On the way back from the Imperial Palace, Kelly and I followed very loud music to an elementary school. About 50 kids were in the courtyard, presumably in gym class or recess, participating in choreographed stretching to music. They were all laying down on the ground, which appeared to be dirt, and it was probably about 90 degrees in the sun.  I was impressed that all the kids were doing it, and they were very flexible.

After a quick lunch, Kelly and I realized we were running a bit late for the afternoon/evening activities, resulting in an even quicker shower and change of clothes. The four of us headed off to learn about the important traditions of Japanese culture at a tea ceremony and a cultural show in the Gion district. These two activities are the first times we have been somewhere with a higher tourist to Japanese ratio, but I guess that is to be expected with English activities educating guests about Japanese culture.

Highlight of the evening: Kelly saw a real Geisha! Like we had read, she was moving fast to get somewhere and was definitely not stopping for any photos.

P.S. Happy Birthday Kris!!

Friday began with a very early morning trip to the Kyoto Wholesale Food Market. This is similar to the well-known Tokyo Tsukiji market, but on a slightly smaller scale. There were lots of fish and seafood of all kinds, enormous tuna, fish auctions on-going, and fork-lifts and people with hand carts zooming all around. I’m fairly certain that we were the ONLY tourists there, but it was definitely an interesting experience. We mostly tried to stay out of the way and not get run over. Ryan and Jason were given the universal sign for ‘No’ by one of the workers when they tried to take a few pictures.

After the fish market, it was all temples and palaces. Jason, Kelly, Ryan, and I headed to Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion Temple, where we enjoyed the sites and spoke with groups of children practicing their English. They introduced themselves and asked us questions about where we lived, our favorite foods and sports. We then quizzed the kids about how to say things in Japanese. A win-win for all parties!
     

We stopped in a few small shops on the way back to the bus. One of them was selling Japanese fans with tags that said ‘Made in China’!

Next up on the day of temples was Daitoku-ji Temple, really a complex of temples, each with their own beautiful gardens. Ryan and I toured the Zuiho-in Temple, with calming raked rock Zen gardens. This was followed by the Koto-in Temple, known for its tea house, with a green garden and lots of mosquitos, where I confirmed that ‘natural’ bug repellent does not work. DEET it is from now on.
      
     

Continuing on the palace/temple trend, we caught a bus over to the Kyoto Imperial Palace and Gardens. Ryan and Jason, melting in the hot weather, headed back towards the hotel. Kelly and I missed the last tour of the palace, but still wandered around the gardens, a huge park with lots of trees and shrines.

On a side note, the Kyoto day bus card totally paid off for us. The bus system in Kyoto is very good, and relatively easy to navigate, a welcome change from some slightly confusing rail lines.

I have been looking forward to trying lots of interesting food on this trip. In general, Japanese food in Japan is about what we know of Japanese food in the U.S. However, I have been able to find some rather unique items.

The first was a mini octopus on a stick, with a quail egg stuffed head, in the Nishiki market. It tasted a whole lot more normal than it looked, but still makes for a good picture.

Next was a delicious sushi dinner at the sushi train restaurant, Mushashi, across from our hotel in Kyoto. In general, the sushi was typical; fatty salmon, scallops, and the salmon rolls got good reviews from our group. Unfortunately, we did not get a picture of the ‘horse and mane’ sushi I tried. It came with two pieces, a red piece that looked like beef, and a yellow piece almost the color of tamago. The red piece was tender, tasted like a very mild beef. The yellow piece was hard and tough, almost like grizzly steak, and tasted very gamey. It would be very interesting to know what exactly that sushi was.

For dinner one night, Ryan enjoyed delicious ramen at an always packed hole-in-the-wall looking place right near our hotel. In keeping with our notion of Japanese food, he said it was relatively similar to the ramen at Tatsuya, marinated egg, pork, and all.

Ice cream, more specifically green tea ice cream, is all over the place here. Every other store has soft serve, and the 7-Elevens and mini-marts all have green tea ice cream in their freezers. I could definitely get used to this. And green tea is good for me, right?

Our exploration of Kyoto started with a trip to the post office for an international ATM, much to Ryan’s relief. It turns out that while MasterCards are generally accepted credit cards in Japan, they are NOT generally excepted in most international ATMs, only a select few. Ryan and I were both happy to be able to stop relying on Kelly and Jason for all our ‘cash only’ expenditures.

We then perused and ate our way through Nishiki market, sampling lots of pickled vegetables, dried fruit, some wine, and a few other interesting items. The Nishiki market is a fascinating experience that I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Kyoto.
          
    

In the afternoon, we hopped a train to Arashiyama and rented bikes to get around the town. First stop was the Iwatayama Monkey Park, inhabited by over 170 Japanese macaque monkeys. We were very excited to climb up the small mountain to the monkey viewing area, because we have definitely not been getting enough exercise on this trip (please note the sarcasm). We all took turns feeding the monkeys. One thing I don’t understand is why the monkeys stay on the mountain and do not travel down to the town below.
            
     

I took the quick way down part of the mountain.

We crossed back over the Togetsukyo Bridge, Arashiyama’s landmark, and headed into the famous bamboo grove. What a sight!
      

Bamboo groves were followed by a fast walk to where we had parked the bikes and a furious ride to get them back to the rental company by the required return time. All that hard work required a beer for the guys, while Kelly and I wandered around some shops and the grounds of the Tenryuji Temple, a World Heritage site.

Edited version of Kelly’s method:
1) Find a sign or map with both the English and Japanese versions and take a photo of it for future use.
2) Flex your creative brain muscles and equate symbols to familiar pictures.

For example, in the sign below, the first character looks like a P9 and the second character looks like a ladder on the left side. The second to last character looks like Gumby with the letter J, while the last character looks like a house.

So far, we have used the letter J, the letter R, a power line, a person, a house, two flags surrounding a hut, and a disc golf hole, just to name a few.  Some of the simpler Japanese characters also look like Hebrew letters.

Following our Mt. Fuji experience, the comfort and relaxation of the onsen hotel in Hakone was a nice respite. The hot springs helped soothe sore muscles (at least for Kelly and me, Ryan and Jason opted out of the nudity required onsens), and the Japanese style sleeping mats in the hotel were very comfortable. We opted for the breakfast buffet in the hotel Wednesday morning with both Japanese and western style breakfast foods, allowing us to try the unusual items, and then eat eggs, cereal, yogurt, and fruit. Check out our room and Ryan, Kelly, and Jason in the traditional yukata robes.

           

Jason requested flowers for our room at the onsen, the first night of our honeymoon spent in a hotel, but there was a bit of miscommunication. The front desk presented us with the flowers upon check-out, and we couldn’t quite get across the point that they were supposed to be in the room. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, and they were very nice flowers.

After breakfast began the complex journey to Jogasaki, taking a bus to a train to a train to a train. Kelly had all the directions well detailed, and we surprisingly managed to get on all the correct trains. The trip was definitely worth it! This section along the eastern coast was created by lava from the Omuroyama Volcano over 4000 years ago and has beautiful rocky cliffs with magnificent views of the ocean and the city. We climbed the Kadowaki Cape lighthouse, crossed the suspension bridge at Kadowakizaki point, and went for an easy hike along the coast line . . . because we didn’t get enough hiking on Mt. Fuji and had no sore muscles whatsoever.

The journey then continued with a train to a train to a train (to maybe another train, I lost count), landing us in Kyoto in time for a late dinner.

Around 5am the next morning we woke to the sunrise (took a while to formulate a logical hypothesis for why the sun might rise at such a different time than in NY City given they are at the same latitude). With Udon-filled stomachs, we navigated our way to the 5th station on Mt. Fuji where we started the climb to our 8th station hut for the night.

We met a very friendly couple from NY City, Willa and Dan, and traded picture taking duties and email addresses along the ascent.  They were so nice that Kelly “wishes we were friends with them in real life.”

Arriving at the hut, Nicole skipped dinner and went to bed promptly at 5:15 due to a headache. Ryan forced down some of the “western dinner” (salisbury steak, potato salad, and rice), only to see it a second and third time later that night. The headache and shortness of breath eventually led to a self diagnosis of mild altitude sickness. Kelly and Jason enjoyed the meal and felt great. The hut accommodations were, shall we say, minimal. We felt like sardines with 100 of our closest coughing, sneezing, snoring, stinky friends. If only there were a Nyquil for that…

The next morning we started our final ascent to the summit around 3:30am to catch the 5:15 sunrise. The last stretch was very much a traffic jam of hikers with headlamps illuminating switchbacks up the mountain. The sunrise was spectacular even though it was cold and blustery with wind gusts upwards of 50 mph (says Ryan the weatherman). The picture of Nicole and video from Jason say it all

Jason’s windy Video

After a peek into the mouth of the volcano, which in geological terms should be erupting any day now [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_eruptions_of_Mount_Fuji], and a successful walk around the rim (we weren’t blown off), we started our descent down the officially closed Gotemba trail. 8km of unrelenting switchbacks through a Martian landscape. The terrain was all part of a centuries old lava flow with almost no flora or fauna to be found. The crushed rocks did make for fun sliding (ice skating style) down at times.

Upon reaching the bus stop at the bottom, we were met with the realization that when the trail is officially shut down for the season, so are the weekday bus routes. A few unsuccessful (and pricey) cellphone calls to local cab companies eventually had us reaching out to our saviour Chen to arrange a cab to the local bus station.

Days into trip: 4, Shower count: 1

On to Hakone…

Our 27 hour journey to Tokyo took just 13 hours aboard the 777. Night time chased us west around the globe, but never caught up. Thankfully everyone closed their window shades. 2 movies intermingled with long naps helped pass the time. Chen, a good friend of Jason’s from grade school met us at the airport and guided us through the maze of trains to our first meal and his apartment floor for the night. Here’s the tomato-based Ramen that everyone ate (except Ryan, due to the mystery peanut ingredient we were warned about, thanks to Chen). Nicole says it was “just eh.”

Today feels like yesterday. That’s because we didn’t sleep last night with all the last minute preparations. After a smooth ride to the airport in John’s new Grand Cherokee (sweet ride!), and a 2 minute flight to O’Hare (measured by minutes spent awake on the plane), we were greeted at the gate in Chicago by Kelly & Jason who are joining us on the 12+ hour flight to Tokyo for the first leg of our trip!

Here’s our 777 waiting for us to board. Looks clean and in good working condition to me (although I must say our MD-80 from AUS was probably the most worn looking plane we’ve been on in a while)

And here are Kelly and Jason just minutes before boarding:

See you on the flip side.