Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Japan: Week 1

This site is no longer going to be updated. I have upgraded my site and the new location is:
http://worldgallivant.com

Day by Day account of the locations we were at:
  1. Flight to Japan & Kimi Ryokan
  2. Ueno Zoo & Imperial Palace
  3. Daiba, Shibuya, & Yokohama
  4. Yokohama & Hakone
  5. Hakone & Expensive Ryokan
  6. Kyoto
  7. Kyoto, Torii Shrine, & Bamboo
Here is a map of the route we took and the exact places. Wow did we make it far during our first week. We were traveling at the speed of a Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train)! Sadly Google Map doesn't allow you to have multiple points while in public transportation mode, but we did travel the entire way on JR train except on our excursion to Katahara Hot Spring where JR trains did not reach and thus had to use the local train run by another company.


It is unbelievable how much we accomplished in the first week. Traveling from Seattle, WA to Tokyo was strange enough all by itself, but then to make it all the way to Kyoto in the same week, going from one great experience to another, and another, I just can't find the words to adequately express how much I loved and learned about Japan from the first day I arrived, through the first week, and then the 6 weeks to follow. We took the time to explore Tokyo for two and half days to head off and get a better bearing on where we were and how to travel in this amazing world on the other side of the Pacific. We definitely wanted to hit the highlights of Japan before expanding our exploration.

Our first destination was Ueno Zoo and the giant pandas. We ate some super delicious, freshly made pot stickers in the park before purchasing a vending machine zoo pass. Surrounded by school tour groups, families, and others we proceeded to through the gate and saw everything from Giant Pandas, Elephants, and Rhinos, to California Sea Lions and Otters. It was somewhat funny to have California Sea Lions as an exhibit, but I guess they would not be able to see them in the wild. Ueno Zoo was a nice place to start our visit to Japan by seeing the Giant Pandas.

It was getting late and we needed to locate a place to hang for the night, were planning to sleep in a park somewhere in Tokyo as the Ryokan we were staying at had checked for other hotels and campgrounds that may have vacancies and there were none. The biggest park in Tokyo, minus Ueno Zoo, is the park surrounding of the Imperial Palace, so that is where we chose to have our first urban camping experience. After exploring the Western Garden we nervously went tramping through layers of loud crunchy leaves in the dark all sneaky like to set up our Nubé and hammocks. Later that evening, we realized that there were many people sleeping in the same park, but right under the streetlights, so much for us trying to be sneaky hiding in the bushes.

Shibuya Crosswalk, Tokyo
During the second full day in Japan we tried to visit the Tskiji Fish Market – sadly it is closed on Sundays and we would have to visit it another time when we came back to Tokyo at the end of our stay – Daiba, Shibuya, and finally Yokohama. Since, Tskiji was closed and it was about 4:30 in the morning we decided to take some time and travel by train to an area that might be a little out of our way compared to how central a lot of attractions are in Tokyo, off to Daiba and the Gundam we went. Still nothing was open just yet, so we found some yummy vending machines and created a whole bunch of funny photos along the waterfront of this partially man-made island. Once things were open, we hit the stores, first for food and then to see what the different shops offered. This way we would have ideas on what souvenirs to get on our way back. We heard that Sundays were the best time to see the crazy outfits of the Harajuku teens, se we headed off that way and saw the famous Shibuya crosswalk. We soon became overwhelmed by all the people, navigation, and oh my all the things we had left to learn about our new life for the next seven weeks. Val and I decided that this was a good time to head out of the major city and get some breathing room. We headed to a smaller town that was a little ways out of Tokyo, Yokohama; we found a fantastic little park that was right on the river that had little piers side by side jetting over the water that would be perfect for hanging our hammocks from the railings. This was our second day of urban camping and we loved this amazing location. In the open, yes, but the locals were kind; there was a bathroom close by for clean water to cook and for late night nature calls. Overall, Yokohama was one of our favorite places to urban camp. Laying side by side on a small pier as dusk fell over Japan, we lay watching each high-rise light with different shades until they were all lit and their reflections found their way across the water right to our hammocks was a remarkable sight. We both thought, well, if this is urban camping, we were in love!

Hakone Open-Air Museum
Foot Bath
The Hakone region took two whole days to explore as we went up a mountain by almost every form of land transportation: train, bus, tram, and gondola. On this mountain, they also have an open-air art museum; where they have a Picasso exhibit of some of his less well-known pieces. This art museum also had a footbath that used natural hot water pouring from the mountain. At the very top of the mountain the Gondola stops and we elected to hike further up a mountainside to where natural hot spring pools sprouted from the earth, here they would dunk eggs into the hot pools where they would turn black and boil then be sold as good luck eggs. On the second day, we proceeded across Lake Ashi on a large boat styled like it was afloat during the days of pirates and such; we then caught a bus to a nearby JR station.

Fushimi Inari Shrine
Backpack holder
From Hakone we continued on to Kyoto, hoping to catch a performance by the Pontocho Geishas and maybe a tea ceremony. That night we were happy to get tickets to both events. We wandered around the Geisha district of Kyoto as we waited for the event times to grow closer and found a nice park that had many shrines and areas that would work perfectly for our next home. At the tea ceremony we learned here that matcha (green tea) is an acquired taste that we have not acquired, this was a once in a lifetime experience and we drank the thick green concoction despite our bodies telling us not to, for politeness sake. Giving thanks that they would only give us one serving, they then ushered us to the Geisha performance. To celebrate the end of our first week in Japan, we visited a famous shrine and famous temple in Kyoto. The first was Kiyomizu-dera Temple with a fantastic view of Kyoto from the observation deck and the second was Fushimi Inari Shrine with the famous torii gates all lined up. They were fantastic places to visit and at Inari Shrine we even strapped our backpacks to a lamp pole so that we didn’t have to carry them all the way up the mountain side that the shrine was located at. You could tell that some people were worried about someone coming to claim the bags and were very relieved when we came back. It was so sweet to see people really care and about somebody else’s items. Do not get me wrong we were a little worried about leaving our stuff there unattended, but were happy to find that people in Japan were a lot more carrying about other people’s possessions.




 Our first week in Japan had some amazing experiences. We met plenty of great people that helped us find an attraction or 7-eleven, the correct train platform, and one nice man even drove us in his personal car to two hotels before finding one that was open with a vacancy. We rode a Shinkansen for the first time. The highlights of these first seven days were endless, breathtaking, and a complete dream, even now – looking back through the photos.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Urban Camping

This site is no longer going to be updated. I have upgraded my site and the new location is:
http://worldgallivant.com

We read a lot about urban camping in Japan, before ever going over there and doing it ourselves. The main thing that made me feel confident about it being safe was that my mother had approved of it and even found it herself AND that on one of the recommendations it had said a police officer had suggested the park first.
Beppu, Beppu Park
Along the way we had asked many tourist centers if there was a place to camp at _____ (fill in the blank), they all would reply that they cannot officially recommend it, but that many people do camp there.

We would of loved to have more ideas of places to stay or that would be good. As we became experienced Japan Urban Campers, three criteria had to be met:
  1. A bathroom
  2. Two solid, old trees
  3. Those trees had to be at a distance of 13 to 16 feet apart (Mother's feet, heel to toe)

Here are a few of the places that we stayed at all around Japan. The only one that we wouldn't recommend is Himeji Castle Park as the security guards didn't really like it, but if pressed to find a place late at night in Himeji we would go back and know that we would have to take it all down before 5 am.

A few of the places we would really recommend/ our favorites:
  • Yokohama, Seaside Park: beautiful and a nice way to see the city lights and close to a bathroom
  • Shirahama, Shirarahama Beach: we never had to take the hammock and Nube down during our 2.5 day stay, as almost no one walks behind the storage containers placed up by the cement walkway (this was during the weekdays, not sure how that would change during the weekend and high travel season). Very close to a nice bathroom. Beautiful beach.
  • ...

Japan Day 1 & 2: Flight & First Glimpse of Tokyo

This site is no longer going to be updated. I have upgraded my site and the new location is:
http://worldgallivant.com


Set up our SMr Nube and Hammocks to make sure
that we both knew how they worked and what all
the components were.

The flight over the Pacific was an emotional one. Not bad emotions per say, but they did make the flight a lot longer  then the quoted nine hours. It was like being on a roller coaster. First me were super excited, then anxious - what if Japan didn't live up to our expectations? what if it was horrible? what if...? - then we were tired, it is a nine hour flight after all, then we would get happy - we are really flying to Japan, other people do things like this...not us, right?. Well I think you get the idea, every emotions was coursing through our veins, minus anger.

Man! have flights changed since the first time I flew back in the 1990's as a child....
  • Head phones actually look like headphones, not stethoscopes that doctors use to listen to your breathing, minus the metal piece at the end.
  • You actually get your own TV that has a bunch of recently released movies, instead of multiple monitors that are attached to the ceiling that play the same movie on all of them. Oh, and the you have right in front of you provides information about the flight, music, games, and shopping too.
  • They feed your really good food and unlimited drinks. It also appeared that they gave an allowance of alcohol to those of age.
  • There's no longer a pull down shade, you press a little button down below to set what kind of darkness you would like and then before landing it gradually brightens back up to mimic a sun-rise.
We arrived into Narita Airport at a little before 4pm Japan time. We were through customs with no hiccups and on the Narita Express into Tokyo Station. The Express was a little expensive...but we really wanted to get into the city quickly and we were new to the train system.
Or at least that's my excuse, since I was the money manager and the navigator and the translator during the trip - not that I knew very much Japanese, but since I was the one carrying the money and knew where we were going, it was kind of a default . By the time we were into Tokyo station it was a little after 6 and we were headed to Kimi Ryokan in Ikebukuro. After taking a couple moments to get our bearing and figuring out the rail system we were off.

In our Yukatas in our room at Kimi.
Once settled out our Ryokan we were back out on the town to find food. We were hungry. After wandering around for about an hour we went back to the Ryokan and asked for any recommendations for food. They recommended going back to the train station as there are food malls with plenty of options, but after a long flight and being up super early to go through TSA we did not feel like walking all the way back, so we settled for the closest decent looking restaurant.


Our first restaurant in Japan was Chinese... 
That restaurant happened to be a Chinese place named Ma La Gong Fang...alrighty, so we looked at the menu which thankfully was a picture book. And made two selections a celery, peanut stir fry and one that looked like sweet and sour. The server told us "no" and then started talking in Japanese..."uhhh, why not?" was our response. After trying to figure out some English to stick a sentence together that would make some more sense to us, which didn't work out very well, one of the other customers blurted out "chicken heads" to try and help the server and us out a little. "Well alright, we don't really want to eat chicken heads on our first night in Japan" is what was running through our heads.

We then asked for recommendations and ended up with a stir fry rice dish and some other things. Once the third plate arrived we were a little bit more confused by our food and how to eat it as they also provided a bowl of water with it. After tasting it was a sweet potato that had been caramelized in ginger which was still piping hot, so to make it cool enough to eat you had to dunk it into water and then eat, but first you had to pry it off the plate with your chopsticks. It was a decent meal and we even made friends with a couple of the other customers. Our fellow neighbors ordered us a traditional Chinese tea...oh, goodness, it was better then the sweetened chilled tea that you can buy in the US. Sharing the experience with the fellow restaurateurs was nice and even fun. It was a fabulous welcome to the country, even if it was on the basement floor of a Chinese restaurant.