Temples and another Onsen

We had a rather later start this morning and had breakfast and lunch combined in a local branch of Yoshinoya.  We had set the afternoon aside for visiting temples in the Southern Higashiyama area of Tokyo and do that we did!

We started at Kenin-Ji - the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto.  It has a great garden and an excellent painting of two dragons on the roof of its main hall.



We moved on then to Kiyomizu-Dera Buddhist
Temple as it has a high commanding position over the City and some great views. The next stop was Kodai-Ji.  We walked through Maruyama park and past the Temple there and then North to Chion-in.  The temple was closed by the time we got there and photo opportunities were severely limited by the numbers of coaches parked there!

Following this we went to find a recommended Onsen baths to the West of Kyoto.  After a relaxing soak we enjoyed dinner in a local restaurant called Cafe Sarasa Nishijin.  Following a metro trip back to the hotel area we had a quick beer and then retired.

Hiroshima and Mijyajima Island

We started really early today so we could get a direct Shinkansen from Kyoto to Hiroshima.  It's amazing to cover a distance of 380km in 118 minutes but that's what it does.  Japan Rail passes exclude us from the fastest (in the sense of fewer stops) Shinkansen but even with stops it's impressive.  We could have done the trip in 96 minutes on the fastest Shinkansen.

The peace park and the peace museum at Hiroshima were incredibly moving and really do show in full graphic detail the full horror of nuclear attack.  It's a cliché but I do think every world leader should be made to visit and understand this place, particularly if they have nuclear weapons at their disposal.

We got a tram out of central Hiroshima to the Miyajima area of Hiroshima and then a ferry (JR-operated so free with the JR pass) to Miyajima Island where we had a wander through some more old-style streets and visited the Itsukushima Shrine.  It includes the famous floating torii (or gate).  It was fascinating to see that there are muntjac deer all over the island and that they are extremely tame, being fed by many tourists despite the signs asking them not to.

A similarly efficient Shinkansen got us back to Kyoto around 9pm. We found a fun little Isakaya bar near our hotel where there were not actually any seats but we enjoyed standing around a bar watching a very skilled chef make us little dishes while we had a drink or two.

Nishiki Market, meeting more friends, Sake brewery and Fushimi-Inari-Taisha

We were going to visit Fushimi-Inari-Taisha this morning but it was raining so instead we visited the fascinating Nishiki market, which is not far from our hotel.  It's a real foodies place with lots of local produce and local cooking going on for all to see.  The sights and smells were amazing!

We got a train down to Momoyama where we met an old friend from Oxford and his family for lunch.  They took us to see a Sake brewery and museum in the area, the Gekkeikan Sake Okura museum, where we learned all about the process of making this typical rice-based Japanse spirit.

After a coffee with Simon and family we parted and got the train to Inari from where we visited the important Fushimi-Inari-Taisha, the head shrine for some 40,000 Inari shrines across Japan.  It has about 4km of walkways across the side of a thickly wooded mountain.  We didn't make it all the way to the top as it was getting dark.

After this temple we found a rather upmarket Izakaya bar in the Gion area, called Bamboo, where we greatly enjoyed a tasting-type menu with seven small courses.

Moving on to Kyoto and Gion district

We got up reasonably early today and got ourselves to Tokyo station from where we got a Shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto as this is the mid-point of our holiday. We had some good views of mount Fiji on the way.

We got a metro to the station nearest our hotel and checked-in around 3pm.

Not being people to miss exploring opportunities, after a rest we walked along Shijo-Dori into the Gion district where we saw some really old Japanese buildings and some more cherry blossom.  The difference from Tokyo is quite striking as Kyoto didn't suffer as much damage in WWII as Tokyo.

We hung around in an Isakaya bar, watching the chef cook us small dishes as we had a drink, and waited for it to get dark.

Our walking then took us to the Marayuma-Koen park where there were lots of food, drink and tat stalls as the cherry blossom celebrations are close.  We saw the Yasaka-jinja shine there and generally enjoyed it. We diverted to see Ponto-cho on the way back to the Hotel - what you might call the bars and entertainment district of Kyoto.

A trip to Nikko and a curry with Alex

Today is our last day before moving on to Kyoto.

We activated our Japan Rail passes today so we could get the train to Nikko, a historic City. We had to change at Utsonomiya and had a 75 minute wait so hard a quick explore and saw a bonus shrine!

In Nikko we had a good walk through the City and saw the Shinkyo Bridge - said in a myth to have been made from snakes. Tosho Gu Shrine - definitely the most impressive we've seen yet and indeed a UNESCO world heritage site.  We were much higher up than in Tokyo and could see mountains around us with the remains of the winter snow.








We got back to Tokyo around 7pm and met Alex again - taking him to a place that did both curry and cider!  We rounded off the evening in a fun bar with some good piano playing.

Museums day!

We had a fairly early start today and went to the Tokyo National Museum via Ueno Park. the museum was really interesting and we particularly enjoyed the 7th century exhibits in the treasury.  Amazing to think that writing from 1300 years ago is so well-preserved.  I wonder if we'll be able to read PDFs in the 3200s?




We had a snack lunch at the museum and then went on to Odeiba Island again to go to Mirakei, the museum of emerging science. we enjoyed the
Asimo robot and the huge hanging globe showing the world from space.

Following this we went again to the Onsen on Odaiba for a good soak and supper. Back in Ginza we had a beer at the Ginza Lion Beer hall before going back to the hotel for bed around 11.30pm

Meiji Shrine, Gardens, Ueno Park and Yanaka Cemetery

After a much earlier start today we had another nice breakfast in a local café and then got the metro Yurakucho to the Meiji Shrine. It was good to see and included a treasure house in which we were unfortunately not allowed to take photos, there was also a very pleasant inner garden.  On the way in we saw some wine donated by the French in memory of Meiji's love of western food and wine and as a lasting sign of the friendship between the nations of Japan and France.

Following that we got the metro again to Yoyogi station and after a rather good Ramen lunch we visited the Koishikawa Korakuen Garden.

Later we got the metro again to visit Ueno Park.  Ueno is a more lively part of Tokyo and the park looked like it was gearing up for the Cherry Blossom festivities.  We also visited the Yanaka Cemetery and saw the tomb of Shogun Yoshinobu and the Tenno-Ji temple.  Japanese graves have wooden strips in them with text on, presumably about the deceased.  They rattle around in the wind in an eerie way.

After a coffee then a walk back through Ueno park to see the lights in the dark we took a metro back to Kyobashi, had a rest back at the hotel then dinner.

Senso-Ji, Sumida River cruise and Odaiba Island

We had a bit of a late start today after a rather bad night's sleep - our room air conditioner decided to pump out hot air all night even though it was set to 16C - we started our day with breakfast at a different nearby Café.

We got the Metro on the Ginza line up to Asakusa from where we walked up a very busy street with lots of tourist-tat stalls to the Senso-Ji temple.  It's the most sacred and spectacular temple in Tokyo and was indeed impressive.  We greatly enjoyed the Temple, the surrounding buildings and the very pretty Denbo-in Garden.

As the weather was nice, after a basic lunch in a basic Café (with no English spoken!) we decided to take a river cruise along the Sumida to Hidone Pier.  We joined the cruise just opposite the famous Asahi Building, pictured below.  I think it looks a bit like it has a golden tadpole on top of it.  The views from the river where great.

From Hidone Pier where we got a stunning monorail service that goes right on to Odaiba Island, a reclaimed piece of land that was largely developed in the 1990s but is still being developed today.  The monorail loops round a huge curve so it can get the height needed to cross the rainbow bridge to the island.  We had a good explore, including going up to the viewing dome on the 25th floor of the Fuji TV Building, looking at the MegaWeb exhibition of historic cars, seeing the mock 18th century shopping mall and going to the Oedo Onsen Monogatari - a spa that pumps warm thermal water up from hundreds of metres below the ground to deliver it to the bathing pools at the spa.  The spa had all sorts of other facilities including a restaurant so we enjoyed dinner there and then got the monorail back to Shinbashi and then the Ginza line back to Kyobashi, the stop nearest our hotel.

Tsukiji Fish Market, Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, Hama-rikyu Gardens, Imperial Palace Gardens

We started our day with a little breakfast in a local coffee shop to the hotel then walked over the the famous fish market at Tsukiji. It's am amazing place - starting every day at 5am with lots of auctions and fish from all over the world. It was fascinating to see, and quite smelly!

After the market we visited a Buddhist temple and then the Hama-rikyu Gardens which were absolutely beautiful.  We stopped for traditional confectionery and Japanese Green tea in a little tea house that the Duke of Cambridge had visited just last week apparently.

After the tea we found a little sushi place near the market and had really quite a substantial sushi lunch for about £15 in total.  It was fantastic and extremely fresh as you might expect.  The chef was on full view for us to watch as he made the sushi to order, even making the rice blocks by hand - not like the machine at Yo! in the UK.

After lunch we had a wander around the start of the Imperial Palace gardens and saw some excellent fountains.  We walked back through Tokyo Station and then back to the hotel for a rest.

Flying out to Tokyo and meeting Alex

We left home at about 7.45am this morning to get the bus to Heathrow from where we had a short flight to Paris CDG and then a long haul to Tokyo Haneda airport.  The long haul was 12 hours but Air France did a pretty good job of making it comfortable.  We arrived in Tokyo just before noon on Sunday but with the 9 hour time difference that's 3am back home.

We had a fairly easy day and met an old work colleague who has moved to Tokyo to be an English teacher.  We went to an amazing little restaurant that has a machine at the door where you make your food choices, buy a ticket then hand it to the staff and take a seat.  The machine had not a word of English on it so I was glad Alex knew what the Japanese words for "beer" and "ramen" were.

We got to bed around 9pm slept pretty well after a dose of melatonin to reset the body clock.