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Europe Italy

Cinque Terre: 129 Flights of Stairs

Yes, you read that correctly in the title.  129 flights of stairs.  And all of them were worth it.

I have wanted to go to Cinque Terre ever since my family did a puzzle that had a picture of the houses of Manarola.  I couldn’t imagine that such an adorable seaside village could exist in real life.  It took me a long time to learn how to pronounce it correctly, because I always wanted to use a French accent, and it was only in researching for this trip that I learned about each of the five towns.

Our train got in to Riomaggiore, which is where we were staying.  After dropping off our stuff, we explored the city center and then headed out to the other towns.  We hit all five by train, which was fairly doable in a day.  It took us pretty much the whole day, and it was somewhat tiring, but both of us agreed that we saw everything we wanted to.

After Riomaggiore, we went to Manarola, which is where the most famous pictures are from.  It is so beautiful.  It’s almost embarrassing how many pictures I have of those houses on my camera!

The third town is Corniglia, which is the only one that isn’t directly on the coast.  Instead, you have to climb a lot of stairs to get up to it.  The views were great, and it also felt way less touristy than the other villages.  Luckily, we were there in off season, but this one still felt more authentic.

Fourth up was Vernazza.  At this one, we were starting to flag a bit, so we stopped and did a wine tasting!  We had two white wines and a dessert wine.  It’s fun to be able to taste locally sourced wine.  We also picked up a bottle of the limoncello cream, which we had tried in Sorrento and absolutely loved.

The last town was Monterosso al Mare, which is the only one with a beach.  This one was a bit larger than the others, and felt less touristy as well.  We split a pizza here before heading back to our Airbnb.

This particular Airbnb was a splurge for me, as I fell in love with the views from it.  In classic fashion, I picked one with about a million stairs, not thinking about lugging our stuff up or getting back up after a long day.  We checked on our phones, and our Airbnb was 22 flights of stairs up from the ground level of Riomaggiore.  The views were worth it, though!

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Europe Italy

Traveling in Tuscany

We left Rome early so that we could catch a train to Florence, where we were based for the next two days.  After checking in to our Airbnb, we headed to the main tourist attraction, the Duomo.

We had reservations to climb the dome, which I would highly recommend!  First of all, the views are spectacular.  It gives you a clear view of Florence, and it also lets you see the inside of the church without waiting in the long line.  Plus, you get up close and personal with the frescos on the ceiling.  These featured dramatic scenes of sinners being pulled into hell.

There are a ton of stairs, and the staircases get fairly narrow at times.  I believe when I bought the tickets, it gave a warning to people who were claustrophobic.  The ticket also allowed us into all the other buildings in the church complex, although we opted to not wait in line for most of them.  We did go into the museum, which had religious items and information about the architecture of the dome.  One room had some bones from John the Baptist, so that was kind of cool.

We had a little extra time to explore Florence before we had to meet our wine and pasta tour, so we wandered around through the narrow streets.  I generally have a good sense of direction, but it was a challenge in these streets!  We got gelato and found the courtyard, where our tour guides came to pick us up.

From there, we were whisked into the Tuscan countryside.  Our first stop was a winery.  We got a quick tour of the villa, and then had a wine tasting.  There was a white and two reds followed by a dessert wine.  Unlike the other wine regions I’ve visited, it seems as though Italian wineries see the production of dessert wine as a status symbol.  It’s fairly expensive, as it uses significantly more grapes than traditional wine, but we saw it here and at the wine tasting we did in Cinque Terre.

After we had all drank wine and shipped some back to the U.S., our guides brought us back to their family villa for a pasta class.  We ended up with one of the founders of the whole operation, and she told us about how she had started the business.  They were high up on a hill, and the views from their villa were stunning.  They poured more wine and started the lesson on pasta.  It was easier to make than I expected, although I did end up breaking my egg almost immediately when we started.  Oops.  We made ravioli with cheese filling and fettuccini, and they whipped up sauces to go on both.  Once we were done making everything, we all sat down for dinner.  It was such a delicious meal!

The next morning, we left our Airbnb early to head to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.  From previous research, I knew there wasn’t much else to see in Pisa, so we just grabbed breakfast at a bakery along the way, took some kitschy pictures with the tower, and headed back to Florence for the rest of the day.  Like Stonehenge, it’s one of those monuments where I’m glad I’ve seen it, even if it isn’t all that exciting.  And after seeing it in person, I’ll admit it leans much more dramatically than I thought it did!

After Pisa, we walked back and explored more of Florence.  I had booked timed tickets at the Uffizi Gallery, so we were killing time until that.  We walked across the Ponte Vecchio, which was swarming with tourists, and walked along the river.  We tried to go around the Boboli Gardens without realizing how large they were, which meant we got a very good look at the charming side streets in that area of the city.

The Uffizi Gallery was less busy than I expected it to be, considering the crazy lines outside.  One of the coolest parts of it was walking into a room and ending up right in front of The Birth of Venus.  I also think Renaissance art is hilarious, because every person they ever painted is in awkward positions and the babies have faces like old men, so I entertained myself that way throughout the gallery.  We had an early night again, since we were getting up for another early train ride the next morning.

My main takeaway is that I would definitely love to come back and spend more time in wine country.  Florence was gorgeous as well, especially when wandering the streets that aren’t adjacent to the Duomo and the big museums.  It’s fun to get lost in the side streets as they wind through the city.

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Europe Italy

Ruins in Pompeii and Limoncello in Sorrento

You know how when you’re in school, there are events in history that aren’t that important in the relative scheme of things, but you still learn about them a bunch of times and watch videos and write papers and then you grow up and realize that no one will ever talk about that event again?  Pompeii was one of those for me.  Along with the Titanic sinking, Custer’s Last Stand, pretty much anything I ever learned about dinosaurs….  Anyway.  I still remember sitting in 7th grade social studies and watching a somewhat horrifying reenactment of Pompeii being buried in ash.

In short, it was high up on my list to go here.  We got up early to take the train from Rome to Naples, which had some amazing views of Mt. Vesuvius on the way.  From there, we switched to a regional train to get to Pompeii.  For some reason, our train compartment had a bunch of French people on it, which was nice because there weren’t any announcements about what stop we were at so I could ask around to see how close we were getting to Pompeii.  After storing our luggage, we headed over to the ruins.

The ruins were much larger than I imagined.  It’s essentially an entire city, and you can find houses, amphitheaters, a colosseum, and marketplaces.  If I’d had more time, I would have loved to go to the Archeological Museum in Naples, because that’s where most of the objects they’ve recovered are.  The ruins at Pompeii are mostly the structures themselves.  I also would have liked to go to Herculaneum, which is supposed to be better preserved.  But.  I loved seeing the ruins at Pompeii, it was so interesting to walk through a town that had once been entirely wiped out by a volcano.

When our feet got tired of walking through the ruins, we headed into Pompeii for pizza.  I tried Google maps to find a good place.  Since everything near the train station was overpriced and touristy, we picked a place that was about a 15 minute walk away and had great reviews.  We set off into Pompeii, walking through a field and down a small side street.  This took us to a market, where I asked a local where the restaurant was.  He pointed it out to us and we ended up in a truly hole-in-the-wall pizza place, Pizzeria La Bella Napoli.  It was family-run place, and it had the best pizza I ate in Italy.  We each ordered a full pizza and watched them make it in front of us, and then sat down in the restaurant.  Our total came out to 6 euro for two large pizzas.  As we ate, the father came out from the back, where he had been making dough, and tried to speak to us in Italian with his son translating.  It was an amazing experience, and one that I will absolutely cherish when I think back on our trip to Italy.

Once we had gorged ourselves on pizza and walked back to the train station, we headed down to Sorrento for the night.  It took us a while to find our hotel.  I had splurged and we had an ocean-room view, which was absolutely stunning.  I would stay there again in a heartbeat.  We tried to walk down to the sea, but there was a gate because it was still off season so we couldn’t actually get all the way down to the coast.  The below pictures were taken from our balcony.

From there we headed into the town of Sorrento.  We went into tiny shops, where they offered us tastings of limoncello, and killed time until our dinner reservation.  It was lovely, and I would have loved to spend a little more time in Sorrento.

I had booked dinner at La Basilica Sorrento, and when we got there, we were one of two tables in the restaurant.  This is what happens in Italy if you go to dinner at what would be a normal time in America.  We both tried tasting menus, so I tried the vegetarian one and Megan got the seafood one.  I’m usually not adventurous with food, but it paid off here.

My meal was: a half bottle of red wine, a piece of cheese pizza, a mozzarella and tomato salad, a pesto zucchini pasta course, a parmesan eggplant dish that tasted mostly like cheese, and a very strong rum-soaked cake.  It was delicious, and the owner of the restaurant kept coming out to make sure we liked our food.  The pesto zucchini course was my favorite.  All in all, a great day for eating.  We headed back to Rome the next day to visit the Vatican, but I would love to come back to this area and explore more.

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Europe Italy Vatican City

When In Rome….

After my night at the IceHotel, I flew down to Stockholm and then took another flight from Stockholm down to Rome.  While flying over the entirety of Europe, I got to see the Alps from the plane, which was a nice bonus.  I met my cousin Megan in the airport, and then we took the train together into the city.

After checking into our hostel, we walked over to go see the Colosseum!  It’s a classic symbol of Rome, and it’s one of the wonders of the world.  It was pretty magnificent to see it in person.  We walked through a park and turned a corner, and it was suddenly there, right at the bottom of the hill.  After marveling and taking a few pictures, we headed over to a wine and cheese bar I had found, Beppe e i suoi formaggi.  We were there at a weird time so it was quiet, and we each drank some wine and tried a wide variety of cheeses.  It was a fairly early night, because both of us had long days on planes and we were getting up early the next day for Pompeii and Sorrento.

We got back to Rome after our train back from Naples on Saturday.  From there, we headed over to Pizzarium, which was in a lovely area of the city near the Vatican.  It kept showing up on lists of good restaurants in Rome, so I wanted to try the pizza there.  It was delicious, although it wasn’t the best I had in Italy – see my post in Pompeii & Sorrento for that story.  We headed over to check in for our tour of the Vatican, and ended up walking around that area for a while since we were early.

When our tour started, we began by walking down the main road toward St. Peter’s Basilica.  There’s a line on the cobblestones that marks the barrier between Italy and Vatican City, which is technically a separate country.  Our tour guide told us a bit about the history and architecture of Vatican City, and spoke about the semi circle of columns that surrounds the main square.  One of the funniest moments was when she asked a child in our group what that was supposed to represent.  The child loudly said, “A trap!” and our tour guide was horrified, because the answer she was going for was “an embrace.”

We headed over to the Vatican Museums, which were very busy.  We had to go on the Saturday, because they’re closed on Sundays.  We waited in line for a long time to go through the metal detector, and then our guide took us quickly through the museums.  A lot of it was sculptures and artwork about the history of Christianity.  There were some gorgeous mosaics.  My favorite room was the map room, which had a stunning intricate ceiling and old maps of Italy and Europe along the walls.  From there we went to the Sistine Chapel, which was also beautiful.  They wanted absolute silence here, although their attempts were undercut by the fact that someone kept coming over the loudspeaker and shushing everyone.  I would LOVE to see how much money the Catholic Church actually has.

Once we left the Sistine Chapel, we took a shortcut over to St. Peter’s Basilica.  It’s a massive structure, with high ceilings and dramatic columns.  Once we had finished looking around, we headed back to our hostel for the night.

The next morning, we tried a bakery I had found online that was near our hostel.  Pasticceria Regoli, which was delicious.  We ate way too many pastries and then headed down to the Colosseum for our tour of that.  We waited forever in the line for security, and then felt a bit rushed through the Colosseum itself, which was a shame.

Once we had left, we headed over to the Roman Forum, which is apparently the second largest archeological site in the world (after Pompeii).  It had the ruins of the buildings from Ancient Rome, and our guide pointed out some of the places where people had governed and worshipped.  The best part of the Forum for me was the hill where we had magnificent views of Rome.

From there, we did a quick tour of the other main sights of Rome.  We started at Piazza Navona, then up to the Pantheon.  Because it was Palm Sunday, the Pantheon was free to enter, which was cool.  It was nice that everything was free, but it meant the crowds were insanely busy for most of our time in Rome.  From there we went to Trevi Fountain, where we both threw in some coins, and we finished out our tour at the Spanish Steps.  That area was swarming with people, so we broke away from the crowd and got some gelato.

From there, we made our way back to our area and had an early night, because we had another early morning planned.  It was a whirlwind trip to Rome, but I think we managed to see most of the main attractions and try a lot of good food.  Rome wasn’t my favorite of the cities we visited in Italy, but that was mostly the crowds in every major area – maybe if we hadn’t gone the week before Easter, I would have had a much more favorable impression of the city.  That said, it was still amazing to see places I’ve heard about and imagined for years, and it was a great way to start out our trip.

Categories
Europe Sweden

A Night in the IceHotel

The Icehotel was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had!  We flew up in the morning to stay there for a single night.  The airport is tiny, with one runway surrounded by snow and ice.

Once we had transferred to the hotel itself, we checked in and started exploring.  We were spending a night in one of the ice rooms, although it’s possible to stay longer and spend nights in warm rooms as well.  They have cabins and a main lodge, as well as two separate ice structures.  During the day, all the ice rooms are open to the public so that everyone can see the incredible snow and ice sculptures.

There’s a portion that’s “IceHotel 365,” which is ice rooms inside a building that are available year round and the Ice Bar.  Then there’s another ice structure that’s just available during the winter.  They build it in October or November and then it melts down in April.  For this one, they invite anyone to submit ideas for rooms, regardless of whether they’re artists or have ever worked with snow or ice before.  From the submissions, they pick the best and invite those people up there to design the rooms.  They change every year in what’s essentially a temporary museum of ice, which is so cool!  We stayed in a standard room, not an art room, but I think I’d like to come back and splurge for one of the art ones.

After we were done looking through rooms, we borrowed some snow suits from the hotel so that we could walk around.  They let us borrow boots, mittens, hats, and full body zip up snow suits, which kept us nice and warm.  It wasn’t as cold as I expected – I think the temperatures were around 15 degrees for most of the time we were there.

There are tons of activities available up there as well.  We saw people go by on a dog sled, which is still one of my bucket list goals, but there are options to bobsled, take a reindeer-drawn sleigh, ride on horseback, and try to see the Northern Lights.  Although we’d hoped we might see them while we were there, it started snowing shortly after the sun set.  We didn’t do any of the activities since we weren’t there for long, but I’d love to go back and try some of these out.

We had a late dinner reservation, so we went to the Ice Bar beforehand for a drink.  It’s been a dream of mine to go to an ice bar for a long time.  Sarah and I tried to go to one in Helsinki, but it had closed down.  It was worth waiting for, though, because I got to drink out of an ice glass and it was amazing.  We talked around our ice table until it was time to go to our dinner reservation.

Dinner was at the cheaper of the two options, which was about a 20 minute walk from the hotel itself down the only road in Kiruna.  We initially passed it and had to backtrack, since it was in a section that looked residential.  We had a great meal over candlelight and enjoyed our last night traveling together, since the next morning I had an early flight to Rome and Anna and Laurel were heading to Copenhagen.

Once dinner was over, we headed back to our room.  They had given us orientation earlier.  We got down to our base layers, locked everything into our locker, and took heavy sleeping bags into our room to zip ourselves up for the night.  In the sleeping bag, I felt pretty toasty.  Because the room itself is so cold, they don’t recommend bringing in electronics, so they do wakeup calls for everyone.  Since my flight was so early, I slept fairly poorly and got anxious, imagining I would miss my flight, so I ended up going back to the lodge earlier than I needed to and getting coffee and breakfast.  I had arranged a transfer back to the airport, and when I got there, I don’t think there were any other passengers there.  I had a flight to Stockholm and then a second flight from Stockholm to Rome, which was a long day of travel!  But it was so worth it to get up to the IceHotel – it was an otherworldly experience, and I want to go back someday.

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Europe Sweden

Stockholm: Viking Ships and Singing Along to ABBA

I sometimes think about what it would be like if I had gone to DIS Stockholm instead of Copenhagen.  It wasn’t an option when I was applying for study abroad, but it was opened right after, and they had a Forensic Psychology class so I likely would have considered it.  Anyway.  I liked Stockholm, it was very nice.

We visited the Stockholm public library, which I had seen on some sort of social media on a list of cool libraries.  We tried a couple cafés that Anna and Laurel had found as well.  My favorite place we tried was a place on Gamla Stan that was down in a basement.  There were candles lining the stairs, and it was so cozy.  Anna and I also had wine at a swanky bar near our hostel, which was nice.  It was good to catch up with her, since she’s currently living in Scotland.

We also explored the main shopping street and visited the island where all the museums are.  The first one we went to was the Vasa Museum, which is where they excavated a Viking ship and reassembled it in the museum.  It was massive, with intricate carvings on the bow.  There were a number of exhibits on what life was like in that era, and they even had skeletons they recovered from the wreck that told them more about the types of people on the ship.  It was pretty incredible.

From there, we went through a park, which was covered in snow and ice, and worked our way over to the ABBA Museum.  We had a fantastic time there.  It started with a room full of guitars from famous musicians, where Anna and Laurel played several rounds of Guitar Hero.  Then we went into the ABBA portion, which started with a hype video.  I think whoever edited the video was on acid mixed with cocaine, because it was very fast-paced clips of various ABBA music videos, but I did leave it wanting to go watch all of their old music videos.  The museum was interactive, so there were areas where we could sing in a mock sound booth and pretend to mix the audio for their tracks.  The best part was the one where you can take a selfie and then it photoshops your head on their body, and then you dance around and it makes it look as though you are dancing around on the screen in an ABBA costume.  The program didn’t work that well, and we ended up laughing so hard we were all in tears by the end of it.  It was amazing.

From there, we took a ferry back to Gamla Stan and spent some more time wandering the narrow streets.  It’s a beautiful area, and it was a nice place to end our time in Stockholm.  We had a casual night drinking wine and eating dinner back at our hostel before heading up to Kiruna.

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Europe Sweden

Uppsala: Viking Burial Mounds and Circus-themed Dining

I recently got back from a two week trip to Europe!  Sweden was the first stop, where I met up with a few of my friends from high school.  The flight to Europe went smoothly, and I ended up running into Anna in the airport in Amsterdam.  For our first whole day in Sweden, we headed out to Uppsala, which is a town about 40 minutes outside of Stockholm.

Our first stop was Gamla Uppsala, which is a site of Viking burial mounds.  We took a bus outside of town and started at the museum, where we learned about the lifestyle of Vikings.  Apparently, it was used as early as the 3rd and 4th centuries, and every 9 years the Vikings used to sacrifice people in this area.  We walked out to the burial mounds themselves and climbed most of the way up them until it got too icy to keep going.

From there, we took the bus back to town and wandered around Uppsala, stopping at the cathedral and walking around the entire city center.  We stopped for dinner at a circus-themed app-based tapas restaurant, which was a strange dining experience.  When we walked in, they made sure that we had downloaded the app and then gave us popcorn at the table before leaving us alone to use the app for the rest of dinner.  It was rather nice.  Afterward, we walked back through the city to try to find the perfect picture angle that Anna had found online before heading back to Stockholm for the evening.  Overall, it was a great day trip from Stockholm, and I would recommend visiting!

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North America United States

San Antonio: Everything’s Bigger in Texas, Except the Alamo

This year’s family trip was to San Antonio!  We timed it to happen over my birthday.  I haven’t celebrated two birthdays in the same place for the last five years, which I’m thinking I might try to keep up.  Makes it a little more exciting.

My parents and I drove down through Amarillo.  Full disclosure, I had only ever been to Texas for a few hours as we drove through El Paso, and my perception of that area was… less than favorable.  So I was excited to actually get the chance to see some of Texas.
Amarillo was small and cute.  We stayed at the edge of town, near The Big Texan Steak Ranch.  For miles, we saw billboard after billboard advertising their 72 oz steak challenge, and even though we laughed at it, it turned out to be the most convenient decent restaurant.
Words cannot fully describe this restaurant.  First of all, they had more hunting trophies than the average taxidermy shop, including a large stuffed bear next to the entryway.  In the lobby, there were arcade-style games, including one of those carnival shooting games where the targets were incredibly realistic skeletons posed in a fake saloon.  As we were led to our table, we saw rows and rows of family-style seating, where fiddlers were asking people for song requests and serenading them.
Midway through our food, there was announcement that two guys had signed up for the 72 oz steak challenge.  The dining room contained a raised platform in the center, with a table that seats six and corresponding digital clocks up on the wall.  The two men sat at the table as the announcer encouraged everyone to come see how much food they had signed up to eat.  The steak covered the plates completely, and they had to finish that along with four sides.  The amount of food still makes my stomach churn when I think about it.  When we left, it was about halfway through the time limit and one of them had nearly finished his plate of meat.
The next morning, we headed to Alibates Flint Quarries.  They had an assortment of arrowheads and information about the Native Americans who had lived in Texas.  It was relatively deserted, as it usually is on a weekday morning at national parks in the middle of nowhere.  After a quick stop there, we headed toward Austin for our next hotel.  We ended up at a very hipster restaurant for dinner, the kind where our waiter went on a lengthy explanation of their farm to table situation.  My favorite anecdote was about the local farm named Animal Farm, intentionally named for the Orwellian novel.  Seems like an odd choice of namesake, personally.
While we sadly did not have time to go into the city and check out downtown Austin, we did go to one of the vineyards in their wine country.  After stopping at Lyndon Johnson’s house and the surrounding national park, we drove out to a winery that had a high ranking on Google reviews.  As it was around 10am on a Tuesday, we were the only people there.  It was awesome.  The guy who worked there explained all about the various types of wine.  One of the coolest parts was that we got to try two variations of a moscato, one that was aged in an oak barrel and the other that was  aged in a stainless steel vineyard, and it was clear that they had developed very distinct tastes with that difference.
After that pleasant morning, we headed down to San Antonio to pick up Grandma and find our hotel.  We stayed on the Riverwalk, which was lovely.  The weather was hot in that lazy summer afternoon way, and we would stroll around and examine the different restaurants along the way.  We ate a lot of food on the Riverwalk as well.  Mexican, BBQ, Italian, an Irish pub… they’ve got a surprisingly wide selection.

 

Beyond the Riverwalk, San Antonio’s primary claim to fame is the Alamo.  I’ll admit, I expected it to be a lot larger… maybe it’s just because all the pictures I saw were taken from the ground, with no other buildings in the frame.
We also went to the missions, which are four ruins of churches maintained by the National Park Service.  They had plenty of information on the Spanish quest to convert everyone to Catholicism, an interesting yet sad period of Texan history.  I must say, Catholics definitely know how to build some magnificent churches, as they were beautiful even in ruin.
It was great to finally see Texas, although my biggest regret would be that we didn’t get to the center of Austin.  It was a fun state to road trip through, since there are lots of small towns on the way down.  All in all, a wonderful way to celebrate my birthday!
Categories
Asia Japan

Kyoto: Temple (And Tourist) Overload

Before coming to Kyoto, I knew approximately two things about it.  The first was that it had about a million temples, and the second was that it’s on almost every list ever for “most beautiful cities in the world.”

Real talk.  Kyoto itself is not beautiful.  The buildings are boxy.  The surrounding areas of Kyoto are beautiful, but do not expect it to look like the pictures on Google images right when you get off the train.  That is not what most of Kyoto looks like.  Most of Kyoto looks like the two pictures above this paragraph.  I loved my time in Kyoto and saw some wonderful things, but my expectations were way off when I got there.  Mostly because everyone keeps telling me how beautiful it is.

My first day was sort of a walking tour of temples I wanted to go to that were all reasonably close together according to Google maps.  Granted, their walking time doesn’t add the temperature or humidity to their calculations, which is something I should think about next time I’m putting together my own walking tour…. I started at Sanjusangen-do.  The distinguishing feature is one thousand life-sized statues, which is amazing.  They don’t let you take pictures inside, but I enjoyed my time there thoroughly and would highly recommend it.  It wasn’t too crowded when I went.

From there, I walked to Kiyomizu-dera.  On the way, I actually ran into a friend from college and his girlfriend, which I consider to be the least likely thing that’s ever happened to me.  Seriously, what are the chances?   The walk was up this massive hill, and I had to stop for water at one of the many vending machines.  Kiyomizu-dera is one of the most famous temples, although personally I thought it was a bit overrated.  Granted, the veranda was under construction, so that did put a damper on it.  But there were also tons of tourists, as you can see from the picture, and I’m not sure it was significantly cooler than any other temple I saw.

I spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the center of Kyoto, including the Nishiki Market, which is cool.  It was nice to see that part of the city, since the rest of my time was mostly spent going to specific temples in what would be the suburbs of any other city.

The next morning I did a half day tour that took me to a couple different temples, including one that’s a lot harder to get to on public transit.  Of course, I was actually late to meet the tour group because I got lost trying to find the meeting place.  I ended up showing the address to a random Japanese girl, who grabbed my hand and led me to the place I was supposed to go.  Since I had missed the bus, the tour company put me on a taxi and had their colleagues meet me out front.  We started with Nijo Castle, which was a dark horse favorite in Kyoto.  It was where the ruler of Kyoto used to live, and it has what they call “nightingale floors” that were designed to make noise to warn people about intruders.  When people are walking on it, it legitimately sounds like a bird singing, which is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  They also had stunning gates as part of the defense walls.  Unfortunately, I could not take pictures inside.

We went to Kinkaku-ji next, which is the Golden Temple.  It is covered with gold leaf, so it is fairly stunning.  This one was another place with a million tourists.  Worth seeing, but mostly get in, take a picture, and get out.  Our third stop was the Imperial Palace, which is where the emperor used to stay when he came to Kyoto.  Now, according to our tour guide, he just stays in a hotel.  But it looked cool and official, and the gardens surrounding it were beautiful.  The tour dropped me off back at Kyoto station, and this was the afternoon where I went to Nara.

The next morning was all about gardens!  I went to the bamboo forest first, which I would highly recommend.  Especially in the morning when no one else is there, because tourists are the worst.  Yes, I see the irony.  I stopped in Tenryu-ji, which is known for having a great zen garden.  While I was there, the hydrangeas were blooming.

After that, I went to the moss garden, Saiho-ji.  I got interested in this one when I read that they have an application process to protect the moss.  To get there, I was going to take a bus.  I tried to figure out the bus routes, but got very confused.  In fact, I looked so confused that a taxi drove past me, stopped, reversed, and opened the door for me.  So I took the taxi.  They’re very nice in Japan.  In fact, while I did take a bus successfully later during this trip, I’d recommend those over walking or taking buses to certain temples.  Anyway.  The moss garden was amazing.  My parents were skeptical when I told them I was going to a moss garden, but it felt like walking through a fairy tale.  Before seeing the moss, they required everyone to participate in a religious ritual.  For that, I sat in a room while everyone around me chanted in Japanese.  Quite the experience, let me tell you.

After I finished at the garden, I went to one of the most famous places in Kyoto.  Fushimi Inari Taisha.  It’s like a hallway of red gates that goes up a small mountain in the southeast part of Kyoto.  When I got there, there were about a bazillion tourists.  I ended up hiking about halfway up the mountain just to get to an area where I felt more alone.  Once I got out of the tourist throng, though, I loved it.  One of the coolest parts of Kyoto for sure.  I thought about climbing the whole mountain, but the humidity was brutal.  Definitely a great way to close out my time in Kyoto!

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Asia Japan

Himeji-jo, Nara, and Osaka

So the theme of this post is day trips from Kyoto.  It won’t quite be in order, but I want to keep the Kyoto pictures together and there are so many of those.

First is Himeji-jo, which is on the map because it has an awesome castle.  After the bombing of WW2, Japan only has 12 original castles left, and this is one of them.  I went on the way between Hiroshima and Kyoto, pausing to store my luggage in a locker in the train station and walking through the town to get to the castle.  According to the online travel guides, this castle gets insanely busy during cherry blossom season, so I guess there are a few advantages to going in the off season.

First of all, I would like to note that Himeji-jo has very steep and narrow stairs.  You can climb all the way to the top, which gives lovely views of the surrounding area.  The inside has all been restored, and my favorite part is the samurai sword holders.  I love going in castles and imagining what life was like back then for the rich people.  Obviously it sucked for everyone else, but the royalty was usually doing pretty well.  Himeji-jo is a UNESCO site.  I also had a delicious ice cream waffle sandwich in the town of Himeji, so I have fond memories of it.

On my second day in Kyoto, I spent the afternoon in Nara.  Nara is mostly known for having a giant Buddha statue and a lot of deer wandering around the city center, and it’s about 40 minutes outside of Kyoto.  When I was there, the giant Buddha statue temple was closed.  But there were a lot of deer.  So I mostly just sat in the main park and watched deer chase around children who had the audacity to try to feed them.

On my last day in Japan, I went to Osaka.  It’s the second largest city, and often people fly to that airport when they’re just planning on going to Kyoto.  I think the most visited part is Universal Studios, but I’ve promised my mom that we’ll go together in Orlando, so I skipped that.  Instead, I started at Osaka castle.  Then I headed through an area in the south, called Shinsekai, which was very loud and busy.  A big departure from everywhere else I saw in Osaka.

The actual reason I went to that area was to go to Spa World.  A thing that everyone tells you to do in Japan is go to an onsen, which is a hot spring bath.  The only time I got out in the country was to go to islands, and I had other priorities for the most part, but I figured it could be fun to check that out in Osaka.  Why go to a real onsen when you can go to a kitschy fake version?  Anyway.  One of the things that I thought was interesting about the public baths is that you are absolutely not allowed in if you have any tattoos, because that’s a yakuza thing (they’re the Japanese Mafia) and so the internet is filled with stories of foreigners being kicked out of public baths for that reason.  Spa World was fun, and surprisingly relaxing once I got over the awkwardness of being naked around lots of strangers and figuring out what I was supposed to do.  The baths were European-themed, with sections for Greece and Italy and Finland and Spain.  There were saunas, cold baths, hot baths, a waterfall, and even a milk bath.  I’m 100% sure I was the only foreigner there that day.  How’s that for culture?

Osaka is also known for its aquarium.  When I was done at Spa World, I headed over there.  The crown jewel is that they have two whale sharks, which I didn’t realize was super impressive until I told a friend and she freaked out about it.  If you’ve ever wondered how large whale sharks are, the answer would be really freaking big.  When I was done at the aquarium, it started to rain again, so that was all I did in Osaka.

Bonus round: the above photo is from the train ride from Kyoto back to the Tokyo airport.  I was reading, and I looked up and Mount Fuji was there, rising above the clouds.  I took a bunch of quick pictures on my phone, and I think this one is the best.  I was very excited I got a good look at it, since it’s iconic.