Japan Day 5: Finally Exploring Osaka

Today was an action packed day to say the least. When we arrived at the airport a few days ago we purchased an ‘Osaka pass’, which gave us two days of unlimited use of the local subway and bus systems as well as free admission to several local attractions. Dom activated his pass yesterday but since I wasn’t feeling well I decided to go to bed and I think I made the right decision because I quickly learned most of the attractions offer free admission for a reason.

I still wasn’t feeling that great but I needed to power through, even though we have been staying in Osaka all week I haven’t seen anything other than the train station and a few blocks of the ghetto neighbourhood between there and our hotel.

Our first stop for the day was Shittenoji Temple. Upon arrival it was clear that the New Year season had finally ended because there weren’t food stalls lining the walkway to the temple, and there weren’t a million people there either. You could walk leisurely around the property in any direction you wanted which was a nice change. The area around the temple contained several smaller temples, shrines, and pagodas, and was a beautiful sight in itself. The part you would normally have to pay to see looked much like the surrounding structures only you weren’t allowed to take pictures. Both the interior and exterior of the buildings in this area were pretty spectacular. I thought Christian churches used a lot of gold but they don’t hold a candle to Buddhists. They really love gold, it’s everywhere!

Once we had finished at the temple we decided to head to Osaka castle. I was pretty excited about this since I love castles and our previous two attempts to visit castles in Japan had been epic failures but Dom decided it would be fun to make me wait a little longer. He saw the Osaka History Museum on our way and insisted we go inside since we had free tickets. I protested but we ended up inside anyway. It might have been an educational experience if one of us read Japanese or if there was English text posted anywhere but we don’t and there wasn’t so it was pretty much a waste of time. Dom finally agreed there was no point in exploring anymore after we had moseyed through 3 floors of nothingness and we were on our way to the castle.

We walked a short distance before arriving at the moat, which we crossed by bridge into the walled castle grounds. We had a free ticket for the castle gardens so we decided to check it out. It took us both a few minutes to figure out why they referred to this area full of dirt and lifeless looking trees a garden but finally it dawned on me, it was all about the trees. The trees that were scattered through out the area were cherry trees and would likely have been absolutely gorgeous had they been in bloom. We took some pictures of the castle from the garden before heading to the castle itself.

The walk through the rest of the grounds was pretty fun. There was a baseball team huddled together with their coach, chanting and bowing which was an interesting thing to see. There were a lot of people jogging or walking their dogs and there was a busker who was blasting some Beach Boys music while setting up his performance. I enjoy people watching and this was a good spot for it.

Our tickets said castle museum so I didn’t think we would actually get to go into the castle, I thought we would end up in some building beside it, but I was wrong we actually got to go in the castle. I was super excited for about 3 seconds before learning that the entire castle had been turned into a museum. There wasn’t even a single room showing what the castle looked like back in the day when rulers resided there. I should be used to this by now because a lot of castles do it but it’s always so much more fun when the castle is still a castle on the inside. The first few floors contained some boring looking artifacts that didn’t have any English descriptions so we rushed through them pretty quickly. The bottom few floors made up for it though. They were full of swords and traditional dress, stuff that was actually cool to look at.

We finished up at the castle and started to make our way to the bay area to check out a few attractions there. We grabbed some lunch at the mall food-court then headed to the pier. We had passes for a cruise on the Santa Maria. This was quite possible the most boring cruise I have ever been on and that includes the canal cruise I took in Amsterdam which more or less consisted of someone talking about gables for 2 hours and me thinking I would never get those two hours back. There was nothing of importance in the harbour we cruised through, there wasn’t even anything that was nice to look at, it was just a bunch a skyscrapers and container ships being unloaded. The only redeeming quality of the cruise is that it was on a pirate ship and the people selling tickets and helping to dock the boat were dressed like pirates.

From there we made our way to the Big Wheel, Osaka’s answer to the London eye. Actually it might have been built first I really don’t know. It was a 15-minute ride and offered some good views of the city. We could see Universal Studios from the top and I was happy I hadn’t shelled out the cash to visit because I’m pretty sure Santa’s Village has more to offer.

We were planning on going to the look out on top of a building in the same area next but decided it would be a waste of time since it would offer the same views and I was really starting to feel like garbage again so we decided to move on. I was ready for bed but Dom convinced me to go to Namba with him because it was the number one attraction on Trip Advisor. I poked my head above ground after we got off the subway and didn’t see anything of interest so headed back to the hotel. I definitely made the right choice because when Dom came back a little while later he told me all that was there was a shopping mall.

Tomorrow we leave for the airport around 11:30, my Osaka pass is still good so I might do a bit more exploring since I have been waking up by 6:30 every morning but I will wait and see how I feel then.

Japan Day 4: Short Adventures In Himeji and Kobe

I woke up this morning feeling like absolute garbage, my nose was running like a faucet, I had a fever, and my whole body ached. Not ideal when you only have a few days to explore a country. I took some DayQuil, and decided to tackle the day.

Our first stop for the day was Himeji, which is located a little over an hour away from Osaka by train. The train was crowded but luckily we managed to snag some seats after the first stop because I would not have been able to stand for a whole hour. My drugs started to kick in somewhere along the way so I wasn’t feeling too bad by the time we arrived at our destination.

We had one goal for our time in Himeji and that was to see the castle. We walked out of the station and could see it immediately; only problem was the entire thing was covered by a large scaffold structure for renovation works so you couldn’t see a thing. We walked all the way to the castle any way thinking there might be more to see. The property is surrounded by a moat and we had to cross a bridge to get inside the castle grounds, which was pretty cool, and the grounds themselves were quite nice but the fact that you couldn’t actually see the castle was very disappointing. The best part of it all is they were still charging admission to access the interior of the castle even though much of that was off limits as well. We wandered around the area of the castle for a little while, and had a nice talk with a local man who seemed to want to practice his English before heading back to the train station.

Our next stop of the day was Kobe. Neither of us had anything we really wanted to see in Kobe we just thought we would stop there for lunch to break up the trip home, and maybe try some Kobe beef. We wandered down to the waterfront and took some pictures then explored the pier trying to find an option for food. Most places seemed to be out of our price range so we didn’t ended up trying Kobe beef and instead made our way back to the train station.

By this point in the day the drugs I had taken earlier on were starting to wear off and I was going downhill quickly. We grabbed a cheap lunch from a bakery at the train station and started to make our way back to Osaka. Dom continued exploring for a few hours once we returned but I headed straight to bed where I stayed for the rest of the day. It would have been nice to see more of Osaka but I figured I had already made an effort to see some things earlier in the day and it was probably better to get some rest than to push on and feel even worse tomorrow.

Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow because I need to squeeze as much of Osaka as I possible can into the day. Wish me luck!

Japan Day 3: Taking The Long Way Home

Today started off as a fairly typical day in Japan. I was up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am, an hour earlier than the day before, my body is not adjusting well. At 7 I headed downstairs for some toast and fruit cocktail before climbing back in to bed for an hour or so.

Dom and I decided to go our own separate ways in the morning so I was left to my own devices to catch the train. I suck at catching trains, I book tickets for the wrong day, I don’t realize I need to validate the ticket before boarding the train because its printed in another language and validation machines aren’t clearly visible on the platforms, or I just don’t bring the right documentation.  Today was no different; I got on the wrong train. Luckily I still got to the place I was trying to go (Kyoto) it just took about double the time it normally does.

When I finally arrived my first stop was the post office where Dom had apparently been waiting for me for quite some time. I got some money, (the most exciting thing in the whole world after two days of not being able to buy anything including food without relying on Dom) and we were on our way.

We purchased a day pass for the bus because everything in Kyoto is quite spread out and the subway system is pretty subpar. Because it was still the New Years season and the buses we wanted to catch went to all the main temples in the city the buses were filled to the brim, it was actually hard to breathe on some of them they were so full.

We spent a few hours visiting various temples before making our way to the palace. We had already seen about a million temples and shrines in the past two days so we thought we would mix it up a bit. Unfortunately the palace itself was closed, you could still access the grounds but you had to pay an admission fee which I was not about to do especially after I had just paid to see a temple covered in gold.

We made our way back to the train station and caught a train a short ways out of the city centre to go see a temple there. I don’t think we found the one we were looking for because there were no crowds at all but it was kind of a nice change to be able to wander through the grounds at a leisurely pace without people throwing elbows to get past you.

It was getting pretty close to sunset at this point and I was pretty tired so I decided to head home while Dom chose to return to one of the temples we visited yesterday. I made it back to Kyoto just fine but it was when I tried to catch the bus back to Osaka that the fun really started.

As I said before I suck at catching trains and this was probably my biggest train screw-up to date. I had already caught the train I needed a few times so I figured it would be easy. Go to platform 30, catch the train to Kansai Airport and get off at Shin Osaka Station. The thing is platform 30 starts where platform 0 starts and when I arrived the train on platform 0 was creeping into platform 30’s space so I figured it must be my train and it was getting ready to leave so I jumped on it as quickly as I could. I knew straight away that I was on the wrong train but the doors had closed and the train was in motion so there was nothing I could do.

I looked around the train and saw quite a few people had luggage and thought to myself maybe this is going to the airport just on a different route then remembered people on most trains have luggage and felt like more if an idiot than I already did.

The screen at the front of the train changed from Japanese to English and started listing the cities it was stopping in. Shit! I don’t recognize any of those names, I am so screwed. Then the conductor started making his way down the aisle checking tickets, now I was really screwed. I don’t have a ticket for this train; this is going to cost me an arm and a leg. I start to panic at this point; I’m sweating and beat red. All I can think is I am going to get a gigantic fine and have to cancel the rest of my trip. Luckily through the language barrier the conductor seemed to take pity on me and just told me to get off at the next stop and head back to Kyoto. Sweet no money lost, yet, I still had to make it back to Kyoto.

The train I had accidently gotten on was a thunderbird train, which, means it travels much faster than the standard trains. I kept praying it would stop soon; I just wanted to go home.  It didn’t it just kept going and going. After about half an hour the conductor walked past me again, part of me was scared to talk to him for fear he wouldn’t be so nice this time and decided to charge me for my stupidity but I needed to know when I was getting off this stupid train. I stopped him and asked him when the next stop was, he told me to go back to Kyoto, I nodded and asked what time and pointed at my imaginary watch. This game of charades went on for a while but finally he figured out what I wanted and advised me we would arrive at our next stop approximately an hour after we left Kyoto and that the train back leaves 8 minutes after we arrive.

Oh gosh an hour away from where I started on a high-speed train, this was not good. Dom was probably home by then and worried about my whereabouts but there was nothing I could do. My phone has been disconnected and I didn’t have access to Wi-Fi so I just had to worry about getting home.

When the train finally arrived at the first stop I was relieved but that feeling only lasted about 10 seconds before the panic returned. The signage at this station was pretty much non-existent. How the hell was I going to find my way home now? I figured it would make sense for the train on the opposite side of the platform to be returning to Kyoto so I approached someone and said ‘Kyoto?’ the person looked at me like I was crazy and told me no.

Its okay, I still have like 6 minutes to find this train, I’ll just head to the main gate where all the departures are listed and everything will be fine. I walked off the platform and ended up in a tunnel with no signs pointing to the exit. I managed to find what I was looking for but there was no departures board. The universe must be getting sick of me screwing up train journeys so badly because this sure wasn’t easy for me.

I found a member of staff and asked what platform for a train to Kyoto. Again it took a while for her to figure out what I wanted but eventually we were both on the same page and she told me to go to platform 6. There was no train there yet and while I was waiting and thinking I was definitely going to have to provide my first born child to get back to Kyoto on this express train I heard the voice on the station speakers say the words Osaka and Kyoto, I looked at the train next to me on the opposite side of the platform and it looked like many of the trains I have been on that don’t ask to see your tickets. I still wasn’t sure it was the train I wanted but I saw a conductor beside the train so I walked up to him pointed at the train and said ‘Osaka?’ he looked puzzled for a moment before replying ‘Osaka, yes, Osaka’. Great! I hopped on the train, which quickly began to fill up. While I was sitting there though I looked out the window and saw signage that said trains to Obama. I started to panic again. A girl had just sat next to me, I asked if she spoke English she said she spoke a little, I asked if the train was going to Osaka she said yes and then tried to explain that it was two stops after to Kyoto but was using the word ‘no’ a lot in doing so, I was not feeling at ease at all. The train started to move and I figured I would just ride it out. Worst case scenario: I end up in some random city I’ve never heard of and I pay for a hotel for the night and figure this out in the morning. It wouldn’t be ideal but it wouldn’t be the end of the world either. The girl next to me could sense my panic and looked up what time the train would be arriving in Osaka and advised me I would be home at 20:13. This made me feel a little better but I still wasn’t 100% sure I was on the right train.

After about an hour on the train the screen displayed a message that said the train would uncouple in Himeji and that was the best news I had heard all day. Even if the train didn’t go to Osaka my rail pass includes Himeji so I could catch a train from there to get home. Finally I felt at ease. I could finally see the humor in the situation.

When I finally arrived home, 4 hours after my original departure, Dom was not quite as amused by the story as I was. I felt bad that he thought something bad had happened to me but at this point all I could do was laugh. I had turned a twenty-minute ride home into a 4-hour journey full of a rollercoaster of emotions. The icing on the cake was that I didn’t have to pay any money for my stupidity. I actually felt kind of lucky when I got home. Things really could have gone down much worse.  I guess I really need to learn to take my time when it comes to trains because all of the stupid mistakes I have made have come from me rushing to get to my destination. Hopefully this will be the only train mishap I have to write about on this trip!

Japan Day 2: Chronicles of Nara

Waking up at the crack of dawn is not my idea of a good time but I’m still dealing with that pesky thing called jet-lag and so I was up by 6am and sat in bed wishing I was still asleep until breakfast started at 7.  The hotel offers two types of breakfast: Japanese and Western. Being the adventurous girl I am I chose Western and Dom chose Japanese. I’m not sure where these people learned what breakfast is supposed to be but wherever it was I have never been there. They offer a soup of the day and a pasta salad, not quite my idea of the breakfast of champions. I grabbed some toast and some yogurt (which ended up being warm and disgusting), and had Dom get some rice for me. His breakfast was pretty frightening, including options for raw eggs, black beans and some mystery vegetables, seafood, something that may or may not have been a potato, miso soup, and a special Japanese rice dish of some sort. I was glad I picked the Western option as odd as it was.

After breakfast we headed back to our room to try to plan out the day. It was raining in Osaka so we checked out the forecast for all of the cities included in our rail pass and decided to head to Nara as it was the only place not expecting rain. Once we had finally decided on a destination we headed across the street to the train station and a little over an hour later we were in the magical city of Nara.

I didn’t do much research before we arrived so I wasn’t really sure what to expect but in the end I was happy we decided to go, although our timing could have been better. In Japan New Years is celebrated from January 1^st through the 4^th and during this time many residents make their way to local temples for their first visit of the year. We were not aware of this fact and got stuck in pedestrian traffic at a temple for a period of time. Although it was pretty amazing to see I am not a fan of big crowds and found myself desperately wanting to escape.

The area we spent time in was full of temples, shrines, and museums, and also a very large deer population. Growing up in Canada I was always taught not to feed the wildlife, a rule that doesn’t seem to exist here. Every few meters there seemed to be a stall where you could buy ‘deer cookies’. Dom suggested we buy some so he could get a picture of me with a deer, I declined and said he could get a picture of me with a deer in the distance, I don’t care how much time they spend around humans, they are still wild animals. A few seconds after this conversation we saw a girl with a handful of cookies feed one to a deer. The deer wanted more so it looked at the girl and when it didn’t get what it wanted it head-butted the girl in leg. Luckily all of the deer seem to have shed their antlers for the season but I still felt bad for the girl. She laughed it off then tried to give her cookies away to other people including myself, I declined and continued to keep a safe distance from the deer.

We wandered around Nara for about 3 hours seeing many temples and shrines along the way. Many of the paths were lined with booths selling the most incredible smelling street meat. If you know me, or have even read my past blogs you know I love me some street meat but with hundreds of deer roaming around I didn’t think it was best to have something that smelled so delicious in my hands so we decided to forgo the food until we left the city.

After wee had seen all of what we thought Nara had to offer we hopped on a train to Kyoto, the forecast there was for rain but we decided to chance it anyway.  It ended up being sunny when we arrived so we decided we would stay for a bit but I was on a mission to get some cash and since learning the best options to do so were to find a 7-11 or a post office I had my eyes peeled for both. We found a 7-11 in Nara but the minimum withdrawal was ¥10,000 which was a little to rich for my blood so I decided to keep looking. We found a post office right next to the train station in Kyoto and I got super excited until I found out that the bank portion was closed for New Years and I still couldn’t get any money.

I was feeling a little defeated by this point and kind of wanted to head home but didn’t want the trip to Kyoto to be a complete waste so we travelled back a few stops to Inari to check out the temple there. It was even more crowded than the temple in Nara, and I later learned that millions of people visit this temple during the New Years period. It was so crowded that I didn’t even realize that there were hiking trails behind the temple that led you up a mountain.

 I did however make a few observations at the various temples we visited throughout the day and after doing some research back at the hotel I learned a few things. In Nara I saw a woman splashing water on a Buddha statue outside one of them temples and while I couldn’t find information pertaining to this exactly I found something that might explain it. In South-East Asia they celebrate New Years later in the year and during this time a water festival is celebrated. People run around splashing water on each other believing it washes bad luck away. I think it is possible the two things could be linked but I could be wrong, if you know more than me please feel free to comment and let me know.

Another thing I noticed was the massive line-ups at all the temples.  There was a constant ringing of bells that appeared to be coming from the end of the line so it appeared people were waiting to ‘ring in’ the New Year so to speak. After doing some reading it looks like there was more to that as well. During the first shrine or temple visit of the New Year people dispose of old luck charms, and buy new ones before praying in the main hall. I also learned that on New Years Eve the temple bells are rung 108 times corresponding with the Buddhist concept of 108 worldly desires, I’m fairly confident the bell rang far more than 108 times during our visit but still an interesting bit of information.

After a lot of walking and trying to understand traditions without speaking the language we were both pretty exhausted so decided to call it a day and head back to the hostel. We’re about to head out again so hopefully I will have more fun stories to tell tomorrow. 

The Long Journey To Japan

Monday night I arrived at Pearson International around 6:30 and waited for Dom to show up. He arrived about 15 minutes after I did and we printed off our boarding passes and got in the baggage drop line. This was probably the slowest moving line I have seen at an airport. It took us almost an hour to check our bags. The fact that they were moving so slowly worked in our favour thought because it only took about twenty seconds to get through security.

Eventually it was time to board the plane and that’s when the real fun started. The turbulence started almost immediately and lasted the duration of the flight. I managed to fall asleep after being served dinner (which I had about two bites of because it was disgusting) but the ride got bumpier and I woke up a few hours later. I was sweating buckets so I threw off my blanket and took off my hoody but I was still roasting. I looked up to turn on the cold air but the stupid plane didn’t have that option, just a reading light. I’m starting to panic now, I’m fairly confident I’m going to toss my cookies and not only is the guy beside me fast asleep but the seat belt sign is on so I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. I riffle through the magazine pouch and find a paper bag that I move to the front, just in case but praying I wont need it. I put my head down and try to focus on my breathing but its no use the turbulence is too much.

Let me tell you not only is puking into a paper bag while being tossed about challenging its also incredibly embarrassing. I ended up waking up the poor guy sitting next to me, and then had to hand a bag full of vomit to the flight attendant. I still felt like death and now I was mortified to. I apologized to both of them but still felt like a complete tool, even though I’m pretty sure I heard someone else puking at the same time as me.

I managed to pass out shortly after that and slept off and on for the rest of the flight but still felt like garbage when we arrived in England. After we went through security I found an empty row of seats and napped for several hours before it was time to catch our next flight.

The flight to Helsinki went much smoother and although I moved the barf-bag to the front of the magazine pouch at the beginning of the flight I didn’t end up needing it. We found our hotel without much trouble and decided to forego celebrating New Years and went straight to bed.

I was half asleep watching a movie around 1am when all of the sudden the fire alarm started going off and we were asked to evacuate. I threw my laptop back in to my bag, grabbed my passport and jacket and headed outside. I was pretty sure it was a false alarm but grabbed the important stuff on my way out just in case, and when I saw fire trucks as soon as I walked through the door I figured it was probably best that I did. Fortunately it was a false alarm and we were able to go back to bed a few minutes later but after all the excitement I wasn’t able to fall back to sleep until about 4am.

The next day I woke up around 9 and headed downstairs for the breakfast buffet. I was starving since all I’d had to eat since I ralphed was a blueberry muffin but after a bowl of cereal and some home fries I started to feel sick again and went back to bed until it was time to check out.

I didn’t have the motivation to explore Helsinki so just sat in the hotel lobby until it was time to the airport. This time I made sure to put the Gravol in my carry-on and took one as soon as we boarded the plane.

The flight was delayed due to some sort of repairs needing to be done on the rear of the plane but I fell asleep during the repairs and we were already in the air when I woke up again. Unfortunately that was the only sleep I got on that 10-hour flight and got to spend the next several hours watching bad movies and TV shows while wishing I could sleep.

When we finally arrived at the airport we learned that ATM’s here don’t accept foreign debit or credit cards and neither of us had exchanged money into Yen’s before we left. Luckily Dom had some Australian money that he was able to exchange for a ridiculous rate so we were able to buy train tickets into the city to get to our hotel. This whole thing was a very long and drawn out process and I think we were at the airport for about 2 hours after clearing security.

We checked into our hotel and decided to head to Kyoto to do some exploring before sunset. I wasn’t feeling very well but decided to tag along anyway. It was raining cats and dogs by the time we got to our destination and I was in no mood to wander around in the cold and wet so I decided to head back to the hotel and Dom decided he would head back to.

I ended up falling asleep around 6pm and slept off and on until 6am. Hopefully the long snooze has adjusted my body clock but only time will tell. I’m off to grab some breakfast then head out exploring some of the cities around Osakak.