Hello again!

We're in Kyoto now. I'm writing this blog offline because I'm unable to access any wireless in our room. I plan on saving it to a thumb drive and uploading it when I'm able.

So! What have we been up to since I last blogged? I'll try my best to recall as much as possible. Two mornings ago we woke up early in Tokyo and checked out of Ryokan Katsutaro. I never did tell you much about that place did I? It was a nice budget no-frills ryokan situated in a residential area near Ueno Park about a 15 minute walk from the train station. Our room was modest and included a futon to sleep on and a low table with pillows for sitting. We had a Western style bathroom which was pretty convenient. We didn't spend much time in the room though. We were so busy checking out Tokyo.

Anyways, we had a quick breakfast and headed to the train station to catch a train to Nikko. Figuring out what to do and how to do it gave us some difficulty. We asked a lady at the JR information office for advice. She informed us that we needed to get reservations on the Max Yamabiko Shinkansen at an office down the stairs and to the right. We found the office and took a ticket number and waited for a while for our number to be called. It turned out we were at the wrong office! We found another office that looked to be the right place and stood in line to talk to an agent. This time we had found the right office and procured two seat reservations. Then we had another problem- since the ticket was in Japanese we couldn't figure out which platform to go to. We wandered about the station in a panicked confusion until a friendly Japanese man approached us in and asked us in broken English if we needed help. He said he remembered being lost in Russian train stations and appreciated it when people there helped him. He advised us to go to platform 20. We thanked him profusely and were off towards platform 20. Once there, we were confused again. The signs everywhere didn't say anything about Utsonomiya or Yamabiko. Mike got out the phrasebook and asked a Japanese woman if this Shinkansen was for Utsonomiya by pointing at printed Japanese phrases in the book. It was.

If you ever decide to tour Japan, you will probably get one of two reactions from the Japanese: friendly patience or indifference. I have seen eye rolling or derisive laughter only a few times. In Tokyo everyone will ignore you (just like in New York) and in smaller areas like Nikko people will smile and bow when you pass them or openly stare at you (just like a lot of small towns in our country.)

But I digress. We boarded the Shinkansen and were on our way to Utsonomiya. The train is very fast and totally smooth. It was fascinating to watch the countryside zip by. Most of the other people on the train were commuting salarymen. They silently ate snacks or dozed off. When we got to Utsonomiya we transfered to a small 3 car train to Nikko. In contrast to the Shinkansen, it was slow and shabby. The velvet seats were heated for some reason and made me feel uncomfortably hot. The train wound through the brown countryside, which was quite different after all the neon Legoland excess of Tokyo.

We finally reached the small town of Nikko. We found a taxi driver (who called us gaijin to his friend) outside the station to take us to Annex Turtle Hotori-an. Nikko is a quaint little mountain town with many Shinto and Buddhist shrines. We noticed there are a lot of little streams and culverts running next to the town's streets. It's kind of like the Door County of Tokyo since a lot of people from the city visit Nikko to relax and unwind.

Our ryokan was pleasant and the woman who checked us in spoke excellent English. We dropped off our bags and decided to visit Jakko Falls. Since we had arrived so late in the day we didn't have time to visit Tosho-gu Shrine or Kegon Falls in nearby Chuzenji. Jakko was quite a hike! It was a 2 mile climb up a mountain in fact. On our way up we passed some rather palatial looking vacation homes. Some of them looked rather neglected and had trees sprouting up through the cracked tennis court concrete. When we reached the shrine we had to climb ancient ice covered stairs. Icicles had formed around the sides of the rushing falls. It was a peaceful setting. I looked around for the infamous monkeys of the region but did not see any.

When we reached the bottom of the mountain we were very cold, hungry, and hurting from the hike. We wandered into town in search of a place we had read about that apparently had excellent noodles. We were so relieved when we found it since our fingers had gone numb with cold. The noodles were excellent and exactly what we needed.

When we reached the ryokan we put on our yukata (robes) and decided to take an onsen (hot bath) together. Before one gets into the onsen, you are supposed to wash yourself off in the nearby shower area. We sat on the little stools and poured cleansing buckets of hot water over our bodies in preparation for the onsen. The onsen was wonderfully hot and very soothing to our aching bodies. The windows surrounding the onsen looked out on to a view of a small rock garden containing manicured trees. We felt very relaxed that evening. My favorite part of that ryokan was that it was situated on the bank of a river. The gentle rushing of the river outside lulled me to sleep that night. The next morning we woke up and had a Western breakfast prepared by the ladies of the ryokan. We then visited Toshu-gu Shrine which was quite impressive. I can't wait to post pictures of it.

Catching the bus to the station was a rather embarassing situation. We knew we had packed way too much in ridiculously large bags...and this scenario made it painfully apparent. We lugged our bags on to the bus and didn't know where to put them. They got in the way of everyone. The bus driver and other riders were very patient with us nevertheless. We felt like such stupid tourists! Next trip we're taking 1/4 of what we brought this time. Our bags make us feel so ashamed.

We trained it back to Utsonomiya and transferred to Ueno station. This time we hopped on the Shinkansen with unreserved seats and did just fine. Unfortunately we got off at the wrong station! An information agent informed us that we had to get reserved seats for the Tokaido Sanyo Shinkansen to Kyoto as soon as possible since it's a major commuter line and it was departing very soon. We couldn't miss it or we'd be late for check-in at Ryokan Motonago in Kyoto. We took another train to Tokyo station and found the seat reservation office immediately. Unfortunately we weren't able to get seats next to each other this time. We successfully boarded the right Shinkansen and were on our way. The trip lasted 3 hours and I was able to briefly peer at Mount Fuji. Figuring out trains in Japan is no easy task! The guidebooks don't tell you much at all.

We arrived at Ryokan Motonago by taxi. We're staying here for two days since it's very pricey and the one major splurge of our trip. We wanted to experience an authentic ryokan while we're here and this is definitely authentic. Immediately upon arrival we were warmly greeted by a traditionally dressed lady and man. They fawned over us. It was rather shocking to us after our previous experiences. We were instructed to take off our shoes and put on slippers. There was some confusion as there is a small area of stone between the street and the lobby. I am not sure how to explain this exactly but I will try...hmmmm. They seem to be constantly wetting down the stone area and they laughed at us when we took off our shoes on the wet stones. But we couldn't take our shoes in the lobby! What do we do? At least their laughter was full of mirth and amusement and not mocking. They took our shoes and we put on slippers and were shown to our room and served green tea and a snack by the beautiful kimono lady.

Last night we took another onsen together- wonderful! This morning we were served an amazing breakfast in our room. I really want to blog more but it's getting late and I have to go visit the sites of Kyoto! More to come.