Category Archives: Grand Tour

Purple, sweet potato ice cream is a thing

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Wednesday 1st May, 2013

Walking tours are a great way of getting under the skin of a place. Rather than jumping from subway station to subway station you can wander (with purpose) from place to place seeing everything that’s on offer. So for Wednesday morning we decided we’d go for a walk.

We started in the Maronouchi area of Tokyo, home to some big buildings and the main Tokyo station – a very different experience during the day than the night. It’s also where you can find the Imperial Palace. Continue reading Purple, sweet potato ice cream is a thing →

A slow start to Tokyo

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Tuesday 30th April 2013

Today was looking so promising when we checked out from the Piece Hostel, headed to Ginkakuji to complete our visits to Kyoto’s temples, gardens, shrines and pavilions and then caught our penultimate shinkansen to Tokyo where we hoped we might get to travel at a world record speed. Continue reading A slow start to Tokyo →

Geisha and Gion

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The late afternoon, Monday 29th April 2013

We’d spent most of today in the Higashiyama region of Kyoto and had arrived at Gion in the late afternoon. I first read Memoirs of a Geisha in 2006 after finishing my university exams and loved it straight away. The bulk of the story centres around the Gion region of Kyoto, which is the best-known Geisha district in Japan. I never thought we’d be able to get tickets to a show – they are incredibly popular, and most Japanese who go book months in advance. However, Ben used the tried and true method of showing up on a whim and asking if any were available. As luck would have it, they were.

Geisha are highly skilled artists who train for years to become expert in traditional Japanese dance and song. The Kyoto geisha (or geiko as they are more accurately called) are not prostitutes, though the history of geisha has involved different nuances of what is expected of a women whose profession is to entertain. I like to think along the lines of how the lonely planet puts it; that they are ‘living museums.’ Continue reading Geisha and Gion →

Temples, gardens, shrines, pavilions

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We loved Kyoto and spent quite a lot of time immersed in history with several visits to temples and shrines so these are our experiences from Friday 26th April, Monday 29th April and Tuesday 30th April.

On the Friday we visited Fushimi-Inari Taisha; a shrine complex consisting of thousands of orange-red torii arranged along pathways around Mount Inari. Having seen it as a filming location in Memoirs of a Geisha we found it stunning in real life. We walked the 4km route up through the wooded slopes of the mountain which was wonderful in the late afternoon, early evening sunshine.

Neverending torii

Continue reading Temples, gardens, shrines, pavilions →

Nara – one big Buddha

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Sunday 28th April 2013

Having got to Kyoto early on Friday we’d managed to fit enough in to give us the chance of a day out in Nara. This large town/small city was the first permanent capital of Japan, and contains a number of impressive sights that were well worth the trip.  Another bonus is that most of the things-to-see are located within walking distance, so we spent the day following the Lonely Planet’s suggested walking tour.

Continue reading Nara – one big Buddha →

Arashiyama

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Saturday 27th April 2013

After Hiroshima we headed back along the Shinkansen to Kyoto and settled into our new home for the next few days. Our first full day in Kyoto got off to a bad start when a miss set alarm clock threatened to derail a unique experience.

Through luck rather than judgment we’d managed to coincide our visit to Kyoto with the annual Miyako Odori – one of the events in the Geisha calendar – which takes place for the month of April.

Continue reading Arashiyama →

Observations #3 – cutting edge no more?

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Japan was never the primary reason for this trip – that was New Zealand – this part of our trip came from the fact that breaking our journey didn’t affect the price of our flights.

A few years ago Christine had been to a conference in Taiwan and had spent a couple of days in Hong Kong, she thought I would love to visit so we looked at making that our stop. We couldn’t do that so we chose Japan instead.

What was going to be a couple of days in Tokyo ended up being 12, allowing us to explore the country and see some wonderful things. And whilst we knew the romantic side of the country I was also keen to see the cutting edge technology which I’d always understood was a big part of Japan.

And yes, we saw heated toilet seats with built-in bidets; we were surrounded by chrips and bleeps; we ordered food from vending machines; we travelled on incredibly fast trains; and cashiers had tills that gave them the correct change. We also saw ASIMO do his stuff at the National Museum of Science and Emerging Technology.

Continue reading Observations #3 – cutting edge no more? →

Nobody had to excavate these ruins

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Hiroshima.

Everybody knows what happened here.

What you can never appreciate from afar, no matter how good your teachers or how comprehensive a documentary is the reality of what took place at 8.15am on August 6th, 1945. ‘Little Boy’ was smaller than the bomb which would fall on Nagasaki a few days later but in a second it reduced most of Hiroshima to rubble and many of its people to ash.

An enormous effort was made to identify those killed, and to provide, where possible, remains to families for burial.  But they were reduced to ash.  How do you identify a pile of ash? Continue reading Nobody had to excavate these ruins →

Observations #2 – the correct change

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If you’re visiting somewhere then you’re probably going to use public transport.

If you’re visiting somewhere then you’ve probably not got lots of change in your pocket.

That’s unlucky for anyone who visits York. In our ten years there we came to dread the moment you got on a bus bearing paper money because of the sour and unhelpful disdain with which you’ll be treated.

Taking a bus in Kyoto has been lovely – you pay a flat fare wherever you’re headed and chuck the correct coins into the machine next to a friendly driver.

And change? Not a problem because they have a machine next to the driver that will take whatever you’ve got in your wallet and change it to a selection of change that will cover the fare.

It may make getting off a bus a little sluggish but it’s no slower than the palava of sorting out a ticket or sufficient credit before you board or interacting with the driver as you board. The best thing is that this lo-tech solution works perfectly no matter what you’ve got in your pocket.

It’s this attention to detail that is one of the most striking things about Japan. We popped into a supermarket the other day and when the cashier put our items through and I handed over the money the till produced the correct change for her – genius.

Observations #1- bing bong

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In Japan almost everything beeps.
Randomly in shops, persistently on train platforms, when you’re crossing the road, before an announcement…

You can pretty much guarantee that if a thing is electrical then it will make some sort of noise.

It’s just as well the Japanese have a greater tolerance for them than I do!