So many things to do in so little time.
Perfect beginning for our voyage.
The MV Explorer arrived on Monday February 16th
to Yokohama, in the northeast of Japan. From the port we took a bus to the
train station; we were a group of seven SAS students and a Japanese friend,
Ryo. The bus turned off the engine every time we were waiting at a streetlight,
apparently it saves a lot of energy. I am glad we were with Ryo because taking
the train from Yokohama to Tokyo was not easy. In Tokyo, we got off the train
and walked to our hostel to leave our bags. Then we went to a round Sushi place
for lunch and we spent less than thousand Yen per person (less than 10USD) and
a couple of blocks away was the Senso-ji temple, which was very nice at day and
at night. There were a lot of shops and we had green tea ice cream. We walked
around for a while, and then took the train to Shibuya. Right outside of the
station is the famous Shibuya intersection. The streets are completely crowded
with tall buildings, lots of screens, and advertising of many colors. We wanted
to go to a Karaoke so our Japanese friend took us to Karaoke Kan. We sang for
half an hour and tried Sake. On our way back to the hostel, at Shibuya station,
we ate some really good green tea pancakes with soybean powder filling. Our hostel had technological toilets with lots of buttons, the seats are warm, and some of them play music. The best thing is that they have a sink on top of it so the water we use to wash our hands is then reused to fill up the tank of the toilet. I love Japanese mentality in this kind of things. They think of everything and it is for the best in many aspects.
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| Tokyo |
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| Senso-ji Temple- Tokyo |
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| Shibuya Intersection- Tokyo |
The next day we woke up at 5am to go to the fish market. We took the train to Tsujiki and walked through the market for hours. Around 9am we had fresh fish for breakfast: tuna, salmon, rice, and an omelet. We also tried sea urchin, which was good, very tender, and more expensive. Then we went to the Tokyo tower, but we did not go up. A few blocks away there was a temple that was open because there was a ceremony, so we watched for a while. And then we went to the Imperial Palace, but we could not go inside because it was necessary to make reservations in advance. Some of the guys went back to Yokohama and Gabi, Isa and I went back to the hostel. We used the computer at the hostel to book the hostels for Hiroshima and Kyoto. At night we took the train from Asakusabachi station to Hinjuku, another very colorful neighborhood. We had dinner and crepes, and we went back to Shibuya train station just to buy more green tea pancakes.
Taking the train or subway is not hard. We soon learned the name of a lot of stations and knew how to get to many places. Even when someone buys the wrong ticket, it is super easy to go to the security guy, show him them ticket, and pay the missing amount. Barely anyone speaks English, but they are very nice and willing to help at any time.
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| Beautiful Hakone with lots of snow |
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| Hakone |
On day 3, February 28th we moved a
lot from place to place. We left the hostel at 7am and headed to Hakone. To get
there we took train, bullet train, slow train, cable car, and bus, a total of 7
trips to get to Owakudani station. We had pancakes and hot milk tea from the
vending machines for breakfast. At Owakudani the view was beautiful and it was
snowing a lot. The mountains looked very pretty. We hiked for a while, ate
hard-boiled eggs with black crust, and black vanilla ice cream. Then we headed
back to the train station by bus, and took the bullet train to Hiroshima. At Hiroshima
we took the Tram (electrical buses system) and we went to the hostel. The
hostel had the typical Japanese style “beds” which are mattresses we set up on
the tatami floor and were very comfortable. We went out to eat Okonomiyaki, or “Japanese pizza.”
It was made with a thin
crepe, cabbage, noodles, an egg, and topped with onions. It was Y980 (about
$8.5USD) per person, the most expensive meal so far, but when we were going to
pay the waitress, a guy that was sitting next to us said he would pay for our
meal. He insisted and he did, even though he did not speak any English nor was trying to talk to us.  |
| Miyajima Island. Floating Torii Gate. |
The next day we also woke up early, took the tram to the Ferry station and went to Miyajima Island. It was all really fast, we were almost running through all the stations, and at the island we walked fast to the floating Tori Gate and went back to take the ferry to go to the train station. The island is very pretty; it has a lot of deers and shops. Then we went to the Peace Park and entered the Peace Museum, which is very overwhelming; we saw the A-bomb dome, and went to the station to take the train to Kyoto.
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| Fushimi Inari- Kyoto |
At Kyoto’s train station we met Andela, who had
been with us in Tokyo, and went together to our hostel. We had Okonomiyaki
again but it was different, made out of potatoes. The next day we went first to
the Kinkakuji Temple, or Golden Pavillion (¥400). It was snowing when we left
the hostel and raining all morning. The temple was very pretty, it is next to a
lake, and the place is full of trees. Even though it was raining we walked
around, had some green tea Kit Kats, some triangle rice things made with tea
and filled with cinnamon, and headed back to the bus station. We went to the
Philosophers Path and started with the Ginkakuji Temple, the Silver Pavillion
(¥500). This one has a lake too and lots of vegetation. Then we walked along
the path and saw more small temples and shrines. We took the bus again to the
train station and we ended up in a very small restaurant with only one table
for four people sitting down in the tatami floor. Then we took the train to
Fujimi Inari. It had stopped raining and it was around 4pm. There was no
entrance fee and the entrance had big pillars. Then the orange shrines path
start. There are more than a thousand. We started hiking and the sun was going
down already. After half an hour we were thinking of going back but we met the
Geography professor, with his wife and three kids, and we hiked up the whole
path altogether. By the time we came down, the sun had gone down it was very
scary. The place does not have lights and is ancient with lots of wood and rock
shrines and wolfs statues. We headed back to the hostel and on our way there we
went to a sushi restaurant, where we ate lots of Temaki.
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| Bamboo Forest- Kyoto |
On Saturday, the last day, we went to the
Bamboo forest in the morning. We traveled by train and when we got there we
walked for about two hours. It was snowing a lot although we did not notice it until we got out of the forest because it is thick. It was also very windy and the bamboo made beautiful noises. It was a very peaceful morning. Finally, we headed back to Tokyo station, and took the
train to Kobe. Once there we met with a group of SAS students and we took the
metro together back to the port where the MV Explorer was.
