Japan Trip - Part 6

The next day we decided not to trek into central Kyoto but up the mountain behind the hotel. Well, not really trek, as there was a funicular railway, followed by a cable car to the top of Mount Hiei.

The cable car brings travellers to the Mount Hiei Garden Museum, a garden inspired by French impressionist paintings. This is a nice idea. Dotted around the gardens are reproductions of French impressionist art.

 Happy passengers on the Yase cable railway.

Henry and his umbrella.

Part of the Mount Hiei garden.

View towards Lake Biwa and Shiga.

Resting.

 The lily pond.

After lunch in the garden café, the ladies went off to get their daily temple dose, while the boys went back down to the hotel - to do the laundry! This proved more difficult than anticipated. Our problems came from the combination of complex Japanese technoology, our complete lack of Japanese langauge skills, and the hotel staff's limited English.

 Yuko entering the temple on Mount Hiei.

The boys were more interested in earthly pleasures.

  The next day, our stay in Kyoto was over and it was time to return to the Tokyo area - to watch the football, Urawa Red Diamonds vs. Vegalta Sendai.

 The shinkansen arrives. 

(The front, as Henry pointed out, looks like the head of a pike.)

 

The Urawa Reds crowd greeting their heroes.

Japan Trip - Part 5

After a night's rest, the next day was a trip Thomas had long been looking forward to - a visit to the ninja museum in Koka.

The museum is a little way from the railway station, but they provide a bus service. Yuko called the museum and someone came to pick us up. The museum has a ninja house with hidden trapdoors, false ceilings and sliding panels, and the highlight for children, a ninja training trail. We now have two ninjas living under the Elk's Street roof.

Thomas looking over a ninja's shoulder.

 

The group in front of the Giant Buddha Hand from a famous ninja film.

Ninja Thomas showing some of his moves.

Ninja Thomas crossing the pond.

 Two fierce ninjas guarding the walls.

Ninja Thomas scaling the rooftops.

On the next day, it was back to visiting temples in the rain, which for certain people was not considered such fun. Of course, it is not possible to visit Kyoto without seeing the Kinkaku-ji Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

The famous Golden Pavillion.

As this photo shows, the place was rather crowded.

Temple pond.

After Kinkaku-ji,  we headed off to the next temple, Ryoan-ji, the Temple of the Dragon at Peace. This temple is famous for its rock garden.

The temple pond at Ryoan-ji.

A corner of the famous rock garden.

 Thomas in the rain.

The dragon may have been at peace at the temple, but the little boys weren't. Comtemplating rocks wasn't really their thing, but they felt much better after having a meal at a nearby café run by Ritsumeikan Univeristy students. 
  

 A tram on the Keifuku Kitano line.

Little boys can take only so many temples in one day, so once we had returned to central Kyoto, the boys went to the Kyoto Railway Museum. For some reason, the ladies were not that interested in steam trains.

 Thomas in command.

Engine 8630 in steam.

 JNR steam locomotive C612

When we got back to the hotel, the cleaners had tidied up the room. The Japanese are precise in their work - even the soft toys had been placed neatly in order!

Pillows, Musti the dog and Pikachu all in a row.

Japan Trip - Part 4

In Finland, H-M had found out about the  Kyoto Cycling Tour Project, so our first day of Kyoto sight-seeing was to be an all-day guided cycle tour. Yuko had the day off because, surprisingly, she cannot cycle.

The plan was excellent, and the KCTP people well-prepared and well-organised, the only slight problem was  the forecasted typhoon. We are from Finland, the cold north, so we are not going to let a little rain stop us! 

It was agreed that we would do only the half-day tour, in case the public transport was stopped as the storm strenthened, and off we went. 

Our guide insisted that it was important to do some stretching as a warm-up, which in view of our cycling lifestyle at home we found quite amusing but whatever the lady says...

 One of the first temples.

The entrance to the ancient Imperial Palace, which has some kind of laser sensor system to prevent people getting too close to the wall or gate.

Cyclist Thomas.

Cyclist Henry.

Thomas and Henry had given up on wearing wet weather gear as the water just went straight through it. The rain was simply bucketing it down all the time. Luckily, it was quite warm.

Cyclist H-M.

 Our guide, who was wasn't letting anything get her down.

 A beautiful Japanese garden in the rain.

Not all the members of our group were as stoic as our guide, over time tempers were starting to fray, partly because we hadn't really had anything to eat. The combination of hunger and being soaking wet is not a good one. Once we got back to the more modern part of the city centre, we decided to call it a day and look for something to eat and buy some dry t-shirts.

A cycling tour with KCTP is an excellent idea; the terrain is flat, the guides know the backstreets and how to avoid busy areas, and it makes a change to walking and sitting in buses or trains. H-M says that she will certainly do it again the next time she visits Kyoto, but hopefully in more pleasant weather. 

Oh, and we learnt something; typhoons are to be taken seriously. The weather got much worse in the evening but by then we were safely in our hotel.

Japan Trip - Part 3

The day after our visit to Kawagoe, we left the Tokyo area and set off in the direction of Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. This was to be our first time on a bullet train, so the boys, young and old, were very  much looking forward to the trip.

 Since we were travelling with the Japanese Rail Pass, we could only use the Hikari train, which is not the fastest, most modern Shinkansen but pretty good anyway. Hikaris are certainly much better than the pendolinos of Finnish Railways (VR), which to put it bluntly are rubbish. 

 Thomas waiting for the train.

We first went to Osaka, where we were to meet some of Yuko's relatives.  Osaka gave me a nice feeling, even though we were only there for half a day. 

We spent some time visiting the Osaka Aquarium before heading off for dinner. Yuko's family took us to a restaurant with something for everyone. Thomas, in particular, who is rather conservative in his food tastes, had a great time, and so did Henry, as the photo below shows. Unfortunately, there aren't many photos of Yuko's family - someone ran down the battery of the camera taking hundreds of photos of fish.

 

Osaka Aquarium

Henry in his element!

 

H-M and the latest addition to Yuko's family.

Yuko's mother, still in good health, and a granddaughter-in-law.

Osaka was the scene of some excitement since we 'lost' the boys.  They were given permission to go to the Pokémon shop but as a result of a misunderstanding, no adult knew exactly where it was. The difficulty was that we had been enjoying ourselves so much that no-one had followed the time and now we were in a rush to get to the station, with no little boys in sight.  The shop was surprisingly far away but all's well that ends well. The boys get plus points for initiative shown in finding the place, it was not easy to find, but minus points for being vague when asking for permission to head off on their own.

With everyone rounded up, we headed off to Kyoto, where we were to spend the next few days. Courtesy of Mitch belonging to some kind of timeshare system, we stayed in a place much grander than normal, on the outskirts of town near the Kyoto International Conference Center, famous for the Kyoto Protocol. Our station was at the end of the line, Kokusaikaikan.

  Thomas, who was rather impressed with the facilities and beginning to quite like being in Japan.

Emolga - the cause of some agitation!

Japan Trip - Part 2

The next day was reserved for a trip to Kawagoe, Yuko and family's home town. Kawagoe is in the Tokyo metropolitan area, a short-ish train ride from downtown Tokyo. After a couple of slight detours, we arrived at the right place at more-or-less the right time.

Kawagoe is famous for its sweet potatoes, so Yuko and family, after a short stroll through the town, took us to a restaurant fit for a king (the King of Sweden to be precise) to taste the local specialities.

The boys strolling through Kawagoe old town.

Lunch, beautifully presented and very tasty.

Alisa - Yuko and Mitch's daughter. 

Unfortunately, we didn't see much of Alisa as in true Japanese teenager style she was away studying most of the time. (As an aside, Henry and Thomas might benefit from some Japanese industry as regards their school studies.)

Mitch, Alisa and Yuko in the restaurant.

After lunch, we took a walk around parts of the old town of Kawagoe, including 'Candy Alley', before dropping by the Kawagoe Festival museum. 

Thomas and Yuko in the museum.

This photo is important because it is the last concrete evidence of the whereabouts of Thomas's Hockey Bird baseball cap - lost in Japan and sorely missed.

After the museum it was off to the Kitain Temple, with the boys travelling in style as the photo below shows.

The boys travelling by rikshaw.

The temple garden at Kitain Temple.

The temple garden at Kitain Temple.

 The temple is famous for its many Buddha statues, some of which can be seen here.

From the temple, we dropped by Yuko, Mitch and Alisa's flat for a short rest, which included testing an authentic Japanese massage chair, before it was off to a restaurant for dinner.

Japanese-style fondue.

Of course, Japan is not all about ancient temples and beautiful gardens. One of the surprises was that it seemed that most Japanese are squashed into a narrow strip running along the western coastline. The urban areas are very densely populated, leaving the cities looking like the photo below.

Typical urban landscape.

Even the fish live in close proximity to one another!

Japanese koi.