When I used to think of Asia, one of the first countries to pop into mind was Japan. Now South Korea tends to pop into mind first, though Japan is followed soon after. I’ve been in Korea for 3 years now, so I decided that it was about time to hop the pond and visit Japan. Plus I have a friend from college who is currently teaching there, so it was a good time to do so! I spent 9 days there (my entire summer vacation; one negative thing about my job is how little vacation time we get!). I tried to see a lot of the highlights in case I don’t make it back there (which is possible, as it’s so expensive and there are still many countries I want to see).
I ended up visiting: Tokyo, Nara, Osaka, Miyajima, Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Hakodate. Thank goodness for the JR Rail Pass; it saved me a lot of money and was also very convenient (and easy) to use.
Day 1: Arrival; Tokyo
I flew out (after a bit of a rough start: I stacked outside the bus terminal and scraped up my knee/top of my foot… and then had to take a cab to the airport as all of the buses were full) late morning and arrived in Japan mid-afternoon (yay for short flights!). I took an airport train into Tokyo, then hopped the subway a couple stops to arrive in Askausa, where I would be sleeping for my first 2 nights in Japan. I came out of the subway stop, attempting to orientate myself and locate my hotel. Turns out I arrived on the day of their huge fireworks festival – thus there were people everywhere, dressed in yukatas, and passing out fans (they had ads on them, but were also great as it was super hot!). It took me a while to locate my hotel; the sign was in Japanese, but I noticed the phone number and realized it was my hotel – I had to go down a side street to actually find it. Once there I discovered that due to this festival I couldn’t check-in until several hours later than planned. I ended up going with a nice French guy to an onsen in order to clean-up a bit, change clothes, etc. I tried to drop my bag off at the hotel afterwards, but they wouldn’t even let me up the stairs. Sigh. So I spent the next few hours attempting to actually see some fireworks (they lasted nearly 2 hours, but it was hard to get to where you could actually see them as there were lots of tall buildings blocking them), carrying around my backpack, and just trying to relax and enjoy the start of my vacation! My flip-flop also ended up breaking that night, which was sad, but I was thankful that I had my backpack (see, the hotel was closed for a reason!) so that I could put on my non-broken flip-flops.
view of the streets below, about an hour after the festivities "ended"
Observations: not hard to get around (I’d heard a lot of scary stories regarding this, but turns out there was no reason to worry!)… however, no one spoke English. Not even most of the tourists; they were mostly European.
Day 2: Tokyo
I spent Sunday walking around Tokyo. My first stop was the Imperial Palace. I enjoyed walking around the grounds and snapping pictures for a couple hours before deciding to go find some food. Once I started walking I decided to just walk in the direction of Tokyo Tower, another “must see” site on my short list (I did only have one day!). I ended up at a café for a while where I looked through my great Lonely Planet guide a bit (and cool down…. It was super HOT!) and decided the course for the rest of my day. I did eventually walk past the Tokyo Tower, pausing long enough to take a couple photos. But I decided against waiting in the long line and going up.
inside the gardens
the music building
Tokyo Tower; modeled after the Eiffel Tower
My next stop was Ebisu, where there was a pretty cool mall/shopping area (the Yebisu Garden Complex). After spending some time walking around there (and going up in one of the towers there where I could get a nice, free, view of Tokyo), I headed to Shibuya. The main reason to go to Shibuya is to see the super busy intersection; so I headed into a nice little café where I could get one of the shaved ice + fruit desserts and watch the craziness below when the “walk” lights turned green.
Shibuya Crossing
After checking those areas out I headed back to Asakusa to check out the Senso-ji (temple) and do some shopping. There is a really nice (though rather touristy) area of shops by the temple there. Unfortunately, they close early so I ended up not doing much shopping. The temple did look pretty nice at dusk, though!
my boys are everywhere ^^
here is the hole I mentioned
I ended up visiting: Tokyo, Nara, Osaka, Miyajima, Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Hakodate. Thank goodness for the JR Rail Pass; it saved me a lot of money and was also very convenient (and easy) to use.
Day 1: Arrival; Tokyo
I flew out (after a bit of a rough start: I stacked outside the bus terminal and scraped up my knee/top of my foot… and then had to take a cab to the airport as all of the buses were full) late morning and arrived in Japan mid-afternoon (yay for short flights!). I took an airport train into Tokyo, then hopped the subway a couple stops to arrive in Askausa, where I would be sleeping for my first 2 nights in Japan. I came out of the subway stop, attempting to orientate myself and locate my hotel. Turns out I arrived on the day of their huge fireworks festival – thus there were people everywhere, dressed in yukatas, and passing out fans (they had ads on them, but were also great as it was super hot!). It took me a while to locate my hotel; the sign was in Japanese, but I noticed the phone number and realized it was my hotel – I had to go down a side street to actually find it. Once there I discovered that due to this festival I couldn’t check-in until several hours later than planned. I ended up going with a nice French guy to an onsen in order to clean-up a bit, change clothes, etc. I tried to drop my bag off at the hotel afterwards, but they wouldn’t even let me up the stairs. Sigh. So I spent the next few hours attempting to actually see some fireworks (they lasted nearly 2 hours, but it was hard to get to where you could actually see them as there were lots of tall buildings blocking them), carrying around my backpack, and just trying to relax and enjoy the start of my vacation! My flip-flop also ended up breaking that night, which was sad, but I was thankful that I had my backpack (see, the hotel was closed for a reason!) so that I could put on my non-broken flip-flops.
After the festivities ended for the night, I made my way back to my hostel. It was actually a capsule hotel, which was a fun experience. I’m used to sleeping in small capsules as I do most Saturday nights at my favorite jjimjilbang, so it wasn’t really a very new experience for me – but still fun.
view of the streets below, about an hour after the festivities "ended"
Observations: not hard to get around (I’d heard a lot of scary stories regarding this, but turns out there was no reason to worry!)… however, no one spoke English. Not even most of the tourists; they were mostly European.
Day 2: Tokyo
I spent Sunday walking around Tokyo. My first stop was the Imperial Palace. I enjoyed walking around the grounds and snapping pictures for a couple hours before deciding to go find some food. Once I started walking I decided to just walk in the direction of Tokyo Tower, another “must see” site on my short list (I did only have one day!). I ended up at a café for a while where I looked through my great Lonely Planet guide a bit (and cool down…. It was super HOT!) and decided the course for the rest of my day. I did eventually walk past the Tokyo Tower, pausing long enough to take a couple photos. But I decided against waiting in the long line and going up.
inside the gardens
the music building
Tokyo Tower; modeled after the Eiffel Tower
My next stop was Ebisu, where there was a pretty cool mall/shopping area (the Yebisu Garden Complex). After spending some time walking around there (and going up in one of the towers there where I could get a nice, free, view of Tokyo), I headed to Shibuya. The main reason to go to Shibuya is to see the super busy intersection; so I headed into a nice little café where I could get one of the shaved ice + fruit desserts and watch the craziness below when the “walk” lights turned green.
Shibuya Crossing
After checking those areas out I headed back to Asakusa to check out the Senso-ji (temple) and do some shopping. There is a really nice (though rather touristy) area of shops by the temple there. Unfortunately, they close early so I ended up not doing much shopping. The temple did look pretty nice at dusk, though!
my boys are everywhere ^^
Observations: the subway was never busy (seriously). Also, there are a lot of really nice, quiet places to walk around in Tokyo where there are shaded paths and few people.
Day 3: Osaka/Nara/Osaka
On Monday morning I got up early to catch the Shinkansen train to Osaka. Once there I wandered around for a good hour trying to locate the hostel where I’d made a reservation. After sweating in the mid-afternoon heat for way too long, I chose a hostel I’d passed by that had good rates, booked a room, then headed back onto the JR trains and headed to Nara.
Nara was Japan’s first real capital. Thus, there are many sites worth seeing there. It’s also a small town, so it was easy to walk around and see the main sites. There were also deer walking around in a lot of areas; did you know they sound like sheep?! It was fun to pet them, and I took more photos than was necessary of them, too!
I only spent a few hours in Nara, but I saw a few places. The first place I stopped was the 5-story pagoda, which is the second tallest in Japan. This is also when it started to rain. Luckily it never rained very hard, and after an hour or so the rain was completely finished for the day. In fact, I was quite lucky for my whole trip; there was no more rain during my trip (save at night or the day I was on a train all day) until the last night… when I ended up getting soaked, but more on that later ^^
Day 3: Osaka/Nara/Osaka
On Monday morning I got up early to catch the Shinkansen train to Osaka. Once there I wandered around for a good hour trying to locate the hostel where I’d made a reservation. After sweating in the mid-afternoon heat for way too long, I chose a hostel I’d passed by that had good rates, booked a room, then headed back onto the JR trains and headed to Nara.
Nara was Japan’s first real capital. Thus, there are many sites worth seeing there. It’s also a small town, so it was easy to walk around and see the main sites. There were also deer walking around in a lot of areas; did you know they sound like sheep?! It was fun to pet them, and I took more photos than was necessary of them, too!
I only spent a few hours in Nara, but I saw a few places. The first place I stopped was the 5-story pagoda, which is the second tallest in Japan. This is also when it started to rain. Luckily it never rained very hard, and after an hour or so the rain was completely finished for the day. In fact, I was quite lucky for my whole trip; there was no more rain during my trip (save at night or the day I was on a train all day) until the last night… when I ended up getting soaked, but more on that later ^^
After the pagoda I headed over to the “main attraction” of Nara: Toda-ji, including Daibutsu-den Hall, the world’s largest wooden building. Inside, the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) is one of the largest bronze figures in the world. Also inside is a hole in a wooden column; the popular belief is that if you can squeeze through then you are ensured of enlightenment. I watched one girl go through; she was super excited to make it through! The things some people will believe…
here is the hole I mentioned
My last stop was the Kasuga Taisha (a Shinto shrine). I decided not to pay to go in, so just looked at it from as close as possible.
After that shrine, I headed back to Osaka. I grabbed dinner and walked around a busy shopping area for a couple hours (resisting the urge to shop; which, trust me, was huge a few times). Ended up not doing any real site-seeing in Osaka, but I’m ok with that!
