Well we made it to our last day, and this post is coming up a bit early thanks to the free wifi internet in Singapore Airport (YAY!)
Anyway we got to Tokyo fine, enjoyed our last shinkansen ride and then eventually got around to our capsule hotel. The place was a tiny building hidden behind a shoe shop though somewhat cozy (in a hostel sort of way). After checking in and leaving our bags we moved on to getting some last minute personal shopping done for random bits and pieces, to put it simply though we stumbled upon a shop we shouldn’t have and ran out of money. After finding an ATM though we got some money out to cover our last few expenses and had our last meal, a nice bit of pork and egg on udon noodles for myself, and the same for dave but on soba noodles (udon are thick, soba thin).
Well eventually we got back to the capsules and got comfy, we did find though that our lockers weren’t exactly big enough for our bags as dave’s did not fit and mine did with a bit of force, removing it though required a bit of work as not to remove buckles and almost brought the locker down on top of me, safe! Eventually we just decided it was better to put them into the bed with us and loose a bit of leg space, there was plenty anyway.
Onto the capsules though, they are suprisingly comfy and for 3500yen for each per night (roughly $50 aus) there was no room to complain at all. The tv works well, it comes with headphones to not disturb others, the alarm and clock works, the curtain blocks out all the light and most people are civilised as not to make noise when they enter the room allowing you to sleep easily. Heck my only complaint would be the locker size but the bed made for good storage too.
Finally we did leave the next morning nice and early, checked in fine and no problems (first for economy class, we timed our arrival to perfection) and our baggage was much more under weight then we had expected. A quick last minute shop for snacks and we made our way to our current destination, Singapore. Since we are flying on a nice A380 to Sydney with Singapore Airlines we should have no problem still arriving at 6am on Sunday morning (sorry parents!).
As this will probably be the last official post, farewell. The holiday was an absolute blast.
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Capsule
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Capsule Hotel
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Capsule
Well here we are, our last official full day not involving travelling, and our last actual day somewhere besides Tokyo. Simply put we wanted to get as much in today and see what we could to sum it all up. Our plan was simple, see a temple, see a castle (well ruins of at least) and then one of the 3 most beautiful spots in Japan.
So we started the day by heading to the Temple, after writing down particular instructions on how to get there we jumped on a train and headed in the right direction. A while into the trip while the train was leaving Sendai we got a feeling we might have gone past the station, following the instructions from a guide we read (a 20 minute journey from Sendai supposably) we stayed on the train. Eventually though the train seemed to be climbing one mountain after another, after about 30 minutes on the train we decided we had gone past our stop and that we would get off at the next stop and work out where we were. Unfortunately the next stop wasn’t for another 10 minutes or so and we ended up finally at the base of a mountain with a ski lift. Simply put we got out, found out it was very, very, very cold and windy to top it off and our next train wouldn’t arrive for 30 minutes.
Turns out now just quickly researching it we ended up at a skiing location on a mountain which sits over 1100m above sea level, our train station was at about 600m above sea level in the middle of a ravine so quite windy. After a few photos and seeking shelter inside a room at the train station we eventually jumped on another train and headed in the right direction. Eventually we did hit the train stop we wanted and got off to search for the temple. Alas though it was not our morning (or by this time, midday) and we could not find it so back to the train station to get to a location we could easily find (we later found out at the train station we only needed to walk another block to find the temple… oh well).
Finally back in Sendai we jumped on a tourist loop bus of Sendai to get our way to the ruins of Aoba Castle, as we were on this lovely and scary bus ride (the driver rode it like it was a motorbike) we realised that this was the only somewhat tour guided thing we had done and we really had not needed them. Go us!
When we reached Aoba Castle we proceeded to have a look around, enjoy the beautiful views (most amazing view of a city yet) and take in the awe of the giant Masumune Date statue sitting at the top. After suffering enough through the freezing wind though we jumped back onto the next bus and proceeded back to Sendai to catch a train north to a small coastal town called Matsushima, famous for being one of the 3 most scenic locations in Japan.
Now how does a small coastal town become one of the 3 most scenic locations in Japan? Well it isn’t due to the Tsunami evactuation signs everywhere in the town but rather what lies in the bay just out into the water from the town. Many islands numbering in the hundreds easily scattered around the water all covered in dense forests of Pine Trees, it really is an impressive site. We were going to proceed to walk onto the one island you can walk to (its connected by a 200m long bridge to the main land) but the bridge charges a toll, and an expensive one at that. To be honest the price (600yen) was not worth it to wander around a mud covered island to look at pine trees, we could do that from the shore thanks.
Eventually we had enough of the scenery and headed back to Sendai where we found ourselves enjoying a lovely dinner of Ramen, perfect way to end our last full day if I do say so myself.
Oh and for those interested, it was a top of 11 degrees today with a wind chill factor of -8. It was cold for us Australians.
Anyway the pictures and this post will probably be our last until we arrive in Australia on Sunday morning. If I can get online before then at one of the airports I will attempt to post pictures of the capsule hotel and a post detailing the stay.
Until next time, farewell!
Well today was simple, we got up, we packed our bags and we made our way to Sendai, now this involved a rather large train trip (about 5 hours minus the 1-2 hours of transfers at stations) to get here. Well we got here, checked in, got comfortable and stayed comfortable. Not much to see at 5pm in the afternoon really. We eventually did get out of the house to get some dinner.
And that about sums up the day!
Tomorrow we are off to explore Sendai and possibly surrounding suburbs, weather is meant to be very good but cold as well. Other than that, only 2 full days remaining 
Well here we are, at our 3rd last stop (2nd if you don’t consider a final night in tokyo) in the so far awesome town of Nagoya. We arrived in around midday and made our way to the hotel to proceed with dumping our bags, how little did we understand this town…
Firstly it has all been way beyond what we had expected. Firstly the train, there were quite the queues to get on and once we did it was packed, like our bags probably shrunk 1/3rd on the train as did we, human sandwhich with extra human anyone? Eventually we got to our station, got confused and almost lost finding the exit (the place has an underground shopping mall attached with 16 freakin exits), once we found the right exit though we made our way to our hotel.
Now is where it all really started. Firstly we knew we were going to be in for a bit of awe, this hotel is 4-5 stars and we got very lucky with the price (special deal making it half price). As we walk in we were greeted to smiles everywhere, hello’s in perfect english and doors being opened and staff constantly asking us to let them take our bags, eventually we did accept this. Once checked in the clerk was helpful in providing us with a very detailed tourist map of Nagoya all in english, on the way out another friendly clerk ran after us while shouting my name (perfectly pronouced, I was shocked) to provide us with a smaller single page map for us to use to make it a bit easier for our pockets, fantastic!
Eventually we got away and made our way north to the Nagoya Castle. On the way we journeyed through Hisaya-oodori Park which is a park laid out in the middle of a main street. Jokingly as we walked along it we made fun at the shopping complex underneath called Central Park, little did we know what we would soon discover… Turns out Nagoya is a sister city to quite a few cities around the world, two that most readers on here will recognise being Los Angeles and Sydney, others being Mexico City, Torino (italy) and Nanjing (China). This park it turns out has little bits from all of them in accordance with anniverserys of being sister citys. From Los Angeles there is replica sections of the famous walk of fame in Hollywood including a tribute to Mr Hollywood, the Mexicans donated some 4 inca or mayan relics and from Sydney there is the anchor from H.M.S Sirius. The other towns we did not find what they had donated (if anything).
Finally out of the park though we found the Castle, paying a fee of 500yen to get into the grounds we wandered in not expecting too much as there was not much about the castle in the guide books or online, we were pleasantly suprised. The grounds themselves were quite large with random bits of information (in both japanese and english) dotted around to explain different aspects. Flowers were blooming and well maintained and it wasn’t very busy making it a quite nice and relaxing stroll. The castle itself though was highly impressive with 7 floors filled with information on the castle, living within the castle and the castle grounds from the times when the castle was still a pipe dream till WW2 and the restoration following the war (there was almost a whole level dedicated to the golden dolphins that sit on top). Very very impressed.
After enjoying the castle we decided to head back with a detour through the Nagoya TV Tower to observe the lookout from the top, impressive to say the least. It is roughly 110m up and towers over most buildings in Nagoya giving a brilliant view all around.
Seeing as it was getting later in the day we proceeded back to the hotel to check out our room. As we arrived the same clerks from before greeted us by name and asked us how we were, once again in perfect english. We were then escorted to our rooms and told our bags were waiting in them (standard for this type of hotel we presume but still nice for us). While in the elavator our lovely clerk explained that the room we had requested was unavaliable so they would have to upgrade us to the executive suite, which happened to be on the security locked top floors of the hotel, while we were still picking up our jaws from the floor we were shown our room. Suffice to say its huge, we both have the equivalent of a double bed, there is a giant desk I am currently sitting at and enjoying very much and the giant 32″ TV is a nice touch. To put it simply this room is on a different level to anything else offered in Japan (oh and the toilet seat is heated… its nice).
Leaving it there we are going to be enjoying our personally made Instant Ramen Noodles tonight, a bit of a stark contrast but they are rather hard to lug around and our bags are exploding at the seams from souvenirs so no space in there.
Tomorrow depending on how bad it is raining (its predicting alot of rain) we will be going to either Gifu or Inuyama or both, or if weather doesn’t permit just something around Nagoya and make a relaxing day of it.
Till next time, farewell! (I really need to make these posts shorter…)
Going to do this as a double as that is how we tackled these two cities.
Hotel - Hotel Villa Fontaine Osaka
We stayed in this hotel for 5 nights and branched out from it to get to our destinations (Kyoto, around Osaka and Himeji). The staff other then the first girl we encountered were very nice and friendly. Our room itself was large enough to move around the bed but that was about it with little to no space for luggage our bags took up almost all free space we had. On top of that the chair at the desk could not fully come out due to the bed being in the way, made it hard to sit at the computer haha. The bathroom though was rather nice with a good working shower and the bed/pillows were fantastic to sleep on even if we did have to share a double. Internet was easy enough to get onto but for the tech people reading this ports are blocked making it impossible to connect to VPN’s or alternate ports for work purposes. Breakfast was included and was a small buffet in the foyer of the hotel. There was a selection of two warm plates (contents changed daily but was usually a fish one and meat), soup, rice, and toast / bread with strawberry jam or butter.
Osaka
Our staging ground to travel around this area, the place we stayed in was located in Shinsaibashi, one of the major shopping districts in Osaka. A brilliant place to stay if you enjoy shopping and have alot of money to spend. While we might have had money to spend we weren’t too interested in shopping so we stuck to the food shops and electronic shops in the area and that was about it. In Osaka we didn’t find too much to do sticking to Osaka Castle mainly and that was about it. From what we could tell to enjoy Osaka you need to enjoy shopping and fashion, other than that there isn’t too many appealing attractions here. For getting around the subway is the obvious choice though the pricing system may be confusing it is relatively simple. Above the ticket machines find the station you want to go to, see the price under the sign and put money into the machine and choose that ticket price and collect your ticket + change if any.
From Osaka we also moved on to Himeji which was a quick 30 minute jump out of the town on the Shinkansen to check out the castle at Himeji. In all honesty the castle was not as impressive as many guide books live it up to be. It is very nice and impressive looking but the history inside is lacking immensly, the view from the top is over rated and the gardens surrounding the castle are pleasent but rather bland. The day would be best spent in Kyoto if you are after history and culture.
Kyoto
The epicenter of this region for Temples, Shrines and attractions, and thats just within the town itself. As our guide book pointed out it ran out of alphabetical letters to show all the sights on the map. We spent two full days here running around at quite some pace to check out as much as possible. We managed to cram in the North West of Kyoto and its major attractions up there (see the Kyoto posts for more detail) in just one day, and the south eastern section in another day. The rest of Kyoto we hadn’t seen could be done possibly in a day but I would still recommend more time. The sites are worth it and if you have the time heading out of Kyoto to the north or east to the outer lying towns for their shrines would be a worthy experience too.
First off, happy birthday Stuart. We miss ya buddy.
Onto matters of our day though we figured we would do today what Stuart would’ve done, continue on sight seeing and blast our way through everything at pace while still picking it all up. DONE! First off once again is Kyoto. We made our way south of the station to a little temple complex called To-ji, famous for its main building a 55m tall pagoda, the biggest in Japan and it was rightly impressive. Also in the same complex (and in the paying section of course) where two smaller temple buildings (small being in relation to the pagoda only) filled with Buddha statues and references with some incredible gold statues within, very impressive.
Following this we moved on north to Nishi Hongan-ji. Another temple complex. For the Hongan-ji temples though there are two seperate complexes, the west one being the Nishi one (what we visited) and the east one being the Higashi one. The grounds we were able to get in to were impressive and a nice touch was the main temple you could enter, and it was impressive. As standard shoes aren’t allowed so we took ours off and made our way in carrying our shoes in a plastic bag in one hand (the bag is provided) and camera in the other. Inside there is a giant room, its pretty hard to describe but picture a large RSL hall without anything in it but a few wooden pillars, dim the lights so only one light in the middle is on and place a giant golden statue to Buddha on one side, and that’s the inside of this place. Very impressive and awe inspiring.
Eventually we had enough enlightenment and decided to make tracks to still see all the attractions, next on the list Fushimi Inari Taisha, famous for its Torii gates of which this temple has 10,000 of them. Yup that is a lot. We found our way there eventually and wandered up to the temple, after a quick lunch and not seeing many torii gates we realised the 4km path the gates were on was in fact behind the temple into the mountain area, so obviously we wandered in and had a meander of it all. Deciding it was best not to follow the whole 4km path and see more of Kyoto we headed back out of the temple and in direction of Gion, the district in Kyoto famous for its Geisha spotting.
We eventually made it to the Gion district after a bit of confusion and the help of a lovely American/Japanese girl (not sure which one was native but both her accents were perfect) found our way there. Gion itself is made up of tiny little streets some allowing cars some not. Within the streets are tea houses and shrines randomly positioned. Throughout these streets its possible to find a theater for a Noh play (traditional japanese play) which we found and occasionally Geisha when you are lucky enough to see one, well we found two thanks to getting a bit lost (YAY!).
Soon enough we had wandered out of the Gion district and headed for our final destination, Ponto-cho. Famous for its tea houses and bars which are served by Geisha and famous for their views across the river behind them we followed first the river north to get a nice view from behind (the river is lined with couples so we might have looked a bit odd if I didn’t have my camera). Once we reached the next bridge we turned around and headed down the small street that Ponto-cho is known for. It really is something to be experienced first hand though. The street is barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side with each entrance on either side leading into a bar, expensive restaurant or tea house (and occasionally the more… other places). Down this road once again we found two Geisha, talk about lucky! Thanks to some nice little daschunds we were able to get a quick photo of the Geisha but being polite only one and we did not bother her in the process.
Feeling we had accomplished enough for the day we found our way back to Kyoto station thanks to remembering some Japanese Kanji to get the right trains back and have found our way back to the hotel here in Osaka.
Now it would be time for dinner so in memory of Stuart we are going to have one of his favourite dishes, a curry! (+ the obvious beer).
Tomorrow its off to Nagoya to the east on a quick one hour train ride. Our forecast for the next few days is overcast and rain so maybe not as many pictures or stuff to write about as the last two days.
