The following morning in Osaka, we woke up, very quickly got ready since we overslept, and headed out so that we could tour Nara and Kyoto in one day. We took a train from Osaka to Nara, went right over to the information desk at the train station and got a lot of really helpful advice. They spoke English extremely well there, which was very different to hear after a few days of having extreme difficulty communicating. She even told us that there were lockers to leave our huge, heavy backpacks in while we sightsee. It was perfect. While we were figuring out the locker situation, we met someone that was also traveling who lived ten minutes away from my friend that I was with in Canada. It’s a small world. So, he decided to tag along with us as well for the morning. We saw two temples and a shrine throughout a few hours, and everything was breathtakingly beautiful. There were a lot of large buddhas and statues so that was really amazing. The entire area was a park so we got to walk around there, and the park was FILLED with tons of deer. They were more domesticated deer than you would ever see at home, and they would come up to you roaming around and sometimes look at you or sometimes, in my case, bite you. I was not happy with them. I know that they were biting some people that had food on them (we saw one girl surrounded by 10 of them because she had food in her hand). After we finished touring the more historic and important part of Nara, we ended up in this HUGE shopping/eating area with all different types of food (including a big falafel restaurant). We ended up eating at some regular Japanese restaurant; it was an interesting meal since I had no idea what exactly it was I ordered. The menu was extremely vague- the descriptions were assorted appetizer, small bowl, sashimi and that was about it.
After taking a train back to Kyoto after lunch, we realized that we spent too much time in Nara, which was unfortunate. We got to Kyoto at around 4, took a bus to a station near our hostel, dropped off our bags at the hostel and went to explore. There weren’t a lot of places that made sense to go to since most places close fairly early. We walked around some of the shopping areas by our hostel and one large, beautiful shrine, so we definitely had a good time. Kyoto is definitely a city, but the culture was much more apparent than in Tokyo. I really loved it. After touring a shrine in the Gion area, we went off to find dinner. My friend pointed at a few restaurants down a side street and said “the best places are always hidden.” So, we went to check out a menu. It was yakitori-style and was an EXCELLENT choice. One of the best meals I had in Japan.
After dinner we went back to the hostel to meet up with our friends who had just arrived. We hadn’t actually checked it out when we first went in, so we walked around the different floors exploring. It was such a cool hostel. Each floor was themed, and they had pictures and post cards all over the place from people who had stayed there. We even met someone who had lived at this hostel for a few months when he first moved to Japan and now finally found an apartment but comes back to hang out from time to time. It was really, really cool. Since it was a little while since we had gotten to the hostel, and we all wanted to go out to eat again, we headed off in search of some light food and drinks.
We had heard that the place to be in Kyoto was this area two blocks from us so we went to check it out. It was a series of these cool alleyways and a little stream running through. We tried to go into one place to eat, and they told us that they didn’t have any menus. Since we knew the words for the different types of meat, we said we would say that and they could serve us whatever they wanted. That didn’t work. Instead, they said to follow them to a friends restaurant where they spoke some English. So we did. We had learned at this point that people in Japan genuinely wanted to help and weren’t going to bring you somewhere to gruesomely murder you and then sell your organs. After going through a bunch of different alleys and up a flight of stairs, we arrived at this restaurant/bar. There were five long tables and a bunch of people that were in their 20s sitting all around the place. They didn’t have one spot for the five of us so we split two and three. It was the greatest night. The way that you sit there (at the big tables) forces you to socialize with the people around you and there was the most interesting mix of people. We originally met a few Japanese students and one French study abroad student- all of which spoke at least 3 languages and were speaking it with people all around them. The French student spoke seven… fluently. There were so many things going on around us and SO many different languages being used it was incredible. The rest of the night was spent doing what I can only describe as table jumping. There was a very communal feeling to the place and everyone was hanging out and moving from table to table. I met people from literally all over the world- most of them were Japanese students, there was a group of Australian tourists and then a group of them were teaching English from places all over the world. We learned that the bar is called A Bar, and that it therefore is one of the first things to show up in a phone book and is known for bringing in a lot of young tourists. One of my favorite parts of the night was that there was writing all over the walls- peoples names, places, etc.- that had been left there over years and years. I found one that said SAS ’03 and wrote next to it SAS ’10. It was a pretty awesome connection to Semester at Sea that we were all pretty excited about. Meanwhile, we had met this one guy named Yuji that took us to some late-night Japanese food place after we left the bar. That was also a delicious meal and it helped that he was able to order for us and translate everything. [A funny side note for people who are reading this that might appreciate it: Yuji kept calling my friend his girlfriend and we would all laugh. At one point somehow the topic of children came up and Yuji said he wanted two and my friend said that she wanted none. So he turns to her and goes, “OK, one!” It was amazing and we are still repeating it and laughing a week or so later. He also emailed all of us a few days ago asking if we remember him. So funny.] We went back to the hostel following the meal and crashed.
The next morning we woke up to go see the one thing that my friend REALLY wanted to see in Japan- they were a thousand red gates- if you have ever seen Memoirs of a Geisha, she runs through them during the movie. Each gate has writing on it and it looked really cool so that was exciting that we got to go. There are definitely a few things in Kyoto that I wish we got to do, and if you anyone ever reads this for suggestions, make sure that you allot yourself a good amount of time in Kyoto because it’s a big place and there is a lot to see.
We went to Kobe from the gates since that made more sense than going to the main station. We walked around there for a little, saw some cute malls, found a post office!!! And then searched for a place where we could eat Kobe beef for lunch. We were given extremely vague directions, but eventually found it conveniently close to the ship. It was a cute little place and a delicious meal. I highly recommend it. We walked around some more after lunch and stumbled upon an internet café. If you haven’t heard about Japan’s internet cafes- they are ridiculous. You rent out this little room by the half hour that has bean bag chairs, a computer and a tv, along with a safe because some people spend the night there. I actually know people that did because it is really cheap. There are bathrooms with showers and even kitchenettes. After experiencing the internet café, we went back to the ship and called it a day. We were SO exhausted. Getting back was a little complicated- you have to take a portliner train that takes you from the station to the port, it was pretty cool.
Seeing the ship for the first time in days was interesting. I wasn’t expecting to be as excited to see it as I was, but it was like getting back home after a vacation. I guess I have adjusted better than I thought. The next few hours I showered, wrote some postcards, caught up with some friends, watched the ship leave Japan and just relaxed.
So, that was my trip to Japan. It was an amazing five days and I would definitely go back there if given the chance. My final thoughts on Japan are:
It is an extremely polite country and everyone is respectful. I love the whole country- it’s a great mix of people, architecture, and culture. People were very nice and helpful but the language barrier makes things difficult. Talking to as many people as you can is key to learning as much as possible. The best thing that I did was buy a rail pass- it made things so easy, I was able to see as many places as possible in such a short period of time and soak the whole country in. The train and subway systems are incredibly easy to use and awesome.
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