Kansai

Well, this is overdue. In my crude attempt to make this a regular blog, I first have to catch up. Instead of overwhelming myself in a single post, I decided that I will do what I should of done weeks ago and first begin with telling the story of the Kansai trip.

Taking place in the final weekend of November, TUJ had organized a trip to the Kansai region of Japan. Located in central Japan, the Kansai region is home to the major cities of Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Kobe. The trip covered expenses to all cities, but we were only actually guided to Osaka, Kyoto and Nara (Kobe was entirely optional, but to my knowledge no one actually went there).

The Kansai Trip started bright and early the day after Thanksgiving with all students going on the trip expected to meet at Shinagawa station by around 7am. A bit early for my taste. In fact, I barely made it to the meeting point, getting there only a few minutes before the departure time to the bullet train platform.

Yes, my dear readers, I got to ride on a bullet train. Riding one of these glorious forms of transportation was on my to-do list in Japan and I was very happy to ride one. In fact, it was (probably) the thing I was most excited to do on the trip as the Japanese bullet train is near legendary. And let me say, the hype was worth it. The bullet train or Shinkansen as it is known in Japan, is a network of high speed trains operated by a number of companies that connect most of Japan together, usually using the larger cities as the locations (of which you can take local lines to get around). Most Shinkansen tracks average speeds close to that of 200mph, though smaller, slower ones exist as well. The most surprising thing as how comfortable, smooth and quiet the rides are. Airplanes may be the safest way to travel, but Shinkansen may be the best way to travel just because of how serene the ride is.

If I recall correctly, the train left at around 8 and we arrived at our first stop, Kyoto, by about 10. Considering that getting to Kyoto from Tokyo takes about 6 hours (and you have to cover about 300 miles), the Shinkansen lives up to its name. Kyoto is one of the old capitals of Japan (along with Nara) and is home to many tourist attractions as a result. Kyoto is known for its many temples and other historical buildings as well as preserving many pieces of art. In this regard, one could call Kyoto a home of the old culture of Japan as many of its faithful preserved and frequently visited by foreigners and Japanese alike.

Kyoto Station. My art teacher calls this ugly.

To say that my guided tour through many of the highlights of Kyoto wasted no time would be a grave understatement. Almost immediately upon landing, we were off and running to places. Firstly, we were escorted to Kyoto Station to drop off any luggage. I did not require a locker myself as I picked very lightly, but many of my fellow students did. I did not blame them, as carrying around a suitcase would be very annoying to say the least. Following the little detour (which consumed more time than desired), we were off riding the subway lines to Nijo Castle.

This looks easy to conquer. Just sayin'.

Nijo Castle is a castle built during the Tokugawa Shogunate, to act as the Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa Shoguns (who used Edo as their primary residence and governing center), but continued to be the home of the Imperial Court. Nijo Castle has many pieces of fine art displayed and the brief tour has many rooms staged to home how Nijo Castle operated in its heyday, however pictures were disallowed inside, so you will have to take my word for it when I say it was very beautiful instead. In fact, I preferred this castle to Matsumoto for that reason. It helped that I wasn't freezing either. The coolest feature of Nijo Castle was the squeaky floors that were placed on purpose to remove stealth from the equation. It was a defensive feature that allowed defenders to be alerted of any attackers during a siege or so. By walking in a certain fashion, one could avoid detection. This was done by distributing your weight in a certain way. A very Japanese innovation. 

Tourist trap #1 of many.

Nijo Castle is also the home of a number of small little stands that sell various merchandise to capitalize on the art, history and novelty of Nijo Castle and Kyoto as a whole. Most of the things on sale were things I have seen throughout Japan (keychains, little figures, etc), however, they were many pieces of unique art that I have not seen before and like many before me, I fell for their charms and purchased some gifts here. I was too weak it seemed. 

Moving away from Nijo Castle, the hectic part of the journey began. You would think getting lunch and meeting somewhere would be a relatively simple endeavor, but of course, it did not work as well as planned. Getting lunch was not a problem for my group personally as we were able to find a nice Japanese restaurant and enjoy a fine (and well priced!) meal and meet the rest of our tour group with relative ease. However, it was this point that I met the two greatest foes we would face in Kyoto: time and crowds. 

The many temples and shrines of Kyoto.

The tour, for whatever reason, was becoming increasingly short on time to visit all the places we were to visit. So the tour guides saw fit to "hit the gas" on walking speed and blitz through many of the beautiful temples and city streets of Kyoto. Enjoyment was not a dish on the menu for this part of the trip.

A modern day crowd filling up a classic street.

It was around this time that I discovered I hate crowds. Navigating through them is no easy feat, even for someone like myself who lives in the New York Area. It seems while people in the New York area can not drive, people in Kyoto (and Japan as a whole) can not walk. People walk at a leisurely pace, tend to stop randomly and the general amount of people clog up streets very easily. This of course counteracted the need to move quickly as we had a busy day of traveling in Kyoto to do in the first place. This bothered me greatly and I could not enjoy this part of the trip at all, especially when my phone/camera was used to gather up some stranglers, removing my ability to take pictures entirely. I was not able to capture many beautiful sites of the Buddhist temples, fall foliage and the great heights of the temple we visited. So you will have to take my word for it when I say, Kyoto is beautiful during the fall and I will be definitely going there again with a working, high quality camera. 

Following that moment of disappointment and frustration, I managed to calm down and enjoy the next bit of our trip, even if the constant walking and wading through crowds was slowly driving me insane. 

This was a very long building.

The building above is called Sanjusangen-do, first built in 1164. Roughly translated to "Hall of the Lotus King," it is a Buddhist temple known for its many statues of the figure Kannon and the Buddha himself, part of a series of the "Thousand Armed Kannons." They are literally one thousand statues crammed into the building, created by a sculptor named Tankei, in the building as well as a fairly large figure of the Buddha and the characters of Fujin and Raijin, major figures in Japanese Shinto. Being a historical site, the Japanese do not like pictures being taken by tourists, so I could not capture any moments in the wooden hall. Which is a shame really, because Google images does not do the building justice at the sight of seeing all the individual figures justice. 

The last tourist spot we managed to make it to was Fushimi Inari-Taisha. Founded in 711, this location is an Inari shrine, dedicated to Shintoism and is best known for its thousands of Torii gates that are constructed along of a path that scales the mountain with numerous smaller shrines scattered about.

The first gates. Many of my pictures are not good due to poor lighting.

Surely more eye catching in the daylight, we arrived in hours of evening in a country where the sun goes down at 5pm, so many of my pictures were of pitiful quality. Regardless, it was something of an adventure, traveling through a maze of gates and seeing some excellently preserved shrines amongst the many gates.

An example of a shrine. Excuse the quality.

As the night was slowly growing older, we began to make our way over to our resting place for the night: the city of Nara. Nara is another of the old capitals, being the capital before Kyoto. Nara is a smaller city, with less to do, but nevertheless, we called it home for a night as we journeyed back. After a quick stop to admire Kyoto Station at night, we took a train and bus to a youth hostel in the city of Nara. Hostels are basically cheap hotel that resembles a college dormitory with bunk beds, lounges and communal bathrooms. All things considered, the hostel was comparable to my dorm room back in Tokyo so I couldn't complain except for my stomachache and general declining health that evening. I fell asleep comfortably enough, waking up groggy the next day, but ready enough for adventure.

We spent only a few days in Nara, mostly because as I alluded to earlier, there isn't as much to do in Nara. Compared to Kyoto, Nara is not the tourist trap and is a relatively small and quiet city. It is a nice change considering how frustrated Kyoto made me feel the previous day. However, Nara has something that Kyoto does not have. A very different kind of attraction. 

D'aw. She looks so innocent. She's not.

DEER. Nara is known for its population of somewhat domestic population of deer, in which people can purchase special cookies to feed the deer in the hopes that you can pet them. What makes these deer special is that they bow to you as a greeting before viciously begging for food. Only in Japan. Surprisingly enough, the bowing is true, but what they don't tell you is that the deer can be vicious in their quest for delicious noms. I have seen people be tackled for the cookies and deer follow people for some time until receiving some a piece of deer cookies. Luckily enough, no one got hurt. 

The largest wooden structure in the world.

And its most famous resident.

Following the gauntlet of deer, we arrived at Nara's largest tourist attraction (literally): The Todai-ji. Built originally in 745, it is among the largest wooden structures in the world and houses the largest bronze Buddha in the world as well. It was been rebuilt twice after fires and the entire structure is only a fraction of its original size. And it is still huge. I was expecting a fairly sizable building, but not this big. Many flocked to bear witness to the Great Buddha and the building was full of religious patrons and tourists alike. Many prayed to the Buddha and sought cleansing; just as many were there for photo ops. A mixed bag to say the least.

Following the journey to the Todai-ji, I limped over to the Nara train station (my health was declining) and we entered a train that would bring us directly to Osaka. Unlike the previous two cities, Osaka is not a former capital of Japan, but it has grown to be one of the largest cities in the country. It's cultural influence is second only to Tokyo, being one of the few cities that has kept its own identity despite the large influence Tokyo has on Japanese culture. Osaka has managed to keep its own dialect of Japanese for example and has developed a unique character of its own way. The city has its own diverse feel as well, with a different aura about the city. It's less crowded and the buildings are not as tall, making Osaka not feel as massive as Tokyo. The people are also nicer and more laid back. 

Their Engrish is also funnier.

Osaka was to be where we spent the majority of our day, beginning with lunch. In a small group, we went to a local restaurant and a traditional Japanese meal with soup, a main dish (I think my had tempura of some sort) and sushi. It was amazing, but strangely not that different from meals I've had in Tokyo. Though I believe the soy sauce was a bit different. Regardless, it was here that we planned the rest of our day. As a group, we decided our main goal was to visit Osaka Castle, since it would complete a trip to all the major castles in Japan for the majority of the group.

Osaka Castle was quite a ways away from where we were, but it is still in the heart of the city. Built in 1597, modelled after Azuchi Castle (possibly the most famous of the Japanese castles) by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, it was designed to surpass Azuchi Castle in everywhere. Lucky for the rest of us, they preserved the castle...for the most part. The exterior moat and outer walls are faithfully maintained and one can see how the castle would be difficult to assault. I was reminded of Mastumoto Castle at first, but the grounds of Osaka Castle are far larger in size, as the castle continued to expand during its initial construction.

Just outside the castle grounds.

The first gate inside.

Inside the castle grounds. Who put this amazing park here?

Upon entering the gates, the castle grounds have been transformed into a public park that is easily accesible to all. It is a grand sight and I was pleased surprised and happy to capture the foliage with my camera. It was redemption for not being able to capture the sight back in Kyoto. The park is quite vast and expansive, so it took some time and a couple more gates before we reached the main castle grounds.

A time capsule?! First time I have seen one of those.

Hard to read, but they are not opening for about another 100 years. Or thousand. I forgot exactly.

The main castle grounds had some interesting sights, including a small fairground and a few stores. A historical building was also there; a remainder of the old base that was built in modern times when Osaka Castle acted as a military base. However my favorite was the time capsule pictured above. It was quite random to see it but I never really seen one, so of course, because of the Japanese I now have irrational standards for them considering how Japan established theirs. A steel casing and a clearly drawn up rules concerning it complete with an opening schedule and time table. Due to the limited picture quality, I cannot discern the date easily. I just hope I am alive for its first opening.

Osaka Castle

We finally made it to Osaka castle after gawking at the time capsule for several moments, paid our entrance fee and were in for a interesting surprise. When seeing a castle as majestic as Osaka Castle up close you create certain expectations in your head. Mine were grand wooden halls with Samurai armor in glass cases, traditional Japanese art scattered about and maybe some cool feudal statues.

Instead, I got a modern day museum.

That's right. A modern day museum. Only in Japan I suppose. For the most part, the Osaka Castle museum was very crowded with each floor swamped with patrons. What was interesting in the museum was that some floors were preserved and others modernized with small movies to convey the feel of medieval Japan. It would of been a more enlightening experience had my comprehension of Japanese been on a higher level.

Quite a different feel from Tokyo.

What was worth it was the amazing view at the top of the castle. Well not as grand as some eye opening views, it was easy to admire the castle grounds and some of the cityscape of Osaka to really establish that Osaka is a vastly different city than Tokyo. It has a calmer, more spread out feel. While I never been to LA or the west coast, to call Osaka the "LA of Japan" would probably not be too much of an extension of the truth.

Following the departure from Osaka Castle, my group slowly realized that time was not our friend on this day and we had to scramble over to the outskirts of Osaka to meet a fair distance away from our hotel room. Despite a limited understanding of Japanese, my group was able to make on to the right train at the right time, meet up with our tour guides and be the first ones at the meeting point. It was a great feeling, being on time, considering how late we were back in Kyoto.

After some delays, we, as a group, crowded onto a bus and arrived at a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. A Ryokan has all the luxuries and classic stereotypes or expectations one would expect in a Japanese style hotel: tatami mats, tea, sliding doors and fancy yutakas that are basically pajama robes. You name a classic Japanese thing, it is probably included in the package.

I can enjoy this.

TUJ did not waste any expenses and we got a very nice package including a 5 course Japanese style meal with lots of seafood, soup, and desserts, karaoke and a onsen. The food was delicious, but there were a few aspects of the meal I could of lived without having. The karaoke had some wonderful all-star performances from my classmates. The onsen was more of a public bath but it was still as relaxing. I slept very comfortably in a futon that was probably more comfortable than my bed back in the dorm room. It was a shame I had to return to that.

The final of the trip was a full free day, in which everyone was free to do anything they wanted permitting they were at Kyoto Station by 8pm to get on the bullet train headed for Tokyo. Squeezing myself into a fairly large group that was dividing their time between Osaka and Kyoto, I was in for a busy but fun day to finish up my time in Kansai.

First stop: The Pokemon Center. Pretty much everyone knows about Pokemon by now as it is the biggest thing in Japan since sliced bread and was spread throughout the world like wildfire. Pokemon Centers in the game give you free healthcare. Pokemon Centers in the real world are stores dedicated to the beloved franchise, featuring a number of Pokemon themed products. The Osaka Pokemon Center is one of the largest of its kind and was filled to the brim with Pokemon themed everything.

Gotta catch them all.

We spent quite a bit of time there, rummaging through everything to find gifts and anything else we wanted to bring along with us. Still traveling light, it was around now my bag was getting full as I purchased a number fo things to get my Pokemon fix as well as pick some gifts. It was a blast though and I felt like a kid again. Oh nostalgia.

The best view I had in all of Japan.

Following that little detour, the group rushed over to another tourist trap in Osaka: the ferris wheel. Now this is not your everyday ferris wheel. Oh no. This is Japan after all. No, this was a ferris wheel perched on top of a building. After scaling the mall the wheel called home, we entered the wheel and bore witness to another majestic view. The good thing about this wheel is that it was in the heart of Osaka, so you got to see everything the city had to offer. Luckily enough, it was on a beautiful clear day as well so the view was even more immersive than normal. It was awesome that my ferris wheel car was full of good company that played good music while we took picture after picture. And danced. We totally danced.

Lunch was next on the menu and we scrambled together to find another local restaurant to eat. Despite money issues, I was able to gather enough funds to eat a decent meal for terribly empty stomach. Osaka is marginally more expensive to eat than Tokyo, but not as bad as some places in Kyoto, which I managed to avoid.

A system of confusing train transfers were our next opponent as we made our way back to Kyoto for the afternoon hours. This is also where the group spilt into smaller ones primarily due to confusion and miscommunication. Instead of journeying far away (since time was not an ally once again), my smaller group decided to take in the local vicinity and find some things to do. It wasn't too hard as Kyoto Station is built in a nice commercial area.

Kyoto Tower

While not as grand or as epic as Tokyo Tower, Kyoto Tower was a nice enough place to begin our little journey around Kyoto, despite the fact it looked like a giant cigarette. The tower is not as high as I would like but the people manning the operations were excessively kind, so it made me feel quite welcome if a bit creeped out.

Sunset in Kyoto.

We decided to go early and wait it out a bit to capture the sunset in the tower, and it was totally worth it. The observatory had a unique shape that made picture taking a bit easier than normal and enough binoculars that you could check out some of the sights from the tower if you looked hard enough.

We descended down from the tower and primarily did some wandering and some shopping in the local districts. Nothing too exciting as exhaustion and hunger were becoming increasingly prevalent. For the most part, we waited around for the group to assemble, collect any bags and then travel to the platform.

Kyoto at night.

   

The ride back was nearly identical to the ride there: quick, quiet and peaceful. Tokyo was in our sights. We all returned home and slept soundly in our beds, as finals were right around the corner.

The trip to Kansai was without a doubt one of the best trips I made during my time in Japan as I got to experience a different side to Japan as the culture simply feels different from everything to the behavior of the people to the food that they eat. And as you could tell, one of the longest as well with many stories to retell, hence why it took me forever to get around to writing about it. And I apologize for that. I have a few more Tokyo stories to share which I will get around to shortly.