On Wednesday my boss came up to me and said: “Tomorrow you will go to Japan.”
For all that the communication is somewhat lacking at work I really don’t mind discovering I am being thrown into a five-day holiday. Due to lucky timing I was to go to Japan on a Thursday and would be able to stay until Tuesday morning due to a holiday in Korea.
As it was my second trip to Japan I was considerably more relaxed. I slept through the entire 3-hour journey, harbor to harbor. I met J2 getting off the ferry. She is essentially my clone here in Korea. We have the same name, same age, we were both on our second trip to Fukuoka, went to the same French camp…. kinda nuts actually. We hit it off –being clones and all- and had a marvelous time in Japan.
J2 introduced me to bike rentals at our hotel. On my first visit I had tried to navigate the public transit system or walk. This time the city was much more navigable. We toured temples and gardens and even happened upon an older Japanese man, dressed to the nines, who gave us the low down on one of the temples we were admiring.
I left Fukuoka Friday afternoon in favor of a more famous city, Kyoto. I took the Shinkansen (aka high speed train) because it turned a 9-hour bus ride into a mere 3-hour train trip. Not having planned to go to Japan I wasn’t terribly organized when I got to Kyoto. I didn’t have a map, tourist book or even a phone number of a hostel. I had been counting on leaching info from the tourist info center but I discovered it had, regrettably, closed its doors an hour before I arrived. So my only option seemed to be hassling random western tourists for information on hostels. This did eventually work. However I do not recommend it. Considering how really unpleasant it was to be alone, clueless and without accommodation in a Japanese city at night I immediately booked places to stay for the rest of my time in Japan.
Kyoto is the old capital of Japan and positively a Disneyland of temples. My intention was to rent a bike and tool around the city finding what temples I might. I woke up to find a steady rain pouring down on the city and thought better of my original plan. So I walked to some nearby temples but was totally soaked (and wearing only sandals) I concluded it was more of a museum day after all.
Thanks to Facebook I connected with a Mt.A friend currently living in Japan. As luck should have it she wasn’t very far from where I was and we made plans to meet in Osaka. Three days before this I had no idea I was even going to Japan. Suddenly I found myself aboard a rapid train to Osaka for a night on the town with J3. Life’s pretty good.
Osaka was terrific. To get the total urban Japanese experience we stayed in a capsule. It’s a pretty sweet experience. The capsule, which felt very much like sleeping in un upside-down overgrown bathtub, is fully decked out with TV, stereo and lighting. You have a locker for your things where they have provided pjs and towels. If you want to chill out they have a hot tub and sauna à la public bath style popular over here. We weren’t the chilling out visitors and actually only managed a few short hours of sleep in our capsule before we were forced to check out (they charge extra for every hour after ten o’clock that you may stay).
After Osaka we headed to Nara a beautiful but touristy town. It has many impressive temples on offer complete with equally massive buddhas. Wandering the grounds around the temples are herds of deer. I’m told they are messengers of God. I guess God has a lot to say in Nara.
I went back to Kyoto for my last day in Japan. Probably one of my favorite things about my trip was the abundant opportunity to rent and ride a bike. As I may have blogged before biking in Pusan is more of an extreme sport than useful mode of transportation. I took full advantage of having a bike in Kyoto and biked to the Imperial Palace as well as the Gold and Silver Temples and stopped at many interesting temples in between.
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