Museums and Shopping in Tokyo

Our last few days in Tokyo were planned mostly around a couple of scheduled museum visits and souvenir shopping. Through this we also had the opportunity to visit a few other wards within Tokyo that we hadn’t been to yet.

The first museum appointment we had was for the Gundam Museum in Odaiba. Upon entering the museum there were multiple photo points, including one where you could pay an extra fee to stand in a “life-size” Gundam. The main featured attraction was a large dome theater which played special compilation videos every 20 minutes. It was cool seeing the dome theater, but I think I would have gotten more out of it if I were more familiar with the Gundam-verse. 

"Life-size" Gundam you can stand in

More interesting to me was the exhibit on the design and construction of Gundam miniatures. They had a video explaining the entire process and some physical models illustrating each step. It was kind of strange and also very cool to see CAD models of the Gundam pieces, and also the molds used to manufacture the parts in the factory. Attached to the museum was a large gift shop where you could actually purchase the Gundam models. There were some really great deals, basically half off what you would pay in the states, and almost all of us ended up buying a few. Overall the museum was kind of small, easily completed in about an hour, but still worth going to if you have any interest in Gundam (or toy manufacturing) at all.

CAD models of Gundam parts

The other museum we went to was the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, one of my favorite places we went to on this entire trip. The entire museum experience matched what you would expect from a Ghibli movie - an escape from reality into a beautiful, whimsical world full of colorful characters and unique landscapes. The building was an attraction in itself, containing a maze-like path inside and designed aesthetically to match the art style of the movies. Within the museum there were many exhibits on animation techniques, storyboarding, and coloring. There was also an incredibly detailed recreation of Miyazaki’s studio, filled with original character sketches, paintings of movie backgrounds, and travel books from which Miyazaki drew his inspiration. On the top floor there was a giant cat bus big enough to go inside. Unfortunately only elementary school kids were allowed inside, otherwise I would have totally been down to ride inside the cat bus. 

Giant totoro greeting visitors to the museum

The gift shops were also very interesting to browse. In the “library”, you were free to peruse the books on display, ranging from picture storybooks to biographies, and all the books were available for purchase if you found one you liked. The actual shop area contained everything else Ghibli you could possibly want, including stuffed animals, figurines, DVDs, and socks. Unfortunately the museum closed at 6pm (our ticket only allowed for entry starting at 4), so we didn’t have that much time. I would have liked to explore more, but there’s always the potential for a future visit, especially since tickets only ran on the order of 1000 yen.

Square Enix cafe

Of the many places we went to on our whirlwind shopping spree, the two places that stuck out the most to me were the Square Enix cafe near Shinjuku, and the Pokemon Center in Ikebukuro. The Square Enix cafe was a bit out of the way - about a 15 minute walk from the Shinjuku JR station. It was located in a small nondescript dome-like building with a very different atmosphere than the Ghibli Museum. When you walk inside, the main cafe and gift shop area is very clean and simply adorned. The back room is a lot more impressive, containing lighted displays of expensive figurines, and a recreation of the crystal chamber from Bravely Default in the middle of the room. The actual merchandise there was relatively expensive, but the cafe is definitely worth a visit for anyone who has ever played a Square Enix game. 

The Square Enix showroom

The Pokemon Center had the exactly the opposite sort of atmosphere, located in the middle of a busy mall with bright colors everywhere. They had everything Pokemon related, including food, cards, t-shirts, and Pikachu plushies ranging in size from fitting in the palm of your hand to the height of a small child. I was tempted to get one of the larger Pikachu’s, but then I would’ve had to buy another suitcase. 

The biggest Pokemon Center in Tokyo

With these last few days in Tokyo, our trip has come to a close. This was most of our first times in Japan, so I’m glad we were able to see so many places. Now that we’ve learned a little more about the country and gotten a little wiser about traveling there, I think for future trips I would like to do more of a focused visit of a few places. There are still many parts of Japan that we hadn’t gotten anywhere near - we haven’t gone anywhere outside of the Kanto or Kansai regions, and I know for a fact that I’d like to visit Hokkaido and Okinawa someday. If anything, this trip has just made us even more curious and excited about visiting the rest of the country. We will definitely be back!

じゃ、また！

- MC 4/21

Postscript: Thank you to everyone who has been following my blog! This is something I'm hoping to maintain in the future, and I'm always looking for ways to improve, so if you have any comments or suggestions in terms of length, content, style, etc., please leave a comment below. Thanks!

Sea Creatures and Seafood in Osaka

As one of the largest cities and probably the largest port in Japan, Osaka has no lack of things to do. Our itinerary for this trip allowed for only one day there, but one could easily spend at least a week in and around the city, and not run out of things to do.

The number one tourist attraction in Osaka that almost everyone goes to is Osaka Castle. As the former residence of many past Shogun and the site of numerous battles, Osaka Castle is huge and full of history. From the borders of the castle park, it takes about ten to fifteen minutes just to walk to the main castle building. The castle itself is an impressive eight stories tall, visible from much of the city, and surrounded by deep moat still filled with water. Inside, the castle has been modernized and converted into a history museum where we saw artifacts hundreds of years old and videos depicting what life was like back then. I found the multi-panel paintings particularly interesting. Many of them illustrated the great battles of Osaka Castle, all in incredible detail. They showed hundreds of individual soldiers, all drawn with unique expressions. It was an impressive display of skill, dedication, and patience.

Full diorama depicting the battle scene on the folding screen

Osaka Castle was interesting, but I think my personal favorite part of the day was our visit to Kaiyukan, Osaka’s world famous aquarium. Like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Kaiyukan is ranked among the top ten best aquariums in the world by Trip Advisor. Having been to Monterey Bay many times before, I was curious to see for myself how another aquarium of similar caliber would compare. After visiting, my conclusion is that Monterey Bay does a better job going in extreme depth about the wildlife living in and around Monterey, but Kaiyukan has a much wider breadth of exhibits. There were animals from Japan, the Aleutian Islands, the Panama Canal, and much more. There was even a Monterey Bay exhibit featuring sleepy sea lions and playful harbor seals. 

Sea lions from the Monterey Bay exhibit

At Kaiyukan, you start at the top of the aquarium and spiral down the building. Many of the exhibits span multiple floors, so as you spiral down, you can see close up the different creatures living at various depths of the ocean. Some highlights of the aquarium were the energetic white backed dolphins, the massive whale shark dominating the main Pacific tank, and the touch tank where I got to pet some rays and sharks.

Sleepy seal does not approve of noisy schoolchildren

One of the things that Osaka does well is food, and both the meals we had there were excellent. For lunch we went to a small family owned okonomiyaki place. Everything was cooked on an iron plate in full view of the counter, so we got to see our food go from raw ingredients to perfect golden brown completion. 

Freshly made okonomiyaki

For dinner, we had Kaiten Sushi, also known as conveyor belt sushi. The sushi there was not quite as amazing as the stuff we had at the Tsukiji fish market, but still much better than anything you could get in the states for the same price. We mainly went there for the experience of sitting at a counter and getting to pick our food directly off a conveyor belt that continuously sent delicious plates of fish by us. For 14 plates of sushi and a Hokkaido soft serve ice cream, our total ended up being only 3800 yen, which was totally reasonable.

The kaiten sushi carnage

I would have liked to stay in Osaka longer - there was just as much to see and do as in Tokyo, and it certainly had better weather - but there’s always next time, and I’m almost sure I’ll be back someday. Today we are taking the shinkansen back to Tokyo for the last leg of our trip. We decided to forgo the day trip to Fuji Five Lakes on the grounds that the time and energy spent on traveling the extra distance could be better used doing more sightseeing in Tokyo instead. Considering all the things we haven’t had a chance to see yet in Tokyo, I am entirely satisfied with the change in plans.

- MC 4/18

Temple Life in Koyasan

Koyasan is similar to Mecca and Jerusalem in that devout Japanese Buddhists will make the journey from all over the country to come pay their respects. In the old days, pilgrims would come in on foot, using one of the many trails leading up to the mountain. Nowadays, Koyasan is relatively easy to access through a couple of train transfers. Following the train ride to the foot of the peak is a short five minute cable car ride to the top, going up a steep fifty degree incline, and then a bus ride into town.

Daimon, the former main entrance to Koyasan

We found that Koyasan the town was not quite as remote and isolated as we expected. Many giant tour buses clogged up the narrow streets, and there were countless restaurants and souvenir shops wherever we looked. There were also many temples all over the town. It turns out all of the temples were operating as hotels, similar to the temple we were staying at. They are staffed by resident monks who also conduct morning ceremonies open to guests staying at the temple. 

Night view of the temple we stayed at

We didn’t wake up early enough for the morning ceremonies, but we did have a special vegetarian dinner and breakfast at the temple. The meals were served on a long table which we shared with all the other guests staying at our temple. Each person got a box containing multiple small dishes, ranging from tofu to miso soup to stone pot vegetables. The meals contained no meat and were extremely healthy, but we all agreed that they were very delicious and satisfying.

Group dinner prepared by the monks

The temple facilities themselves were very unique compared to anything outside of Japan. You took off your shoes before entering the temple, and the entire building consisted of wooden hallways, rooms lined with tatami mats, and a public bath containing very hot water. The guest rooms included mattresses rolled out directly on the tatami mats, a space heater (night was bone-chilling cold), and surprisingly fast internet. Overall the rooms were very comfortable, and I’m almost starting to prefer tatami mat beds over traditional western mattresses.

The main attraction we went to outside of the temple was the Okunoin, a stone path surrounded by tombstones that led up to a massive Buddhist temple. Most of the tombstones were small, just made for normal families who happened to be able to afford it. As we went higher up the path, we encountered some tombstones dedicated to more well known historical figures, including the famous Oda Nobunaga. Nobunaga’s tombstone was much larger than the individual family tombs, but still quite modest looking considering his role in history.

Oda Nobunaga's tombstone

The temple at the top was evidently the main destination for Japanes Buddhist pilgrims, as we had the opportunity to witness a group at the temple performing of the mountain was very large, though more impressive was the number of lanterns hanging in one of the main buildings. The lanterns all contained writing on them, indicating who had made the donation and a short message from the donor. They were also all numbered, which was how we deduced that there were at least 9000 lanterns in the building. Fortunately someone had decided to replace the candles in the lanterns with lightbulbs to avoid the whole temple burning down like it had multiple times in the past.

Koyasan was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the cities, even with all the other tourists around the sightseeing points. For the last part of our journey, we will return to the big cities. We’re currently on a train (several trains, actually) out of Koyasan and into Osaka, where we will stay one day and night before returning to Tokyo.

- MC 4/17

Deer and More Deer in Nara

As another former capital of Japan, Nara has its fair share of temples and gardens. But when most people think of Nara, they immediately associate it with deer. Apparently one of the old emperors really liked deer, and decided to populate the city with his favorite animals, whose offspring have been living in Nara Park ever since.

Trying to eat my camera

Our hotel was conveniently located right next to Nara Park, and the moment we saw numerous deer walking around, resting on the grass, and harassing tourists. Scattered around the park were vendors selling Shika-Senbei, rice cakes made especially for feeding the deer. We bought several stacks of Senbei just for fun, and became instantly popular with the deer. They would totally surround whoever had the most rice cakes, then start bowing their heads repeatedly as a way of asking for food. Some of the more aggressive deer would go straight for the Senbei or start biting your clothes. Almost as interesting as feeding deer was people-watching in the park. Every so often you would see a particularly jumpy tourist who would freak out as soon as the deer got close to them and run away screaming, dropping all their rice cakes in the process. The deer were more than happy to clean up after them.

This guy was particularly popular with the deer

Within Nara Park are many historical points of interest. The Taishogu is one such point, probably the largest and most popular. One thing that sets the Taishogu apart is the sheer size of it. The entire gated area could easily fit a couple of football fields, and inside the main temple building was a massive Buddha statue roughly the size of a four story building. All the features were so big that even the massive hordes of tourists didn’t completely obstruct the views.

Taishogu temple

We spent the last part of the day visiting the Nara National Museum. I expected it to be on the scale of the National Museum in Taipei and was worried that an hour and a half would not be enough to see the whole museum, but it ended up being a smaller museum that you could finish in an hour or two. The exhibits mainly featured Buddhist art and artifacts. Most of the religious explanations went over my head, though I imagine it would be very interesting for someone in religious studies. There was an exhibit about how the massive Buddha statues were built, which did interest me. It’s impossible to find single blocks of wood large enough to make those statues, so they used multiple blocks of wood fastened to each other. They would then carve out the fine details from the entire wood assembly. In order to make a uniform finish and preserve the wood, they covered the entire statue in lacquer, smoothing out the statue and hiding the parting lines.

No pictures of the inside allowed, unfortunately

This morning we left Nara and the overly friendly deer behind. We are currently on our way to Koyasan, a temple village in the mountains, where we will stay a night in an actual operating temple. This will mark the most remote location we are visiting before we return to the big cities.

- MC 4/16

Shrines and City Life in Kyoto

As one of the former capitals of Japan, Kyoto has one of the highest densities of historical sites out of all the large cities. We stayed two days in Kyoto, but definitely could have spent more time here. Kyoto can be divided into several areas - northern, southern, eastern, western, and central Kyoto. Because of the limited time, we focused on visiting just the southern, northern, and central areas, and by no means exhausted all the options there.

One of our favorite places collectively as a group was the Inari Shrine in southern Kyoto. A short train ride from the main station, Inari is nestled on a lush mountainside just far enough removed to provide an aura of spirituality. The foot of the mountain was very crowded with tourists and tourist traps, but the farther you hike up the trail, the less people there are. Near the top of the mountain, there were so few people that we were able to get some great uninterrupted shots of the long lines of Torii Gates, what Inari is famous for. Our resident Buddhism expert explained that the gates represented a separation from the mundane to the spiritual, and that as you walk through the gates you are going from a state of bad to a state of good. Considering the sheer number of gates we passed through, we must have been close to saint status by the time we reached the top.

Torii gates at Inari

For the northern Kyoto segment of our stay, we visited the Kinkakuji Temple and the Ryoanji Temple. The Kinkakuji Temple is mostly famous for the main building, the Golden Pavilion, covered in many leaves of gold foil. The Ryoanji Temple is most known for a rock garden within the temple, which apparently has lasted hundreds of years. Everything was very aesthetically pleasing, and I could see the rock garden as a good place for meditation and contemplation in the old days when the whole temple wasn’t filled with tourists. We were elbow to elbow with other people in a lot of the places and it was raining that day, so we didn’t end up spending that much time at those attractions.

View of Kinkakuji Temple

There is a street in central Kyoto that houses Nishiki Market, where vendors set up shop along a long stretch of road and sell all sorts of edibles, from green tea ice cream to wasabi plants. We tried some grilled seafood on a stick, which was excellent, and bulgogi flavored takoyaki, which was acceptable, and then had an actual lunch at a cafe serving omelette rice and ice cream sundaes. Connecting to the main Nishiki Market street was a more modern looking outdoor mall where we spent a lot of time (mostly window) shopping and even more time playing games at an arcade we found. They had an entire section of the floor dedicated to just music games, and the best thing was that we were able to find songs from games and anime we’ve heard of. There were also a lot of pachinko machines which we mostly avoided, claw machines, real time strategy games, trading card game machines, and a small Puzzles and Dragons corner. If they had arcades like this at home, I could easily see myself spending way too much time and money there, which is why it’s probably a good thing they don’t have these there.

Seafood skewer from Nishiki Market

One of the more unique experiences we had in Kyoto was actually not related to sightseeing. We attended a sake tasting event hosted by our hotel, led by a licensed sake sommelier who gave a short presentation on the different categories of sake followed by a tasting of several different kinds. Having never found a sake I liked before this, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually enjoyed some of the ones we tasted. Sake can be broadly categorized using a matrix in which one axis represents light vs. strong and the other one dry vs. sweet. I tended to gravitate toward the light and sweet ones, of which there were actually a couple to choose from. Another interesting fact was that sake can come in an unpasteurized form in Japan, and only in Japan, because it would go bad if shipped elsewhere. As part of the event we visited a local store selling hundreds of different types of sake, and many people ended up buying some "only in Japan" unpasteurized sake.

Sake tasting

It’s completely unreasonable to expect to finish exploring a huge city like Kyoto in two days. We didn’t have time to see the temples on the east side, or the mountains on the west side, but we can always take a future trip back to Kyoto and see more. We said goodbye to Kyoto this morning and are currently on our way to Nara, where we will see more temples, hopefully some cherry blossoms, and lots of deer!

- MC 4/15

Temples and Tofu in Nikko

Nikko is a mountain town located roughly 500 meters above sea level. As we walked down the main street from the train station, the atmosphere was calm and quaint, reminding me of some of the towns located inside various national parks back in the states. It had a nice small town feel, if you ignored the large hordes of selfie-stick wielding tourists (of which we indeed contributed to) - a short two hour train ride away from Tokyo, Nikko is also one of the most popular day trip locations, for both locals and foreigners.

Most people visit Nikko for the temples and shrines, which was also what we planned our itinerary around. What I didn’t realize was that Nikko was also famous for their Yuba, thin rolls of tofu skin that taste and feel silky smooth. We ended up splurging for lunch at a small family restaurant called Naomi Cha-ya serving nine-course meals including several plates of Yuba. The dishes were very unique ranging from crackers topped with wasabi cream cheese to rice sprinkled with bits of sakura flowers. Overall it was a good experience and well worth the 2700 yen.

Part of our Yuba set lunch

After lunch we hiked up the hill to the main temple area. The main attraction was clearly the Nikko Toshogu, an enormous shrine built in the 1600s dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the great shogun of the era. A massive torii gate with pillars three meters in diameter framed the entrance to the shrine. Once inside, there were dozens of buildings with intricately crafted wood carvings on the walls and accents of gold. One of the most interesting buildings we visited was the Hall of the Crying Dragon. When you clap two wooden clappers together in just the right spot, the halls echoes with a sound like a crying dragon, which is where it got its name.

Inner gate to the main temple at Toshogu

A wide walking path connected Toshogu to Futarasan and Taiyuin, two other shrines. We decided to pay the entrance fee to go into Taiyuin, the mausoleum of Ieyasu’s grandson, Iemitsu. It was noticeably smaller than Toshogu, but possessed a more peaceful and solemn air, perhaps because there were barely any tourists there. It was nice to just walk around and enjoy the beautiful architecture without worrying about walking into random people every few steps.

Inside Taiyuin, having the shrine almost all to ourselves

We concluded our trip with a visit to the Kanmangafuchi Abyss. Across town on the other side of the river was a short walking trail that followed the river. What makes it special are the numerous Buddhist statues that line the trail. One of the tourist guides we read said that if you walk down the trail in one direction and count the statues, and then walk the other way and count, you will end up with numbers that are off by one. Legend says that it is because one of the extra statues you counted is actually a spirit that appears and disappears. Another tourist guide said that there are exactly 70 statues. We tried counting them both ways and everyone ended up with different numbers, none of which were 70. Either the spirits were very active yesterday or we’re all bad at counting.

Walking along the Kanmangafuchi Abyss

As I write this, we are riding on one of the shinkansen bullet trains to Kyoto, where we plan on touring some more temples and shrines. It will be interesting to see how those temples in a big city contrast with those we saw in the relatively secluded Nikko.

- MC 4/13

Hot Springs and Monkeys at Yudanaka

It takes a transfer and roughly two and a half to three hours of train rides to travel from Tokyo Station to Yamanouchi, but our train journey was almost like a sightseeing tour. There was always something interesting to see out the window. As we traveled farther out of the crowded metropolitan area, towering skyscrapers gave way to suburban houses, similar to the suburban area we passed through around Narita Airport. Past Nagano these houses became smaller and farther apart, and green vegetation covered the land, with snow capped mountains rising in the distance.

Our next destination, Yamanouchi, was a small sleepy town. It’s best known as a tourist spot for the snow monkeys and hot springs. The actual number of permanent residents seemed to be very small - the town had a very rural feel, and as we walked around we found very few open shops and restaurants - a sharp contrast to the sensory overload that was Tokyo.

One of the open restaurants that we did find ended up being among the best meals we’ve had on this trip so far. The restaurant, Tamaya, was a small mom and pop restaurant specializing in Chanko Nabe, a stew containing chicken, tofu, and various kinds of vegetables. Apparently this is the go-to dish for sumo wrestlers who want to gain weight. Luckily our serving was not as large as what the sumo wrestlers would eat. The ingredients of the stew were delicious, and the soup was even better. 

The Chanko Nabe stew

After the stew we had the “accompanying carbohydrates”, a bowl of udon and several baked mochi rice cakes, both immersed in the same soup used for the stew. The combination of the stew suite and the additional appetizers we had ordered left us immensely satisfied and wishing we all had extra stomachs to eat more.

Baked mochi in soup

Yamanouchi and the surrounding towns are undoubtably hot spring resorts. Almost every hotel around the area includes hot spring facilities, and ours was no exception. We stayed at Hotel Yudanaka, a nice little hotel that included Japanese style tatami rooms and free breakfast containing over twenty dishes (both Japanese and western). But the main attraction was clearly the large public bath. There are separate facilities for men and women, as the baths are used sans clothing, and each one contained multiple bathing areas for different purposes. You start at the shower to clean off any dirt and grit on your body, then move on to the small pool where you use a small bucket to pour warm water on top of yourself. Following that you can move onto the steaming hot full body bath, the medicinal bath to ease muscle pains, and other baths containing jet streams and waterfalls for a self massage. It was a great way to relax and recharge after all the walking we had been doing the past few days.

This snow monkey had the best look of disapproval

The main reason for our trip to Yamanouchi was to see the famous snow monkeys. After checking out of our hotel in the morning, we took a shuttle bus over to Jigokudani Monkey Park. A short hike though a foggy wooded area later, we arrived at the gathering place of the monkeys. Many of the monkeys were just running around, foraging for food, and grooming each other. It was a relatively warm day for the area, but there were still a few monkeys soaking in the natural hot spring. This was where a lot of the iconic Japan travel pictures were taken, and we spent a good part of the morning taking our own pictures of the monkeys.

Monkey enjoying the hot springs

Today we head back to Tokyo for the night, and tomorrow we plan to take a day trip out to Nikko, a similarly sparsely populated area but with more of a focus on temples and shrines. Looking forward to seeing a different side of Japan!

- MC 4/11

First Few Days in Tokyo

As one of the most populous cities in the world, Tokyo can be both exciting and overwhelming. We landed in Narita airport, about an hour outside of the city by train. The views outside were mostly rural and suburban, with scattered single family homes dotting the landscape, but this soon gave way to towering skyscrapers that dominated the horizon as we rode closer to the city.

Our full itinerary included a few days in Tokyo before traveling to other locations around central Japan, and then a few more days in Tokyo at the end of the trip. We spent the first couple of days sightseeing, eating great food, and also simply getting used to the environment. Having been to Taiwan many times in the past, I expected Japan to exhibit many similar features. In some ways, this was true - navigating the rail system is very similar in both places, and the convenience stores are just as common (and good for a cheap yet fulfilling meal) in Japan as they are in Taiwan. But other things some getting used to. People here drive on the left side of the street, which translates to standing on the left side of escalators. It makes sense when you think about it, but every time I get on an escalator I have to resist automatically moving to the right side. Trying to communicate a request with very limited language skills is always interesting, but so far most people we’ve encountered have been very willing to help out a group of confused looking tourists as best they can.

Chirashi for breakfast at Tsukiji Fish Market

Being extremely jet lagged, we woke up before dawn and decided the logical thing to do would be to go to Tsukiji Fish Market. Tsukiji Fish Market is famous for their huge facility for buying wholesale fish, the many restaurants and stores in the surrounding area serving delicious seafood, and the tuna auctions that you would need to stand in line for at four in the morning. We didn’t quite wake up early enough for the tuna auctions, but we were definitely up for having some of the freshest fish in the world for our first breakfast in Japan. There were way too many restaurants around the market to choose from, and they all looked great. The restaurant we finally settled on was a small, traditional looking sushi bar. I ordered a chirashi bowl, and everything was delicious, from the soft chewy salmon to the light yellowtail. Even the wasabi was great, a nice refreshing spiciness instead of the overwhelming flavor of horseradishes back home. The squid in particular stood out as some of the best squid I’ve ever had. It was creamy and flavorful with just the right amount of chewiness. 

Cutting tuna with a bandsaw

After breakfast we spent some time walking around the wholesale area. A lot of the workers looked like they were wrapping up for the day (it was around 9AM at this point), but there were still quite a few cutting frozen fish with bandsaws down to sellable sizes. It was interesting just watching them work, and seeing the precision with which they cut away the fish bones.

Hamarikyu Gardens

The other highlight of the day for me was the Hamarikyu Gardens. These gardens were where the shoguns and emperors would go to enjoy a relaxing home away from home, perhaps to do some duck hunting or spend a day at one of the many teahouses. Today the gardens are open for the public to walk around and enjoy some nature without traveling too far - a green haven within the bustling city. There was a small entrance fee, but included was a free audio tour explaining the significance of various sites in the garden. 

Hut for viewing (and hunting) ducks

The most surprising thing to me were the elaborate set ups built next to the duck hunting grounds. There were these hilly structures that almost looked like bunkers, with small slots cut through at eye level. One could stand inside the structure without startling the ducks and use the holes to dispense food and watch the birds. Most of all, it was just interesting walking around the gardens, and seeing the juxtaposition of new and old where the tops of the trees that have lived in the garden for centuries meet the modern shiny skyscrapers of today. 

View from within the garden

There’s still a lot to see in Tokyo. It strikes me as one of those places that you could spend years exploring and still not see everything. We’ll be back to Tokyo in a few days, but for now it’s off to adventures in Yudanaka!

- MC 4/10

First Trip to Japan!

For the longest time I've wanted to visit Japan, and in a few days, I'll finally be there! My goal is to use this blog to document the journey and share interesting things I see along the way, and hopefully keep this updated for future adventures as well.

I'll be traveling with a group of friends, exploring big cities of the like of Tokyo and Kyoto, and seeing lesser known gems like Koyasan and Yamanouchi. We will be staying in central Honshu, but even in that relatively small area there will be more than enough to explore in the two weeks we will be there. We haven't even left home yet, and I already know I'll want to plan another trip to Japan someday and see more!