Old Capitals 
Today started like most days have here in Japan so far, a huge rush! I woke at 6.30 am and got up at 7.00am and showered. We had to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto today so I let the kids sleep in till I was showered. We had such a huge day yesterday, I felt bad for them having to have another early start. When I found out that the Shinkansen leave every 10 mins from Tokyo station, I decided not to reserve seats on a particular train, so we wouldn’t be killing ourselves to make it by a particular time. Unfortunately we had a bit of a communication breakdown with Itoh san, the wonderful Coerver coach who offered to take us around Kyoto and Osaka the next couple of days. I received an email from him the nigh
t before saying he’d pick us up at 10am in the morning from our hotel. I thought that he meant this morning, so I sent him an email just before bed last night saying I’d text when we were leaving Tokyo because I didn’t think we could get the train early enough to meet him at the hotel by then.
Anyway, as he was doing us a huge favour, I did my best to rush myself and the kids to get to Tokyo in time to catch the Shinkansen by about 9am, which by my calculations would put us in about 11 or 11.30 depending on the train, so as not to keep him waiting. So, we madly rushed round, skipped breakfast and in the end ran onto the train. Once we were seated I called him and he had a bit of a laugh (ha ha!) and said it was tomorrow that he was meeting us! Dag nab it! I couldn’t believe it, we didn’t have to rush at all!
We decided that since he would be showing us around Kyoto tomorrow, we’d catch the train to Nara today, and do some sightseeing there instead. So once we arrived in Kyoto, we headed the hotel, to drop our luggage off. At the desk they gave us free tickets to go to the top of Kyoto Tower, as the hotel is affiliated with it. It was a nice view and we got to see the layout of Kyoto, so we were happy. I have to say a big thank you to Keiko who introduced us to a discount hotel site and Mari for haggling over the phone with the people at the hotel to get us the same rates as the website. The photos of the h
otel looked great on the website and it looked clean and very new, but the price was that almost equivalent to a youth hostel. Instead of the $70 – $90 per person we were going to pay at the JTB (travel centre) we ended up paying $70 for the three of us! Both Mari and I on seeing the photos said laughingly…’looks great, but I wonder how old the photos are!”
Arriving at Nara (about 45mins away) we got a map of the area at the station and decided to walk the 15 mins to the first temple, to Zoe’s horror (she worked really hard bar-b-que-ing and helping all day yesterday) but it was a beautiful day (wish I’d worn shorts), so we walked.
Today started like most days have here in Japan so far, a huge rush! I woke at 6.30 am and got up at 7.00am and showered. We had to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto today so I let the kids sleep in till I was showered. We had such a huge day yesterday, I felt bad for them having to have another early start. When I found out that the Shinkansen leave every 10 mins from Tokyo station, I decided not to reserve seats on a particular train, so we wouldn’t be killing ourselves to make it by a particular time. Unfortunately we had a bit of a communication breakdown with Itoh san, the wonderful Coerver coach who offered to take us around Kyoto and Osaka the next couple of days. I received an email from him the nigh
t before saying he’d pick us up at 10am in the morning from our hotel. I thought that he meant this morning, so I sent him an email just before bed last night saying I’d text when we were leaving Tokyo because I didn’t think we could get the train early enough to meet him at the hotel by then.Anyway, as he was doing us a huge favour, I did my best to rush myself and the kids to get to Tokyo in time to catch the Shinkansen by about 9am, which by my calculations would put us in about 11 or 11.30 depending on the train, so as not to keep him waiting. So, we madly rushed round, skipped breakfast and in the end ran onto the train. Once we were seated I called him and he had a bit of a laugh (ha ha!) and said it was tomorrow that he was meeting us! Dag nab it! I couldn’t believe it, we didn’t have to rush at all!
We decided that since he would be showing us around Kyoto tomorrow, we’d catch the train to Nara today, and do some sightseeing there instead. So once we arrived in Kyoto, we headed the hotel, to drop our luggage off. At the desk they gave us free tickets to go to the top of Kyoto Tower, as the hotel is affiliated with it. It was a nice view and we got to see the layout of Kyoto, so we were happy. I have to say a big thank you to Keiko who introduced us to a discount hotel site and Mari for haggling over the phone with the people at the hotel to get us the same rates as the website. The photos of the h
otel looked great on the website and it looked clean and very new, but the price was that almost equivalent to a youth hostel. Instead of the $70 – $90 per person we were going to pay at the JTB (travel centre) we ended up paying $70 for the three of us! Both Mari and I on seeing the photos said laughingly…’looks great, but I wonder how old the photos are!”Arriving at Nara (about 45mins away) we got a map of the area at the station and decided to walk the 15 mins to the first temple, to Zoe’s horror (she worked really hard bar-b-que-ing and helping all day yesterday) but it was a beautiful day (wish I’d worn shorts), so we walked.
On the way to Todaiji Temple (the largest wooden structure in the world and a National Treasure), we came across the first lot of deer wandering through the park. There are many elderly ladies on the route to the temple, selling special Deer Sembei (rice crackers), not made of deer, but to feed to the deerThere are signs everywhere warning people that the deer are wild and can grab bags, kick, rear up, and butt you (which the kids found hilarious!) and still laugh about. Though it was no laughing matter when a deer buck with quite large antlers was desperate to get the food off Grant and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Then when Zoe was trying to buy some souveneirs in the S
hrine we visited later in the day, the deer kept ‘butting’ her and followed her into the shop and out again! Oh, I just remembered being quite horrified at seeing real deer antlers with part of the skull attached for sale at the souvenier shop inside the shrine grounds.
The crowds were huge as it is the first week of the 4 week Nara Deer festival and the wait to get into one of the other temples which had an exhibition of national treasures inside it, rivalled Disneyland. At each entrance there were guys standing around holding signs to let people know how long the wait was from there to the front gate. The kids refused to wait in the hot sun, so we went on to Todaiji. It’s an amazing wooden structure and national treasure, although the origina
l (built in the 8th century) burnt down and it’s replacement was also burnt down later. The current temple was built in the 18th century, varying slightly from the original plans. It also now has two golden fish tails on the top of the beautiful roof, symbolising fish diving into water; there to protect the building from any more fires.
As the day went on it cooled down and by the
time we made it to the beautiful shrine at the top of the hill, it really was a blessing, as the crowds down at Todaiji, weren’t interested in the shrine and we had it almost all to ourselves. It was slightly disappointing that we could hear the distant thump of pop music from the park down the road, but thankfully that stopped soon enough.
Unfortunately this break was only a brief respite, as it was time for us to make our way the 30mins or so back down the hill to the train station to catch the train back to Kyoto. All in all it has been a lovely day, though from Zoe’s point of view having dived down a small flight of stairs at the Kyoto Tower and then later in the day, having a bollard on the side of a road jumped out and tripped her onto the middle of a busy pedestrian crossing, it probably could have been better. Though, the jokes about her new found ‘extreme sport’, and holding up point boards, kept us all laughing till the days end.
By the time we got back to the hotel, we were all fading fast and ended up once again at the local Lawson picking up some ‘onigiri’ and pork buns for the kids, some ‘edamame’ and a small salad for m
yself. Oh, and a small can of ‘Umeshu’ and soda for myself which I’ve been enjoying a couple of times over the last week. Once we checked into the hotel, we were pleasantly surprised at the how great the rooms were and we were all (especially me) excited to find ‘Yukata’ on the beds. Wearing Yukata, drinking Umeshu and eating ‘edamame’ bring back such strong summer memories for me. I was as excited as a little girl, giggling away while the kids watched a Japanese soccer game on tv. The simplest things often give the most pleasure! Wish you’d been there Spike!
I also meant
to say that after a few minutes on the train back from Nara, I realised that the guys sitting on the seats all around us, were all Kendo sensei and their students, returning from the All Japan Kendo Primary and Middle School Champions
hips! I listened intently to them recounting the matches of the day and at first thought I might say something to them about me having done Kendo, but I was so tired, I decided not to in the end. After a short while, they all bowed their heads and most of them cat napped the remaining 30mins back to Kyoto, while Zoe and Grant did their best to annoy them by playing’ thumb wars!’
hrine we visited later in the day, the deer kept ‘butting’ her and followed her into the shop and out again! Oh, I just remembered being quite horrified at seeing real deer antlers with part of the skull attached for sale at the souvenier shop inside the shrine grounds.The crowds were huge as it is the first week of the 4 week Nara Deer festival and the wait to get into one of the other temples which had an exhibition of national treasures inside it, rivalled Disneyland. At each entrance there were guys standing around holding signs to let people know how long the wait was from there to the front gate. The kids refused to wait in the hot sun, so we went on to Todaiji. It’s an amazing wooden structure and national treasure, although the origina
l (built in the 8th century) burnt down and it’s replacement was also burnt down later. The current temple was built in the 18th century, varying slightly from the original plans. It also now has two golden fish tails on the top of the beautiful roof, symbolising fish diving into water; there to protect the building from any more fires.As the day went on it cooled down and by the
time we made it to the beautiful shrine at the top of the hill, it really was a blessing, as the crowds down at Todaiji, weren’t interested in the shrine and we had it almost all to ourselves. It was slightly disappointing that we could hear the distant thump of pop music from the park down the road, but thankfully that stopped soon enough.Unfortunately this break was only a brief respite, as it was time for us to make our way the 30mins or so back down the hill to the train station to catch the train back to Kyoto. All in all it has been a lovely day, though from Zoe’s point of view having dived down a small flight of stairs at the Kyoto Tower and then later in the day, having a bollard on the side of a road jumped out and tripped her onto the middle of a busy pedestrian crossing, it probably could have been better. Though, the jokes about her new found ‘extreme sport’, and holding up point boards, kept us all laughing till the days end.
By the time we got back to the hotel, we were all fading fast and ended up once again at the local Lawson picking up some ‘onigiri’ and pork buns for the kids, some ‘edamame’ and a small salad for m
yself. Oh, and a small can of ‘Umeshu’ and soda for myself which I’ve been enjoying a couple of times over the last week. Once we checked into the hotel, we were pleasantly surprised at the how great the rooms were and we were all (especially me) excited to find ‘Yukata’ on the beds. Wearing Yukata, drinking Umeshu and eating ‘edamame’ bring back such strong summer memories for me. I was as excited as a little girl, giggling away while the kids watched a Japanese soccer game on tv. The simplest things often give the most pleasure! Wish you’d been there Spike!I also meant
to say that after a few minutes on the train back from Nara, I realised that the guys sitting on the seats all around us, were all Kendo sensei and their students, returning from the All Japan Kendo Primary and Middle School Champions
hips! I listened intently to them recounting the matches of the day and at first thought I might say something to them about me having done Kendo, but I was so tired, I decided not to in the end. After a short while, they all bowed their heads and most of them cat napped the remaining 30mins back to Kyoto, while Zoe and Grant did their best to annoy them by playing’ thumb wars!’
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