So, I put some thought into things and I have to confess that having been bored by other peoples' vacation slideshows (some reading this will know exactly who I mean), I've decided not to get too deep in the blow by blow description of things. I think I drone on enough to begin with. Instead, I'm just going to give a few generalized impressions of my time in Japan.
The three places I visited were Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka. They're pretty close to one another and linked rather thoroughly by a train system which, as I've stated before, is startlingly easy to navigate. Amy and I only had a partial free day in Nagoya which we had the good fortune to spend with Daarken and Kat. There we got to see a cool temple, as well as a bit of the city's castle. Amazing stuff, really.
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Nagoya as seen from our hotel.
©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
After Nagoya, it was off to Kyoto which is a strange and wonderful place and where we spent the majority of the next week. Kyoto boasts over 1400 temples and shrines and is widely considered to be Japan's cultural heart. It has pockets of old Japan dispersed throughout the city which, aside from the train station and the Kyoto tower is not particularly tall or built up. In fact, it feels in many ways rather like the city itself is only now just starting to be brought into the modern world.
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
A rather fun little exercise in Kyoto is to try and find a temple or shrine that was not destroyed in a fire and rebuilt at least once. If there are any, I don't believe we visited any of them. It seems like pretty much every one of them had been as recently rebuilt as the 1800's, though their locations have remained the same for centuries.
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
Finally, there was Osaka, in which we spent a day. The first thing we did was went to the aquarium which contains a whale shark. A real, live whale shark. Pretty sure that'll be the only time I ever see one, and I'm still amazed by it. After that we spent some time ambling about the city, saw its castle and eventually wondered into Osaka's seemingly endless shopping district, which felt a lot like a mishmash of the Jersey Shore and Las Vegas, with a little Greenwich Village and mid-town Manhattan thrown in for good measure. It's kind of something you have to see to believe, really.
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| ©Steven Belledin |
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Osaka Castle
©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
Overall, I have to say that I was pretty blown away by Japan. Sure we only saw a little slice of it, but it was an impressive slice. The food was excellent, the people amazingly gracious and helpful, and the sights unlike anything I had ever seen before. If for any reason you're intimidated as I was by the language barrier, I highly recommend you reconsider. The benefits of a trip to Japan will be worth it. I avoided the idea of going there for more than a decade and now that I've gone, I already look forward to returning.
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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| ©Amy Belledin |
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