Nara & Kyoto - Chasing Geisha

Okay okay, here's another blog. It will probably be enormously long and boring, but it has been requested. If you prefer Ant's comedy blogging to mine, I don't blame you. But you WILL be off my Christmas card list...

Nara (as recommended to me by my good friend Laura Mullineux - who, in my humble opinion, is the first port of call for info about all things Japanese) was our second city to visit. Summary: temples, shrines, deer. We spent two full days here exploring probably most of the 8 World Heritage sites and quite a bit more. It's the second biggest drawcard (second on to Kyoto) when it comes to old-school Japan with the lovely pebbly gardens, cherry blossoms and carp (lots of carp). Highlights of our trip to Nara include Todai-Ji Temple which features Daibutsu-den Hall (Hall Of The Great Buddha), which is the largest wooden building in the world - fancy! - and is home to a MASSIVE bronze buddha. Also Kasuga Taisha Shrine is big and the path up to it (in the middle of the forest) is lined with lanterns. It must be really beautiful on a dusky evening but we were there on a cloudy afternoon and it started spitting! Anyway, shrines, temples, gardens, deer - it's all lovely. Highly recommended! Plus they have a Mister Donut...

Kyoto has so much stuff to see you could be here for months and see something different every day! We had five nights there so we really had to jam it in. It's pretty easy to get templed out so we decided to see the temples that really were essential and then mix it up with other sights. Believe it or not, one of the sights is Kyoto Station - it looks like something from the future. It has an 11 storey department store attached to it and is officially the biggest train station I have ever been in. Having just had a look at Wikipedia, apparently the largest train station in the world is in Japan, in Nagoya. FYI, the busiest in the world is Shinjuku in Tokyo. Can't wait for that one!

Nishiki Market is a full-time food market that sells everything from Japanese pickles (they LOVE their pickles!) to fish, doughnuts, meat on sticks, weird sweets (they aren't really sweet and are kind of hard to describe!) and anything else you can think of! We had a wander up and down, but didn't fancy buying anything... and there was a long queue for the doughnuts.

Ponto-Cho is a small alleyway (also mentioned in Memoirs Of A Geisha) which features out-of-our-league restaurants and bars (classy ones, not karaoke ones) and little tea houses. It's supposedly very authentic but with all the tourists it was a shame because it made it seem really fake. We had a wander up and down though...

We wandered down Tetsuagaku-No-Michi (the Path Of Philosophy) while I philosophised and Ant shot down everything I said. What a magical experience... It was so named by the scholars of Kyoto University (I'm not sure which one - Kyoto has about 30 universities!) who used to ponder over the meaning of life or such things whilst meandering down this path by a trickly stream.

High on my list of must-sees in Kyoto (and indeed, all of Japan) was Gion. Gion is where the geisha and maiko (apprentice geisha) attend appointments at tea houses so it's prime geisha-spotting area in the late afternoon/early evening. Unfortunately what that means is that there are a load of white people hanging around with cameras and not many geisha at all! Me & Ant wandered around the windy back streets around the little tea houses and spotted one maiko walking from one tea house to the next. I was absolutely made up that I saw one IN REAL LIFE!! :-))) It happened so fast that there was no time for a picture.

We've seen some beautiful temples and shrines as well of course! Ginkaku-Ji, Nanzen-Ji, Chion-In and plenty more. They're all lovely and you'll see some highlights of the pictures if you go on Facebook.

Well that's it for now. Keep in touch x

Osaka - My first blog!

Wow, look at me all 21st century!

Well, here goes I guess...I'm now in Kyoto, but let's start from the very beginning... in Osaka.

On Sunday July 1st we set off from a usual grey-morning-y Manchester to fly to my all-time-can't-remember-not-longing-to-go destination... Japan. Qatar Airways (a poor man's Emirates) took us to Osaka, via Doha, and we finally landed in Japan on Monday afternoon, 8 time zones to the right (we're ahead of you, if you're confused). After being a little bit put out that my backpack weighed 3kg more than Ant's (consider the fact that he probably weighs about 20kg more than me...), I slung it on my back and we headed for the train. Japan (in the 8 days that I have experienced it) has an excellent train system and we haven't had to use the bus or a taxi once. The worst thing I find about buses in foreign countries is the problem of do-you-get-on-at-the-front-or-the-back? Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me?? By the way, I THINK you get on in the middle here, and off at the front. There is no back, just to confuse matters.

So we got to Osaka without further incident and checked into Hotel Chuo, in the Tenno-ji district. We had been warned that the area was a bit dodgy, hookers, homeless people etc but to be honest, like most people here say, IT'S JAPAN. It's never dodgy. We went up to our room, which was a traditional Japanese room, 4 1/2 tatami (traditional straw) mats big. That's not very big for those who don't know their tatami... We got our futons out of the wardrobe, made our beds, donned our yukata (cross between kimono & dressing gown) & house slippers and were ready to roll! After changing & going for dinner at an okonomiyaki (iron hotplate in the middle of the table, you order, they slap it on the hotplate and then you eat), we slept like babies.

Osaka doesn't have a lot to offer the new tourist in town, but there were quite a few places that we enjoyed. Dotombori is an area described as 'very Bladerunner' - all huge neon signs and dystopian chaos. Wicked. There were loads of restaurants out there, but we headed for one where the locals were queueing. It was a vending machine that dispensed tickets for either: noodles with pork OR noodles with more pork. You then handed your ticket to the guy behind the counter who dished out the noodles and the appropriate amount of pork and gave it you. Huh. It was okay, surprisingly. We even went back a few nights later. Other nights we mostly frequented a new favourite - a kaitenzushi - a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, just like Yo Sushi! Yum yum. We found one here in Kyoto last night, but it wasn't as nice :-(

Anyway, in Osaka we went to Minami (Japanese for south) which contains Dotombori, Den Den Town (all electrical gadgets shops - nerd alert!) and Amerika-Mura (America Village) which is where all the trendies hang out - it is extremely unlike the America I know of, but they all seemed happy enough. Kita (Japanese for north) is where everyone works in their office jobs in cubicles (the karaoke and sake seem to take away the pain!) so there's not much to see. We did go the Umeda Sky Building, 'Osaka's most dramatic piece of modern architecture', which is a huge office building, compared to the Arc de Triomphe because it's an arch. That's the only similarity. On the very top is an observation deck. You take the lift (almost) to the top, then the last five floors are climbed on a glassed-in escalator. Gulp. I clung on like nobody's business. We were on the floor below admiring the view (before you head to the open-air observation deck) & THEY CLOSED IT. So we never got to the observation deck. Gutted. Pah, the weather wasn't great that day anyway...

On another day, we went to Osaka-Jo (Osaka Castle). '100,000 workers toiled for three years to construct an 'impregnable' castle.' It was destroyed 32 years later. Oops. So they built it again. they do that a lot here, build things again, as they used to make everything out of wood but pesky fires would mean they had to start all over again. Oh well.

Anyway, that's all I have to report on Osaka. They have a LOT of vending machines (drinks - not usually water - cigarettes and that's about it). There are thousands of bikes. Everywhere. If I think of anything else I'll let you know. We've also been to Nara and are on our first (full) day in Kyoto, but I'll leave that to another day...

Sayonara...