Japan part 4 - Himeji and Miyajima

Ok, so we planned a side trip to Himeji and Miyajima.
Himeji is the best castle in Japan and it is on the way to Miyajima.

It was another hot sunny day. We still haven't got use to the hot weather yet.
There were no English language guide that day so we just walked around ourselves.


Here is Joe with his shoes in the plastic bag. This is a long section of the building where you enter on way and take your shoes with you and exit at the other end. This is the women quarter and is locked at night.
nice view of Himeji - the white heron castle because it conjure an image of heron in flight. The sweeping roofline and the white wash I guess.
Here are the crests of the various lords that lived here and fixed up the castle. They had a difficult time finding all the stones when they started and people donated stones to help build the castle. There are head stones and mortar stone and such in the wall.
The arrow/gun holes to shoot attackers.
Another view of the castle.
cool geometric
We climbed to the top of the castle and it was nice and breezy up there. There is a shrine at the top of the castle.
After the castle we grabbed a bento and caught the bullet train to Miyajima. This is beef with rice. I really like the little peppers there, they are not spicy and taste more like a mellow green bell pepper.
We changed train at Hiroshima, but we didn't stop to look around. We're not that interested in the Peace museum, maybe next time. We dropped our bags off at the backpacker hostel and caught the ferry to Miyajima. We were wondering what these wooden flats in the ocean were, probably for mussels or some shell fishes.
We got there at low tide and saw many people digging for clams?
There are deers at Miyajima and they follow people around to get some food. We sat down for a while and a deer poke it's nose into Michelle's bag, but other than that we didn't have any problems.

low tide, pretty cool


VICTORY!! 8)
pagoda

I like this pictureThis is a koi pond at a snack shop. The kois are huge! The snacks are maple leaf shaped dough stuffed with chocolat, custard, or bean paste actually pretty good.

fried fish cake with edamame stick

In the old days people come to the shrine with their boat and come through the tori gate. So now tourists can hire a boat to do that too.What is the building on the mountain. It looks like some kind of secret labatory for Mazinger Z or something. Dr. Robotnik's lair?

We stayed at a backpacker hostel on the mainland and take the ferry over because it is much cheaper that way. At the hostel, it cost 2,500Y each. On the island, ryokan cost around 10,000Y each and food is harder to find. Here we tried Okonomiyaki for the first time. I got oyster with soba noodle and Michelle got seafood with udon. There are eggs, cabbage, green onions, oysters, some batter? This was pretty good and the serving is huge. We should have shared one, the udon is better in this dish. We went back to Miyajima the next morning to see the high tide.

Miyajima is pretty cool, good stop.

Here is the backpacker hostel common room. They had coin shower on the first floor. The 2nd floor is a mixed dorm and the 3rd floor is for women only. The dorm were basically in one big room with concrete and curtain dividers. This hostel opened only 8 months ago and is sparking clean. One of the best hostel we've stayed in for a cheap price. Good location too.

We grabbed a bento and headed back to Kyoto. This eel dish is a local specialty, I was afraid it would be too fatty, but it was really good and not fatty at all. The backpacker manager said it is not unagi, must be anago (sea eel) I guess.

Kids are on field trip this week, they are very well trained. 8)

Japan part 3 - Kyoto temples and palaces

After we left Takayama, we took the train to Nagoya and then bullet train to Kyoto. We stay in Kyoto for 2 nights in the Northwest residential and temple area.

Here is the Kyoto station, it's huge. There is many shops and department stores here. Michelle really liked this. This is a big covering at the front end of the station. You can see escalators going up 11 stories here. On the 10th floor there are 7 noodle shops and on the 11th floor there is many kind of restaurants.





We were hungry so we went to get a tempura lunch set. This was good, but not exceptional or anything. Michelle had veggie and shrimp tempura and udon noodle. Joe had shrimp and fish tempura and soba noodle and sashimi. The dessert was some kind of moose, pretty good.

We stayed 2 nights at a temple this time. You'll see more pictures later.
We dropped off our bags at the temple and then decided to go to Nijo castle which is only 2 stops away. But we had to walk a bit because our the JR station is on the other side of the castle.
We got there right at 4pm and hear the announcement - The palace will close at 4pm come to the door right now!.

We got to the palace right at 4pm, but it actually closed the door at 4:20pm so we had plenty of time. Nijo has nightingale floor so it squeek when you walk on it. It really does sound like birds, pretty cool.
We finished pretty quick, maybe 20 minutes.

Then we went to look around the garden.
nice pond
Here is the inner moat around the castle
We walked up on the wall and it was nice and breezy up there. The weather has been weird, some day was really hot and some day was rainy.
panoramic view
This is the outer moat and guard house.

Afterward, we went to Arashima a town that a little out from Kyoto. This is only a few stops from our temple also. They had a nice bamboo forest and many temples here. Michelle forgot to charge the camera so we ran out of battery and didn't take a lot of pictures here.

We went back to temple after Arashima and decided to try this place the abbot recommended - Kitchen Rakuraku. This place is about 15 minutes walk and we thought we would never find it, but it was right after the highschool like the abbot said. The kids are just coming out of school at 8pm. This place is izakaya, a hot food bar. It feels like sushi bar with hot food. We sat down and the owner said no English menu, but he could speak a little bit so we could order. We said some fish and pork and whatever. So he got a large plate for us to share and then started making things to eat. He put a bit of food at a time for us, I guess he could put food in small plates and then give to us but this was actually more fun for us. We got a tofu salad, mixed green salad, a few slices of pork belly with mustard, fish and more pork. Everything was really good, this is one of the best meal in this Japan trip too.
Here is the owner - Akira.
The customer next to us could speak some English so we were able to talk a bit and have fun. He came to visit Portland a long time ago and he said he drank a lot of beer here. :)

The next morning, we woke up early to go do laundry at 7am and buy some rice ball and green tea for breakfast. We ate breakfast at this no name temple after we put the laundry in the machine.

After laundry, we went to have zen lesson at our temple. We did 2 meditation, 15 minutes each. It was raining and the sound really helped the meditation. It went by pretty quick and even Michelle didn't have any problems. We got green tea and rice cracker afterward. This meccha green tea was good, not as bitter as the last one we got in Takayama.
Here is the abbot giving us a tour of the temple after the zen lesson.

That's me zenning. This was afterward and we went to take pictures.
We went to Mos burger for lunch. I got burger with meat sauce and Michelle got regular burger. It was really good too.

I made a free reservation to go see Kyoto Imperial palace on the internet so we headed there.
There were a bunch of people waiting and we all followed the guide.
Michelle
This is the main South gate that the emperor used. The wife and kids need to go to another gate.
The palace garden is very nice.

Panoramic view

The star of the show. 8)
After palace, we took the bus to Kinkakuji, the golden pavilion. In Kyoto, it is much easier to use buses rather than subway. We had some problem with the bus in the beginning, but eventually learned how to use them.
This place is quite impressive.
Here are some stone buddha. You see the silver one yen coin in the bowl? That's mine. I made it in there for extra luck!!!
After that we are very tired and went back to rest at the Shunkoin temple. This mean manta ray.
Shunkoin temple is part of the huge Myoshinji temple complex. There are a bunch of temples here and people take short cut throught the temple complex.
Here is the main building in Shunkoin temple.
The guest house is pretty good, it is basic, but that's all we needed. The problem is that it is two rooms divided by wooden screen again. The euro guys in the other room were so noisy. They snore so loud. Michelle said I snored really loud too. We are pretty tired now because we walked so much every day.
That night we went to Kitchen Rakuraku again because we don't want to go too far. Salad with spinach, mixed greens, lima beans, peas, tomatoes, and these tiny carrots with greens attached. yumm..
noodle with shrimp and squids. The shrimps and squids were juicy and crunchy, Michelle liked them a lot. Kyoto is known for very good fresh food.
This is grilled beef on greens with fried garlic and grated yam with ponzu sauce. This is the same concept as Thai beef salad, but has different flavor. Thai beef salad is more Zap (stronger.) The beef is really tender. Japanese beef is really good.


dessert - mochi with jelly and wafer icecream.

Hang out after dinner.
Here is the Shinkansen.
We checked out of the temple and headed to Miyajima for one night then back to Kyoto.