Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Memorial Day weekend

A got a 4 day weekend so we headed out to see some local sights. Our first stop was Seoul Grand Park followed by 2 nights in Seoul. David and I had visited with a group over a month ago and we brought Daddy with us this time. The zoo remarkable has more than 1 or 2 of each animal. There was an entire herd of giraffes, several tigers and bears, and not knowing what the proper term is - a bunch of kangaroos. We happened to be at the right place at the right time and we got to feed and pet the kangaroos!

In Seoul, we visited Insadong, a cool antique/arts district but that trip was will be remembered mostly by David removing his shoe which we were unable to find even after searching their streets for an hour. Apparently, they clean the street quite frequently (reminiscent of Disney world) and sadly, no one remembers seeing his shoe. We bought another pair that evening. On Sunday, we also toured Gyeongbok Palace. Huge grounds and near the President's House which accounted for the buses of policemen poised at the exit. While we enjoyed all this sight seeing, we decided we need a little down time the next few weekends.

Kyoto - our last hurrah and the hotel

The next morning was our last day in Kyoto. Even after packing, we had time for a quick walk around the city and one last tour in the Shosei-En garden. D found the fish to be fascinating again. We got back to the station just in time to catch our train to the airport. We decided to save a few dollars and take the slightly slower train. This turned into two train changes with the help of some locals. We ended up at the airport with a little less than an hour to our flight, yet we still made it back. Korean Air was quite efficient. Overall, we had a highly successful and relaxing trip to Kyoto. We can’t wait to go back, but the rest of Asia awaits.
The pictures below are of our hotel which was a sight in and of itself. Kyoto station is quite impressive with over 50 restaurants and cafes even more shops. At one end is a theater that was playing Beauty and the Beast while we were there and Itsetan department store at the other end. It was fun just to explore and ride all the escalators.























Kyoto - Day 3 Part III - Nijo Castle and big pagoda

The people in the snack shop pointed us toward the nearest bus stop where we caught a ride to the Nijo Castle which was built by a Shogun to prove his power rivaled that of the emperor. We all got to remove our shoes to tour the inside of the castle where, to protect the paintings, no pictures were allowed. The castle has Nightingale floors which “sing” as you walk on them to prevent intruders from sneaking in. Some of the rooms had manikins dressed in traditional garb to demonstrate the Shogun’s court. D thought he should wander in to visit, but we caught him in time. The gardens here were beautiful as well with a great view from the top of the castle wall. On the way back we found some vending machines and used up some spare change. This was a great plan as it had become a hot day. D sprang back to life like a wilted plant after having some of our water.
Our next mode of transportation was the metro. Although we already had bus tickets, the metro station was right at the corner. This turned out to be a great plan as the underground station was air conditioned and we could leave D in his stroller instead of trying to get him to sit on a lap during the crowded bus ride.
After a not as brief as intended walk from the next train stop, we arrived at the tallest pagoda in Japan. We were hot and tired by this point and weren’t interested in paying the exorbitant price for entry just to be able to climb more stairs. Instead, J took some awesome pictures and we spent our money on some very good lemon tea. We then walked back to the hotel. As it was Mothers’ Day, J got to choose dinner. We went back to the same Chinese restaurant as the first night, which again did not disappoint. While J put D to bed, A went back out and brought home some fancy desserts to share.













Monday, May 25, 2009

Kyoto - Day 3 - The Golden Temple - Part II

There were no signs explaining why this is called the Golden Temple, but we do have a couple of theories. This temple was originally a Shogun retirement villa, and is actually covered in gold foil. That’s probably why no one was allowed too close. We saw some goldfish in the pond nearby, but D missed them as he was now taking his stroller nap. The grounds and the architecture of the surrounding buildings were beautiful. This is one of the best known sites in all of Japan, known even to Hello Kitty.
After the temple, we tried a local snack which was essentially a fish-shaped pancake stuffed with a sweet red bean paste. A green tea ice cream was a nice complement. D woke up just in time to share that part.

Kyoto - Day 3, Shrines, temples and castles - Part I

We had one full day left in Kyoto and there was so much more to see. A came up with an “aggressive” sightseeing plan that would cover almost all corners of Kyoto. We got out of the door fairly early and headed to the Fuishimi Inari Shrine, a short ride on the train just south of Kyoto. This is the headquarters of over 30,000 Inari shrines. As the sign out front pointed out, there are “a lot of red Torii gates.” We walked for well over an hour and saw less than half of the gates which are arranged along paths through the woods. Look for the foxes with the key to the grainery in their mouths - there's one in the background of David and A cleansing their hands. These are mystical creatures in Japan and the shrine is “the deity of bountiful crops and good business.” We have no idea what the frog is for, but apparently offerings can now be purchased directly from vending machines conveniently located throughout the shrine. Due to J’s foresight, we arrived back at the station just in time to catch the train back to Kyoto.
J grabbed some sushi to go and fed D while A ran to get more cash from the 7-11. We’re good at spending yen. With our new funds, A purchased day passes for the bus which carried us all the way to the north-western corner of the Kyoto to the Golden Temple, or Kinkaku-Ji.








































Sunday, May 24, 2009

Kyoto Day 2 - Walking tour part III

The next stop of our walk was the Choin-In temple which has one of the largest temple gates in Japan. J and D enjoyed exploring the expansive grounds, especially the temple itself where we were again took our shoes off and we were allowed to take photos inside.


Past Choin was a smaller temple with beautiful painted screens and gardens. People must have been shorter when it was built since A hit his head on the doorframe. Ouch! The grounds made up for it though as we found more carp and a bamboo forest.








We were ready for a late lunch at this point and then headed back to the hotel where D got a nap. Dinner was an interesting experience as we had ramen noodles which were nothing like college ramen noodles. You picked out your meal outside of the shop and bought a ticket. You then handed the waitress the ticket and sat down to wait for your meal. Like all of our meals in Kyoto, we enjoyed it.

Day 2 - The walking tour continues - Part II




Our walk continued down some picturesque Kyoto streets with many tea shops and souvenir shops. Several geishas (or maybe maikos, apprentice geishas, who can tell) graciously made an appearance. One of the stores even had some carp swimming in a small pond just outside. We found a fairly large Buddha, but figured the view from the parking lot was fine. We decided not to pay just to be able to see his feet too.




Saturday, May 16, 2009

Kyoto - Day 2 - Southern Higashiyama Walking Tour Part I

David did fine yesterday so we made our second day in Kyoto a big walking day. Our guide book recommended this 3 mile walk through Southern Higashiyama if we only had one day in Kyoto to get a sense of the city. We took a lot of pictures so this day will be divided up in to at least 3 parts. We'll see how our memory serves us. It seemed that we did a lot more walking than that especially since we were carrying a stroller up and down stairs.
We took a bus to this area and walked up a hill to our first stop - Kiyomizu-dera. Affiliated w/the Hosso school of Buddhism, this temple was first built in 763 but the present structures date from 1633. The map on the left depicts all the buildings on the grounds. This temple was much more crowded than the ones we saw yesterday. You actually had to pay an admission fee. It's here where we observed others cleansing their hands. David wanted to try too. J and D paused to take a look at one of the altars inside the temple and observed others paying their respects. Once we got to the top, there was an excellent view of Kyoto. Our hotel is in the dark gray building just to the left of the red and white Kyoto tower.
Sorry for the formatting - there are so many pictures and this blogging program isn't that user friendly.





















Friday, May 15, 2009

Kyoto - Day 1 - Higashi Honganji Temple, Nishi Honganji Temple

Knowing that David wasn't a 100%, we decided to stay w/in walking distance of the hotel. It was also a little overcast and the skies were also somewhat threatening. We started out for Higashi (East) Honganji Temple which was a 5 minute walk from the hotel. In fact, within a few hundred feet of leaving the hotel, we spotted a structure which turned out to be the temple. Unfortunately, the main building was hidden under scaffolding undergoing renovations. The pictures here are the entrance to the temple. There weren't many people around when we arrived so we just wandered until we could find a way into a building. We didn't know the protocol of removing our shoes and David had fallen asleep in the stroller. Some of the groundskeepers were mortified to find us walking on the wood floors with our shoes on and the stroller on the grounds as well. Since David was asleep, we took turns looking into one of the larger halls. Pictures weren't allowed inside, but there were large altar like areas and pictures of Buddha. Honganji is a temple built for the Jodo Shin-shu school of Buddhism, competition for the Nishi (West) Honganji Temple we saw next. The temple was built in 1602, but the current shoes and structures were rebuilt in 1895 after a large fire. Before entering a temple or a shrine, you are supposed to purify yourself with water from the trough out front. You take a long handled ladle, wash out both hands and then rinse out your mouth. We didn't figure this out until the next day. The dragon fountain is the water trough for this temple.





What better to do after seeing the East temple, but to check out the West temple. We arrived after about a 10 minute walk. David fell asleep along the way, and missed the whole thing. We took turns removing our shoes, viewing the inside, and watching David while he slept in his stroller outside in the courtyard. We were able to get some pictures inside this temple. Perhaps their Buddha is less formal. This temple is the headquarters of the Hongangi branch of the Jodo Shinshu school with 12 million followers world-wide. Most of the congregation was not present. You can see the moat around the temple as well as the altar areas inside. People would just sit on the floor to pray or pay their respects.
Since David took a good nap, we had the opportunity to eat lunch at a French restaurant nearby called Le Bouchon. As far as we can determine, a "bouchon" could be the cork for a wine bottle, a traditional Lyonnaise restaurant, or a distinctively shaped chocolate. Although chicken Kiev (Russian?) at Le Bouchon (French restaurant?) in Kyoto (Japan) was one of the specials, we chose other options. One was an excellent fish with a name that means nothing to us and the other was duck in an orange sauce. Real orange wedges were involved in the sauce production, which made David's day as these are his favorite food. The owner was very gracious and spoke Japanese, French and English.

After lunch, we thought a quick stroll up to see the Imperial Palace would be a good plan. We found a small, random Shinto shrine along the way and enjoyed looking at the shops. After about a 15 minute walk, we arrived at the entrance to the Imperial Palace Park surrounding the palace. Unfortunately, this park was paved with loose gravel designed to completely impede the progress of our stroller. The park itself was more suited to playing baseball or football than sightseeing. As we were not well equipped for sports, the next plan was to walk around the park on the sidewalk until we were near the temple. After about 30 minutes of walking, we weren't even halfway. One inch on the map was much farther than expected. We did see a Japanese Episcopal Church (an interesting contrast to the Buddhist temples), and promptly took the subway home. David enjoy his subway ride and practiced his pullups.
We tried a local conveyor sushi restaurant for dinner. It was fun and the sushi was remarkably fresh. It was the easiest option with David. There were some extremely good fresh fish choices and some other much less recognizable options. We decided to leave most of those for the locals. By the way, octopus is very similar in consistency to an inner tube. We recommend taking the time to cook it.
By now, we were all tired and in much need of sleep in preparation for the next day's adventures.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Enroute to Kyoto - a day of planes, trains, and automobiles (well, a bus)

Although we didn't realize it at the time, this was a big travel day. We stayed the night before our flight in Seoul so we only had to leave at 6:30 AM instead of 5:30 AM to get to the airport. From our hotel, the Dragon Hill Lodge, we took a free bus to Incheon airport. Since, David was traveling with us, we were able to check-in in a special line and only had to wait five minutes instead of thirty. This gave us almost 2 hours in the airport to kill. Incheon is a fabulous airport. We found a little play area for David and did some Korean crafts.









We also got to board the plane early with David. Fortunately, it was only a 2 hour flight to Osaka airport. Unfortunately, we had a tired little boy on our hands who did not want to sit still plus his digestive system was a little off as well. He finally fell asleep in my arms about 20 minutes prior to landing and slept through the landing and a hand off to Daddy.

Once in Osaka, we needed to figure out which train to take to get to Kyoto. An American looking gentleman offered some assistance and the ticket office was helpful as well. We stopped for a quick lunch and then boarded the train. The "JR" on the sign stands for Japan Rail. The train arrived at Kyoto Station in about 70 minutes.









Our hotel was in Kyoto station so once we arrived, we didn't have far to go. It took us nine hours to get there. By this point, David had gone through seven diapers and half of our wipes. Thankfully, he was better the next day.