Tuesday 12th of May; Kyoto and Nara

It’s been a while since I posted something on my travel-blog. Last week was the Japanese Goldenweek, a long vacation in Japanese terms. FIVE days, weekend included, holiday >_> I took a few days extra free, so in total I had 8 days! During “my” Goldenweek I traveled around through Japan. Fuji, Kyoto, Nara, and again Kizaki Lake. Thursday (April 30th) I went towards Fuji, spend one night there. Will post about this later, since today’s topics are Kyoto and Nara.
Before my Fuji trip, Wednesday (April 29th), I had a Japanese guide show me a nice onsen place near Tokyo. He also showed me a nice izakaya place in Shinjuku. I met this guy at Kizaki Lake, very friendly and English speaking person ^_^ Both locations I visited with the guide are non-tourist locations, so I really got to see how Japan really is. And since Japanese see me as one of them, I didn’t get any special treatment. I guess that’s the advantage of being Asian and going to Japan, you can see tourist areas as well as how the country really is!
Last Thursday I had a Japanese friend show me Japanese monja. This was really fun, playing with food before eating it! Definitely a must-do when you’re in Japan. Today I showed the Japanese friend a Vietnamese restaurant in Tokyo, sadly enough they only had two items on the menu that were Vietnamese. Most of the stuff on the menu: Japanese, Italian, Chinese, or salad (which is totally not Vietnamese). Although he got mainly fake Vietnamese food, he really enjoyed it. Guess next time I should try harder to find Vietnamese food…
Actually I wanted to post about Kizaki Lake (salt route festival and the Onegai Sites Tour) today. But sorting out the pictures is taking longer than expected. Will post about Kizaki in the next few days, this is just a small post to let everybody know I’m still alive. Don’t expect too much from this post, I spent very little time to select the pictures and am typing this post after a few drinks. This post is also needed because I got too many things on my to-post-on-blog-list. So many things happened since my last blog-post, maybe two topics each post won’t do the trick…

Well, that should have been a good introduction for today’s post. Up to the topics, Kyoto first! After my Fuji trip I spent one day in Tokyo doing pretty much nothing interesting. Preparing stuff for my Kyoto, Nara, and Kizaki trip and finally some resting. In Tokyo I don’t seem to have much time for sleep, I always have things I want to do which I consider more important than sleeping. Trust me, sleeping stands quite high in my priority list. Also did some planning for Kyoto and Nara on my rest day; trains, interesting locations, and accommodation. Sadly enough I was only able to spend one day in Kyoto, because I really wanted to join the salt route festival at Kizaki Lake. So I only had one day for Kyoto and half a day for Nara. Because of this tight schedule I couldn’t afford getting lost in Kyoto or Nara! So I had to plan things, something I usually don’t do. Even with all the planning, I wasn’t able to visit all the locations I wanted in Kyoto. Had to drop out the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji), a very nice Japanese garden people say. Another thing I dropped out is Toji Temple, where the highest wooden structure in Japan is located.
First thing I visited when I arrived at Kyoto was Nijo Castle. Unlikely Matsumoto Castle, it wasn’t allowed to make pictures inside the castle, so only pictures from outside. Interesting about this castle is the floor, it makes strange sounds when you walk over it. In general the Castle was nice, not as impressive as Matsumoto Castle though. The rooms inside the castle are really worth a visit, this castle really is a living place. Nicely decorated rooms and gardens, unlikely Matsumoto Castle which was built for war.
Second thing in Kyoto was Sanjusangendo, longest wooden structure in Japan. Inside were 1001 statues, very impressive! No pictures allowed, again only pictures from outside. Spent well over 1 hour here, walking and reading some history.
Afterwards was Kiyomizudera Temple, on the way walking there also quickly checked out a few unplanned temples. The West part of Kyoto really is a Temple area, too many temples! Anyway, slowly walk towards the hostel, and spent the night there. Made a small attempt checking Gion (geisha) district. But all the shops there were kinda suspicious, so didn’t really check out the place after all.
The next day was quickly checking the International Manga Museum, before jumping on the train towards Nara. The museum was had some nice pictures and sketches, but mainly a library where you can find any manga you can think off.

After a 1 hour traintrip, 690 yen, I arrived at Nara at around 12:00 AM. In total I had about 2,5 hours of time to check out Nara. From Nara towards Kizaki Lake is far, had to take the train of 4:00 PM from Nara towards Kyoto, transfer to Shinkansen towards Nagoya, than transfer to Azusa Limited Express towards Matsumoto, and finally hop onto the JR-train towards Kizaki Lake.
Well, 2,5 hours is very tight for checking Nara. Had to drop out one location from my planning, Horyuji Temple (about 10km away from Nara). The rest of the planning I managed to do.
Nara museum and park, with the important thing the museum. Will post about this later, will post all museum visits together in one post. Nara park was just on the way, so walked through it, lost of reindeers walking around in Nara!
While I was in Nara I made an attempt to find Naramachi, some tourist area. I think I passed it, not really sure. I didn’t find anything interesting while walking through the street marked on the map.
Last thing I visited in Nara is Todaiji Temple, famous temple in Nara. Because of the limited time I had to run towards the Temple, take a few quick shots, and run back towards the station. On my way bought some cookies for Kuwahara Lab. It’s a tradition there that you buy some kind of food from locations you visit outside of Tokyo. Arrived in Kyoto I had some time left to check out Kyoto tower before taking the Shinkansen towards Nagoya.
On my planning I had having an early dinner in Nara, this completely failed. In Nagoya I bought an obento and jumped onto the Azusa Limited Express, turned out to be my small dinner. Arrived at Kizaki I had a small snack so I could survive to the next early morning. Walking festival started at 7:30 AM, arrived at Kizaki Lake at around 11:30 PM. Lucky me the Japanese Guide picked me up from the station towards the hostel with his car.

This is where this post end, a quick description of my Japanese-style-traveling outside Tokyo. Only described half of the traveling though…
Link for pictures:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v42/moonlight2002/KyotoNara/

Be prepared, another post coming VERY soon. I sorted out 70% of the pictures for the next post already! Still need to make a few sketches of some things before I can post another post. It’s been a long time since I touched a pencil, but the sketches are from special locations (no pictures allowed) that I must post on my travel-blog. Japan really is pulling everything out of me, learning a new language, traveling Japanese-style, touching a pencil again, wake up at 7:00 AM every morning, keeping up a travel-blog, making a webpage for the Onegai Sites Tour, learning Japanese history! Whaaaaaa, too much!!!! I stop here, up to the next post ~_^

PS. Sorry for the bad English, there’s no time for rechecking my post.

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Reisverslag Tuesday 12th of May; Kyoto and Nara

Tuesday 12th of May; Kyoto and Nara

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