Arriving in Kyoto Station at 8 AM, I found Jing (Ben and Tim took the bullet train) and we headed over to our hostel. At 10:30, Ben and Tim showed up and we started by visiting Kiyomizu-dera Temple which is a Buddhist temple from the Heian period. It was under pretty hefty renovations so we didn't get to see all of it. Next we headed to Nijojo Castle, a massive castle in the center of Kyoto. Lastly, we tried to find the the night market, open from 6 pm to 9 pm, but I don't think we ever actually came across it.
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| Me, Tim and Ben from left to right |
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| A shrine that you wish upon for good luck |
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| Overlooking Kyoto |
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| Eel box lunch |
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| Nijojo Castle |
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| Inside the castle |
On day 2 we visited Fushimi Inari Temple first, which was recommended to us as a must see by pretty much everyone and it didn't disappoint. It's a huge temple that sits at the base of a mountain leading to countless smaller shrines which are dedicated to economic prosperity. Next up was the Ninnaji Temple and Ryoanji Temple on the outer skirts of Kyoto. Although each temple certainly had its similarities, they also had radical differences in the grounds they were laid out upon and even the general attitude of those that came to pay homage.
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| Fushimi Inari |
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| Kyoto |
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| 5 Story Pagoda...that's about all the info I have |
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| Ninnanji Temple |
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| Ryoanji Zen Garden |
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| The greeter at the temple who graciously let me take a pic with her! She was very cold, I'm sure |
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| Last dinner in Kyoto |
On the 23rd Jing left us to continue her worldly travels so the boys took a day trip to Nara, the old capital of Japan. There we saw the Kasuga Taisha Shrine (where there are deer that can bow), Nara National Museum (a hidden gem of a museum with many interesting sculptures and artifacts), Todaji Temple (houses the world's largest bronze Buddha at 15 meters tall), Kofukuji Temple, a three story pagoda and five story pagoda.
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| Feeding the Nara deer |
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| They seemed clean enough |
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| And cute! |
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| The world's largest bronze Buddha's house |
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| His guardian |
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| The Buddha itself |
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| Sunset in Nara |
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| Dinner in Nara - some sort of fried udon... teppanyaki style |
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| Overlooking Nara |
After dinner in Nara we took the Japan Rail to Osaka, spent the night there and had sushi at the world's first conveyor belt sushi place which was an amazing conclusion to an outstanding trip (minus Tim's snoring).
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| World's first conveyor belt sushi...or so we were told |
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| Our hostel in Osaka |
My impressions of Japan are that it shares a lot of characteristics with Korea. If I hadn't been living in Korea for the past the 6 months, the level of "cuteness" in its merchandise and people would have caught me off guard. Instead it was interesting to see but in reality the next logical step up for a society whose products and women are supposed to be cute and docile and whose people in general are highly respectful. Everyone was more than willing to help us find our way and ready to use whatever English at their disposal. In Korea, people are also willing to help but are reluctant about doing it in English because many Koreans are shy or embarrassed to speak English even if they know a decent amount. My general impression about Japan was that the Japanese were much more confident about trying to integrate whatever English they could. It also amazed me how clean Japan was and how patient the people were. Even getting onto the subway, commuters lined up and waited until everyone had exited the car before patiently boarding themselves. That was something I hadn't seen in Korea or China.
