Japan

Myself and two others jumped on the opportunity to hit up Japan and see what all the rage was about. We bought a 7 day unlimited Japan rail pass for about $400 and bought a $200 round tip ferry ticket, leaving Busan, South Korea and arriving in Hakata/Fuquoka, Japan. The trip took 2 hours 55 minutes on a hydrofoil ferry that came with warning signs to always have your seatbelt on in case they had to swerve sharply to avoid whales or other large marine life. I am not positive, but on the way there I am pretty sure we actually did have to dodge a huge whale.

For Chuseok, the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving, public school teachers got a full 9 days off of work. Unfortunately for us, as it turns out quite a few English teachers in Korea had the same idea, and since we didn't book our hostels due to the lack of plastic, it lead to some interesting nights scrambling to find some housing while avoiding the street. Actually, we made it the whole trip, until the last night, without succumbing to the vagabond lifestyle.

All in all, I would recommend travelling to Japan at least once in your life, and there are still things there that I would love to return to some day; among them are Mt Fuji and Okinawa. The people there are so genuinely friendly, it is hard to imagine the history the Japanese have as being heartless warriors enslaving other countries. They are more than willing to help you find where you are going, and if they can't speak English well enough to give you directions, they will often walk with you to where you are going.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to eat that much sushi in Japan. Only twice, and neither time was from a sushi restaurant--with that being said, I am pretty sure Korea has sushi that rivals the best on the planet. The two countries share the same oceans, catch the same fish, and are both small enough that when you eat the sushi, the fish was killed less than an hour before.

The Atomic Bomb Dome is the only thing besides countless memorials that reminds people of Hiroshima's tragic past, and it will be forever preserved. It looks so out of place in the newest city I have ever seen (no heartless pun intended there).
About an hour outside of Hiroshima and a three minute ferry ride is the beautiful island of Miyajima, with wild monkeys and deer roaming free and one of the most beautiful mountain peak observation spots on earth.

In Kyoto, in the Gion district, it is still possible to find the elusive Geisha. It is thought that there are less than 1,000 of them left in all of Japan but if you are lucky you can see them midday leaving appointments.

Tokyo

Tokyo would probably be a more appealling city to me, if I weren't already coming from Korea. Coming from North Carolina or Canada it would be different, with the perfect blend of culture shock, high tech and a western mindset to help ease the transition into Asia. Compared to Seoul, however, Tokyo is like the tame baby brother that hits the books in the library on weekends and pays five times the price for a comparable education.

Although I would definitely say that Tokyo is the gateway to Asia in that it is so easy to get by with English, but it is still unmistakably Asia, unless you really have your heart set on Japan, if you ever want to travel to Asia and are thinking Tokyo, do yourself a favour and head to Korea where the experience feels more authentic, the food is just as good, the prices are six time less and the women are more beautiful. There are even plenty of temples to see in Seoul, if that is what you are into. After Japan, as cool as it was to see so many temples, I could go the rest of my left without ever seeing another Buddhist temple and wouldn't care an iota.

While in Japan we stumbled upon three separate weddings in various temples and cities.
Heading to Shibuya, which is where the famous Tokyo road crossing is--kind of the Abby Road of Asia.

Although Japan is way better at putting trash bins on the street-actually that is an understatement; Japan is spotless-I guess it all has to go somewhere, why not in front of the subway exit.
Figuring out where to go next at a Family Mart. Japanese maps are all oriented to a different direction, so it gets quite confusing.
Abby Road of Asia.
I have no idea what it is that these guys were celebrating, but they were making quite the ruckus and marching down the busiest street in Tokyo carrying some sort of statue.

Another example of Japanese efficiency: these machines are in a lot of restaurants, you buy your ticket for food in the machine, give it to the cook, and it comes out seconds later, still raw but on a blazing hot skillet. By the time the skillet cools, your food it hot and ready.
A Buddhist monk walking very slowly and ringing a bell at precise intervals.

This is on the Imperial Palace grounds, which you aren't really allowed to go in, as the president still lives there.

Tokyo International Forum Building: pretty amazing architecture.

Osaka

Osaka was kind of an afterthought, and I am glad we actually made it here, although it was a brief stay. We were on our way from Kyoto to Hiroshima, and already had our tickets and everything. We had to transfer from Osaka to Shin-Osaka to catch our long distance train, so we decided that since we were already there, we should take the last train out of Shin-Osaka for Hiroshima and see what we could in the couple hours we had available.

Osaka's main attraction for the night time is the Umeda Sky Building, which is essentially two buildings, about 100 feet apart, connected at the top by a sky garden.
You get out on the 36th floor and ride escalators suspended between the two buildings and enclosed with glass to ride to the Sky Garden.
I wish I had a tripod.

This is one of the extremely long escalators suspended between the two buildings. Looking out or down was a pretty cool experience.

Kyoto

If you ever travel to Japan, I would recommend not leaving the country until you have spent at least a couple days in Kyoto. Actually, if I could only got to one city, I am pretty sure this would be it. There is so much history here, and you can get a pretty good taste of the whole temple and traditional Japan scene from this town.

I have no idea how many temples are here, but my best guess would be somewhere in the....just looked it up and my guess would have been way off....there are more than 1600 temples, and the city's name is "City of a Thousand Temples." With that being said, the temples can get a bit monotonous, as they are all of very similar design. The Golden Palace, Japan's most famous palace/temple is also here, and is more than worth the 500 yen to see.

On Day One in Kyoto, we headed to the eastern part of the city and did a large section of the "Philosophers Walk." There is a huge string of some of the larger temples to see in Kyoto along this walk. Without exaggerating we walked about 25k that day, which brings to question why I haven't bough a legit camera backpack yet.

Kyoto has a very traditional feel to it, and there are several parts that still seem to be many years behind the times.
I have noticed that like their human counterparts, Asian spiders work all the time to create some of the most ambitious webs I have ever seen. They also look kind of like huge, eight-legged wasps.


Kyoto is know for its Gion district, which looks very traditional and is still home to the dying breed of entertainers known as the Geisha. I was lucky enough to see two of them, although I am not entirely sure how often they can be found. I know that they are usually seen in the afternoon coming to and from appointments, but as I am not that lucky to begin with, it seems as if though maybe these are Geisha hired by the town of Kyoto of something of the like so that tourists can see them. There is the slim possibility, however, that I was just really lucky that day.
On one of our "Benjamin Map Excursions" I found this huge graveyard perched on a hill. People were carrying these blue buckets up to their ancestors graves, but I have no idea why.

Geisha number two, I had to run her down in an alley and do a series of hand gestures to get her to let me take her picture.
This area of Kyoto is really cool looking, and if you want to buy traditional Japanese stuff as souvenirs, this is the place to do it.

This temple is called the Kiyomizu-dera, and is a national treasure. It was originally made in 798 and reconstructed in 1633. Both times not a single nail was used.

The pre-made lunches at convenience stores in Japan are surprisingly delicious, they are also about the only way to get a decent lunch that costs less than $15.
We sneaked into this temple just as they were closing the gates for the day, but as we left we realized they had actually seen us and were waiting for us to leave before they locked everyone out.


Beer vending machines are a great idea.

This is one of the hostels we were lucky enough to stay in, we were here for two nights and in Kyoto for a total of three.

I got a little bored sitting on the roof, so I made this.
Kyoto's famous Golden Palace, I wish it were either the winter or autumn when I took this picture.


"Monkey Mountain" was one of the coolest things we did. There are around 200 wild monkeys that live in this area, and you hike to the top of the mountain and can interact with them, although they will rob you if you aren't careful.




I thought this monkey was going to kill me. I was seeing how close I could get with my camera when suddenly he raised his eyebrows, as you can see in this picture, then yelled at me and bared his fangs at me. That would have been the next frame, but I was running for my life at the moment. I have never seen Joanna move that fast, either, but the time I had turned around and started running, she had already ran halfway up the rest of the mountain.

Once you get to the top, you can go into this little hut where they sell peanuts and apples that you can feed the monkeys, only from within the cage, because they get pretty damn aggressive.

This little baby was looking generally confused the whole time.

He seems rather pensive sitting on the post looking out across the Kyoto cityscape.

The famous bamboo forest in Kyoto is a dead ringer of the one used in the film, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.