We have arrived in Shanghai and are currently waiting to be cleared for customs. The view from the ship is amazing, we are surrounded by huge buildings. Shanghai is the largest city in China, which I did not know, and the architecture is something else. I'll put up pictures when I get a chance.
I'm just spending the day in Shanghai today, then tomorrow I set off for Beijing.
Here is part 3, I thought it would be the last but it’s going to be 4. Again part 2 is right below this, and part 1 is below that. I would read them in order if I were doing it.
We woke up the third day in Japan at about 6 am and got ready to go. We caught a bullet train at about 7:30 headed to Kyoto. The bullet trains are awesome, and they go extremely fast. It was crazy to hop onto a train and travel probably 300 miles in less than 2 hours. The Japanese system is far more efficient than the US one as well. You buy your tickets either from a person or more often a machine. You put your ticket into a gate similar to a subway, and walk in. There is no security check, no scanner, and no pat down. You find the gate, which is easier said than done when nothing is written in English. The only thing in English was the numbers actually, so we had to get on the train with the departure time that we thought sounded right, and hope we made it to the city intended. Anyways the trains fly into the station, and unlike in America where an Amtrak stops for a half hour while people get on and off, the Shikansen stops for 2 minutes. As a result, if you are on the train and fall asleep, you are at a high risk of missing your stop, and if you aren’t at the right place on the platform, you might miss the train. For example on one of our train rides we were waiting outside of what we thought was cars 1-3, the cheaper non-reserved cars, but come to find out, we are outside of the wrong end of the train. Even running as fast as we could, we made it to car 8 before the train started to leave, so we had to hop on that car and make our way to the right one while it was moving. Another notable thing about the train was the food. Unlike airline food, this food was fantastic. I got a sandwich pack with egg salad, some sort of veggie sandwich, and a fried pork one, all were great. After about two hours we arrived in Kyoto and hopped off the train.
The first thing we did when we got to Kyoto was again to find our hostel. It wasn’t too far from the train station so we walked it, but the weather started taking a turn for the worst. We arrived at the hostel to find that it was not only cheaper than the one in Tokyo, but it was also far nicer. It was traditionally themed, so it included open areas to connect with nature, a couple of neat courtyards, and rooms that were stereotypically Japanese. They were the type with the paper walls and sliding doors where you sleep on the floor. It turned out to be so comfortable; it was really a perfect place to stay. After getting settled there, we set out to find lunch. At this point there were 10 of us, and it became a headache to have so many. We found a restaurant that specialized in takeout boxes that looked fantastic and decided that it would be a good idea to eat there. Like the other restaurants though, it was totally group illiterate. We walk in and Eric orders his food. They proceed to process a 30 box take out order, and only then do they make his food. His food comes out, and only then do they take the next order. Well given that it was taking 5 minutes a tray, our group of 10 wasn’t going to work out. Tolan, Sarah, and I went down the street looking for other options, and a couple others went to 7-11 and bought snacks. We didn’t find anything down the street, and they were getting frustrated, so Tolan and Sarah broke off from the group, agreeing to meet the rest of us at 7 back at the hostel for dinner. I went back and the ones who stuck around were ready to go, and if you know me, I refuse to eat a full meal 7-11 when I’m in a place with awesome food like Japan, so I ended up not eating.
After lunch, we took off in search of temples. We went to one that was really close by, a Shinto one and it was huge. There were three separate shrines connected, and the building was the size of a basketball arena. Photography wasn’t allowed, but I snuck a couple of pictures anyways. We again saw many people praying or meditating. In the US, if you were to go to something like that, it would be a tourist trap, probably with a gift shop connected. It was interesting how here in Japan, a temple of great interest to travelers was still a part of the daily lives of locals. We left that temple and walked about a mile to another one that was similar, but was Buddhist. This one was again, still in use, but it was empty. It was very peaceful and pretty. Realizing that time was quickly escaping us, we had to choose what to do. We decided that we had to make it to the golden temple, the most beautiful one in Kyoto (Or anywhere for that matter in my opinion). We found the bus stop to take us there, and after 45 minutes of waiting, we were about ready to make an audible. At this point it was about 40 degrees and raining, and the last thing I wanted to do was give up the chance to sit on a bus for a while, so I threw up a quick prayer, and low and behold, the number 12 bus comes around the corner and picks us up. After getting warm and dry on the hour long bus ride, we arrived at the temple. As soon as we get off the bus, the rain increases to a downpour. We paid our entrance fee and hiked a bit to get to the temple, and there in the middle of a lake was the most beautiful thing I’ve probably ever seen. It was a temple that appeared to be made of solid gold (in reality I’m guessing it was paint laced with gold). The pond surrounding it was beautiful as well, it was really surreal. There are a number of pictures in the slideshow on this page, or you can see it as my profile picture on Facebook at the time of this post.
We finished up looking at the temple, and at this point we were all soaked, freezing, and miserable (In a good way, we were still in Japan after all! J), so we made our way to a bus stop and figured out what bus would get us in the same vicinity as our hostel. After another 30 minute wait for a bus, we hopped on a very warm and very comfortable bus and headed back to the hostel. There we hung out, warmed up, took showers, etc for more than 2 hours. When 7 finally arrived we decided to man up and go back out for dinner. The hostel called us 3 cabs, which took us to “The Cube” for only 200 yen a person. The cube is the mother of all malls in Kyoto. It is an architectural wonder, and is perhaps one of the biggest buildings I’ve ever seen. Not only is it huge, but the inside is fairly open, so it looked even cooler. Honestly I’m not doing it any justice, so try Googling “The Cube Kyoto” and see what comes up. The group of us was on very different budgets, so some of us wanted to do a nice sit down meal (myself included), whereas a couple wanted to save as much money as they could. We found a place suitable for all, and called it good. Our meal there was fantastic, their dumplings/potstickers, whatever you want to call them were to die for and I probably ate two orders of them alone. I then had a tray of food including fantastic fried rice. Let me tell you that in Asia fried rice is way more legit than in the states. It is always fresh and moist, and chopsticks friendly, whereas at home it is usually dry. We finished up dinner, took some cool pictures, then headed back to the hostel and talked some more before going to bed.
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