Trip to Kyoto and Osaka Last Friday, as I made my way onto the tiny plane bound for Osaka, Japan, I was delighted and surprised to feel something I had never felt before: a complete lack of fear and anxiety at the thought of traveling to a country where I am totally unfamiliar with the language, food, customs...pretty much everything! I credit this to the fact that after living in Korea for 7 months, Danny and I have dispelled the “scary Asia” myth for ourselves and now, hopefully, after the adventures we had with our two friends, Kelsey and Ryan, we’ve dispelled it a little for them too! Day 1 We arrived around 4 pm in Kyoto right around the same time that Kelsey and Ryan got in after leaving Mt. Fuji - lucky kids. It took a little searching but eventually we found our Air BnB which was located in the historically famous (or infamous, depending how you look at it) “pleasure district” of Kyoto. As I’m sure you can infer, this was the area of the city swarming with geishas and still is today - in a more contemporary form. The BnB was so cute and charming. To get to it you have to walk through a sliding wooden door that lets out on to the street, walk down a wood paneled alleyway and then turn a corner spotted with bikes, plants, a moped and little buddhist shrine at the end. Inside there are more sliding doors, some with frosted glass, and of course, tons of fun Japanese features. My personal favorite was the super cool toilet that was everything anyone has ever said about Japanese toilets. Bidets for days, music to play to cover up a stray toot, warm seat...let’s just say I really looked forward to peeing or doing that other thing that ladies don’t do since we, you know, poop rainbows and what not. Anyways, the house was lovely but we only took a short rest after arriving and then set out to explore the area. Our first stop was a tiny little noodle shop where we munched (and slurped) on delicious udon noodles. The restaurant was located on the Shijo Dori road, an area full of shops with tons of cute little trinkets and sweets of all varieties. I tried a soft-serve green tea and vanilla swirl cone and it was absolutely magical. We explored a little but suppressed our shopping desires for the moment, determined not to blow all our recently exchanged Yen in the first few hours. I’m a grandma so after some down-time and a short nap, for me, we headed to the Yasaka Shrine and checked out the gardens and night-market around it. I tried Takoyaki - a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour that’s filled with octopus. A little funky at first but once you get past the tentacle texture it’s really tasty! Day 2 We headed out early and grabbed a bus bound for Arashiyama, a beautiful, mountainous area a short ride from the main city. This place was absolutely stunning, completely overrun with tourists since we did go during peak season, but still an amazing place to check out. We were all really excited to visit the bamboo forest so we headed there first. You see this place pop up on Pinterest on the reg so it was definitely one of those expectation vs. reality moments since the path was swarming with selfie-stick wielding tourists. It was all ok, we joined the frey, snapped our future profile pics and then actually put our phones down and appreciated our beautiful surroundings. After the bamboo forest - which is really more of a bamboo path - we were all feeling a little hangry so we checked out a buffet place that served everything from tofu to miso. There was also this delicious caramel custard that I could have eaten until I became as fat as a sumo wrestler but, you know, summer is coming so...only one small piece for body-conscious Casey. Our next destination was a short hike up to the monkey grove which, as it sounds, has actual monkeys living there! It was so cute but also a little scary because though the monkeys are comfortable with people, they are still wild. Multiple signs warned us not to touch the monkeys, get too close or put our cameras in their faces - makes sense. Unfortunately, we humans can be much less intelligent than our primate counterparts, especially when we blatantly ignore warnings meant to keep us safe from harm. Case in point: as we’re standing in a group of people looking at this little monkey family with three adorable babies, this young American guy crouches down and creeps closer and closer, trying to get a perfect shot of the playing monkeys. Papa monkey notices, get super pissed and charges at the unprepared photographer. The guy lets out a shriek, runs away, leaving the monkey with no one to attack so it grabs the shirt of the poor girl who was standing behind him. She reacted less dramatically and the monkey quickly lost interest, opting instead to run around beating his chest and swinging from trees to prove his dominance to we big, silly creatures. A little alarming, but mostly funny. We ended our day in Arashiyama with some green tea ice cream by the river. It was such a stunning place and I would absolutely return if we make it back to Kyoto. For dinner that night the boys and girls split to different restaurants since the boys are uncultured buffoons who get squeamish about seafood. Kelsey and I ended up at one of those fun revolving sushi restaurants while the boys hunted down some meat and Saki. Kelsey, feeling over-confident in her spice tolerance, tried wasabi rolls and ended up gulping down water and holding back tears as the restaurant staff laughed at us. It was cute and now we can check “have sushi in Japan” off the bucket list. Day 3 Sunday was our last day all together and we were all really enjoying Kyoto so we decided to spend the day exploring a few more places before parting. We got on a very crowded bus and were joined by a group of very, let’s say, energetic high schoolers from Australia and their less-than enthusiastic chaperone. The whole ride I couldn’t help but wonder, was this poor guy forced into his job? Or did he really think leading a group of 15 teenage boys around Japan would be a breeze? Crammed into the aisle of the bus, these boys thought it was hilarious to continually push and shove each other, regularly stumbling and putting their whole weight onto their angry chaperone. Though annoying, it was also very entertaining to hear this poor man shout things like “Ay! You blokes, knock it off or you're in big traable!” Lol. Aussies. We soon escaped the crowded bus and made our way up to the Golden Pavilion, a buddhist temple famous because, as the name suggests, it is covered in pure gold leaf. We snapped our photos, checked out the enormous coy fish, and oooed and ahhed at the pretty gold, it was all very lovely and touristy. My favorite part, however, was visiting a little pagoda just past the pavilion where we enjoyed some stinky, albeit delicious, green tea and cute little cakes. It was sweet and peaceful, Danny really got into the tea drinking part. After the pavilion we hopped on a train for the Inari shrine. A quick thought on Japanese trains, they are so cute and vintage! It may only be in the historical and touristy areas but it was really fun to take them to the different places we visited. They are also super comfortable and significantly less crowded than the trains we use in Korea. So we took one of these cool trains to the Inari shrine. This place is pretty iconic because of the striking orange arches that often show up in photographs on travel sites. This was probably my favorite place of all that we visited in Kyoto. There was something really moving and special about visiting the many shrines and walking through the endless arches that led through the forest. We learned how to pray at one of the shrines and also observed a monk leading prayer in one of the temples right in the center of all the crazy tourist hubbub. Danny and I were both having a little bit of the homesick feels because the woods smelled a lot like the woods we like to hike back home in Virginia, but the more we wandered through the shrines and trees, the more they were replaced by the spiritual feels. I snapped a few photos here but I also found myself walking through the arches and just absorbing everything. I found it to be a really inspiring place and I think I will go explore eastern religions a bit more at some of temples and shrines in Korea. We headed back to Kyoto Station and said goodbye to Kelsey and Ryan who would fly back to the U.S. in the morning. We had a crazy fun few days together and it was nice to feel like they brought us a bit of home all the way to this side of the world! Danny and I grabbed a train bound for Osaka. We had booked another Air BnB in the city close to Kansai Airport. Now this place was cheap, like 40 USD a night cheap, so neither of us were expecting a palace. It did have good reviews so I was fairly certain we weren’t going to walk into a serial killer’s lair. The host, an American guy named Stacey, was super nice and met us at the metro stop to walk us to where we were staying. Stacey is “that guy." You know the type? He’s someone who you meet and immediately feel like he should be a character in a book or movie. A little untethered, drops his whole life story on you in the first few minutes, knows all the people you pass by and they also seem to know him. A little odd but really, a nice guy. “That guy.” So Stacey leads us from the station and into this old, old neighborhood. Like old, vintage Japan neighborhood. The streets are tight and the house is situated down a half-covered market street dotted with shops, mostly-shut down, with their sliding metal doors securely locked. The way he explained it, the neighborhood used to be run by the shopkeepers but most have grown old, passed away and none of their children want to inherit the shop business. Hence the sad but sweet and nostalgic street that remains. The house was super simple and small but totally functional and comfortable for a two night stay. The walls were paper-thin but we’re used to that from living in our Korean apartment. We were both a little hungry so we checked out this little bistro that Stacey pointed out on our way over. Neither of us really knew what we were ordering so we just went with it and ended up having a really fun time just trying lots of random Japanese food. We actually ordered something listed as “steak”....yes, in quotation marks. Still not totally sure what it was but we think it was some kind of potato-like veggie with a mix of meat seasoning. It was actually very yummy. I also tried Japanese plum wine which was so, so good - and a little dangerous, as Danny can attest, I swayed and giggled my way back to our house after our weird and fun meal. Day 4 We had one day to spend in Osaka so we headed out early and grabbed some breakfast at this cute diner next to the train station. Breakfast places are not really a thing in Korea so we were excited to find a place that served waffles, eggs and pancakes. They also brewed drip coffee in this really cool upside down contraption. Our waiter was this nice, older gentleman who was very patient and not judgemental of our poor Japanese skills. We spent the morning visiting Osaka Castle. The castle was really interesting but I was impressed by the enormous outer walls and moat. The grounds and gardens around the castle were also really special and we took some silly pictures with one of the castle’s “warriors.” There was lots of food for sale so we paused for a tasty ramen lunch before we went into the castle to check out the museum. Interesting history fact, Osaka Castle was built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a man who was born to a peasant and rose to become Imperial Regent of Japan in a very Game of Thrones-esque fashion. It’s definitely worth a look at this guy’s Wikipedia page if you’re into Japanese history. As we exited the castle we ran into a man who tried to sell us some pamphlets and tell us that Japan’s prison system is worse than North Korea’s, so that was weird, but we were trying to get to the Osaka Aquarium so ain’t nobody got time for that. The Osaka Aquarium is listed as one of the top tourist sites in Japan so we were curious if it would live up to the hype. OH MY GOD IT DID. We saw so many cute, fat seals and sea lions, got to touch some sea critters and...seriously, WHALE SHARKS ARE THE COOLEST! I want to write a song about how cool whale sharks are! In the center of the aquarium there is this enormous tank that you can look at as you walk down several floors and they had not one, not two, but THREE whale sharks. I could seriously watch them swim all day, they are just amazing. Danny was more about the otters and the fat seals but I’m a whale shark girl through and through, if there is such a thing. We got some cute aquatic accessories on our way out and left feeling refreshed and giddy from our visit under the sea. To celebrate our last night in Japan we went for dinner at a fun little place tucked away from one of the main shopping areas. We ordered a bunch of different dishes, Japanese tapas style, and drank more plum wine and saki. We headed home for an early night in preparation for a very early flight and fell asleep feeling well-traveled and happy.
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