2014

One day in two cities…

23/03/2014 By: SanDaan

Today we woke up in the ANA Crowne Plaza hotel in Kyoto. I opened the curtains and saw that the sun was shining and I had a wonderful view over the Nijõ Castle at the other side of the road which we were going to visit today.

After we showered and packed our suitcases we went downstairs to the breakfast buffet. Because we are IHG Platinum members we got a 500¥ per person discount. The breakfast was delicious with both Western and Japanese food.

Next thing was visiting the Nijõ Castle. This castle is, like almost everything else in Kyoto, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We first visited the Ninomaru Palace and so we had to take our shoes of. On our socks we walked through the palace which is famous for its wall paintings and the Nightingale Floors. Those protected the occupants from sneak attacks and assassins, because the floors squeak like birds when anyone walks on them. This building has a lot of chambers which were all used for different purposes.

As we left the Ninomaru Palace we took a walk through the gardens, the Ninomaru garden and the Seiryū garden. We also saw some nice cherry blossoms. It must be beautiful when all the cherry blossoms are out.

At about 11:00 it was time for us to go back to the hotel. During our walk to the hotel we found a geocache almost in front of the entrance of our hotel. Our second find in Kyoto. At 11:35 we took the hotels shuttle bus to Kyoto station. We arrived there about one hour before our Shinkansen departed so we had a little time to buy something for lunch. We bought sushi, some drinks and sweets for in the Shinkansen and then headed for track 13 where our train would depart.

Exactly at 12:52 the Shinkansen left Kyoto station and after 350 km, 3 stops in Osaka, Kobe and Okayama and 1 hour and 39 minutes later we arrived at Hiroshima Station. We took a taxi to our hotel, which is the ANA Crowne Plaza Hiroshima. After 20 minutes we were checked-in and the lady from the hotel was bringing us to our room which is on the 20th floor and we have a view over the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. We facetimed with Moniek, Hugo and Jop before we left the hotel to visit the Peace Park.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is only a 10-minute walk away from our hotel.we also found another geocache on our way to the park. This park is “dedicated to the legacy of Hiroshima as the first city in the world to suffer a nuclear attack, and to the memories of the bomb’s direct and indirect victims”. I don’t think this needs. Further explanation because everyone what happened in Hiroshima. The park was really impressive.

The only building which is remained after the bombing is called the A-Bomb Dome. It is the building closest to the hypocenter of the nuclear bomb. The A-Bomb Dime is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Park contains a lot of bigger and smaller memorials and an other memorial is the Children’s Peace Monument. The monument is dedicated to the memory of the children who died as a result of the bombing. The statue is based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who died from radiation from the bomb. She believed that if she founded 1,000 paper cranes she would be cured. In the pictures you can see the collection of the founded cranes. To this day, children from around the world could cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed near the statue. We thought that this is a very impressive story.

Shortly after we left the Peace Park we went to get reservations for the ferry to Miyajima for tomorrow. Miyajima is Japanese for ‘shrine island’. We will leave by ferry tomorrow at 08:50.

We walked towards Hiroshima Castle. This castle was originally build in the 1590’s but was destroyed by the atomic bombing in 1945. It was rebuilt in 1958. As we visited the castle we did’t have to take our shoes of because it is a replica which serves as a museum. We climbed the stairs in the castle and enjoyed the beautiful owes over Hiroshimo. At the rooftop we called my parents with FaceTime.

We walked back to the area where our hotel is located and visited a very busy shopping district with big department stores and small boutiques. It was also time the find us something for dinner. With a little help from foursquare we found a tinny-tiny restaurant from which I cannot tell you either the name or the dish we had. But I can tell you dat it was really good food. I ordered a beer with it because after my own experience from my time here in Japan it is the safest choice. All other times I ordered tea or something else and I ended being jealous of Sander’s delicious cold beer. So the food was good, the beer was cold and the people in the restaurant were very friendly. As dessert we got ourselves something from the Starbucks close to our hotel and we called it the day.

Tomorrow we have to wake up early because we are visiting Miyajima and going back with the Shinkansen to Tokyo.

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As fast as a bullet to Kyoto…

22/03/2014 By: SanDaan

Today we woke up early because this day we were going to leave Tokyo and drive with the bullet train to Kyoto.

As planned we left our hotel room to check out at around 07:30. We travel light which means we left our big suitcases in storage at the hotel and travel with only 2 small trolleys to Kyoto. Check out went well and we went to the Shinkansen gate at Shinagawa Station. Luckily those gates are our side of the station. As soon as we put our train ticket and seat reservation into the slot of the automatic gate, the gate opened and we could search for the right track and car-number.

Because it is not possible for non-Japanese people to reserve Shinkansen tickets in advance (the website is Japanese-only and a Japanese credit card is required) a Japanese colleague from Sander ordered the tickets for us. He got us seats for the Nozomi Shinkansen in car number 5, row 7, seats D and E. The Nozomi arrived exactly on time and we left Shinagawa at 08:27. From our seats we had a great view at Mount Fuji, or Fuji-San (that’s how the Japanese call Mount Fuji).

After 450 km, 2 stops in Yokohama and Nagoya and 2 hours and 10 minutes later we arrived at Kyoto Station at 10:37. About 30 minutes later we were on our way to our hotel with the free shuttle service.

In Kyoto we will stay one night at the ANA Crowne Plaza Kyoto hotel. The hotel is located directly in front of one of Kyoto’s most popular tourist attraction, Nijo Castle. After check-in we went to our room and we have a view on Nijo Castle, which we will visit tomorrow. And of course we have a hightech-toilet! The lady from check-in recommended us to buy a 1-day-bus-pass and take bus-line 12 towards the Kinkakuji/Kitano area to visit the Kinkakuji Temple and the Ryoanji Temple.

We were not the only ones with this idea do we ended up in a full bus driving through a very busy city of Kyoto. After 30 minutes we arrived at the Kinkakuji Temple. This Temple, also called Rokuon-ji or known as the Golden Pavilion, is a Zen Buddhist temple. Although not much information is provided in English it is really beautiful and you cannot stop taking pictures from the pavilion and the amazing landscapes. It is also a Historic Monument of Ancient Kyoto UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After we had green tea and a little piece of cake in the tea house we left this beautiful site and went to KYOTO’s next UNESCO World Heritage Site, called the Ryoan-ji Temple. We went here by foot and during the walk we got ourselves something to drink from one of the vending machines you see every where on the street. And we also found our first Geocache during this vacation.

The Ryoan-ji Temple is also a Zen Buddhist temple and is famous for its Rock Garden or zen garden. The temple belongs to the Myõshin-ji school of the Rinzai branch of Zen Buddhism. To visit the Rock Garden we had to take of our shoes before entering. After visiting this garden we wandered around and took a lot of pictures.

We wanted to see as much as possible from Kyoto today as we are here for only 1 day. We were recommended also to visit the Kiyomizu Temple/Gion Area at the other side of Kyoto. We walked a little around and took bus-line 10 right through Kyoto. Because of the amount of traffic it took over more than one hour t get there. As soon as we got of the bus it was time to find something to eat and we found a little place called Ringer Hut. Because we can not read Japanese we order food from the pictures and it is always a big surprise what you will get on your plate. This time we had some fried rice with gyoza. For dessert we went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. I had three scoops of Love Potion #31, Easter Egg Hunt and Love Struck Cheesecake. Really delicious.

Next stop was the Yasaka Shrine. We discovered some festivities but can not really what is was all about. Nothing was explained in English. But the were a lot of lights and candles. We walked further through the Maruyama Park and saw a little from the Higashi Otani Mausoleum and the Ryozen Kannon Temple. As it was getting a little darker the lights and candles everywhere got more beautiful. We walked up the mountain through small streets with a lot of small shops as we arrived at the Kiyomizu Temple. A very big complex of temples and shrines beautiful lit for great photo opportunities. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We stayed here a long time to take pictures.

Than it was time to go back to the hotel. After we walked down the mountain we needed to find out where we exactly were and how to get back to the hotel. We walked back to Gion and took bus-line 12 back to the hotel. After arriving in the hotel we ordered Deep Fried Chicken as room-service because we didn’t feel like going out tonight.