Kyoto, Nara and Osaka

A week ago we went to Kyoto. We took the night bus down Wednesday night, leaving at 21:00 and arriving in Kyoto at 5:30. Together, we had reserved a one person room (because everything else was booked) at a local ryokan, a traditional Japanese type of hotel where you sleep on the floor on a madras, so our whole room was a bed and we just fit in one room. The earliest we could check in was at 10:00, so we had some time to kill. We spent that time on the train-terminal floor with the other homeless people, very cozy and warm. Luckily, Japanese floors are so clean that you can almost eat off it. After some time we went towards the ryokan in search of a breakfast place. The Lonely Planet recommended a sandwich place right next door, so we went there. They had amazing sandwiches, and this naturally became our breakfast place for the upcoming days.

That day we visited a castle, the Imperial Palace Garden and the Golden Palace (Kinkaku-ji). We also wandered around the city, to see more traditional streets and places, and the sweet-stores that Lars, one of our friends from Oslo who had lived there for a year, had kindly recommended.

The next day we had decided to visit Nara, which used to be Japans first capital. Nara`s temples and shrines are on the UNESCO Heritage List as well. Georgs friend Joost, who came to visit us earlier, spent one year as an exchange student there nine years ago. He was back there now to visit them. We met up with him at Nara station, and went around exploring the city. It is a beautiful place. Lots of nature, but best of all, all around the city, palaces and shrines, deer’s are walking around free. They were very cute:)

We went around seeing the “obligatory” palaces and shrines, which were very nice by the way. One claimed to be the largest wooden building in the world…but that is largely disputed. It didn’t look that big to me. After that we went to the top of the hill in Nara, which they ritually set on fire every year (yamayaki). From there you can see all the way to Kyoto, great view. But one thing that bothers me is that all things cost something here. It for instance costs money to go up the hill to see the view…. wouldn’t happen in Norway.

On Saturday we met up with Joost at the Osaka aquarium. It is a huge aquarium, very popular (so we went there very early) and is one of the largest aquariums in the world. The big attraction is a 12-meter-long whale-shark, the largest fish type in the world. I have wanted to go there ever since we got to Japan, because I love fish (especially sharks), so I was very excited…and we didn’t get disappointed. There were all kinds of fish from cute seals and sharks to monster crabs from outer space (well it looked like it…). We had such a fun time exploring the fish that we came out three hours later pretty dizzy... After the aquarium we went on a ride in what was until the birth of London-eye in 1999 the largest Ferris wheel in the world. It was a nice way to see the city.

We didn`t have much more time to explore the city (apart from a short while through some shopping streets in central Osaka), because we had plans visiting Joosts host family. Georg really looked forward to practice his Japanese, I on the other hand was VERY nervous. Both Joost and Georg speak Japanese FAR better than me, so that just makes me even more nervous. But we had a great evening and the family was very kind and welcoming. The family made us Japanese pancakes, stuffed with vegetables, seafood and meat, it is very good. On top you have mayonnaise and some kind of caramel sauce.

On Sunday, our last day, we tried to see the temples and shrines we had left on our list. Unfortunately it was raining, and the “rest of Japan” had also decided to go out that day to see the same temples, so we only saw the silver temple (Ginkaku-ji) and Kiyomizu-dera, but both of them were very beautiful. Afterwards we got something to eat and then took the Shinkansen back to Tokyo (took us only a little over two hours!).

We really liked Kyoto. It was very different from the other cities we had seen, much more cozy, but still eventful with lots of history. Hope we get the chance to get back there someday:)

More pictures here.