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...
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
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