Tokyo, Temples, Tasteless

Our final three nights were spent in Tokyo, a city of 13 million people. Sometimes when I think about population and amount of people, my brain can't quite comprehend the number of people that actually live in one place.


Saw a few more temples and different sites in and around Tokyo. Once again, the crowds were absolutely crazy because of the holiday. But interesting to see the locals and once again people watch.


And here's another shot of a cherry blossom in the middle of greenery on the mountainside-so stunning!


At the temples, sake companies often donate sake to be used for offerings. So in response they line up the barrels as advertisement. Interesting to see the cross of business and religion.


whenever you see a gateway like this, you know there is a shinto shrine behind it. According to the people I talked to, Japanese people are born as Shintoists and die as Buddhists. There is definitely a synchrotism between the two religions. And no one seems to be able to fully explain the religions they follow, which is also interesting.


Every temple has a washing/cleansing area. There is a specific routine to adhere to when washing.







Asakusa Kannon Temple is one of the oldest and most well known Buddhist temples in Tokyo. It has a lot of shops and food spots on the streets along the side. We had some of the local food and it was so tasty! I also learned here that the Canon camera was actually named after the Buddhist god, Kannon, but he changed the spelling so that it would be more acceptable in western culture. Not sure how I feel about my camera being named after a buddhist god mind you...


After seeing a few more temples, we decided to check out Tokyo DisneyLand. Turns out they have two parks, so we decided to check out then one we knew nothing about: DisneySea. First we went to see Disney's Cirque de Soleil, 'Zed'. It was amazing-such a cool stage setup as well!


DisneySea was fantastic! So fun to go on totally new rides! And we were the only white people in the park which was funny.


Our last full day was spent travelling to Mt. Fuji and Hakone. So beautiful. Went to the visitor's center and the 5th station of Mt. Fuji. The surrounding area is really beautiful too. Took a cable car up a mountain and it had stunning views.




Ah.. and the food. Now i know japanese food came from japan, but I did not like it much. It was all right, but did not have too much taste and was all kind of the same. Presentation was incredible mind you. But after a week of eating japanese food, I was excited to return to my western style of japanese. :)

The hotel we stayed at had really cool views off the top floor at night.

And thus concludes my trip. Hope you have enjoyed coming along for the journey. Thanks to my one faithful reader, Elsie for all her comments-have enjoyed reading your comments on the different posts.

Now back to regular day to day life!

Temples, Trees, Teeming

We took our first bullet train from Kobe to Kyoto. Was fantastic to see the countryside as you flew by in the train at 250 kms/hr.


Saw a few more temples that day, but these ones had some unique features in them. You weren't allowed taking pictures of the insides of a lot of them, but the picture below is one I stole offline to show you what the inside was like.


We saw a lot of buildings and inside statues that were part of the national treasure. The most fascinating was the temple that had the 1001 Kannon statues. And the buddha in the middle had 1001 arms.


We got to see the golden palace which was a beautiful site to see in the middle of the lake. The reflections of the building and the gardens on the lake were beautiful.


There is something absolutely stunning about the simplicity of a Japanese garden. Loved it.

Bright orange temple

Pretty sure the sign below says "watch your head".. Although for all I could know it could be calling me a silly goose or something.

The temples were packed with people. Because it was their week of national holidays, locals were out on their holidays as well and a lot of them were paying their respects at the temple. This particular fountain is where they wash themselves and each fountain represents something you might want in life (wealth, etc.). Crazy to see how incredibly long the line up was.

A glimpse of the crowds we had to walk through.

View of Kyoto

And there you have Kyoto. Next stop: Tokyo!

Carp, Cherry, Children

Our first port stop in Japan was Nagasaki, which was the second and last (as of today) place to experience a nuclear attack, as a result of the atomic bombings in World War II. Seeing the effects of the war on a lot of these places was interesting, moreso in speaking with the locals. '

When asked about the war and their view on it, you received a few different responses, some which were preceded with "I wouldn't say this very loud or to many people..." Interesting observations and dialogues around that for sure. I'm not much up on my history, but this makes me want to study up on it a bit more.


In Nagasaki, we visited and old castle where the shoguns used to live during the times of the samurai. We also visited some Samurai homes. I loved seeing all the different colored carp. Our first day in Japan was the first day of their week long holiday, 'The Golden Week', which is full of holidays. The one I can remember easiest was children's day. Any family with a son would hang carp streamers from their home.



Our last port stop with the ship was in Kobe where we disembarked from our ship. Kobe is the sixth-largest city in Japan. It is a prominent port city with a population of about 1.5 million. In Kobe, we drove up to Mt. Rokko, where you could enjoy full views of the city. After walking around up top, we took a tram down, and enjoyed remnants of the cherry blossoms scattered throughout the trees on the mountainside. I can only imagine what it would have looked like with all the trees in full bloom. Funny how when people think of Japan, they have views of tons of cherry blossom trees. Which makes sense when I could see how many there were everywhere and all the different types.






We also took a tour of a famous sake factory and got to try a lot of different kinds after. Not a huge fan of sake, but loved the plum sake- really tasty!


I didn't take many pictures in our last couple stops, partly because I felt like I had seen enough temples and buddhas to last me a lifetime, so why take another photo? And my camera card was filling up.

Next stop: Kyoto!

Shanghai, Serenade, Silk

China! A country I would return to solely to see the Great Wall of China. Being in Shanghai for two days was an experience and it was interesting to see the culture, meet people and enjoy some amazing dimsum (so good!). I love the Chinese architecture when it is used, hated the smog that seemed to always be hovering, loved the bright reds of the maples and the watertown we went to.

The contrast of colours in trees was fantastic. So pretty!

We were told by a few different people that this man was a philosopher, or a doctor, or a teacher... not really sure who he was in the end, but I snapped a photo of him nonetheless.


In the pharmacy, you could see the different bottles resting.. Some had snakes in them and others had things that I'm not sure about.


The women were absolutely amazing at preparing the local food. The way the wrapped them with three different pieces of twine was incredible. I think I would have finished making one in the time she made twenty.

Lanterns!!

We went to a watertown that I could not pronounce or recall for the life of me. But it started with a zed.

Woman washing her clothes in the water.

I don't know why I thought this sign was funny. Perhaps because I would not want to play in that water under any circumstance.

Took a little boat ride through the canals. Very cool to see how they live. Felt a bit like I was in Venice. Except my boat steerer/driver kept hoarking. That's kind of like serenading, right?


This is their main bridge in town and I love it. There's something about it that just captures your attention.




Stopped at a silkworm factory on the way back to the ship. Fascinating! So crazy how those little worms make silk that turns into amazing blankets.


I did get myself some sheets. I figure I will have a new sized bed in Quebec and should probably have some sheets to go with it.

The lights at night in Shanghai were also quite impressive.

In Shanghai, we celebrated Mark's birthday at Pub Trivia. Mark and Cathy were two of the people on my Pub Trivia team. I suck at trivia, but love getting to know people while playing trivia!




Part of me just wanted to stay on the boat deck and watch the lights all night long. And then they turned them off at 10pm so I couldn't.


The next day my mom and I sought out one of the best known dim sum places in Shanghai (according to a woman we met who spoke English). It took us an incredibly long time to find, but the food and the experience were both magnificent! So tasty! And they did in fact bring us English instruction sheets. Guess we looked confused. haha


Forget the name of this street, but it had crazy shopping everywhere. We went in a department store where they had the most massive floor of shoes you've ever seen. Shoes everywhere. My favorite was when an irate Chinese man started yelling as loud as he could and throwing shoes everywhere. No idea what he was yelling, but everyone was standing around him just watching, so I figured it was okay.



And thus concludes Shanghai. Next stop: Nagasaki, Japan