Ross and Julie's Weekend in Kyoto - Day 1

So, Ross and Julie's first weekend away together for over 10 years. We'd talked for years about getting rids of the kids for a weekend and going on a city break to Paris or Rome or somewhere, but we never dreamed our 'dirty weekend away' would be in Kyoto!

After an initial glitch when the travel agent told us that all the hotels in teh special deal were full, I called direct and had no problem in booking the tickets just a couple of days before we left.

We caught the 7:03am shinkansen (bullet train) out of Tokyo, and arrived 2 1/2 hours later in Kyoto (the shinkansen went very very fast and was really smooth!)

Kyoto has an amazing station building which was designed in some architect competition or other. It's beautiful (the downside

is that it's really difficult to find the tracks from the entrance, or the exit from the tracks, and we ended up schlepping through a department store to try to get out!

The tourist info's in the building so we picked up our bus route map and started exploring!

This is the atrium in the station building - it was huge!

...and there was an arial walkway which was 7 floors up, and afforded great views of the city.

This is the main street just by the station. You can go up this big 'Tokyo Tower' and get a good view of the city (but we're too stingy and got a good enough view from the station!)

We decided to start our tour with the 'Southern Higashiyama walking tour' recommended in the Lonely Planet guide. We caught a bus to the start, and off we went.

Kyoto is the 'cultural capital' of Japan - it felt a bit like Luxor in Egypt with lots and lots of 'interesting things' and loads of tourists in tour buses.

Because we'd gone in the Summer, there were not many tourists (it's really far too hot) The most popular times are April / May and Sept / Oct

The first temple we looked at was Kiyomizu-dera. Before going round the temple, we paid 100 yen to go into the 'womb' of the temple and rub a sacred stone - which was actually more fun than it sounds, because the 'womb' was pitch black, and you have to follow a rope around the wall to get to the stone, and then get out again!

The temple was built high on a hill with an amazing veranda. There were lots of Budhas and things.

Here's a sacred well which you're supposed to drink the water and heal your eternal soul. But it was 200 yen each so we decided that our souls were probably OK.

Within the grounds was a 'lurve temple' where you can pay yet another 300 yen to make a wish, or buy a wish pouch (bit of a money making theme here, we thought!) Ross walked the love walk between the love stones - if you can walk between the two stones with your eyes shut, then you'll find true love -

...unfortunately, he missed the end stone - but it didn't skupper our romantic weekend away!

Here's a pic of teh temple overlooking the mountain - you can see Kyoto in the background. It really was beautiful

Here's a close up of the sacred well, or waterfall.

We left the temple and headed down a beautiful old street, filled with lots of souvenir shops, called Kiyomizu-michi
. Kyoto is famed for its food, we weren't really interested in eating in a traditional restaurant, becuase we can do this through work. However, we did savour the local ice cream specialitiy - this is shaved ice, with green-tea syrup, and azuki-bean sweet jam - it sounds gross, but it was actually delicious, and very refreshing in teh heat.

Here's the next street we walked down - it really was charming. Sannen-zaka

...and here's a maiko (apprentise Geisha) on the street

Then we walked to this tiny little street full of traditional tea-houses and restaurants - Ishibei-koji - not much from the outside, but you could peep into these exquisite little restaurants with beautiful gardens.

...like this

...and this.

Next, we went to another temple (yes there are lots of them in Kyoto!) called Kodai-ji. This had the most beautiful gardens, which were apparently designed by a famous garden designer in 1605.

...they rake the stones in beautiful shapes and mounds - and leave no footprints - we looked hard!

There is a big Buddha in the background

...here's more raking!

Isn't that just breathtakingly beautiful.

Within the grounds was a bamboo forest - I'd not seen one before, so wanted a picture!

Next, we went to Chion-in - with a huge temple gate - the largest temple gate in Japan. You can just see Ross standing under the gate in the middle

The temple is the HQ of the Jodo school of Buddhism.

Here's the temple itself. We sat in and listened to some kind of ceremony for a while, which was interesting - lots of monks chanting, and banging drums and things, and lots of incense.

Here's the massive bell for the temple - it was cast in 1633 and weighs 74 tonnes - it's the largest in Japan and requires 17 monks to ring it - there was a big pole on the other side which you can't really see here.

Out side the next temple (which we didn't go in - getting a bit 'templed out' by this stage!) were these amazing Eucalyptus trees.

We then wondered down to the town, and stopped for a quick picnic by these big 'tori' (gates)

Here's the temple which lay at the other end. This one was really colourful - all red and green.

Next we caught the bus back to the station to pick up our bag, and wondered up to our hotel. Before booking in, we had a look at the Nishiki market...

The guide book describes the market as a 'welcome break from temples' it was interesting to wonder through and look at all the wierd food stuffs on offer!

At the end of the market was a little shrine (apparently there are over 8 million gods in Japan, so there's one for just about everything - this was possibly for the god of the market?)

Anyway, we noticed lots of men walking round in short white Kimono style tops and white sumo pants (always an interesting spectacle!), we left the market, and found the source of the men...

There was a festival (possibly the Gion festival) where there were hundreds of said men chanting and clapping, and generally having a ball, then the younger and fitter ones were carrying this enormous shrine thing on several telegraph pole sized handles

They were almost dancing with this thing, and at one stage they benchpressed it up onto their outstretched arms!

What you can't see from these photos is the amazing thunder and lightening which was ripping the sky into pieces. A few minutes later the heavens gave way, and the rain was torrential for about 15 mins - we got rather wet going to our hotel!

In the evening, we walked along this street called Ponto-cho which is a traditional night-life district. The restaurants on one side all face the river, and many have balconies over the water. It's supposed to be a place to go 'geisha-spotting' we did see a couple in the distance, but there are not so many geisha anymore.

We had to take a pic of this old guy on the most amazing trike - you can't see the lights very well, but this thing was neon heaven with a very smooth sounding stereo blasting out Frank Sinatra, or some other music-hall classic!

We skipped the fancy restuarants and sushi places, and instead went to a really cool Japanese student / backpackers bar off the beaten track (called teh A-bar) and drank plenty of Kirin beer and ate Yatitori (BBQ chicken kebabs) and nachos!

A most enjoyable day all round!

When the cat's away!

So, last week Felix and Neve went back to the UK for their 3-week holiday with their grandparents. All was a little stressful just before the trip, exacerbated by Felix coming down with a temperature of 104 the night before he was due to fly at 7am the following morning -not the best night ever! However, he was fine in the morning, and they both trotted happily off with the BA air hostess through the priority security checks and onto the best seats on the plane. We later heard that they watched 7 movies, ate what they wanted to, had no sleep, and generally had a most enjoyable flight.

They will be spending their first week with Elaine and Glyn (Ross's folks) and their two cousins, camping the New Forrest for a week, then they will fly from Southampton to Jersey to stay for 4 days with Grandad Jim and Joan, then 4 days with Nanny Hazel, no doubt being spoilt rotten all holiday!

So in teh three weeks that they're gone, Ross and I are working full time during the day. However, it's like being young free and single again - it's amazing how much time you have! So far, we've both been running, I've been swimming, and clothes shopping, and had my hair done, we've been to a 'hanabi' (amazing fireworks) display - 10,000 fireworks, lasting for an hour! and are going to another one tomorrow (it's fireworks season here - amazing - the Japanese largely wear Yakata (summer kimonos) with wooden 'flip-flops' - it's lots of fun!

Iv'e just come back from a sales conference in an Italian Restaurant on the 52 floor of the Sumitomo building- an amazing view! The reps are lovely, and it was lots of fun, and in true Japanese style, started precisely at 6pm, and ended as planned at 8:30pm!! (very wierd concept - in my experience, sales conferences go on until everyone has fallen over, or made too much of a fool of themselves to carry on!!)

Last weekend we went to Kyoto (see next blog!), this weekend we're going to climb Mt Fuji-san (see later blog!) and the weekend after, we've booked to go to Summer Sonic, a music festival! As you can see, we're making the most of our free time!

Kumatori-san Hike - Day 2

So, day two arrived! We had a surprisingly good night's sleep, and slept with covers for the first time in a couple of months! It was very very dark, and there were some strange squeeking and squeeling noises from the forrest, which we attributed to the deer and the bugs - bit eerie at first . You can see we camped in a beautiful little glade by the side of the walk

You can see the signpost for the walk on the LHS of this pic
.

So we woke up at about 7:30am - exhausted after our hours and hours of climbing! We packed the tents and made our way back up the hill to the hut anticipating our large and tasty breakfast. Funny, we thought as we walked up the hill, all the tents have gone.

We got to the hut, which now looked like the Marie Celeste, and asked about breakfast and Bento boxes (lunch boxes), to which we got crossed hands (Japanese symbol for 'on your bike'!) and Ni Ni. "Pot Noodles arimasuka?" we asked hopefully, and once again ate prawn flavoured Pot Noodles as our meal

Still, it was a lovely view, and Pot Noodles are quite filling (if a little dull two meals in a row!)

We worked out that many people must get up very early and aim to reach the summit at dawn, so whilst we were having our breakfast, some walkers were coming down, and there was a group of Japanese older walkers who were clearly astonished and impressed that Felix and Neve were there (the only way to reach this hut was to walk up hill for about 7 hours!), so they took lots of pics on their cameras, and this one on ours!!

They also showed us their shiny pin-badges which they put on their hats for each mountain they'd climbed (one of these old chaps had climbed the 'hyaky mountains' (hundred most famous mountains in Japan). So we bought each of teh kids a badge which they proudly pinned to their hats.

Here's the view whilst we were brushing our teeth - not bad eh!

So we then walked away from the hut...

and up the path, which was all marked by ropes for the walkers who aim to summit at dawn

We reached the summit after about half an hour. Here's teh view of the path we took next.

This is Felix at the top

Here's Neve sitting on the grid marker / map stone thingy, and to the left of where I'm standing, right on the edge of the photo is Mt Fuji, although it was coming in and out of the clouds.

It was amazing - you could see only tree and snow covered mountains to the horizon in all directions.

You can't see this very well, but the peak was 2.017m - and we started from only about 350m - quite a hike!

As you can see - no signs of Tokyo here! Apparetnly something like 80% of Japan is uninhabitable, which is why the cities are so very crowded!

Some of teh walking in the way down was quite easy, and very pretty, if rather long!

Here we all are being very Japanese again!

We saw these amazing butterflies - they were about the size of an an adults outstretched hand!

...and this was real - we thought it looked like a Mario Brothers toadstool, so wanted a pic!

Here's a cool pic of Neve (posing!) on a rickety old bridge!

The last 2 hours of the walk were downhill (so the book said) Easy we thought - OMG this was so far from the truth - it was downhill at about 45 degrees for 2 hours - over tree-roots, and scrabbley rocks.

We thought it would never end - and when we eventrually got to the town at teh end, I could barely not walk, my legs had totally seized up.

Everybody did amazingly well - the kids were fab. Ross calculated that we'd walked 31km in total, and gained and lost almost 2000m (plus many ups and downs!) Felix had his first poo in a dunny, and we carried our tents for the first time. And we survived on Pot Noodles, peanuts and Banana chips for 36 hours!!!