Category: Travels

Kyotoooooooooo! 京都！

Woke up at 6am sharp. Usual shower, brush my teeth, get dressed and off to the train station! It was only a 2hr 45minute ride from Tokyo to Kyoto by Shinkansen bullet train.

I was going to take the bus to Kiyomizudera(清水寺) but the bus stops had long queues. :(

But nevermind, even though my right ankle hurts (some illness I seem to have inherited from my mum kicked in), I walked at a slow steady pace according to the route I had planned. (download route map here the numbers you see on this map are the location of where I took the corresponding photos from)

My first stop was at a temple called Sanjusangen-do(三十三間堂). It’s a long temple and inside, houses lots of statues. Very impressive sculptures inside but photos are not allowed so too bad.

Continued walking north. One good thing about walking is I get to take my time and see many things. Small details that aren’t anything special to the locals, appear interesting to me. Before reaching Kiyomizudera, I had to walk up a hill. I stopped midway at a small, dimly-lit restaurant for lunch. I had omelette rice with teriyaki sauce.

Entrance to Kiyomizudera

This corner, has lots of shrines dedicated to relationships. Mostly female visitors here.

Famous view of Kiyomizudera.

Exiting the temple, walking down the hill. On both sides are shops. Lots of people.

Decided to take a shortcut along this river. This road goes through the residential area. Quiet and peaceful.

I forgot if this photo is correct, it should be the Heian temple (平安神宮). The temples I’ve chosen to visit, are all related to the animes/movies I’ve seen and like a lot: Lucky Star and Lost in Translation.

The next 2 photos are taken near sunset. As I was exiting Nanzenji and heading towards the train station.

I took the train back to Kyoto station and from there, took JR line to the Arashiyama, western Kyoto area. There’s a shrine that I wanted to visit because of it’s forest of bamboo. The Nonomiya shrine. I had a bit of trouble locating it because I forgot to prepare the map for this area. I managed to find it anyway, but it was already too dark and the path leading in was totally dark. There weren’t any lamp posts. It was so dark you probably can’t see your shoes.

Thus, I gave up and began heading back to Tokyo. At Kyoto station, I grabbed a Tonkatsu Bentou (pork cutlet with rice) to eat during the ride back. It was cold and thus not really nice.

Z took a day off from work to join me today, so I planned to visit Nikko(日光) which is closer to Z’s hometown compared to places in Tokyo.

Using my JR Rail pass, I rode on the shinkansen again but this time, towards north to Utsunomiya(宇都宮). We’ve agreed to meet there, at the Nikko line’s platform. Sharing the train cabin with us, were a group of Singaporeans, all of them women in their early 40s. I could tell from their Singaporean accent and them speaking in a mix of English and Hokkein.

I can’t remember but it took about an hour’s ride to Nikko. After getting off, we walked towards the Nikko National park, stopping halfway at a family restaurant for lunch, then continued again to our first destination, the Shinkyo bridge (神橋).

Again, it wasn’t what I expected, haha. Damn travel guides make places look so good but when you get there, it’s totally different.

I expected a quiet place, but it turned out to be busy with tourists.

To “walk” on the bridge, you have to pay. I found this rather stupid so I didn’t pay to enter. Just looking at it from another bridge next to it is satisfying enough.

From here, we took a bus uphill. The road up was featured in Initial D I think. It was called “Japan Romantic Road”. A lot of turns and very steep. I could feel the “cotton” building up in my eardrums as we ascended.

We went to see Kegon Taki (華厳滝), Kegon waterfall. I think this is the first time in my entire life to see and hear and actual waterfall. We walked around some of the shops here. I wanted to try out some Dango but was a little too late. They just sold out. :/

I grabbed this medallion from one machine and had it engraved on another machine just next to it.

Then we took the bus back to the Nikko station where Z and I parted ways. It is the last time we could see each other.

I made my way back to Tokyo, and since I had time, I went to Akihabara again for the third time. Shopped for anime goods again and had dinner at a French restaurant.

Then I decided to try accessing the 3G network here on my phone and managed to chat with a friend for a while. I checked my emails to find a mail sent to me from another Japanese friend whom I’ve also known through FFXI. It was good timing because she gave me some advice travelling in Kyoto, which I was going to visit the very next day.

We also made plans to meet for dinner on the following Friday.

Breakfast at McDonald’s! Haha

I had planned to visit Fuji Mountain today. But because my colleague, who had just went to Japan about half a year before me for his honeymoon, told me that I must visit Hakone if I like quiet and serene places, and that Hakone was just south-east of Fuji mountain. Thus, I went there instead.

Using my JR pass, I had access to some of the shinkansen lines and I took one down to Odawara, which if I remember correctly, is a 50 minute journey from Tokyo.

From there, I took another train up north to Gora. Here, I bought a ticket that brings me around some of the places in Hakone.

I didn’t expect a lot of tourists to visit Hakone. How wrong I was. :(

First part of the journey is taking a cable car. It was a long wait. Then the ropeway, which is just another cable car ride through the hills. I enjoyed this part the most because I got to sit down. My feet was still aching from previous days.

大文字(Daimonji)

As my cable car passed through this area, there was a brief weird smell which I assume, is the smell of sulfur.

Fuji Mountain!

The cable car ride ends at Togendai. Here, I bought a hot chocolate drink and some “mochi” for my friends and myself. There were good. Very good. (*´д｀*)

The final part of the sightseeing in Hakone involves taking this fancy ferry across Lake Ashi.

Pirate ship!

When the ride ended Hakone-machi, it was almost time for sunset again. While waiting, I had some nice hot takopachi.

Fuji Mountain… again!

After that, I took a bus ride down back to Gora while having a short nap. From there, the way back is the same as the way I came here.

Back in Asakusa, I went to this small conveyor-belt sushi restaurant for dinner. Had like 10 plates of sushi. I remember the bill was around 1500yen.

My legs are aching! ( >_<)

But that didn’t stop me from sightseeing in Japan! ヽ(｀Д´)ノ

Today, I planned to visit Nakano Broadway, which I learned from Danny Choo’s post that it was another otaku heaven. Check his post for many photos which I didn’t take.

From Asakusa, I took the train to Ueno. Before I took the next train to Nakano, I decided to explore the park there.

Shinobu Lake

Then to Nakano Broadway.

Along this long corridor to NB, there was a family restaurant called Lotteria. I had my breakfast here. The burger had a half-cooked egg which I loved.

The taste of liquid yolk and meat. ヽ(´―｀)ノ

The first 1 or 2 floors were normal shops, 3rd and 4th had a lot of anime-related shops. There’s also quite a few costumes for cosplayers. Mandarake had quite a few shops here too, and they also have a few more on the 4th floor which are used as storage rooms.

After that, I headed down to Sunshine City. I wanted to take a look at Otome road, which I thought was somewhere along the way, but I probably took the wrong path as I didn’t see any female-oriented shops along the way.

There was a tower here, around 60 storeys tall. On the 60th floor was an observation deck where I spent most of my time hanging around. Then I remembered Japan’s early sunset so I spent about 2 hours here.

I chose a seat where I can see the sunset and it just so happens that Fuji mountain was also in the same direction. I had spaghetti for lunch and had orange tea while reading a Haruhi novel on my PSP.

Halfway through, there was a commotion from some of the children and they were running around. Looking out the windows, I saw a blimp and it circled around the building before it floated away.

Then came sunset. A woman in her 40s sitting on the table next to mine had a mug of beer ready and already basking in the orange light from the setting sun. You could see the shape of Fuji mountain clearly. I had my digital camera filming the sunset as I stared blankly at the scene.

After it was over, I set off for Tokyo Tower. I didn’t go up the tower, just walked around the area to see it. My feet was aching badly so after a look, I went back to my hotel to rest.

Though I’m getting used to everything here in Japan, on my way back to the hotel, I felt lonely and homesick all of a sudden. And when "Dango Daikazoku" (Clannad ED song) started playing on my discman, it only made the feeling worse… (´・ω・｀)