Welcome to Japan

Our trip to Japan was unlike any other we've taken.  Usually on our travels we tend to do one activity a day, and then spend the rest of the time eating, drinking and relaxing.  With Japan, however, there was so much to do and see that we were on the go from early morning to late evening, walking 12-15km per day - no small feat considering it was close to 90* and humid for most of our trip.

As an overview - we spent 2 days in Tokyo, a week in Kyoto, a night in the Japanese Alps, and then headed back to Tokyo for another 2 nights before flying back to Auckland.

Welcome to Tokyo!

Rather than organising our trip by day, I have sorted our pictures by activity. To start, I have an overview of some bits and pieces and observations. At some point I will put together a separate album with some more pictures from our trip and post a link, so be on the lookout for that!

Cultural Activities

Sumo

Our first day in Tokyo we went to a sumo tournament. The day starts at 8am, but the big guys don't start wrestling until later in the day, so we showed up around 2pm.  To be honest, it's a lot more ceremony than it is wrestling, but these guys are awe-inspiring!

Clockwise from top left: Grabbing onto your opponent's muwashi is completely allowed; the Ryogoku sumo arena seats 10,000 people; each division gathers in a circle before their wrestling begins; before the final division the yokozuna, or grand champion, showed off his strength; the beer girls had mini keg backpacks - they need those in the US!

Geisha

Our first day in Kyoto we attended the Kamogawa Odori Geisha Dances in the Ponto-cho district. It was every bit as spectacular as you'd expect, and even more beautiful. Ponto-cho ended up being my favourite place in Japan, and we returned a few times to check out the nightlife action and hopefully spot some geishas walking around (we saw one).

Top: Ponto-cho during the day and at night. Each red lantern is a restaurant. Ponto-cho is a narrow laneway wide enough for 2-3 people. It's delightfully charming and feels like you've stepped back in time. Below: The tea ceremony before the show and the main event!

Zen Meditation

Our final night in Kyoto we spent the night in a Buddhist Temple, Shunko-in. It's one of the only temples in Kyoto that offers a zen meditation session in English, so we had to partake!

The beautiful Shunko-in Temple. The bottom right picture is my view while meditating. I've never meditated with my eyes opened before, so it was a new experience. The best part about staying at the temple was getting to wander around the mostly deserted temple complex at night!

Arishiyama Monkey Park

Monkey park!

Observations

Lodging

We stayed in a range of lodging types. The first place we stayed in Tokyo seemed small until we got to our private hostel room in Kyoto, which we were stuck in for 5 nights!  If one person wanted to open a suitcase, the other person had to be on the bed or in the bathroom. We also stayed in a traditional Japanese ryokan in the Alps, a buddhist temple and finally at the oh-so-luxurious Park Hyatt on our last night in Tokyo (thanks again D&L!).

  

The top left picture is not our hostel - it was even smaller than that.  As pictured in the top right, every hotel (even the hostel) provided robes and slippers, and almost all of them had vending machine beer. Not sure how they police that! The bottom left shows our room at the ryokan in the Alps (the bedding is in the closet) and the bottom right is our temple.  These places felt downright spacious after our hostel!  

Getting Around

We bought JR Rail Passes, which allowed us to go just about anywhere in the country. We rode the Shinkansen (bullet train) a few times, which was a bucket list item of Rob's. A lot of the public transportation signs are in Japanese, but with the help of google maps, we had no problems getting around.

We also saw a ton of people on bicycles - some of them all on the same bicycle. There were a lot of women pedaling around with 1-2 children on their bikes.  Despite the heat, everyone was covered up completely - hands and all.

Clockwise from top left: The Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto; Mt Fuji out the window; some of the cars are women only - we found this out the hard way when we got into one of them and noticed everyone glaring at Rob; bike parking!

Bare necessities

No commentary on Japan would be complete without talking about the bathroom situation. Japan is world famous for having some of the most advanced toilet technology in the world, and it's a well-deserved reputation. Nearly every public restroom had "shower toilets" with heated seats and other such luxuries as child seats, bathroom slippers and noise machines. However, every bathroom also had a "women's urinal"  - even the fancy ones!  I'd seen these before in other countries, but wasn't expecting them here.

Another huge part of Japanese culture is onsen, which are hot springs or modern public baths. These are kind of like spas, but for the entire family. Although they have not been historically, the majority of modern onsen are segregated by gender, which is okay by me. You are not allowed to wear anything into the baths (not even a bathing suit).

The onsen we went to in Arashiyama is a "super onsen," which means it had many different types of baths, masseuses and a restaurant.  This was in the middle of our trip and we were sore and tired, so we spent an entire evening there. We treated ourselves to (fully clothed) foot massages and a huge feast for dinner, then headed back to soak in our separate baths. Before entering, you have to wash your entire body at a little shower stand (some people also wash their hair), and then you're free to move around. 

At first I was a little intimidated and nervous about being so naked in front of so many strangers, but my nerves dissipated quickly. There were a lot of women there - skinny, fat, old, young and even one walking with a cane - but there didn't seem to be any judgement. I'm not sure that I'm ready to climb into a small bathtub naked with a close friend (like I saw two women doing), but if they had anything like onsen in Western culture, I'd be a full time member!

Top left: The entrance to our onsen, the happiest place on Earth. Bottom right: A women's urinal, also known as a "squatty potty"