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Kyoto and Osaka
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Saturday 26th April
Rachel: From Tokyo we took a fast train to Kyoto which took 3 hours. We were on Green class which is first class for trains. The seats are huge. They are as big as the ones on planes for business class. When we arrived at the train station it was easy to get to our hotel because it was actually in the train station! After checking in we went up to our room and checked it out, even though we were going to move into a different room the next day. Then it was time to see a friend who lived nearby in Osaka. He was an English teacher like my mum called Paul. Paul teaches children in an international school.
We had lunch with him in a ramen shop which is part of the train station complex. Instead of ordering things from the menu, when you were queuing and got to the front of the line, there was a little machine that you put money in and clicked on the meal and drinks that you like. When you had chosen all the things that you wanted the change would come out and you would get little tickets that had the meals on them so that when you went into the restaurant they would take the tickets and give you the meals in exchange.
Alison: After lunch we caught a bus to Kiyomizu, a lovely mountainous area with a beautiful Buddhist monastry near the top. As we began exploring the temples a lovely Uni student who was studying to be an English teacher offered to guide us for free - it's apparently an extension activity they do to improve their English - and she proved a most informative and charming guide.
She showed us how to purify ourselves properly in order to enter the temple and then led us to a place where we went under the temple in absolute pitch darkness, following a handrail which twisted and turned, until we came in sight of a giant, softly illuminated stone which we all turned for good luck. It was a relief to climb up into the daylight again, especially as Tom found it a bit scary and Michael kept making ghost noises! At the entrance to the next temple were two huge steel rods - a thick 5-5cm diameter man's one and a 3cm diameter woman's one.
The idea was for the man to lift his to prove his strength but it was incredibly heavy and Michael had no hope. When I lifted mine with one hand the guide explained that meant I was the strong ruler of the family - I don't think Michael believed her though!
We wandered through the beautiful temple complex, with our guide explaining everything very well, and eventually rested in a sweet little tea house before farewelling her with offers to come and stay if she ever visits Australia.
We then wound our way back down the steep street where shop vendors on each side offered samples of their sweets, which we cheerfully tried.
Next we caught a bus to Gion, a beautiful area full of antique and craft shops and wandered through its quiet canal lined streets.
We finally ended up in a lovely restaurant which was perfect for us as it offered both sushi for Mike and Paul and Sukiyaki for me and the kids, so everyone was happy. We had a great time there, ending the meal very cheerfully with some delicious sake, before catching the bus back to the station and farewelling our fabulous host Paul with arrangements to meet the next day in Osaka.
Sunday, 27th April
Today we headed into Osaka to catch up with Paul again, who very generously donated his whole weekend to us. We met him at the train station and then caught the metro to the Osaka Aquarium.
Outside it is a huge ferris wheel which they claimed was the biggest in the world. (I suspect the London Eye might have gazumped that claim but who cares!) Anyway, we hopped onto it and got a marvellous view over Osaka, with Michael manfully overcoming his fear of heights and Rachel stopping clinging to me eventually.
Next we went to the Aquarium which really was fabulous. It had the habitats of the 'ring of fire' which is all round the Pacific Ring and thus ranged from the Antarctic, to Panama, Monterey, Japan, Australia's Barrier Reef etc.
The nice thing was they included the animals that lived on the surface as well like otters, ducks, salamanders and penguins, not just the fish, which were impressive in themselves. We spent ages working our way down through the various habitats and looking at the tanks which were many metres deep and quite spectacular.
After that we headed into the trendy shopping district of Osaka where we went looking for some new sandals for Michael, but they didn't have a big enough size, and watched the crowds go by in their extraordinary fashions. The young people take their fashion very seriously in Japan, but they seem to belong to hugely various styles. A popular one for girls is the "baby doll'' look, while we also saw guys dressed in cowboy fashions or punk or even army pants combined with a poncho for another chap. Then the hair is equally amazing in its teasing, frizzing, gelling, pinning and dying! Another thing we saw in the shops were designer hand towels. No public bathroom has any hand towels in Japan so every woman carries a small one in her handbag, so there were Vivienne Westwood designer hand towels on offer in the departments stores!
Eventually we said goodbye to Paul and headed back to Kyoto. We had a nice meal at one of the many Station restaurants - this one was Tapas and it all tasted fabulous - and then headed off to bed...
Mike: Lovely coming to Kyoto, which is much more the beautiful / cultural town as opposed to Tokyo the sprawling metropolis. Without doubt though what has made this time so special has been the warm and generous hospitality Paul has shown us, making us feel much more a part of our surroundings rather than a tourist looking in, and taking us to all those quirky/interesting little places you would never have discovered otherwise and providing insights and context that help to give a much deeper understanding about this fascinating country. Also discovered that alcohol is incredibly cheap! Wandered into a little 'wine shop' and seeing the $16 price tag on a bottle of Tanqueray Gin I thought there must be some mistake, only to then see the likes of Glenfiddich for $20 etc... I bought the only bottle of gin they had, but salivated at the prospect of flying lots more home in due course! Though Alison suggests this may get me in trouble.
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