So this summer, my family decided that it was about time that we went to China again to vacation/visit relatives. This time around, we decided that we might as well spend a few days in Japan since I've always wanted to go. However, because of the recent quake and based on first hand reports from people I know who have recently returned from Japan, we decided not to visit the Tokyo area this time, and instead chose to stay within the Kansai region (we're only going to be spending about five days here anyway) which includes Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe.
Some side notes:
United Airlines/Continental didn't offer complementary lunch during our four-hour flight from Houston to San Fransisco, despite the fact that it was during lunch time (the flight departed at 12:25 pm). Instead they offered a variety of food for sale. As if I'm dumb enough to actually pay for airline food . . . <_<
For some reason, I found it difficult to fall asleep during our 13-hour flight from San Francisco to Shanghai, a problem I haven't had on previous long flights from the US to China. So I basically felt hella tired during that entire flight.
China always has this very distinctive smell that you catch a whiff of as soon as you step off the plane. It's a combination of cigarette smoke, air pollution, and whatever the "local flavor" is. Yes, everyone smokes in China.
Anyway, before heading off for Japan, we decided to spend a couple of days first in Hanzhou, one of the major cities in Southeast China (only about 2.5 hours from Shanghai by bus). Though I spent most of my time in the hotel (the hotel had like free 20mbps internet!), we did get around to doing some sight-seeing, mainly being led by my aunt and uncle, who are currently living in the city. I also got to see my cousin's newborn, which was kinda cool. Here are some random photos from Hanzhou:
And of course, the most important of all:
It's not China unless there's a KFC...
So after spending a couple days in Hanzhou eating some great food and chilling in my hotel room, we head off to Shanghai Pudong international airport for the 2 hour or so flight to Kansai International. The thing I notice right away about Japan as soon as I stepped off the airport was how clean everything was, the bathrooms in particular. The next thing I realized was that the Japanese take security pretty seriously. While they don't have body scanners, they do pretty thorough searches of what's inside your carry-ons. (They even x-ray'd a package of granola bars we had in one of our suitcases . . . XD). In our case they also requested to do a body search. I wasn't very pleased about this, but I wasn't in a mood to make a fuss. Still I'm pretty sure we were the only ones who had to undergo a body search. (My guess is that it was because maybe they saw three Chinese people travelling from Shanghai with American passports to be suspicious? Not that I'm trying to imply bias of any sort . . .)
So soon after we buy a JR Express Kansai one-day pass (which apparently you can only buy once during your trip to Japan) and hop on a train to Kyoto. After checking into the Hyatt Regency, I released, to my dismay, that the broadband was not free and in fact costs ¥42 per minute (that about $0.50 USD/minute) or a flat rate of ¥1575 per day (about $19 USD). So I just went without internet for a couple of days (and believe me it wasn't easy)
Anyway, on to Kyoto. Since we were only staying in Kyoto for two days, we pretty much had to skip a lot of the more minor locations (and even a couple of the major ones) to fit into our time table. To make things worse, the first day we went out, it rained all day long, which is a major bummer if you're looking to do some sight-seeing. Luckily, on the second day, there was only some small showers so it was a much more pleasant experience.
So here are some photos from Kyoto:
This is apparently the mascot of The 2011 National Cultural Festival in Kyoto (Mayumaro), and I saw this guy's face everywhere (including bus passes):
The King of Kyoto?
Of course, what post could be complete without a mandatory shot of a Japanese toilet? This was the one at our hotel room at the Hyatt Regency Kyoto:
A $500 toilet seat?
Yes, I did mess around with the settings a bit. ;)
After this we had planned to visit the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Unfortunately, despite the amount of research we did on Kyoto, we neglected to find out that the Imperial Palace is not only closed on weekends (this was a Sunday) but also required permission beforehand before you were allowed to enter. So, the best I could do was take a picture of the outside grounds. Disappointing yes, but we already had a lot of places to visit so, it wasn't that big of a deal in the end.
So after two days in Kyoto, we head off to Osaka and then Nara, where we visited the parks there and also Kofuku-ji and Todai-ji temple (which includes the largest wooden structure in the world):
After returning to Osaka, we went to a local restaurant where I had a nice dinner of okonomiyaki, takoyaki, and barbeque beef (which I grilled myself). The okonomiyaki in particular was better than I had expected.
Some photos of Osaka:
So, after spending three days in Japan, here are some general thoughts that I have:
The Japanese seem to be pretty damn diligent, especially the clerks. A good example of this was when I left my umbrella at the MK taxi station near Kyoto Station. When I went back there the next day to retrieve it, they had already had it labelled (with my name which they had matched to the log of time that I had left there) and asked for my ID in order to pick it up. Yes, diligent is a good word indeed.
It obviously rains a lot in Japan, and they are clearly more accustomed to it than most places I've lived in the US. i.e. nearly every store has an umbrella rack in front to store your umbrellas. Also, some stores even have little plastic covers that you can put over your umbrellas so that you can bring them into the store. The Hyatt Regency were I stayed in Kyoto even had umbrellas that you could borrow for the day. A word of advice if you're considering bringing your umbrella to Japan: make sure you bring a full-length one, it just makes things much easier.
Stuff is expensive in Japan, as expected but not as much so as I would have thought. Food prices are generally in the ¥600-1200 for you typical ramen, bento type food, which is comparable to the prices that you would see at a typical American chain restaurant. Some things like fruit or beef are MUCH more expensive than the US, but some other things (certain vegetables for instance and fish) are actually a little cheaper. One shopping tip that you're likely to get from locals is that after 5 pm or so, many of the food shops will start to give big discounts on their sushi, box lunches, etc. because those products won't stay fresh overnight. I saw a box lunch that usually sells for ¥800 discounted to ¥200 yen, another discounted to ¥50, etc. Stuff like clothing, home appliances, even electronics, etc. seemed to be pretty expensive though.
I'm not sure about how subway/train stations are like in the US, but the train system in Japan is pretty damn difficult to navigate, even if you can get past the language barrier. Basically, unless you're familiar with an area, figuring out which trains to take to get to your final destination can be a confusing, even frustrating experience. Another tip BTW: don't ride the local train if you are travelling between cities. The local trains will definitely get you say, from Kyoto to Umeda, but it'll take much, much longer than the faster Express trains.
One interesting thing I saw while riding the trains here is that some trains have a "women's only" section or "women's only" cars. They even have these pink signs on the ground that say "women's boarding only" and the train cars themselves are often a pinkish/reddish hue. While I understand why they would do something like this, it definitely is one of those things that make you go: "oh Japan . . ."
Contrary to what anime would like us to believe, I did not see a lot of woman with hair dyed blue, purple, green, etc. though a lot of the women (men as well, but fewer than women) that I saw did dye their hair brown, blonde, white or a strawberry/red-head hue. I'm guessing this is the influence of western culture, but personally I'm perfectly okay with black hair.
Many of the restaurants here have plastic replicas of their various dishes on display outside which makes it much easier to decide which restaurants you want to eat at and what types of items they have on the menu (see above for an example). I really hope this is something that gets implemented in the US in the future
That's about all I can think of at the moment. In any case, I've definitely been having fun here and am just starting to get a good feel of the flow of life in Japan, which feels very different from the US (though it seems like it's not a place I would want to live in for very long). In any case, that just about does it for this long (travel?) blog post. Part 2 will be posted in a few more days after I finish up my stay here in Osaka (and Kobe as well) and after a couple of days in Shanghai proper and also Nanjing.
