Kyoto: Gion District

The Gion district in Kyoto is known for its tea houses and sightings of the elusive geisha. I didn't realize geisha still existed, but they are a dwindling species of high-buck entertainers who cater to mostly Japanese business men providing tea ceremonies and other Japanese traditions.

We took the bus near our hostel and got off in a busy area with lots of shopping. At first, we weren't sure we were in the right place, but the guide book said differently.

As we were looking for a bite to eat, we eyed this menu which had a tempting description of one of the dishes served there. It sounded mighty good, but we decided to move on and find another place.


Mmmm squid and cod ovum pasta.
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We kept walking, and found the area we were expecting. Lots of traditional tea houses, that foreigners aren't allowed in without a recommendation from a Japanese person (either that, or they charge you a large amount of money!). After crossing a bridge, we turned down a side street to see some beautiful old houses, tea houses, and restaurants.


Bridge in Gion District (large building on right is the Kabuki theater).
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Gion
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Gion in Kyoto
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We continued exploring the area, and headed towards a street that is supposed to be the best place to see geisha. They're supposed to be visible most early evenings as they head to their tea ceremonies. The street is called Ponto-cho dori, and it was a favorite of our trip.

The street was too narrow for cars, but wider than a normal sidewalk. This created a great atmosphere to walk along and see all the restaurants preparing for dinner. Most signs here are in Japanese, and many of the restaurants and tea houses have red lanterns in front.


Ponto-cho Dori
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As we were admiring the walk, suddenly ahead of us a geisha came walking by. She was dressed exactly as you'd expect a geisha to be dressed, with her face in white powder and bright red lipstick. Ann and I, and a couple other tourist just gawked as she walked by, and I didn't even think about taking a picture until it was too late.

Just a few minutes later, another geisha walked by. We hit the jackpot on the geisha watch. Again, didn't take a picture. Afterwards, Ann and I wondered if it would have been OK to take a picture. Somehow, it didn't seem like the thing to do. They walked by with their heads down, and on a mission to get to their appointment.

That was a great beginning to the evening, and we decided to eat dinner a little early because we were starving. I had a recommendation in the guide book, but there were no English signs, so I wasn't able to find it. It's harder than I thought to match up the Japanese characters in the guidebook to the stylized ones by the doors of the restaurants.

We decided to just try one that looked nice, and ended up at the "Wild Cat House". It was a tiny place, that looked to be family run. The restaurant consisted of a small bar area, behind which the master chef cooked all the food. It was a great place.


Wild Cat House staff
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Asparagus salad, tempura shrimp in chili pepper sauce, and mmmmmm beer.
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After dinner, we took another walk down the street, and came across a jazz club called "Hello Dolly". There wasn't music at the time, but the front window displayed many of the jazz musicians I like to listen to. I noticed they like jazz in Japan, and often while walking through stores you'll hear jazz playing (good jazz, not the elevator music you hear at most of our department stores!)


Hello Dolly jazz club
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Behind you Ann! It's a ghost! Oh wait, just blurry from the long exposure. Whew.
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We headed back to our hostel for a good nights' rest. We transferred to a private room, which was very nice, clean, and quiet. It even had a private balcony, all for the price of about $70.

The next day, we headed to Hiroshima...

Kyoto

After a great trip to Nikko, we decided to get back on the bullet train to Kyoto. The bullet train is a great way to get around Japan. It's fast (up to 185 mph!) and they're always on time. We rarely had to wait more than a few minutes for one.


Shinkansen or Bullet Train
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After we passed through Tokyo, we went by Mt. Fuji. I had to ask the guy next to us if that was Mt. Fuji, and he smiled (since its the only mountain that high, it's hard to miss). But, he was friendly and recommended I go to the space between the cars to take a picture since the window was bigger (and, most likely, so I wouldn't be leaning over him to get the shot).


Mt Fuji from Shinkansen
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We arrived in Kyoto and began to look for our hostel. We took the recommendation of our Aunt Merikay and Cousin Claudia (and cousin little Bruce) to stay at the Tour Club hostel. We had a map of where it's located, but still had a bit of trouble since many of the streets throughout Japan aren't named. We were tired from our long day, so it was a little frustrating, but finally found it and were glad to be there.

It was a great place for a really cheap price. The first night we stayed in the dorm room which consisted of 3 bunk beds, and cost about $20 per person. They had huge down comforters and comfortable mattresses. It was a really good deal.

It was Ann, two women just out of college (not still IN college as Ann asked and was given the evil eye). Not sure how they felt having a guy in their room. They didn't seem real friendly, but nice enough to share a room with for one night.

I always have this fear of talking in my sleep or snoring really loud when I need to stay in a place with strangers, and Ann informed me that I did some nice loud talking in the middle of the night. So, I'm sure the other women were glad to have us move to the private room the next night.

As with all Japanese accommodations, you leave your shoes at the entrance and wear slippers that they provide. Unfortunately, the slippers are "one-size-fits-all" and since I have size 12 feet, I had a little difficulty and was afraid of breaking the slippers.


Perfect Fit
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We met an eccentric couple at the hostel who were gathering many many many souvenirs of brochures, and small trinkets for their friends. They were taking up the entire common area in their kimonos and were a little odd. They said they decided not to go to Himeji Castle (which was one of the best sites of our trip) because they heard it was a little too "overdone" and "touristy". We like places off the beaten track too, but I think you've got to go to the tourist places that interest you or you'd miss a lot. After all, they're not touristy because they're boring!

So we settled in to our comfortable beds and had a good night's sleep. The next morning we got up early to visit Nijo-jo, which was Tokugawa's fortress while he was in Kyoto.

We walked from our hostel for a while, then realized the map represented a bigger area than we thought (a mistake that was made often on our trip). We figured out which direction Nijo-jo was in, so we waited for the next bus to come and hope its going where we want it to go.

We came across a map waiting for a bus. "Oh good, it's a map", I said. Here's a picture of the map which was very helpful in teaching us that even though it's a map, it may not help us get where we're going.


You Are Here
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As we were waiting for the bus, we asked a local how much the bus costs. She told us and made some hand gestures, and we figured out it was 175 yen. She told with body language and examples that "We could get a card for the entire day for 500 yen, which is a much better deal. In the grand scheme of things, 500 yen goes a long way. You can travel the magical world of Kyoto for the price of a cup of coffee. What other marvelous joys may we encounter in this enchanted land we call Japan?" (All with body language and examples, it was amazing).

Lucky for us, the bus took us directly to Nijo-jo, and we bought a 500 yen card from the bus driver (good call, Ann). The fortress is in the middle of the busy city. The fortress is surrounded by a moat, which I took a picture of here. This would be a much better picture without this joker and his friend from Marquette getting in the shot. Oh well, I can always photoshop them out.


Moat (complete with jokers from Wisconsin).
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We entered the fortress and decided to pay a little bit more for the English audio guide which helped a great deal. There's a main outer wall, then the inside area where the main entrance is located. Here's a shot of the main structure of the fortress. There's some really intricate gold lacquered decorations above the door and at the gates.


Gate to Nijo-Jo
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Nijo-Jo
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Once inside, you hear a curious chirping sound that is coming from the wood planks that make up the walkway. This is called a "Nightingale Floor", and we heard about this from our Aunt Merikay and Cousin Claudia. This was an ingenious invention that alerted the guards to an intruder no matter how stealthy he was. I was expecting it to be squeaky, but not the beautiful sound that really sounds like a bird chirping. This is done by adding angled nails at certain places in the floorboards to create this sound. We have this in our house, and we haven't had an intruder yet.

After taking the tour, I was totally in Samurai mode. It was easy to lose yourself in the time period and imagine what it was like to live back then. This is one of the things I was really excited to come to Japan to see, and it was great.

When walking around the grounds, we were approached by a group of Japanese school girls that had a school project where we were the subject. This is the first of several times we helped school kids with their project. We had as much fun as they did. They asked us questions in English such as "Where are you from?", "What is your Name", etc. Then took a picture of all of us. I asked for one with them. They always do the haiwa (peace) sign before a photo.


Haiwa (peace)
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At the end of touring the castle, Ann and I were both starving so we decided to find a restaurant. My Lonely Planet book showed a noodle shop near the train station. We haven't tried one of these "Ramen" shops (better than the Sam's Club variety by far). When we arrived there was a line out the door with hungry patrons looking in the windows to see how long until it was their turn. We joined line and after a short wait we were in.

After looking in confusion at the lunch menu which was entirely in Japanese characters, the waiter saved us by telling us there's only 3 choices in the restaurant: small, medium or large! I looked up chicken in the guide book and he said "Only pork". We each got a medium bowl of noodles, green onions and sliced pork. It was the perfect lunch for hungry tourists (and cheap too). We were the only tourists there, most were school kids and business men grabbing a quick lunch during the weekday.


Waiter at noodle shop (see, haiwa again!)
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This is a Medium?
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Next we visit the Gion district of Kyoto, Ann and my favorite part of the city...

Nikko: Yabusame Festival

The Yabusame is the archery on horseback festival which takes place a day before the large festival. We decided not to stay for the festival the next day, since there were so many other things we wanted to see.

Yabusame starts with a ceremony and parade involving the participants for the contest. This was held at the entrance to Tokugawa's shrine complex, and was a great backdrop for the brightly colored competitors.


Parade for Yabusame
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The archers use very long bows, and specially tipped arrows to fire at targets while on horseback. The tips of the arrows are rounded so they don't kill someone (good idea).


Archers' Tools
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The archers were very serious about what they were doing, and the costumes and setting was perfect for this event. The only thing a little off, was the wire rimmed glasses some of the samurai wore. I guess back in the day, if you needed those you wouldn't be a samurai archer.


Archers at Ceremony (note deer skin chaps, very cool but not at gift shop).
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Samurai at Ceremony
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Group photo
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After the ceremony, the crowd started to gather along the main street from the shrine where the competition will take place. It's a great backdrop for the competition. The spot we were standing was a little uphill from where the archers started. The place is in the middle of these great hills with bright green trees covering them. The air was cool, it was a perfect day for the festival.


Yabusame competition
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The archers start at one end and they ride their horses at full speed towards the target. If they're timing is right, they'll get a bulls-eye, if not they commit ritual suicide. We didn't stay for the ending ceremony, we thought it would be depressing.


Successful Archer
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We decided to continue on to Kyoto in the late afternoon when the competition was complete. We stopped at a little coffee shop on the way down, and did some window shopping as well as admire the beautiful scenery on our way back down to the train station.

Next, we head for Kyoto...

Nikko

We turned in our Japan Rail Pass voucher for the week, and headed out of Tokyo. We were originally going to go straight to Kyoto, but Mike and Alicia mentioned a festival going on in Nikko, which is just north of Tokyo. It's to celebrate the building of the mausoleum to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was the shogun who turned Edo (now Tokyo) into the capital and united all of Japan. He's also one of the main historical figures in Shogun.

This was our first experience on the Shinkansen or bullet train. It's a very comfortable and fast way to travel. We transferred to a local train once we got close to Nikko and at the station asked about the festival. The guy at the ticket counter told us we were a day early! We later found out that they were having the Yabusame or archery on horseback competition, so we decided to stay.

As soon as you get off the train, we noticed the beautiful scenery just outside of this small town:


Nikko from Train Station
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We walked up the hill through the town to the shrine area. On the way, we were considering staying in Nikko that night to take part in the festival. We later decided that there was so much to see, we wanted to get to Kyoto the next day instead.

As we climbed the hill, we noticed the firemen training at the fire station. They would practice zipping across this wire high in the air, looked like fun (you'll need to click on the photo below to see the firemen at the top of the photo):


Firemen Training
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The first thing we saw when we got to the top of the road through town, was this beautiful bridge over a fast running river. The story goes, this bridge was built at the exact spot where a famous buddist monk named Shin-Kyo rode on the back of two serpents across the river (cool).


Shin-Kyo Bridge
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From there, we climbed further up a stone path to the entrance to the main shrine area. Very cool fountain at the entrance. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be Tokugawa, or what. As you can see, the signs are a little difficult to read.


Tokugawa and his sidekick dragon?
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Before checking out the shrines, we thought we'd have lunch under some pine trees on the mossy grass. After a long voyage from Tokyo, it felt good to take a break in the cool clean air. Most of our trip was in the low 70s, upper 60s, so it was a perfect time to go. Here's where we ate, in back of this cool little car that Ann really liked.


Lunch Spot and very very small SUV.
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After lunch, we headed up to the shrines. There was also a Japanese garden that we toured, which was really pretty. I would have taken a nap there, if they would have let me. Very peaceful. Here's Ann striking a pose in the garden.


Ann in the Japanese garden
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After the Japanese garden, we toured the shrines. They don't allow pictures in many of the shrines. There were 3 large buddhas that looked to be about 20 feet tall in the first shrine. They were covered in gold and very ornate.

We then walked up to the main area where Tokugawa's mausoleum is located. After walking through the Torii, you first notice a 5 story pagoda. It's said that this pagoda has no foundation, and a pendulum hanging down the middle on the inside to balance the structure during earthquakes.


Nikko pagoda
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As we walked further, there's a building that has carvings of monkeys on the front which is the basis for the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys.


Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil monkeys
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From there, we entered the main gate of Tokugawa's shrine. This shrine is decorated much more ornately than most Japanese shrines, and is considered more in the Chinese style. There are guardians at the gate, which is true of most shrines, but this one had Tokugawa's loyal samurai archers keeping watch. Very cool carvings of the archers.


Tokugawa's shrine entrance
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Samurai archer guardian
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We entered Tokugawa's shrine, and walked to the back room area which is where he is enshrined. It wasn't a remarkable room, but was interesting in that the shoji (room divider doors) are only opened when the emperor visits.

more to come about Nikko...

Meji Shrine

Today Ann and I were on our own to travel about Tokyo. We had a good lesson on the train from Alicia, so we're ready to go to Meji Shrine.

While waiting for the train, we noticed an interesting add for doggie massage that we thought was funny. The pooch seems very relaxed, I wonder if they give that treatment to humans, or are they only licensed for canines??


Doggie Massage Ad
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We got off the train in Harajuku and started walking where we thought Meji Shrine was located. I have to admit, sometimes I like to just start walking before figuring out where we are. We ended up walking to a park that I thought must be the shrine, but it turned out to be another shrine. I assumed there was only one shrine in the area, but I quickly found out that you shouldn't assume that in Japan!

We ended up at a shrine dedicated to Admiral Togo of the Japanese Navy during WWII. The shrine was interesting, but I was glad it wasn't Meji because I expected more!


Ann doesn't think we're at Meji Shrine. Of course we are!
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Come on Ann, it's a shrine isn't it? This must be Meji Shrine!
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The guide book says nothing about a small school next to Meji Shrine. Ok, maybe this isn't the place (cute kids, though).
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Ok, so it wasn't Meji Shrine. I stand corrected.

We walked back to the station and got our bearings, THEN walked over to Meji Shrine which was about a block away in the opposite direction.

Anyhoo, Here's some pictures from the shrine. I really liked this shrine. It was in a large park with huge trees. You forgot you were in the middle of Tokyo. Very peaceful, and easy to imagine you were back in the time these were built.


Huge torii entrance gate made of Huge cedar logs.
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Inside Meji Shrine
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Prayer Cards around Sacred Tree
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On the way out of the shrine park, we noticed a wall of what we first thought were lanterns. Turns out these are barrels of sake that are left as an offering to the gods.


Sake Offering
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After Meji shrine, we decided to stop for lunch in Harajuku. As I mentioned before, there's some great peoplewatching here. We stopped at a noodle shop that looked good; Ann and I ordered a tuna noodle dish with what I thought was a lot of parmesan cheese on top. After I took a few bites, Ann mentioned that the white stuff on top are little fish. The ad in the restaraunt called the dish "tuna with crispies". Apparently "crispies" means lots of tiny fish.


"Crispies" means lots of little fish
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Ann and I didn't think the fish were too bad tasting (even with the little eyeballs still attached), but it was the sheer volume that turned us off. When it went from parmesan cheese (which I like in great quantities ) to little fish (which I like in small quantities), it was a little tough to finish the meal.

For dessert, we tried the crepes they have all over the area. They take a crepe and wrap a variety of fruit and ice cream inside. We had a strawberry and cream crepe, tasted good. Wash down all the little fish we just consumed.

After lunch we decided to walk from Harajuku to Shibuya, which wasn't too far. We noticed a construction area where you had to take a detour along the sidewalk to avoid. There was a worker posted at each turn in the detour to make sure people navigate OK (even though it was the only way you could possibly go). It appeared this was their only job. They politely pointed us in the direction the sidewalk was going. Thanks guys, you're lifesavers!

We arrived in Shibuya, which was not quite as busy as the night we were there previously, but still a good amount of people. Here's a picture of the crowd of people crossing the street:


Shibuya crosswalk
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There are some interesting buildings in Shibuya, and lots of them have the big jumbotron screens that we saw when we were in Shibuya at night.


Tower Records
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Odd building in Shibuya
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After another day of seeing some great things, we went back to Mike and Alicia's and took it easy with the boys. Bryce liked to make himself comfortable, I guess those extra pounds are good for something.


Bryce on the Steve-o-Lounger
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Next post will be our trip away from Tokyo...

Rainy Day

We started the day getting a lesson on how to park in Tokyo with some very cool space-saving technology in the parking garage at Mike and Alicia's place. Since driving around ramps takes up a lot of space, many parking garages in residences and public parking areas have systems of shuffling cars horizontally and vertically to make the most out of space.

Mike would enter a code which brought his car into position:


Parking #1
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Then, the car would turn around and you're ready to drive off:


Parking #2 with Bryce hamming it up
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We planned on going to Akihabara, which is the electronics mecca of Tokyo. Unfortunately, due to bad weather and Japanese-style traffic, we ended up doing some karaoke with the kids in the car. I'll never listen to "Let's Get It Started" by the Black-eyed Peas without thinking of the boys belting it out while stuck in traffic in Tokyo:


Let's Get It Started
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We saw some shrines along the streets of Tokyo that were there for a Shinto festival that was going on.


Shinto Festival Shrine
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At the end of the day the guys took a trip to the batting cage to hit a few. As we walked to the batting cage, Mike and I were saluted by a couple of Japanese kids who were finished playing baseball and were waiting for their ride. Mike mentioned that foreigners or "Gaijin" are still a rarity in Japan, and reactions such as that are common.

In this batting cage, there are video screens of real-life Japanese baseball pitchers that wind up and pitch to you. Very cool. I had it on the "medium" setting. The fastest was a little fast for me (the fastest being well below MLB pitching speed). The boys had a good time and Mike got a few swings in as well. There was also a ping-pong machine, modeled here by Jens:


Jens waiting for the pitch
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Jens in front of the Ping-Pong machine
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This was a fun day hanging out with the Bollesens. Coming up, Ann and I head off to Meji Shrine, another huge shrine in the middle of Tokyo.