to do it as well, but was scared off when we saw a grown Japanese lady (skinny and tiny) almost get stuck! I was egging him on along with another random foreigner, but he got too scared! Haha. probably best.. if he got stuck I might have had to walk off and pretend I didn't know him :)

Continuing on our trail, we walked up to some area that was supposed to have great views over Nara. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy and overcast so our view wasn't so spectatular!
Again we meandered along - me moaning with aching feet! I hadn't been able to put on my real shoes and was in not so great walking shoes! But we happened upon some great shrines and temples with little crowds and lots of photo opportunities! (this is a photo of a random guy we kept seeing who made us think of mario! doesn't he look like super mario?!)

We slowly made our way back to our hotel and did some 'house cleaning'... i.e. laundry! Luckily there was a washing machine and dryer so no hand washing for me! Set the laundry in and headed out to find dinner. Apparently this town closes super early! It was only about 6:30 and the streets were dead empty and the shops were closed! It was even a friday night!

We found a nice place near our hotel that served traditional settings of food. Paul went all out and got a huge sample type meal and I got my good ol standby of tempura! The food was great, but all I got was 7 peices of vegetable fried up... when I say 7 peices i mean like 2 peices of string bean, 1 slice of potato, 1 seaweed, and some other tiny little veggies! I was by no means full after dinner while folo was stuffed! So we headed to circle k for some dessert! oreo cookies and kitkat are about the only western items you'll see in shops here.

After walking around a bit more and realizing everything was shut and there was little for us to do, we headed home. Our wonderful ryokan owners convinced us to have a traditional hot bath in their 'onsen'. It was nice.. a big tile tub (kind of like a spa, but no jets) in a room that is baking hot. It was definitely nice since it was a bit cooler outside. But it sapped any remaining energy we had and we were both fast asleep well before 9 pm! lol.

Day 5: Kyoto

Today we sucessfully got up and out of the hotel early! Yeah for us! Even with all that sake, Paul managed to get up without any struggle. Maybe that is the trick ;)

We headed down for breakfast in the station and then onto the train to Fushiri Inari temple. This was in Memoirs of a Geisha (i think). It was a huge complex with trails leading up the mountain all covered in these red/orange 'tori gates'. It was cool and chill.. we just wish we had all day to wander around the mountainside. It would have been a wonderful area to spend a full day trekking and having a picknick! But time was of the essence today since it's our last day here. So we saw enough to wet our appetites and then headed on. It finally happened.. Folo lost his train ticket! When we were in SF last summer he lost his bus pass two times in a matter of a week! So, I was getting surprised since it had already been several days and he'd not lost anything!! haha. But he lucked out and the guard trusted us and let him go through without buying another one.

Then we headed to the Manga Museum. It wasn't quite what we were expecting. For some reason we thought it would have exhibitions showcasing old Manga. But instead it was like a huge library that had over 200,000 manga editions. Interesting, but not quite what we had hoped. Nevertheless, Paul bought a cool tshirt and some post cards that we might frame.

We headed back to the main station for a bit to dump our bags and to also get some time to tour around the station area. Did I already say how huge it is? It has a 10 floor department store, several malls, movie theater, long distance trains, local trains, our hotel and tons of eateries! Also a garden on the roof! It was cool to doodle around here for a bit.. we are just starting to get our barings here and not get lost in the station itself!

To keep on our busy schedule we then headed to another temple that we just realized we should see! It's the Heian Temple. This one was pretty cool also. Apparently the garden was in Lost in Translation.. will have to watch the movie again to check it out. We pottered along behind a tour group so didn't have to pay (if there was every a place to pay -- we aren't quite sure! The guidebook says its 600 for the gardens, but we never saw anyone taking money!). The garden was great and we managed to get a ton of photos. Also saw a lady fall in the pond which was pretty funny. so mean.. we laugh at other's misfortune!

Enjoying this run of activity we headed out to find this shoe shop I'd been dying to see. It's called Sou-Sou and specializes in 'toe' shoes. Basically the shoe separates your big toe from your other toes. They look a bit silly, but are sort of cool at the same time. I really wanted a pair, but couldn't manage to find any that fit just right. They have a shop in Tokyo, so I got the address and will try again there. I'm hoping that my feet were just too swollen and sore to fit anything properly! But Paul did manage to get a pair.. not the toe kind, but just regular ones that look similar to converse, but are black and black stripes. Pretty adventurous for him!

Sad and disappointed about the shoes, we headed to a sock shop so I could at least buy some more cute socks. Bought some with pads in the soles.. but once I got out of the shop and put them on I found they didn't fit. POOHIE! Next stop..Clarks, so I could try a pair of shoes on again. I ended up buying them, but within 10 minutes of walking out of the shop i already had blisters :( Definitely not a shopping day for me. But luckily we happened upon a Gap and I found a pair of leggings on sale for 10 USD and that fit! Also got two pairs of my no show socks that i know will fit. Things were starting to look up! But we were getting hungry and tired so headed back home instead of continuing on our shopping journey. I think there will be plenty of shopping in Tokyo, so we better save some room!!

Didn't make it to the Geisha show today, but added other stuff which ended up being more to our liking i'm sure. Sleepy and hungry we'll probably just get something in the 'station' and then relax tonight before we head out tomorrow. Our bodies need a bit of relaxation I think.. and this is a vacation afterall!

Observations for the day:

• Toilets - Ok I know I have already said how cool the toilets are here. But today I had two great ones! One was at the Manga Museum. It was similar to ours in our hotel, but this one had an added button.. 'flushing' sound. Apparently Japanese girls don't like others to hear them pee, so they have a button they can push that mimics flushing sounds to cover up any noise they make! So cool! The second toilet was on the way to the Heian shrine and was a public restroom off the street. It was squat, but as soon as you squatted, the flushing sound started automatically!! I was so excited. They really go to so much effort to make things easy here!
  
• Alot of the Japanese we see roaming around are actually from the West! We asked several 'locals' for help today to find that they were not from here either!

man....another missed opportunity!

I predicted to my friend in Mumbai that there was going to be an earthquake in Japan while we were here.. i was just hoping we'd be in the place where it happened! Oh well.. guess Folo will have to keep waiting to feel his first earthquake! Didn't feel a thing here in Kyoto. But I was tossing and turning all night..maybe I did feel it....

Day 4: Kyoto

Another day in Kyoto and we are loving it more and more. As is usual with us, we look around and think "Hmm.. Could we live here?" The answer so far is a definite yes! Folo feels like we've done lots already, but looking in the guidebook and passing the thousands (there are 2000 temples in Kyoto!) of temples, I feel like we've done very little! But I guess you need a reason to come back right?! (I do want to come back.. once in the winter to see it with snow and sometime in my lifetime for the cherry blossom festivals).

Today we got lost for the first time... in our 'building'! Our hotel is connected to the main train/bus station in Kyoto. This station is massive. It has several shopping malls, millions of trains, buses, etc. We were looking for a grocery store to buy cheese for a packed lunch and ended up totally lost... and in front of McDonalds! I normally stay away from McD's but when it's breakfast I'm easily lured in as I love their egg mcmuffin and hashbrowns! So we relented and had a western breakfast.... and it was yummy!

With full bellies we wandered around for a while, finally finding a grocery store and our way out! One note about the grocery store.. when we walked up to the counter, there were about 10 ladies at different registers. As soon as we started approaching they all started bowing and saying welcome or something nice in Japanese! It was a bit overwhelming to be honest. Then as we left they all started yelling other polite goodbyes or thank yous.. I think I was blushing when we left!!

Our plan was to head to a big temple complex called Nanzen-ji. Several things I have read have said it was their favorite temple, so I had high expectations. Getting there was fine, but then once inside the compound we had no idea what was going on - where the temple was, etc. All of the many maps were in Japanese only, there were no hoards of tourists to follow and it was hot!

Finally we managed to find our way to a garden.. which was pretty boring to be honest. So much for that 5 bucks! But then we decided to go through this little lane up into the woods. It was a hike, but nice and quiet and good for our little pik-nik snack!

Heading down, we were set to find this restaurant that we'd read about..It specialized in Kyoto's special dish - yodofu pot. We knew it would be expensive and traditional, but were willing to try it out for some local flavor. We found it easily and headed in. As is typical with the traditional places, you must take your shoes off before coming in and you sit on the floor on tatami mats. Folo isn't so flexible, so was a bit worried about the floor sitting, but he managed to do fine (with a few beers!)

The meal was a set meal of 6 courses. The first course was a potato soup.. which i would normally love. But this was cold and very slimy... kind of felt like spit!! Paul drank his down of course and i sipped at it slowly! Second course was cold sesame tofu with wasabi on top. It was good.. just difficult to eat with chopsticks! Next came tofu on bamboo sticks with a cold, sweetish soya paste. I loved these, but Paul didn't really like his as much. 4th course was a plate of tempura - yummy! Number 5 headed out.. this was the tofu in a boiling pot (that is boiling on your table). You put a slab of the tofu in your dish, cover with some onions and pepper (lots of chili for us in our indian-ness) and a little sauce. Pretty good.. but we had 5 each and I could barely get down 2.. Folo got down 3! And last was rice with two peices of pickled radish. It was chewy and crunchy... sort of tasted like a pickle but a different texture. For 60 USD i'm not sure it was so filling, but it was the experience and that was definitely worth it!

Not stuffed, but full enough, we headed back to the path of philosophy to see one of the most famous temples here - Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavillion). Unfortunately the temple itself was under construction, but the gardens were well worth the entrance fee. This was the first garden that I really felt was "Japanese" in what I had in my mind. Even with aching feet and hot and sweaty I really enjoyed this the most.
Again, we headed home for an afternoon rest... somehow our feet are not up to the task of walking 10 hrs a day! I have no excuse since I do so little in India, but Folo works in a dark room all day, so he has a reason for not being able to handle the walking!

Night falls in Kyoto and we head to Gion.. the Geisha district. We pottered around, looking in all the shops and taking photos before heading to a tiny alley called Pontocho which has lots of bars and restaurants. My only hope here was to see a real Geisha on her way to/from work! And that we did see!! She was actually with a man going somewhere!
We found a small little place to eat dinner that had the chef in the middle of the place so we could see all of the cooking. We spent a fortune again.. but whatever we had to sample things! Grilled salmon, fried pumpkin, fried cheese, grilled eggplant, asparagus wrapped in bacon. And Folo finally got to sample some sake! He was scared he'd not be able to walk out after 3 beers and a small sake (which is about 4 small cups). He managed.. and luckily for him he could no longer feel his aching feet!!
And not that anyone really cares, but we have been keeping track of all of our spending so we can figure out what our average daily costs are. Doing anything and everything we want, we are spending on average 140 Euro's per day including shopping and accommodation. Not so bad.. our theoretical budget was double that. And as Paul always likes to say.. its less than 75 Euro each per day (even though it's all coming from only one bank account!) It's good to know that we can continue on as is and not go over budget!! Some days are cheaper, some are more expensive. Today was an expensive day I think!

All in all.. we had a great Kyoto day today. We have tons still on our list of to-dos.. so we'll see if we can get up bright and early and get it all done! Friday we head out to Nara for a night to see the largest wooden temple in Japan. Tomorrow should be an active day.. plans include the Manga Museum (Japanese comics), two temples, booking train tickets, possible geisha dance show, and some shopping!!