How frustrating!

thursdaysd - thanks for fixing the Kyoto photo album password - great pictures - again, we were at some of the same places in Kyoto and Koyasan!

I liked your Seoul pictures as well. I am Korean drama fan and the outfits the guards at that building were wearing come straight from hundreds of years ago....

Sorry you had so much trouble with the Tokyo subway system - since my trips are not RTW but just to Japan I have bought the combination JREast Suica pass to use from NRT on the Narita Express - then you can use the pass on any form of Tokyo transport, I believe. Plus that pass can be refilled and it's good for ten years. Also you can use it in shops as a cash card although I haven't tried that myself.

I only got lost once in Tokyo transport - my last trip - on the way back to NRT I was transferring from the Yamanote line to the Keisei at Nippori and somehow ended up on the street in the rain - I must have missed an important sign....but I figured it out eventually.

I agree that there are not that many down escalators - but I seemed to find more elevators in Japan train stations this past year than I remember - particularly in the smaller stations when I was traveling in the Chubu region - I was quite surprised actually - since I stayed at 8 places in 12 days I did a lot of moving around... ;-)

I am also sorry about your experience in the Tokyo transportation system. Maybe because I already know it is actually many separate systems, and I can read Chinese characters, I did not have any problem with it at all when I was there last year.

In fact, I'm surprised at how much English they have now on their maps, which I believe is added before the 2002 FIFA World Cup. And I also like that each line has a Letter and each station has a number. Very easy to tell and calculate how many stops.

Thursdaysd!! I love a rant Though I've got suggest, as gently as I can (which probably isn't very), that you might really want to work on your invective. A liberal sprinkling of stuff like "heartless bastards," "motherless manure-eaters," and "with an amorality that Nixon would admire" can serve the dual purpose of entertaining some of your readers <i>and</i> making you feel a little bit better about the whole thing.

All that said, you're sort of right (though I think you've understated the number of subway lines), and sort of not. The biggest key that I look for is the map that's on the train platform in subway and JR stations. That one os going to show any escalators/elevators, and it's also going to show at least some neighborhood destinations in English. The other thing I try to do is some advance planning: writing down all my routes before I leave the hotel. This map shows the subway lines and the JR Yamanote line, but it crucially does <u>not</u> show other JR lines (which can be especially useful fro cross-city trips):
http://www.tokyometro.jp/en/subwayma...outemap_en.pdf

You are also correct about the system having been developed to confound foreigners. However, you neglected to mention the pass system, which, working in conjunction with hidden signs, etc., makes it all incomprehensible for most.

Well, a few "expletive deleteds" might get me banned these days... Besides, when I was growing up the challenge was to see how rude you could be without actually descending to invective.

I probably should have bought either a Suica or Passmo, but when I asked the T.I. people about which I should get they said it wasn't worth it for such a short trip (since I went to Nikko one day I only used the subway for a day and a half). While it would have saved some of the aggravation, I would have missed an illuminating incident.

Tokyo is definitely NOT on my must revisit list, however...

We are now in Odawara after visiting Tokyo and Kyoto with 3 kids and I have to agree with you about the Tokyo subway system. We used it for 4 days every day for 2 or 3 trips. I'm pretty sure I could write a 'moms guide to the tokyo subway'.

My 4YO knew that the JR Yamanote line was crowded and that he would not get a seat. He just sat by the doors and pouted. Don't you wish you could do that?

My DH and I had SUICA passes as we purchased the NEX / Suica deal at the airport. We just reloaded them as we went. Easy! But, at every station tourist and non-tourist I tried to buy Suica or Pasmo cards for the kids and was met with blank looks. I finally figured out the machines and how to get child fares. Not easy if you were transferring lines. But dooable.

I used the Jourdan website in advance to figure our where we would need to change, put the printout on my iPhone and then I could select the right fare / transfer from the machines. I could also look at a map of the destination station and figure out where to exit (key in Tokyo stations). For example, at the Ginza station (no matter which line) the Sony store was exit xx (I don't remember now).

Hi <b>sdfamily</b> - hope you're enjoying Japan - kudos for tackling it with three kids!

<b>Status</b> - I'm staying at a beachfront hotel just north of Hualien, Taiwan, and although the typhoon has passed it sounds nearly as bad outside - winter winds, I'm told. So strong they nearly blew me over! Car and driver for Taroko
Gorge tomorrow - apparently it's calm in there. My foot had a rest today and looks almost normal.

<b>Oct 7-10 - Tokyo and Nikko</b>

Some people are beach people. Some people are city people. I’m a mountain person – nothing lifts my spirits like seeing a mountain in the distance, getting closer. There are a few big cities I like – London, Paris, Vienna, Lisbon – but I approach places the size of Tokyo (12.56 million people) with caution. In fact, I put it last on my Japan itinerary just so I’d have time to get used to the country before tackling it, and I was a little sad to see the rice fields give way to a rather depressing cityscape well before my train pulled into Shinjuku station.

I was staying in the Asakusa area, for several reasons: it sounded like a lower-key, more historic neighborhood, it was home to a temple, Senso, that I wanted to visit, it was close to the train station I needed for a day trip to Nikko, and it offered, I thought, an easy route to Haneda Airport for when I left (see my previous post for how that worked out). I stayed in the same small ryokan, Kamogawa (http://www.f-kamogawa.jp/home/top/index_e.php ) that friends had used last year. I found the area, especailly the approach to Senso-ji, much more touristy than I had expected, but the staff at the ryokan were friendly, one man even walked me to nearby restaurants when I asked for recommendations.

I had picked Nikko over Kamakura for a day trip from Tokyo partly based on opinions expressed here. I'm not quite sure what I expected - old, atmospheric temples in good condition, I think. What I found were rather shabby-looking temples, mostly overwhelmed by school and tour groups. Rinno-ji was covered in scaffolding for renovations, but it looked like the three gilded Buddhas, the largest in Japan, were permanently located in an inconvenient passageway. I joined the groups making the pilgrimage to the tomb of Ieyasu, the founder of the Shogunate, although when I discovered just how many steps I’d have to go up, and worse, down, I wished I hadn’t. I didn’t find the site particularly interesting, when I finally got there, either.

The best part of the day came near the end, when I walked slowly down an almost deserted path flanked by towering cedars rooted in moss, to reach a subsidiary shrine with few visitors. Since I spent around four hours on suburban trains getting there and back, the excursion took an entire day. But at least I picked a dry day – the next morning, the rains started up again.

Besides Nikko I visited two museums, Ueno Park, and the Ginza district. The Shitamachi Museum turned out to be quite small, with the second floor devoted to a special exhibition with no English explanations. I thought that the Edo-Tokyo Museum, much bigger, gave a better feel for historic Tokyo, although most of its exhibits were reconstructions (and it was a lot harder to get to). In Ueno Park I saw the first dirty pavement of the whole trip, and the first homeless men. Also for the first time, I had the feeling, possibly quite wrong, that it might be better to be gone before dark. While I enjoyed the shinto shrine I visited (lots of torii and lots of steps), the shrine to Tokugawa Ieyasu was being renovated. I paid my respects to the nearby flame from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which earned me, to my surprise, a very strange look from a local.

My first target in Ginza was the Sony Building, which was having a massive promotion around the Charlie Brown cartoons. (I couldn’t help wondering how much Charles Schulz’ estate was taking in as a result). Its popularity was evident, but I didn't find much of interest in the building myself. I had planned to eat lunch in one of the Ginza department stores, but found the selections both more western and more expensive than I had expected. I eventually wound up waiting around 30 minutes (the top floor restaurants were very popular on a Saturday) to eat at a place advertising its use of fresh, local, produce. And for the first time in Japan I enjoyed an actual salad bar and raw veggies! I also enjoyed some quality people watching. I saw a grand total of six other westerners during my half hour wait, but plenty of locals. Further to the matter of skirts, more women were wearing trousers, and those in skirts were split between knee-length and dowdy, and fashion-forward frills. Fur (probably fake) and frills seemed to be the key-notes for the winter season in Japan.

For my last dinners in Japan I picked okonomiyaki and an izakaya. It turns out that Tokyo has its own, sloppier, kind of okonomiyaki - I stuck to the firmer version. I ate twice at an izakaya on the same block as the ryokan, feasting on excellent skewers of chicken, chicken liver, duck and shellfish, and drinking sake. Looking at the rain pouring relentlessly down on my last evening, and remembering that I would be flying JAL again, I packed everything inside the plastic garbage bag that was usually just a layer between the toiletries and everything else. Despite my limp, and my problems with the Tokyo subway, I was glad to have finally visited Japan, although I much preferred the smaller cities and the countryside to Tokyo and Kyoto. Now I was ready to move on, although I regretted the scheduling which required me to get up at 5:00 am to catch my flight to Seoul.

thurs... yes i am reading...of course.... and don't you feel much stronger a person for having continued the trip... buck up, move on, keep trucking....don't give in to every pain or broken bone or heart attack... ignore it all and keep moving...

"don't you feel much stronger a person" - not especially. I'll feel a much stupider person if I do permanent damage....

On the subject of keeping moving, I guess Bob missed my earlier saga along these lines since it was on the Europe board: http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ria-venice.cfm

<b>Oct 10-12 - Flat, metal chopsticks</b>

Once I had the ticket, getting to Haneda airport was easy - aside from the need to get up at 5:00 on a rainy morning. So was checking in, since my business class award allowed me to sidestep the zoo that was the economy class section. Since a new international terminal was due to open October 21st, perhaps the zoo is a thing of the past, and perhaps the new JAL lounge is also an improvement. At least this one had its own rest rooms. And the food on the flight to Seoul Gimpo was a noticeable improvement over that on the Vancouver-Tokyo leg, featuring a two-level bento box.

Since the forecast had been for rain, and I was flying JAL again, I had taken the precaution of packing everything in plastic. Although JAL did manage to keep my bag dry this time, I had an inordinately long wait for it to arrive. Apparently a soccer team had traveled on the same flight, and ALL their immense quantity of luggage was unloaded before anyone else’s! Then I had a little trouble finding my hotel from the limousine bus stop, as the map I got at the T.I. counter in the airport had positioned it too far west.

Shortly before I left on this trip, I had been introduced to a Korean couple, long time friends of friends, about to move back to Seoul after a second sojourn in the U.S., and they had kindly offered to help me with my visit to Korea. They had recommended the Ibis Ambassador in the Gangnam district, south of the river but close to where they lived in the upscale Apgujeong area. While the Ibis was both more western and more upmarket than my usual hotels, after several nights on the floor I appreciated some extra comforts. I started by taking advantage of the guests’ discount for the Japanese style hot bath in the basement. While the location was convenient for meeting up with my friends, it wasn't so convenient for the main tourist sights - Seoul is a big city, and even on the metro it took quite a while to reach the palace quarter.

I will admit that my first meal in Korea was a mediocre nasi goreng in the Ibis' bar, but when D and M asked what I would like to try for dinner I opted for a traditional Korean meal. While I certainly enjoyed the food, I also had my first adventure with Korean chopsticks. Now I’m no fan of chopsticks – I find it perverse that people who love noodles choose to eat them with chopsticks – but I am reasonably competent with the normal round variety. In Korea they aren’t round and they aren’t made from wood or plastic. They’re flat and metal and I had no end of difficulty with them. The chopsticks are usually kept in a box on the table, together with long-handled metal spoons, but don’t imagine the spoon is just for soup. An insistent waitress later gave me a lesson in how to use the spoon: you pick up some rice with it, you add pickled vegetables with the chopsticks, and then you dip it in the soup. I felt like I needed an extra hand.

No Korean meal is complete without pickled vegetables – lots of little dishes with different kinds. You’ll also get soup and rice, and whatever you’ve chosen as the main dish. The little dishes may contain other treats – at one meal a whole fish showed up! Some restaurants presented me with additional implements – tongs and shears. These are for kimchi or noodles or both – you lift the long strands with the tongs and cut off a sensible length with the shears.

I spent my first full day in Korea in tourist mode, starting at the Gyeongbok Palace. The layout would be familiar to anyone who has visited the Forbidden City as it follows the same north-south, public to private alignment, but many of the buildings were destroyed during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945) and the Korean War. While the remaining (or reconstructed) buildings were attractive enough, I found a temporary exhibition of Korean crafts more interesting. I finished my tour in nice time for the changing of the guard. The costumes were no doubt authentic, but the whole performance felt too much like playacting.

I lunched in the highly touristy Insadong section nearby, in a small restaurant just off the main street. At least at lunchtime, they provided a traditional Korean meal for solo diners, at a very reasonable price, and I recommend their beef and mushroom bulgogi. (It's on Insadong Gil 12, first place on the left.) After lunch I skipped the souvenir shops and instead visited the nearby Jogye Buddhist temple. A volunteer English-speaking guide explained that the women filling the main hall were praying for their children's success in upcoming examinations. She also said that the temple practiced Korean Zen Buddhism, which I found surprising, as the temple and the ceremony in process seemed very un-Zen to me.

I finished the afternoon in a French patisserie just north of Insa-dong, called, I believe, Armandier. The coffee was good, but the brandied pistachio macarons were to die for.

I'm enjoying your report. Hope your sightseeing has not been too impacted by the rain/typhoons in the area. And hope your foot is feeling better. Looking forward to more.

Any day that ends in a pâtisserie is basically good.

Are the chopsticks flat-oval, or flat-like-a-knife?

You can find the same stainless steel chopsticks (stored in a box) at many Korean restaurants in L.A.

shelleyk - thanks. I missed out on Sun-Moon lake because of the typhoon, but was otherwise mostly unaffected. My ankle is better, but the rest of that foot is now unhappy...

rizzuto - not oval. More like flat skewers. The ends kept wanting to cross.

rkkwan - do they have the tongs and shears too?

The flat metal chopsticks are new to me. I think I'd have trouble with them, too.

<b>Status</b> - my feet finally seem to be doing better! I spent a good part of the day at the Yingge ceramics museum (free, and excellent) and was still able to walk almost normally. One more day in Taipei and then I fly to Hong Kong.

<b>Oct 12 - Danyang and the Love Motel</b>

Plan A for Korea had me traveling north west to Seorak-san National Park for a couple of days hiking. Plan B had me heading south west for Danyang instead, as it would take such a long time to get from Seorak-san to anywhere in the south. A traveler I met in Gyeongju told me that Seorak-san really was beautiful, but since my bad ankle would have kept me from hiking, and there wasn't anything else to do there, my change of plan worked out well. Danyang is on the edge of two other National Parks, Worak-san and Sobaek-san, but there were other attractions, according to both Lonely Planet and Rough Guide (seems Fodors doesn't have a guidebook for Korea).

When my friends traveled beyond Seoul (other than for D's two hour commute by train) they went by car, but D looked up the buses for me - I'd leave from Dong Seoul bus station, just five metro stops from my hotel. I didn't have a hotel reservation in Danyang - I had had another Korean friend of a friend contact one of the hotels, which said I didn't need a reservation, and the (very helpful) Korean Tourist Office agreed, although with a note of regret.

A heavy haze blanketed Seoul the day I left. I thought it might be pollution, but it never lifted, even as we finally cleared the suburbs half an hour out, and began driving through heavily forested hills. I enjoyed the scenery, and was amazed to read in the Rough Guide that by the end of the Korean War the hills were mostly barren. The subsequent reforestation program must be the most successful in history - you'd never guess today that the tree cover is just 50-60 years old. (Well, if you were an expert I'm sure you'd know it wasn't virgin forest, but it looked fine to me.) I had had no difficulty buying a ticket for the bus right before it left, and only five other passengers shared the ride with me. Like many of the buses in Korea, it made no intermediate stops.

Rough Guide said that the hotel I wanted to try first, the Sky Motel, was located between the ferry pier and the bus terminal. But the ferry terminal had disappeared since the book was published, and after an unsuccessful search along the waterfront I tried the only hotel that looked at all inviting - Hotel Luxury. My inability to find a normal entrance was the first clue that it was actually a love motel - access was through the basement parking garage, only. Then there were day and half-day rates for the rooms. I picked the cheapest room, just under $50 a night, and found it plenty comfortable. True, there were rather more mirrors than I was used to, and the big TV screen dominated the bed, but it was roomy, and had a deep bath and separate shower. And as a long-time member of Planned Parenthood (my grandmother was an early campaigner for birth control), I was pleased to see that the welcome kit handed to me at check-in included condoms. (Not that I had a use for them myself, nor for anything else in the kit.)

Looking for a place for lunch I couldn't believe the number of empty restaurants - maybe they do better in the summer. I picked the only place with customers, although it really catered to groups, and served me way more food than I could eat. After lunch I discovered that the Sky Motel was above the restaurant, but if I had found it earlier I would have missed out on the love motel, which I found amusing. Since the information desk in the bus station was now staffed, I asked for help with the next leg of my journey, to Gyeongju. The three-way conversation (she got an English-speaker on the phone) was initially unproductive as they thought I wanted to leave that day - apparently you don't forward-plan your trips in Korea. Then I was told that I couldn't go via Andong (where I had thought I might visit a folk museum), and the only bus to Daegu (a major transfer point) didn't leave until 13:25. They wanted me to take the train, which left even later.

Wondering what I would do with an extra morning in Danyang, I took a taxi to the first attraction on my list, Dodam-sambong, three small islands in the lake formed by Chungju Dam (which drowned most of the original town of Danyang). The rocks were pretty enough (see http://bit.ly/9rLWFt ), and a musical fountain had been installed nearby, but even if I had climbed the rather steep steps to the stone arch on the nearby hill the place couldn't have kept me occupied very long. I took a bus back to town, where I drank bad cappuccino, bought some things for breakfast, and discovered that the only power point in my room was under the bathroom sink.

Dinner, at a place advertising itself as "green" but serving me packet soup and a huge Wiener schnitzel with minimal veggies was chiefly memorable for the small boy across the room who kept glaring at me with obvious but inexplicable hatred.

<b>Oct 13-14 - Danyang and Daegu</b>

So, I wasn't going to be hiking in the national parks. Instead I took a local bus across the river and up into the hills to visit Guin-sa, a modern temple belonging to a Buddhist sect called Teon-ta, founded by the monk Sangwall Wongak, in 1945. The site, a valley in the mountains, was as spectacular as I expected. What I hadn’t realized was that the valley wasn’t level, and that the final building was a long way up. And, of course, down. (I actually went down some of the slopes backwards, as that put less strain on my bad ankle.) After trekking all the way up, and admiring all the elaborate decoration (and noting the ongoing construction), I was rather taken aback to discover that the statue inside that last temple wasn’t that of the Buddha, but of the founding monk, in traditional Korean dress. If that doesn’t bother you, it looked like you could stay in the complex, and the setting is lovely. You’d probably need someone who speaks Korean to arrange it.

The afternoon also involved more stairs (including a long, narrow circular staircase) than were good for me. These were in a cave, Gosu-donggul, which I thought really not worth the effort. There were quite a few interesting formations, but the rock was mostly a muddy grey, which rather spoiled the effect. I preferred the view above ground, strolling slowly along the river bank. I also enjoyed dinner – pork with garlic and pepper sauce arrived in a foil-lined dish over a heater. I was supposed to wrap it in lettuce leaves, but I always have trouble with that.

While I wasn't sorry to have visited Danyang, I didn't want to spend the best part of another day there. Careful perusal of the bus timetable turned up a morning bus that appeared to go both to Daegu and to Busan. I knew that there were plenty of buses to Gyeongju, my real destination, from Daegu. I couldn't buy a ticket ahead of time, but the morning of the 14th I was finally able to buy a ticket, and to board the bus, although the driver kept saying "changing, changing" with a very worried expression. I took this, correctly, to mean that I would have to change buses at some point. I did, but it couldn't have been easier - all the Daegu passengers were shepherded off one bus and on to another, with no opportunity to stray, and the driver even moved my pack for me. Piece of cake.

Unfortunately, getting from the North Daegu bus station, where the bus terminated, to any of the other bus terminals, or to the train station, proved not a piece of cake at all. The driver of my bus told me to take a taxi, but not only were there no taxis in evidence, I though it was a bit far for a taxi ride. A very helpful local lady carefully read all the bus timetables, and agreed with the driver that there was no bus connection. Finally I took a bus headed for an area with a subway stop - only to be told by the driver when we got near that the subway wasn't working! When I failed to find the stop for the bus he told me to take instead, I gave in and took a taxi to the train station - now much nearer - but I had to waylay a passing pedestrian to translate my destination.

The confusing coin lockers in the train station were almost the final straw, but luckily some equally puzzled locals figured out that you had to feed twelve separate 100 won coins into the locking mechanism before it would work... I retreated to the top floor of the Lotte department store attached to the station, where a bowl of excellent tofu and seafood soup, consumed in a quiet and comfortable restaurant, considerably improved my attitude.

I had been interested in stopping in Daegu to see the traditional herbal medicine market written up in Lonely Planet. Possibly the market has changed since the book was researched. Or possibly the author had been over-using some of the merchandise. Either way, I found the nearby food market more worthwhile - how often do you see a life-size octopus made out of candy? The medicine market had been cleaned up, with everything packaged in plastic and neatly stored indoors, and no hands-on activities on offer in the cultural center.

Since I had to go back to the train station to collect my main pack, I took the train instead of a bus onto Gyeongju. Probably the same train I would have taken if I'd spent the day in Danyang. Comfortable enough, but with an extremely annoying and persistent squeak. Not one of my better travel days!

Is Insadong a narrow, winding pedestrian-only passageway?

Didn't see metal chopsticks when I was in Korea in 1998.

Some of the Insadong area has narrow and winding pedestrian alleys, but the main street is pretty straight, wide, and carries cars (maybe only during the week).

The impression I got from my Korean friends was that the metal chopsticks were traditional.