Craig and Jeane Visit Japan - 2013 Trip Report
Nov 17th, 2013, 08:08 AM
#61
Maybe it was a <i>tanzen</i> which looks more like an "overcoat" than a haori.
Was your room like this: mukayu.com/english/western_room.php ?
Am curious about the differences between the Japanese and Western rooms. Were the futons on the platform when you arrived? Was there a small table and two chairs or cushions, by a window? Maybe a wooden floor without tatami mats makes it more Western? You wore your shoes to get to the room but not in the room? I see the slippers on the steps leading to the balcony, for use outside, I guess, then you leave them on the step when you come back in.
Was your room like this: mukayu.com/english/western_room.php ?
Am curious about the differences between the Japanese and Western rooms. Were the futons on the platform when you arrived? Was there a small table and two chairs or cushions, by a window? Maybe a wooden floor without tatami mats makes it more Western? You wore your shoes to get to the room but not in the room? I see the slippers on the steps leading to the balcony, for use outside, I guess, then you leave them on the step when you come back in.
Nov 17th, 2013, 11:17 AM
#62
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 6,897
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Mrw - that photo could have been our room, exactly. Yes, the futons were there when we arrived and no tatami mats (that is the Western way, right?). No chairs/cushions by the window. Separate shoes for the room and the deck and the bathroom and the restaurant and the hallway (sigh...)
Nov 17th, 2013, 11:30 AM
#63
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 6,897
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Mrw - see comment above
Day 9 (continued) - arrival in Kyoto
Our train ride to Kyoto lasted about 2 hours. We arrived at Kyoto Station and searched both the north and south sides for the MK Taxi stand, where we could supposedly grab a cab to the Hyatt Regency for free. While we saw many taxis at the station, we did not see MK. So we stepped up to one of the queues and took the next cab to the hotel. We arrived at the Hyatt at about 1:45 pm. At reception, we were told it would take about 15 more minutes to make up the room. They informed us that our bags had been delivered from Kanazawa. Jeane made herself at home in the hotel lobby while I went to speak with the concierge. It wasn’t long before we had reservations for a taxi to Itami Airport on our last day and restaurant reservations for every night of our stay. We were unable to book the kaiseki restaurant, Kikunoi for ourselves that evening so we opted to dine at Touzan, the Japanese restaurant in the hotel. For the following four nights, we had reservations for six so that Peter, Linda, Bob and Karen (who would be arriving in Kyoto the next day) could join us. Lastly, I asked about the best way to get to the Gion shopping area. The concierge gave me an excellent map of Kyoto and suggested that a taxi could get us there in about 10 minutes. She added that we should ask to be dropped off at the Yasaka Shrine. Now we were set to go.
Just after I finished with the concierge, we were told that the room was ready. Our 4th floor room was spacious, functional and well-appointed with free in-room Wifi for Hyatt Platinum members. I thought that the lighting was so-so and that it might be because of a burnt out bulb in one of the ceiling fixtures. I removed the bulb and left it out so that housekeeping would find it and replace it (more about this later). We unpacked a bit and then headed down to the lobby to take a taxi to Gion.
The Gion shopping area was very busy. It was a Friday afternoon and it seemed there were a lot of school girls amongst the shopping hordes. Like everywhere else in Japan that we went, there were many eating places. We wandered up and down Gion’s two main streets, entering shops that looked interesting. At one of the shops, Jeane fell for a large colorful painting of two geishas and I knew we would be returning. We asked for a business card and made note of the shop’s location. Overall, the shopping was kind of disappointing. After about an hour and a half, we walked to Yasaka Shrine (where we were dropped off), and hailed a taxi back to the Hyatt.
Our dinner that night at Touzan was underwhelming. Our light Japanese meal, ordered off the ala carte menu, cost us $100. The service was indifferent and the food was just average.
Day 10 - A Full Day of Shopping in Kyoto
We started our day with the Hyatt’s excellent western buffet breakfast. If there was a downside to using a Hyatt credit card promotion to get 4 of our 5 nights for free, it was that breakfast for two was an extra $65 per day. I have to admit that because the buffet was so good, we were not particularly motivated to search for alternatives.
After breakfast, we took a taxi to Kiyomizu-Dera, an 8th century, Buddhist, hillside temple with nice views of the city. We did not drink from the sacred waters of the Otowa-no-taki (waterfall) there, as there was a long line. Hopefully, Jeane and I will still live long, healthy lives. As we exited the temple, we noticed that the crowds were starting to pick up. We worked our way down the narrow stepped streets of Sannenzakka and Ninenzakka, checking out the small shops along the way. Jeane’s most significant find in this area was a shop that sold Kanzashi, those Japanese combs that women wear in the their hair. These combs are sold everywhere. However, the shopkeeper here was particularly helpful in showing Jeane how to do the “French twist” to hold the comb in her hair.
Since we had explored Gion the previous day, we decided to work our way through it via the side alleys and head to Shin Monzen Street and its small collection of craftspersons’ and antiques shops. We saw some things that caught our attention, but made no purchases. From there, we crossed the Kamo River and explored the covered shopping streets parallel to it - a bit of a downscale shopping experience, but a scene worth checking out. Lastly, we visited Kyoto’s version of the Takashimaya department store which, after checking out all eight floors, we concluded was not quite up to the standards of the Tokyo store.
We still had time left in our day so I decided that we were close enough to Nijo Castle to taxi over. Nijo-jo is an early 17th century shogun’s castle that offers a recorded audio tour in English. When we arrived at the booth where the audio devices were rented, the young lady there nervously informed us that we needed to return the devices by 4:45 pm. This gave us an hour and 15 minutes to do the tour. We completed this informative tour in about an hour. However, our young lady seemed surprised and relieved to see us return the devices on time. Afterwards, we headed to the taxi queue and got in a cab. Traffic on our return to the hotel was horrendous. We barely moved as we worked our way south along the river. Our driver finally decided to take an alternate route and we started to make progress. We were finally dropped off at the Hyatt at 5:30 pm, giving us a half hour to regroup and get ready to head out to dinner.
The plan for the evening was for our group of six to dine at a restaurant that served French kaiseki, i.e. “French with chopsticks”. However, instead of asking the concierge for a reservation at Pontocho Misoguigawa, I asked for one at Issian Pontocho, which is a Korean barbeque restaurant. Since these establishments are within half a block of each other, I did not realize my mistake. As it turned out, we had a really fun evening anyway. We all showed up at the same place, Issian Pontocho has one of the best ratings on Tripadvisor, everything was grilled right in front of us and the cost was probably a quarter of what we would have paid at Pontocho Misoguigawa.
Next: Kyoto Golden/Silver Temples, Philosopher’s Walk, Rain and More...
Day 9 (continued) - arrival in Kyoto
Our train ride to Kyoto lasted about 2 hours. We arrived at Kyoto Station and searched both the north and south sides for the MK Taxi stand, where we could supposedly grab a cab to the Hyatt Regency for free. While we saw many taxis at the station, we did not see MK. So we stepped up to one of the queues and took the next cab to the hotel. We arrived at the Hyatt at about 1:45 pm. At reception, we were told it would take about 15 more minutes to make up the room. They informed us that our bags had been delivered from Kanazawa. Jeane made herself at home in the hotel lobby while I went to speak with the concierge. It wasn’t long before we had reservations for a taxi to Itami Airport on our last day and restaurant reservations for every night of our stay. We were unable to book the kaiseki restaurant, Kikunoi for ourselves that evening so we opted to dine at Touzan, the Japanese restaurant in the hotel. For the following four nights, we had reservations for six so that Peter, Linda, Bob and Karen (who would be arriving in Kyoto the next day) could join us. Lastly, I asked about the best way to get to the Gion shopping area. The concierge gave me an excellent map of Kyoto and suggested that a taxi could get us there in about 10 minutes. She added that we should ask to be dropped off at the Yasaka Shrine. Now we were set to go.
Just after I finished with the concierge, we were told that the room was ready. Our 4th floor room was spacious, functional and well-appointed with free in-room Wifi for Hyatt Platinum members. I thought that the lighting was so-so and that it might be because of a burnt out bulb in one of the ceiling fixtures. I removed the bulb and left it out so that housekeeping would find it and replace it (more about this later). We unpacked a bit and then headed down to the lobby to take a taxi to Gion.
The Gion shopping area was very busy. It was a Friday afternoon and it seemed there were a lot of school girls amongst the shopping hordes. Like everywhere else in Japan that we went, there were many eating places. We wandered up and down Gion’s two main streets, entering shops that looked interesting. At one of the shops, Jeane fell for a large colorful painting of two geishas and I knew we would be returning. We asked for a business card and made note of the shop’s location. Overall, the shopping was kind of disappointing. After about an hour and a half, we walked to Yasaka Shrine (where we were dropped off), and hailed a taxi back to the Hyatt.
Our dinner that night at Touzan was underwhelming. Our light Japanese meal, ordered off the ala carte menu, cost us $100. The service was indifferent and the food was just average.
Day 10 - A Full Day of Shopping in Kyoto
We started our day with the Hyatt’s excellent western buffet breakfast. If there was a downside to using a Hyatt credit card promotion to get 4 of our 5 nights for free, it was that breakfast for two was an extra $65 per day. I have to admit that because the buffet was so good, we were not particularly motivated to search for alternatives.
After breakfast, we took a taxi to Kiyomizu-Dera, an 8th century, Buddhist, hillside temple with nice views of the city. We did not drink from the sacred waters of the Otowa-no-taki (waterfall) there, as there was a long line. Hopefully, Jeane and I will still live long, healthy lives. As we exited the temple, we noticed that the crowds were starting to pick up. We worked our way down the narrow stepped streets of Sannenzakka and Ninenzakka, checking out the small shops along the way. Jeane’s most significant find in this area was a shop that sold Kanzashi, those Japanese combs that women wear in the their hair. These combs are sold everywhere. However, the shopkeeper here was particularly helpful in showing Jeane how to do the “French twist” to hold the comb in her hair.
Since we had explored Gion the previous day, we decided to work our way through it via the side alleys and head to Shin Monzen Street and its small collection of craftspersons’ and antiques shops. We saw some things that caught our attention, but made no purchases. From there, we crossed the Kamo River and explored the covered shopping streets parallel to it - a bit of a downscale shopping experience, but a scene worth checking out. Lastly, we visited Kyoto’s version of the Takashimaya department store which, after checking out all eight floors, we concluded was not quite up to the standards of the Tokyo store.
We still had time left in our day so I decided that we were close enough to Nijo Castle to taxi over. Nijo-jo is an early 17th century shogun’s castle that offers a recorded audio tour in English. When we arrived at the booth where the audio devices were rented, the young lady there nervously informed us that we needed to return the devices by 4:45 pm. This gave us an hour and 15 minutes to do the tour. We completed this informative tour in about an hour. However, our young lady seemed surprised and relieved to see us return the devices on time. Afterwards, we headed to the taxi queue and got in a cab. Traffic on our return to the hotel was horrendous. We barely moved as we worked our way south along the river. Our driver finally decided to take an alternate route and we started to make progress. We were finally dropped off at the Hyatt at 5:30 pm, giving us a half hour to regroup and get ready to head out to dinner.
The plan for the evening was for our group of six to dine at a restaurant that served French kaiseki, i.e. “French with chopsticks”. However, instead of asking the concierge for a reservation at Pontocho Misoguigawa, I asked for one at Issian Pontocho, which is a Korean barbeque restaurant. Since these establishments are within half a block of each other, I did not realize my mistake. As it turned out, we had a really fun evening anyway. We all showed up at the same place, Issian Pontocho has one of the best ratings on Tripadvisor, everything was grilled right in front of us and the cost was probably a quarter of what we would have paid at Pontocho Misoguigawa.
Next: Kyoto Golden/Silver Temples, Philosopher’s Walk, Rain and More...
Nov 17th, 2013, 04:49 PM
#67
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 6,369
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Yup enjoyed it a lot. We did walk into Misoguigawa later to get a menu and saw that it would have been a very different experience indeed.
Craig, the gold n silver next are ji in Japanese meaning they are shrines. The temples are dera such as Kiyomizudera. Don't mean to be condescending at all....enjoying very much
Aloha!
Craig, the gold n silver next are ji in Japanese meaning they are shrines. The temples are dera such as Kiyomizudera. Don't mean to be condescending at all....enjoying very much
Aloha!
Nov 17th, 2013, 05:21 PM
#68
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 5,034
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Misoguigawa is a place I'd like try sometime.
Sorry Peter -
Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji are temples..confusing and confounding Japanese uses tera, dera, in and ji for temples and jinja and jingu for shrines. Easy to confuse so even locals sometimes aren't sure if a place is shrine or temple and check for torii gates (shrines) if they aren't sure of the name - and sometimes there are both in the same grounds to further confuse the issue. Like within Kiyomizudera (temple) is Jishujinja (shrine) which has a cool story - if you can successfully navigate between the two stones at each end with your eyes closed you will find true love; if you need assistance you will also need intervention in your love life.
Sorry Peter -
Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji are temples..confusing and confounding Japanese uses tera, dera, in and ji for temples and jinja and jingu for shrines. Easy to confuse so even locals sometimes aren't sure if a place is shrine or temple and check for torii gates (shrines) if they aren't sure of the name - and sometimes there are both in the same grounds to further confuse the issue. Like within Kiyomizudera (temple) is Jishujinja (shrine) which has a cool story - if you can successfully navigate between the two stones at each end with your eyes closed you will find true love; if you need assistance you will also need intervention in your love life.
Nov 18th, 2013, 11:52 AM
#77
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 5,034
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
<<I got my jinn jis n Mingus mixed up>>
It's fine! Everyone does. I had a similar conversation the other day with Japanese people about why shrines and temples were sometimes together and sometimes not. No one knew for sure.
It's fine! Everyone does. I had a similar conversation the other day with Japanese people about why shrines and temples were sometimes together and sometimes not. No one knew for sure.
Nov 18th, 2013, 11:54 AM
#78
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 6,897
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Day 11 - Temples, Shrines, Whatever...(Kyoto)
I had been trying to juggle our itinerary to dodge the rain, but today the weather finally caught up with us. I think we were fortunate that it was only overcast when we set out by taxi to see Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavillion, a 15th century Zen temple. When we arrived, there was enough light that we could see the temple’s brilliant reflection in the pond that surrounded it. We could also see that the trees behind it were starting to turn. This was one of the highlights of our day.
From Kinkakuji we had a 20-minute walk to another Zen temple - Ryoanji, and its famous rock garden. It was fascinating to see the people there just sitting quietly, staring at the rocks and pondering the "true meaning of life". After our visit, we caught another taxi and headed over to another 15th century Zen temple - Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavillion. The trees were starting to turn here as well. While we were walking the path around the temple, it started raining. The rain continued as we took the half hour walk down the Philosopher’s Path to our final Zen temple of the day - this one from the 13th century, Nanzenji. Probably the most interesting thing about this temple was the huge 19th century aqueduct that runs through the complex. We were pretty “templed out” by this time and did not enter the temple or its gardens.
There was time for just one more stop. So we hailed a cab to take us to Sanjusangen-Do, a 12th century temple famous for its 1001 statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. It is too bad that photos are not allowed at this totally awesome site. But then it would be quite difficult to capture the large wooden statue of Kannon flanked on each side by 500 human-sized statues of Kannon, standing in rows of 10. This was the other highlight of our day and a great way to end it. The Hyatt was located right next door to the temple, so we just walked back and relaxed in the room until it was time to depart for dinner.
We had dinner again with the gang, this time at the mis-named northern Indian restaurant - Kerala. Karen ordered for everyone. While the service was a bit slow, the food was delicious and reasonable - another great evening with our friends. We headed back to our hotel, knowing that we would have a long day at Nara tomorrow.
Next: A day trip to Nara
I had been trying to juggle our itinerary to dodge the rain, but today the weather finally caught up with us. I think we were fortunate that it was only overcast when we set out by taxi to see Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavillion, a 15th century Zen temple. When we arrived, there was enough light that we could see the temple’s brilliant reflection in the pond that surrounded it. We could also see that the trees behind it were starting to turn. This was one of the highlights of our day.
From Kinkakuji we had a 20-minute walk to another Zen temple - Ryoanji, and its famous rock garden. It was fascinating to see the people there just sitting quietly, staring at the rocks and pondering the "true meaning of life". After our visit, we caught another taxi and headed over to another 15th century Zen temple - Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavillion. The trees were starting to turn here as well. While we were walking the path around the temple, it started raining. The rain continued as we took the half hour walk down the Philosopher’s Path to our final Zen temple of the day - this one from the 13th century, Nanzenji. Probably the most interesting thing about this temple was the huge 19th century aqueduct that runs through the complex. We were pretty “templed out” by this time and did not enter the temple or its gardens.
There was time for just one more stop. So we hailed a cab to take us to Sanjusangen-Do, a 12th century temple famous for its 1001 statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. It is too bad that photos are not allowed at this totally awesome site. But then it would be quite difficult to capture the large wooden statue of Kannon flanked on each side by 500 human-sized statues of Kannon, standing in rows of 10. This was the other highlight of our day and a great way to end it. The Hyatt was located right next door to the temple, so we just walked back and relaxed in the room until it was time to depart for dinner.
We had dinner again with the gang, this time at the mis-named northern Indian restaurant - Kerala. Karen ordered for everyone. While the service was a bit slow, the food was delicious and reasonable - another great evening with our friends. We headed back to our hotel, knowing that we would have a long day at Nara tomorrow.
Next: A day trip to Nara
