Ari and Andy Visit Japan! Part 2

Welcome back to the blog about Ari and Andy's trip to Japan! If you missed it, click here for part 1.

So we left off boarding the train for Kyoto, yeah?

Well 2 hours later we arrived! And just in time for a late lunch so we naturally headed to the emporium of ramen shops at the Kyoto station in the Cube.

Yum! Ramen always hits the spot. After lunch, we left the station and walked to our hostel, K's House Kyoto, of course, to check in and get rid of our bags. ( I have now been to Kyoto 3 times and stayed at K's house all 3 times...)

First impressions of Kyoto from this trip? IT WAS HOT. STINKIN HOT. 

It had been warm and humid in Iwakuni before we left but Tokyo had been surprisingly comfortable. We walked around all day in Tokyo and yes, we were warm, but it was an expected and tolerable summer temperature. 

Now this, this was heat like I've never experienced before. Just walking the 6 blocks from the train station to K's was like an eternity in the heat. 

We finally made it, though, and ahh, it was so nice to be someplace cool once again. We were definitely going to have to reevaluate all that we had planned for Kyoto in light of this heat. The other two times I had been here it was winter and you don't appreciate how much more walking you can do when it is a little brisk than when it is BALLS hot.

So anyways, after cooling off and hydrating, we headed back out in to the heat to find Nishiki Market. I had remembered it being not too far from the station so we figured we'd save a few bucks on the subway by walking there.

It was hot. And we got a little lost (I had a bad map). And it was not as close to the station as I remember it. And the market would be closing soon if we didn't step on it. And did I mention it was hot?

We made it maybe 2/3 of the way there before hailing a cab to take us the rest of the way.

It was air-conditioned :D

We made it without further incident (and before closing!).

Nishiki market is a shopping arcade of shop after shop of interesting and unusual (to me) Japanese foods and ingredients. It fit well with the theme of the day; we had started out at a wholesale fish market and now we were rounding it out at a market where you could buy the rest of the spices, ingredients, and sides you would need to prepare a fresh Japanese meal!

It was fun to explore because many of the shops had samples of their unusual foods.

It was shaded under the arcade but still hot enough so that when we finished, we were ready to find a place with more A/C. Nick and Andy found a Yellow Submarine (card shop) and Ari and I found...

A Cat Cafe!!! This is a place where you pay a certain amount of money and then you get to play with cats for a certain amount of time. You can also order drinks which is why it's a cafe.

So Ari and I did just that. For 2000yen (~$20) we both got a coffee and 30 minutes of playtime with the kitties!! 

 They were adorable but very sleepy.

All of the cats had Japanese sounding names except for one, named Michael (below). He was our favorite. Look at that face!

 "I'm sorry, if you find the cat's hair in your cups."

Our coffees were served with lids ;)

This is how Nick and Andy found us when they came out of the card shop.

The serving of caffeine and the A/C- plus the sun was setting so it was almost comfortable outside- was enough to rejuvenate us! We got Japanese style curry at CoCo's Curry house for dinner (yum!) and walked toward the Gion district to maybe see a Geisha! 

But first, more Taiko!

Nope, just regular lady dressed up for a fancy evening.

Funny fish purse- you unzip all along it's belly and when you open it up it looks like you've dissected a fish!

Kyoto was beautiful by night. We walked along the river for a while before catching a cab home. In the morning we had Ninja school so we needed to get some rest!

The next morning, we said goodbye to Nick (for a few days- he had to catch up on work), grabbed breakfast from the 7/11 and boarded the train to the Ninja village.

We had one train transfer along the way and I had very specific instructions on how to get to the right stop (plus I've been riding the trains all over Japan for over a year now). But somehow I still messed up. When we transferred trains, we boarded one that was parked at the right platform, left the platform the right time according to both my phone and my instructions, and then it arrived at our would be destination just 2 minutes early.
But what? This is not where we need to be... Where were we? Oh no! We somehow had taken the train the wrong direction! How could this be? The train we had taken matched the one we were supposed to take almost exactly (well, as close as we could get without actually being able to read any of the signs or understand the conductor over the intercom).
But, alas, this train must have left just 30 seconds too soon and so we had missed out actual train by just a few moments. (And if that wasn't the case, I have no idea what we had done wrong.)
Dang! What were we to do now? It was another almost 30 minutes back to the platform where we could catch the train that would take us another 30 minutes to the right stop. And we were supposed to be meeting someone from the Ninja camp who was going to give us a ride the rest of the way to the village in 5 minutes. Did we want to call and say we'd be late or not coming at all?

We ultimately decided to nix the Ninja camp and do more sightseeing in Kyoto instead. We called the camp (well, called ITT to explain what had happened who then called the camp to explain it all in Japanese) to let them know we took the wrong train and wouldn't be coming.

It was kind of a big bummer but we thought maybe we could get a refund on our train tickets since we were going all the way back to Kyoto. (We could not.)

We had ridden trains all morning and we arrived back in Kyoto Station in time for lunch again. Nick hadn't actually left yet (he had slept in after we left) so we met up with him back at the Cube to try a different ramen restaurant for lunch. As we waited for him to get there, we explored the station a little.

View of Kyoto Tower from the top deck skyway.

After lunch we actually said goodbye to Nick and planned what to do next. It was HOT out again and we wanted to check out some of Kyoto's famous shrines and temples. It was too hot for walking so we decided to rent bikes! Boy!! What a brilliant idea! While we were riding, we had the wind in our face and we could travel so far so quickly (in comparison to the walking we'd been doing for a week)!

Our first stop was Sanjusangendo Hall (the hall of 1001 Buddhist statutes).

After exploring that, we biked over to Fushimi Inari Shrine- it was a splendid trip by bicycle and the shrine was amazing! It's famous for its miles of mountain trails lined with orange torii gates.

Truly breathtaking.

Then it was time for ice cream! (just from the 7/11). It had actually been some distance from out hostel to Fushimi Inari so we biked back and rested in the cool A/C. While biking was one way to keep the heat at bay, whenever we stopped we were still covered in sweat and walking around the shrines was still hot.

While we recuperated in the A/C, it rained outside. Good timing, us! The rain broke some of the heat plus the sun set once again so the evening was almost cool, let's just call it pleasant. So we hopped back on our bikes and explored Kyoto by bike by night. There was supposed to be a festival going on in Kyoto so we hoped to find some of that action as well.

Along the way, we stopped at an Irish bar. Because why not? At this point we had covered Brazil, Germany, England and France (Nick found his gelato sandwich and we ate breakfast at a French cafe).

The Asahi tap was an actual saxophone!

Like a good pub, it was showing the soccer game so we watched the end of that. And saw some hilarious Japanese commercials.

Then it was back on our bikes. After much meandering, we found the festival! Well, there were no specific activities happening that night, but this whole shopping avenue had lanterns hanging in decoration.

We ended up biking all the way to the old Imperial Palace Grounds of Kyoto. The paths through the grounds were loose gravel so it was rather treacherous by bike but we still managed to bike a loop and then headed home along the river.

The next morning we checked out of the hostel, left our bags behind the desk, and set out to bike diagonally across Kyoto to get to the Golden Pavillion. It took nearly an hour (as we later found out it was a long, gradual uphill) to get there.

It was beautiful with the summer greens but I can just imagine it in the fall and especially spring sakura season!

It reads "If you receive a fortune of excellent, very good, pretty good, or good, please take it with you. For any other fortune you receive, please put the fortune slip in the designated place."

On the bike ride home- mostly downhill, weeeeee!- we stumbled across Daily Tone Guitars. Which was just this one guy, sitting in his shop, making handmade guitars. Cool!

It was soon time to return our bikes (we had a 24 hour rental). Bikes, you had served us well! Without our convenient transportation though we figured it was as good a time as any to head (home) to Iwakuni.

Ahhh, home sweet home. From the get go, their trip so far had been jam packed with nonstop action. So we spent the evening relaxing at our house, playing cards, listening to music and cooling off. (It was hot in Iwakuni, too.)

Nick had to work again the next day so while he has at work, I gave Ari and Andy the grand tour of Iwakuni. We drove around base, went grocery shopping at MaxValu, and shopped the Daiso (100 yen store), the Bulldog, and Dragonfly (thrift store). They were able to find many of their souvenirs and gifts for friends back home.

When Nick got home from work, we packed a picnic dinner and headed out to the Kintai Bridge area. We didn't have quite enough time to hike up to the castle and the ropeway had closed for the evening so we just explored the park area. This involved feeding cicadas to Koi fish and turtles. Oh, Andy lol

We didn't have time to hike the mountain because at 6:45 we were meeting the boat to go Cormorant fishing!

 Aboard the boat!

Preparing the boats from which the cormorants fish.

To be honest, we were a little unsure about what we had gotten ourselves into at first. I had been told that the first hour was fishing and then afterwards you could eat you dinner. But it definitely seemed that we were supposed to eat first and the fishing would (hopefully?) come later.

Reflection of the castle in the river.

The coolest Japanese man ever!

So we did indeed tuck in to the picnic we had brought but about an hour later it seemed like we were heading back to the shore already... What was going on?! I thought we were supposed to watch the fishing from our boats?
I trust the Japanese so we didn't panic.
We did indeed go back to the shore but that was for a bathroom break and to change to a different and bigger boat. Everything was A-OK!

10 minutes later we headed back out into the water. The sun had fully set now and we made our way up the river with just the lanterns to see by. We soon reached a spot where the 6 boats made 2 lines and tied each other together. Shortly after that, we saw the flames of the fires from the front of the cormorant boats- it had begun!

The boats circled us a few times and whenever one of the birds caught a fish, they tossed it onto whichever passenger boat was closest.

Good bird!

The birds apparently needed a little break so they went back upstream a little and we all moved further downstream (close to the Kintaii agagin). But not too long after, the birds came back for the grand finale!

And this whole time, the same 3 minutes of a very 'nostalgically' recorded Japanese song was being played quite loudly over speakers from under the bridge and from shore. It was only a tad repetitive.

Overall, cormorant fishing was really cool! I definitely recommend it!

The next morning, Friday morning, we headed to Miyajima.

It was extremely hot that day. Probably the hottest day so far. So we didn't stay too long. But we stayed long enough for an early lunch of Okinomiyaki! Delicious!

Then, we headed on to Hiroshima. It was air conditioned on the train and on the trolley- so nice. Our first stop was to Sogo department store to get a view from the roof of Hiroshima and the Hiroshima castle.

 A curvy escalator?

Once we got up there, Nick and I realized how much easier it is to see the castle and castle grounds during the winter when the foliage isn't quite so lush.

Next we checked out the end of the Hondori shopping arcade (conveniently the end with the Yellow Submarine...) and then explored the Atomic bomb memorial and  Peace Park.

 These are made entirely of paper cranes!

 The eternal flame of peace.

Next we moseyed on over to mine and Nick's favorite restaurant for Tsukemen!

 Oishii!!!!!!!!!

After our early dinner, we hopped on a bus to take us to the Hiroshima Carp baseball game. There was trick art along the way there...

 The seats I had reserved were fine but next time we are so reserving these.

Saturday morning we relaxed and in the afternoon headed out to the Kitakyushu Lantern Festival.

 The bridge between Honshu and Kyushu- 2 of the main islands of Japan.

After some minor difficulties finding a place to park- not because it was too crowded but because we literally could not find a parking lot anywhere near the station- we again followed the crowd and easily found the celebration.

There were many Japanese food vendors and lots of interesting new festival foods to try. Below is Okonomiyaki on a stick. It was not as good as regular Okonomiyaki.

Many people had brought their dogs to the festival. This couple brought their KITTEN! That is what he is fanning in his left arm there! CUUUUUTE!

 It was fun too see so many of the Japanese dressed in their summer Yukata.

 The festival got off to a slow start with just some drumming. And then they paraded some floats around, apparently waiting for it to get dark.

 Finally, at dusk, there was a race to see who could build their pyramid of lanterns the fastest.

 And then they paraded the completed pyramids around.

Since it had been so stinkin' HOT ever since we got to Kyoto, we had decided that we would go to the beach on Sunday. We were going to brunch at a friend's house who live near the beach anyways so it was going to be perfect.

And then of course it was the only day the whole trip that it rained. And not just sprinkled but POURED! Shoot! 

Brunch was delicious and we had brought our swimming stuff anyways. We at least went down to the beach and checked it out but it was just not as enticing since it wasn't balls hot out.

Ari and Andy spent the afternoon packing up their stuff since they were leaving the next day *sniff*. When they finished, we went out for yakiniku (Korean barbecue) at the Chicken Shack.

 So picturesque!

We still hadn't karaoked this trip so after dinner we headed to the Shidax PLEASE! for a quick hour of karaoke so Ari and Andy could go home with that experience. It was fun!!

And then the next morning I brought Ari and Andy to the Shin station so they could make it back to Tokyo in time to catch their flight home. :'(  (And they had their own adventure trying to make the train connection on to the Narita Express- but I'll let them tell you about it.)

In conclusion, it was a terrific trip! It was so much fun to have family stay with us in Iwakuni and we had been able to see and do so much of Japan in such a short time! We loved having you, Ari and Andy!

Who is going to visit us next?!?!