Celebrating Korean Thanksgiving in Japan

An overdue hello from Korea! It has been a crazy busy summer filled with tons and tons of teaching, trips to America, time at the beach, and what seems to be a million other things that have kept me from sitting down to write a blog in over 3 months. I have finally dedicated this fine fall Sunday evening to my computer and this blog to tell you about our exciting trip to Japan.

As most of you may remember, last year I went to a Korean island not far off the coast of Busan called Jeju for Chuseok. You can look at the blog for that trip here... Happy Chuseok 2010 This year was Joe's first Chuseok in Korea and we decided we'd like to stick around the peninsula and explore what has become our home country a bit more. This proved to be more of a challenge than we would have anticipated. First we thought, "Why not go back to Jeju?" -- 3 months before the vacation every flight was booked for the days we wanted. We thought this was no problem, we were ready to research the best places around Korea and set out to hit new terrain! We spent countless hours researching and found a few great places we were excited for but unbelievably it seemed that every flight and ferry from Busan was booked for the vacation days. The next plan was for Joe to get an international drivers license and we'd rent a car and go on a road trip around the country for a few days. This was my favorite option. Joe did his research to get a drivers license and hopped through several hoops, my boss made a few calls for us, and we headed to the DMV on Saturday morning the week before Chuseok. We had everything we needed and saw the light at the end of the tunnel after so many dead end ideas! Woo hoo! .... NOT SO FAST! Joe has his "under-21" NJ Driver's License which is still valid for another two years in America so he saw no reason to change it. According to Korea's Department of Motor Vehicles this was the "baby license" and he could not receive an international drivers license with a "baby license". FAIL #499!!! Are you kidding me?!?! haha

In the face of defeat and the prospect of vacation in our shoe box, we came home from work on a Wednesday and decided to hell with it ~ let's go to Japan! So... we booked a flight to Osaka for Saturday and what a great decision it was! We had two days to learn about Osaka and the surrounding area to figure out what we'd like to do with the four days we had there.

We stayed at one of the best hotels in Osaka (unbeknownst to us before we arrived), the Swissotel. One of the best features of our hotel was that it was located directly above one of the two major train hubs in Osaka, Namba. This was great for us because we knew we wanted to get out of Osaka each day to visit the nearby cities of Kyoto and Nara. Once we arrived in Osaka the first order of business was to try to wrap our heads around the expansive and somewhat confusing collection of subways, public train, and private train options that make up Japan's mass-transit system. An hour later we were checked into our hotel room and ready to go out and enjoy the day in Osaka.

Osaka

Our initial impression of Osaka was that it seemed like a busy city with attitude and diversity. It reminded me of NYC much more than any cities I've been to in Korea... and anyone who knows me, knows that this is a direct route to my heart. It's a fast paced city, known for it's good food. The phrase kuidaore, which means eat 'til you drop, is often used to describe Osakans' love for good food. (Side note: this was a selling point in choosing Osaka as a vacation destination for Joe! haha) During it's early days, Osaka was Japan's center for trade with Korea and China. After Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified all of Japan he chose Osaka as the site for his castle and merchants began setting up around the castle, creating a new economic center. Obviously, Tokyo has now taken Osaka's position as Japan's economic center but it still maintains it's role as an economic powerhouse and the home to many electronic factories. Many of the books we read about Osaka said it wasn't a very beautiful city since it was bombed to smithereens during WWII and was reconstructed with not much more than buildings that resembled concrete boxes, massive arcades, and elevated highways. But I must say, we found the city quite charming. We had perfect weather to walk around for hours and take in the feel of the streets as bicyclists whizzed past us and the city began to light up as the sun went down. To get some perspective of the city we headed to the city's giant Ferris Wheel. Along the way we ended up getting lost. Joe and I take great pride in our navigation skills and are sticking to the fact that since Japanese people drive on the left side of the road, their maps must be flipped. Well those damn maps led us astray and against our will we hailed a VERY EXPENSIVE taxi! Turned out we were much closer to the ferris wheel than we thought but 7 minutes and $25 later we arrived at our location. Ouch!! Standing at 112-meters high, it's the world's 5th largest Ferris Wheel. Joe sat back and enjoyed the views while I sat on the edge of my seat counting down the minutes until I could have my feet on the ground again! After taking my first breaths standing on solid ground we tried to find somewhere to eat and turned in for the night so we could head to Kyoto the next day!

Kyoto

We got up way too early the next day to head to Kyoto. The biggest excitement of the morning was that we treated ourselves to our first room service experience. Joe kept reminding me that whatever we charged meant points on my American Express card and everything in the world can be boiled down to the perks of more Amex points! hahaha

Kyoto, an ancient capital of Japan, is where Japanese people go to learn about Japanese history, it's the place you go to see all the things that you associate with "The Land of the Rising Sun": ancient temples, gardens, shrines, etc. It's known for it's many temples but as much as Joe & I love temples we didn't have much desire to spend the vacation "temple hopping". We picked one temple in each city we were visiting to see and had tons of other plans. We took a very fast train from Osaka to Kyoto and after arriving in the impressive Kyoto Station we headed to the Visitor's Center to receive help from the nicest Japanese man who helped us plan our day. Our first move of the day was a bus from Kyoto Station to Kinkakuji Temple, or the Golden Pavilion. This is one of Japan's best-known sights and no wonder because it is incredibly beautiful. The original building was build in 1397 as a retirement villa. How'd you like to build a Golden Pavilion to retire in?! But this story doesn't end with just gold & luxurious retirement... no, no, no.... in 1950 a monk who had a bit of an unhealthy obsession with the temple thought the best way to express his love would be to burn it to the ground. What the heck?!?! Anyway, in 1955 the temple was completely reconstructed as a replica to the original in the state that we saw it.

At this point in our day it was about 98*-105* and there was absolutely no shade to be found at the temple so we decided we'd quickly move on to our next sight of the day. After a bus and a train ride we made our way to the Arashiyama Area of Kyoto. Kyoto is surrounded by mountains and Arashiyama is on the western end of the city. There were many exciting things to offer in this area. We spent the afternoon walking around the quaint streets of this small city then made our way through a bamboo grove. I have a particularly weird obsession with bamboo -- almost as weird as the monk mentioned above; albeit, I have no arson-driven desires I just like to drive Joe crazy talking about how much I love bamboo. Have I mentioned, I really love bamboo?!?!?!

Needless to say, I enjoyed our walk through the bamboo grove. Afterwards we strolled through a park and made our way to the Oi River. We rented a boat and spent the afternoon led by Captain Joe as we floated around, took in the beauty, and relaxed. It was amazing!

After our boat trip we got a delicious treat that Kyoto is famous for, Yaki-dofu. It was like teriyaki-grilled tofu that was just to die for! Then we headed to sit by the riverbank and enjoy the view. It was really relaxing until a snake slithered up in the grass behind us. For anyone who knows Joe, you know he doesn't do snakes. He shot up, yelled "I'M OUT!", and was out of sight before I knew what was going on. Hell, he just left me hanging! hahaha We quickly changed scenery and walked around Arashiyama a bit more before heading back to Osaka.

Nara

The next day we headed out to Nara, the first permanent capital of Japan. Like Kyoto, it's renowned as a showpiece of Japan's culture and history. One of the things Nara is most famous for is it's amazingly, oddly, ridiculously, scarily, friendly community of 1,200 deer which are considered National Treasures (I guess my hunter of a father with his new crossbow would not be allowed within the city limits!) . Nara is a very small city so you can walk from the train station to all of the main sights and see the city well in just a day. Nara is also the home to the Diabutsu, or the Great Buddha. This is one of the three great sights of Japan, along with the Kyoto's Golden Pavilion and Mt. Fuji. In two days we'd see 2 out of 3 of the great sights. Not bad! Our day in Nara was the ideal of relaxation. We roamed around Nara Park which is over 1,600 acres of greenery spotted with tons of deer, several temples, beautiful gardens, shrines, and museums.

We had fun with the deer. At first, we were in such amazement. We had grown up with so many annoying deer but the concept of deer walking up to you with no fear, rather excitement, just blew our minds. For the first two hours or so I'd go so far as to say it was enchanting... then we decided we'd buy deer food which was for sale everywhere. The enchantment changed QUICKLY! The deer started to really fight for the food and Joe had an aggressive male deer ramming into his leg and sticking his antlers up his shorts. To be fair they do warn you with a sign (below) but regardless, I didn't have my deer food for more than 2 minutes before I threw it all up in the air and ran away! haha I was amazed to see people laying with the deer, kissing the deer, etc. As long as you had no deer food they were so sweet but completely fearless of humans. I was walking with my hands behind my back and one even put it's whole nose in my hands.

In the middle of Nara Park is Todaji Temple which houses the famous Great Buddha. This temple is the largest wooden building in the world and unbelievably the temple was actually rebuild in 1709 as only two-thirds of it's original size. Housed inside is the Great Buddha, which is one of the largest bronze figures in the world. It stands at over 16-meters tall and consists of 437 tons of bronze and 130 kilograms of gold. There isn't much to say about the temple, the pictures speak for themselves. It was an amazing temple.. one of our favorites since arriving in Asia. It's enormity and beauty were truly overwhelming. In the pictures below, take note of how tiny Joe looks compared to the building so you can try to grasp just how huge this building is.

The rest of our time was spent in Osaka enjoying the sites there and the opportunity to slow down for a few days, enjoy each other's company, and do my favorite thing in the world -- walk! It was a really great trip that made us so excited for our SE Asia trip in March. We were told that our last day of teaching will be February 29th so we have 98 teaching days left! Woo hoo!!! We can start our birthday month off right on March 1st, departing for the vacation of a lifetime!

PS. We had matching pajamas courtesy of the Swissotel so I'll leave you with this wonderful picture!

If you want to see more pictures from Osaka you can at: Giving Korean Thanks in Japan Photo Album