Here it goes...

Kyoto and Nara trip

Yayy welcome back Jenn! Thank you thank you… Well yes, so, I am back from the short trip to Kyoto and Nara. We were only away for 3 days and 2 nights, but seriously, it felt really long, we did so much! It all started with having to get up really early on a Sunday morning so we could be at the uni at 7:30 am. Not exactly ideal. But off we went, all 44 of us, 40 students and 4 teachers who were obviously the ones they could miss at the uni… hop in a bus, hop off the bus, hop on the plane (yes, we went by plane!) to Osaka, hop off the plane, hop on the bus again, hop off the bus and there we were, Nijo Castle in Kyoto, this was our first stop.
The best part of that day was that when I got off the bus, all of a sudden there was my mummy!! She had left Nagasaki on Saturday to go to Osaka where her flight would leave from Monday morning. She also wanted to see Kyoto before she left however, and as it wasn’t possible for her to travel with us, she went on her own by shinkansen from Osaka. It’s only 25 minutes from there or something, so she had seen half Kyoto already by the time I met up with her at Nijo castle. She had one of our schedules so she knew what time we would be where, and she just so happened to be right on time! Everybody was all ooh-ing and aah-ing about the fact that my mummy was there, was very funny!

Unfortunately it was raining when we got to Kyoto, so we all got out our umbrellas and wandered around, but the whole place loses some of its magic with all the rain and the umbrellas that get in the way. It couldn’t spoil the trip entirely though, and so it was still nice to see. We had a Japanese lady guide who only spoke in very formal Japanese making it rather hard for us to understand and completely incomprehensible for the students who had only just begun studying Japanese, so we just wandered around admiring the building not really knowing what it was all about. We had our trip outline that the uni had given us though, so we weren’t completely clueless, but I have no idea why they bothered hiring these young women because they just chattered away while no one was listening. Same applied in the bus, she would just talk and talk and ask questions and get no answer. That’s not that weird if no one understands you woman~! The teachers had actually told us to pretend to be listening, even if we didn’t understand. Well why didn’t they just get someone to translate it into English, or at least speak in less complicated Japanese? Silly silly organization.

Anyway, we made several more stops on Sunday, we saw Heian Shrine and Kiyomizudera. Heian shrine has this beautiful garden but of course we didn’t have time to go see it. We were rushed through every thing, it was a very strict schedule. It’s what you can expect when going on an organized tour like this, but their timing was ridiculous. Places where there was hardly anything to see they gave us too much time, and places like Heian shrine where it really is worthwhile to go see the big garden we had hardly any time at all. In the end because of the rain it didn’t really matter, it wouldn’t have looked as beautiful as on a sunny day, but it’s not quite right. It really was just a quick view of everything. It was almost just like taking a sight-seeing bus and driving past all the attractions, taking pictures from the bus and then saying you saw it all.


At Kiyomizudera (pure water temple) we actually did sort of have enough time, and we even had an English speaking guide! Very funny little old man who mummy had a good chat with (she was allowed to hop on and off the bus with us for the rest of the day so I didn’t have to keep looking for her or anything). Kiyomizudera has a big temple with a huge wooden stage built in front of it, with not a single nail used! This was a little creepy considering it wasn’t built for the hordes of tourists now stomping around on it, and it was 12 meters high, (niet voor mietjes), but the view made it all all right. The temple is named after the little water shrine where if you drink some of the water your wounds will be healed and you will have a longer life. Or something. That’s why it’s called pure water temple. There was also a love shrine, for happiness and luck in love or something… There were these two big ‘love rocks’ and if you walked from one to the other with your eyes closed, you would find happiness in love. So off I went! I hope you don’t have to do it within a time limit because it took me forever... nobody seemed to notice me walking there with my eyes closed and my hands stuck out in front of me with my mummy guiding me haha. Hope I didn’t poke anyone’s eyes out…


Kyoto was really crowded, which is no surprise at this time of year. This is the time of the Momiji. This is a type of tree that colours really beautifully in autumn. In fact, it’s during a specific two weeks of the year that you can see the colouring of the leaves. This year it was a little late, so the leaves hadn’t completely changed yet, but having booked their trips way in advance, all the Japanese people were out and about in Kyoto, making it all very hectic. After having wandered about Kiyomizudera, we were all quite cold and wet and we decided it was high time for a piece of cake and a cup of tea, some of us had a little coffee/tea break instead of pushing our way through all the tourists to get a look at the cheap souvenirs. I did however extend my Hello Kitty collection of course, couldn’t leave without a Kyoto Kitty!

By this time it was also starting to get dark, so we headed back to the bus to make our way to the hotel. Well, more precisely, a ryokan, which is a Japanese style hotel. This means tatami mat floors with futons! Now I love sleeping on futons, so that’s not a problem really, it’s the fact that you don’t have a private bathroom that bothers me. We did have our own toilet, at least that was something, but not only do you sleep in one big room with a ton of people, if you want to wash, you do this together with all the other people. Gender separated of course, but still, really not my thing, so no shower for me in Kyoto (ew!? – NO; I showered the night before so I wasn’t TOTALLY gross).

Anyway, as it was Mummy’s last night in Japan I asked if I could skip the hotel dinner with everyone and have dinner with my mummy somewhere else, which was fine, so off we went. After a little trouble finding the subway station we made our way to Kyoto central station that just so happened to have recently be re-done (2003 or something; still quite new). It really was quite impressive! The lonely planet recommends going to the restaurant floors, but we went there and there were lines outside every restaurant, and we didn’t have that much time to spare… We finally managed to get a table at a restaurant inside some fancy hotel, which was juuust fine! Now it was time to say goodbye to my mummy however, which was a lot less fun!! After a big big hug she went off to catch her train back to Osaka and I was left allll alone in big Kyoto station! I managed to find my way back to the hotel after having gotten lost a bit (it was dark and pouring with rain by this time and I hadn’t realized how far the hotel was from the subway station) but I got back okay, made myself a cup of hot chocolate ( I love combini’s in Japan – little convenience stores that are open 24-7) and as I had nothing to read, I read the Lonely Planet that my mummy had given back to me :).

Day 2: Breakfast was at 7 so we had to get up ridiculously early again. Breakfast was rice and fish in general, similar to what the others had had for dinner the night before. I thought I’d never be able to eat it, but I managed to eat my rice and miso soup without too much trouble. I did of course have a little reserve that I’d bought at the combini just in case, but it wasn’t necessary!

The Japanese are very strict about time, and so we stuck to our schedule like glue, and it didn’t go wrong once, the entire trip, quite amazing I must say Anyway, soon after breakfast we were on our way again, making a stop at Kitano Tenman-gu and Kinkakuji (Golde Pavilion) before heading off to Nara. When we arrived at Kitano Tenman-gu it was only too obvious it was never meant to be for us to be there that early. All the shrines and pretty things were still covered up for the night, there was no one around, and even the monks weren’t around yet. They started showing up by the time we were leaving. In a way it was nice to just wander around there, at one point I even couldn’t see anyone else, which was sort of relaxing as well. This temple is for the god of learning, which apparently is a cow, and so there were tons of cow statues with little bibs tied to them. On these bibs were written the wishes of people who had been there, hoping to pass entrance exams and all that sort of thing.

This relaxing atmosphere didn’t last long because as we got of the bus at Kinkaku-ji, we just saw masses of people, namely schoolchildren. .I don’t think it was even 9:30am yet. We did our best to see as much as possible, weaving our way through all these kids, because it definitely was worth seeing. Not only the Golden Pavilion was really amazing, but the scenery was gorgeous too. The leaves really had started to turn red here, making some very pretty pictures! So having walked the happiness in love thing earlier, I decided to see what my future looked like with an English fortune. Turned out quite good I must say! Hope I didn’t ruin it though by tearing the piece of paper when tying it to the special wish thingy… :P

After a very boring lunch break (for some reason they gave us 2 hours in this nothing to do hell-hole) it was finally time to go to Nara! Back in the bus we went and headed over to Houryuuji , one of Japan’s oldest temples (how useful to still have the booklets ;) ) and just so happens to be have the world’s oldest remaining wooden structures. Exciting!

Our Nara hotel was similar to the Kyoto one except we shared the room with 3 Chinese girls instead of 2 Koreans. Normally not a problem, except 2 of the 3 Chinese were sick and puked all over the place. Gross. Anyway, after a FABULOUS dinner, seriously AWESOME, we decided to go out and find a place to have a drink. We found this English pub place called Rumours. After a pint of Guiness and a few games of darts I headed back again seeing as the next morning we had to get up really early again. But this was my first Guiness in Japan, and boy did I enjoy it! Yum!

Day 3: (you guys still with me!? I seriously am trying to keep it short here!)
After a quick (yes QUICK) stop at Kofukuji and a chat with the deer we went to Nara’s main attraction, Todaiji. Todaiji has the largest wooden structure in the world containg (one of) the world’s largest Buddha statues. It’s over 15m high! There was a big wooden pillar thing in the building with a hole going through it, apparently the size of the Buddha’s nostril. One of the Korean guys actually fit through it, though mostly it was kids that gave it a go :P Todaiji is a great complex of buildings, temples and shrines, so we spent all morning walking around and admiring everything. It was a really nice day making a nice change from all the rain! All too soon it was time to go home however. We caught the bus to Osaka Itami airport and Mariko and I made one last stop. STARBUCKS! Man that Chocolate Mint Mocha is DE-LI-CIOUS! Sorry, not very cultural and stuff, but just HAD to put that in there.

So I’ll leave you with this, I have to tell you about my adventures last night as well (it has taken me 2 days to write this blog, ridiculous, I know) so I will wrap it up.

That’s all folks!

Jennifer

ps: Link to pictures