5 days in Kyoto!

Day 1

We arrived in Kyoto and headed straight to our hotel via bus. Please note (and this is relevant for later) I was doing all the navigation and organising the bus that we were going to take.

The hotel was lovely and a perfect location for us to head out and check out what Kyoto had to offer. We headed to one of the main 'youngish' shopping districts and wandered for hours. We went to the Japanese version of Urban Outfitters, many vintage shops and had fun exploring. There is a lot of merchandise on sale in all of the shops for Halloween and we sampled a tasty Halloween Burger removed McDonalds (don't judge Chris, I begged him as I've never seen such a weird burger before). It was delicious :)

We checked out a Pachinko hall or casino (not exactly sure what to call this place). Chris stayed and played, I hated the place and left after one game. Pachinko, to my understanding, is essentially an arcade game whereby a person twists nossles and pushes buttons to get small metal silver balls to fall into the right places on the screens. If you get enough balls to fall in the right place then you can exchange a token for a prize (like a Yakult or a biscuit). Playing the game costs more than either of the aforementioned items. Now hundreds and thousands of people flock to these halls all around the country and there is a sleeping area so I am clearly missing the point and need to do more research. 

After a quick dinner at a cute bar by the river we headed home to sleep before meeting Ed Mockridge the next day. For anyone that doesn't know Ed is one of Chris' friends from uni and he happened to be in Japan for business at the same time as us.

Day 2

First thing we headed to Fushimi-Inari Taisha, the head shrine of the Inari Cult, dedicated to rice and saki. The shrine was ok but behind it we found 4km of paths covered with orange Torri gates. These create a kind if tunnel, and are wooden gates, painted orange and each one an offering from companies asking for success in business. The black writing on the gates identifies the company that donated it. We hadn't realised the walk would be quite so long but got on with it and were soon at the top. The gates are pretty expensive (1.2 million yen), so on occasions you would come across shrines that had lots of little gates all over them. There are many stone foxes protecting the shrines and these are supposedly messengers from the rice gods.

Our unexpected walk had taken us a little while and so we descended the mountain, via an off-path 'shortcut', to find some lunch. We picked a conveyor sushi restaurant which was pretty awesome and then set our sights on a relaxing afternoon with Asahi's and saki. At just before 10 (we had been drinking for a while) I left to go back to the hotel and sleep. Ed left shortly after to return to Osaka. Chris arrived home at 5am having been to have dinner with some Japanese skaters he had met and getting a little lost on his way home. Apparently getting into a taxi and saying 'MyHotel please' didn't go so well. The name of the hotel we were staying at was MyStay not MyHotel. 

Day 3

The next day it rained and rained and rained. We moved hotels in the morning and then I went to the Imperial Palace to book our tour for the next morning. The blocks here are bigger than in the states and this excursion took me a LOT longer than expected...4 hour walk in the rain...

Chris stayed in bed.

Day 4

The next morning we got up nice and early and headed for the Imperial Palace (where the Emperor used to live pre-1868). The Palace is surrounded by beautiful gates and has within it a number of buildings used for enthronements, ceremonies and waiting rooms. Whilst all of the current buildings are replica's they are still pretty impressive and we were particularly impressed with the roofs made from layers of cedar bark (second picture below this paragraph). A lot of the buildings are now in museums or temples and as a result there are a lot of expanses of raked gravel in the spots where they used to be. The highlight for me were the beautiful landscape gardens and gorgeous lanterns.

Next we headed straight to Nijo-Jo, the Kyoto residence of a Shogun in the mid 16th Century. He led a new military based government and as such this home is filled with statements of his opulence, intended to demonstrate to the Emporer where the power now lay. And opulent it was; there were massive moats, huge gates, watchtowers and gorgeous gardens. Inside the main home there are a number of rooms with gilded screens and carvings. On the walls in some of the rooms there are red rope hangings (gives the impression that the Shogun is alone and confident to all visitors when in fact there are many guards behind the walls just in case anything happens). There were also Nightingale floors throughout, making it impossible to walk or sneak up on anyone! Ever time we walked it sounded like little birds chirping.

(Can you see me in the photo below?)

Next we jumped in a taxi and headed across town to a place called Kiyomizu-dera. It's super famous in Kyoto. There is a beautiful platform that overhangs the valley, a three storey Pagoda and a main Hall.

The site is fairly touristy and there are many ladies in traditional Japanese dress...

Behind the main hall there are a number of shrine buildings that people seek out for the purpose of being 'lucky in love'. There is a waterfall said to have mystical powers if you drink it's waters. There are 3 separate streams that you can drink from that signify success, love and health. I (stupidly) went first and being newly engaged and at a temple where thousands flock to find luck in love thought I would drink from the love stream. Chris going second did not. He chose health...typical.

We visited 2 more temples that same day and walked the Philosophers Path at dusk which was beautiful. By the time we got back to our home stay we were exhausted and ready for bath and bed!

This was my favourite temple that we saw...and the sky was doing unusual things which made it all the more memorable...

Day 5

We only had a half day today before heading back to Osaka and then onto Nara, and we planned to make the most of it...We got up early and headed for Kinkaku-Ji or the Golden Pavillion. This was originally built as a retirement villa for a Shogun but was converted to a Zen temple when he died. It was burnt down by an unhappy monk in 1950 and rebuilt shortly after and is interesting as each floor is designed in a different Japanese architectural style.

We LOVE Kyoto and had an amazing time...

Jane

Japan - Osaka

Arriving in Japan we were exhausted and after our long journey were ready (in need of) a bit of rest. Japanese customs seemed especially thorough checking repeatedly that we didn't have any marujuana or other substances. They asked me a few times about my relationship with Chris; 'was I travelling with him, were we together'? Then 'the boss' sauntered over, flipped over a translation book and pointed at some English words...' A sniffer dog responded to your bag coming off the plane. Come with me please...'

We were led into a back room where our bags were very politely emptied and we were both patted down. Chris was very obliging and showed them all the secret pockets of his wallet and bag...Not exactly the actions of someone carrying drugs!  We had bought some cooking spice in India which they think may have alerted the dog. We also had our trekking gear washed in Pokhara before we left Nepal and it came back smelling of smoked ham...another smell that may have caused the dog to 'false positive' our bags.

Many apologies later we were on our way. I fell asleep on the train and over an hour later Chris woke me up and we had arrived. On arrival at our hotel we found out they had an onsite 'Onsen' or thermal bath which was just the best news ever...

Bathed, washed and relaxed we headed out for dinner and ended up at a cool little Japanese bar where 3 air hostesses from a Japanese airline were having dinner. The good news was they spoke English and helped us through the menu, they also stood up and cheered when we told them we were newly engaged which was lovely! The chef kept telling Chris he looked like the strong man at the circus which is kind of funny.

The next day we woke up and walked through the business district of Osaka to get to Osaka castle, which incidently is the most visited tourism attraction in the whole of Japan! Then we headed to the shopping district!

Shopping in Japan is so cool. All I can say is they have so so much stuff that I did not know even existed. Umbrella's have umbrella handle covers, they have digital business card readers and more sushi and fruit key rings than I had expected. In the golfing shops (which are plentiful) they have hundreds of club head covers, flashing golf tee's (which actually seems like a sensible idea) and Uniquo has an entire floor in most department stores. There are sushi socks, entire department store complexs for electrical goods, and an entire floor of the massive department store for calligraphy, origami and stationary, the likes of which I have never seen before.

After building up an appetite we stumbled upon an amazing sushi, sashimi, tempura, etc (basically everything Japanese), 'all you can eat' buffet. Chris thinks I eat too much, but when you can have all the sashimi that you want for 2000 yen (£12), do the words 'too much' really exist?

A great start to Japan, the next morning we got up and headed to Osaka main station to get the JR line to Kyoto.

Nepal - hiking to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC)

We arrived in Katmandu after our epic 25hr journey and jumped straight into a taxi to our hotel. The taxi, after India, was a pleasure. Less horns, safe(r) driving and everything seemed somehow cleaner and more organised. The whole city is surrounded by huge mountains and gave us our first glimpse into what we had coming over the next 8 days.

The streets of Katmandu are lined with shops selling trekking gear. Knock off North Face trousers, coats and sleeping bags are everywhere. Arriving at our hotel we felt tired and ready for bed but knew we had to eat, book our bus ticket for the next morning and buy some last minute trekking essentials. 

Arriving at check in we had some bad news. Our hotel had double booked us...'Our booking system is down' they told us, 'unless we acknowledge your booking we have never received it'. Unfortunately for them they had emailed us and tried to earn themselves more with a non-complimentary airport pickup (!). Bad news for them, they had to sort it out. 

Nearly an hour later we were too tired to argue, we settled for a Nepalese 1 star hotel with no air conditioning. Our room was on the 5th floor and there was no lift. There was a partition wall to the next room so we listened to a father coo-ing at his one year old in the flat opposite all night whilst our next door neighbours had a rave. Relaxing.

Up at 6am the next morning we had to rush to get on the bus to Pokhara. The road from Katmandu to Pokhara is traditionally tough to travel and the journey may take anywhere between 7 and 12 hours. We were lucky and after just 8 hours we arrived in Pokhara. This was our starting point for the Annapurna Base Camp trek.

I had planned a very tough walking schedule starting at 6am the next morning. However it turned out that Nepal was mid-festival and the office that issues the necessary trekking passes was closed until the next morning at 10am. However our hotel put us in touch with a guy who not only helped us out, but took Chris into town on his scooter!

Drama, issue and delay aside (and now resolved) we finally set off the next day from Kande at 12. Midday sun, 2hr steep ascent. It was a tough start....

Jane wrote this first bit.... Chris continues....

DAY ONE

Stairs up for about two hours, then a nice trek through a forest and our first experience of walking in the mountains. Stopped after 5 hours, having been joined for 2 hours by a dog (who we named Domino). The owner of our lodgings in Landruk had to shoo him away, and as basic as the room was, it cost £1 a nite! Ate some great food and got our first glimpse of Annapurna!

DAY TWO

We found the first of many bridges. These were initially fun, and then as you noticed the frayed cables, shaking sides, broken boards, and possibly most importantly, the previous bridge that was now smashed at the bottom of the ravine.... They became terrifying.

There are many people to chat to along the way, but the most inspiring are the porters; One of whom let me try their bag. These guys carry up to 40kg using their back and neck, moving faster both up and down the mountain than we did...oh...while wearing flip flops. 

We set off at 6.30am and walked for 6 hours, stopping for a great lunch at Chomrong at the top of a killer 2 hour staircase. Both tired, but eager to continue, we decided to push on to the next village, which we could see across the valley..... 

That turned out to be a soul destroying 1 hour down and then 2 hour climb. We fell asleep after dinner at 6pm.

DAY THREE

The previous day took its toll on us and we decided to have an easy 3 hour walk to our next sleep. We found an awesome waterfall and stopped to cool down on route, where we actually met some new friends, who joined us for an afternoon of cards. 

DAY FOUR

I found a stick to walk with. 

And we only just made it to the camp below our target (Annapurna base camp) as the weather started to close in around us... We spent a VERY cold night there under sleeping bag and extra blankets provided by the tea house in which we stayed.

DAY FIVE

Woke up at 3.30 and started walking up the mountain to Annapurna base camp just before 4am. The moon was incredibly bright, so didn't need torches to follow the path, and when we arrived at 5.30, it was spectacular seeing the moonlight on the peaks.

After about 40 minutes the sun started to come up, which completely changed the area (also lots of other people started to arrive). We were actually wearing EVERYTHING we had brought with us, as it was well below freezing. We were slightly concerned at one point that Jane had frost bite, and a doctor had to intervene. This is in contrast to 2 hours further down the mountain where I was once again in shorts and a vest!

We set off on our return journey, going 6 hours back down during the rest of the day. Along the way we met lots of friends we had made on the way up, which was nice!

In our tiredness we had a mini - 'discussion' about who had lost the loo-roll...but turns out we still love each other....Annapurna is tough!

DAY SIX

Another short day, we stopped at Chomrong this time, and I got to put my feet up and eat nice food. 

However after 3 hours I grew restless and with two Americans decided to start a football game with 3 locals, ....which ended up turning into a 3 hour, 5-a-side, bare foot, Tarmac football game. Amazing fun, but ironically I got my first blisters of the trip.

It's hard to say who won, but it wasn't my team.

DAY SEVEN

We set off on the last long day. Trekking 7 hours, and stopping at a hot thermal spring along the way, we were destroyed by the time we arrived at our lodge.

As we ate dinner that night, there was a power cut. And then it started to rain a bit. We went to bed with it still raining.

DAY EIGHT

We woke up and it was still raining, and the locals were worried. We had a couple of South Korean guys join us for safety and set out on the final four hours of trekking. However after an hour we realised that the rain wasnt going to stop, and that some of the paths were now flooded. We got to the first car accessible village, hired a driver and jeep, and started the 3 hour drive home. Along the way we had the football playing Americans join us (they had pushed ahead the day before, and got stuck), and several times were very glad we had a jeep.

It had been an amazing adventure, and while we had got out via a car, I'm very glad we did. It wasn't until two days later that we started to hear about people trapped on the mountain (though this was at a slightly different part of the area), and it's easy to see how at the high altitudes this would have been impossible to get out from.

THE DAY AFTER

We were due to fly from Pokhara to Kathmandu (instead of taking the bus), so that we could catch our flight towards Japan, but the rain and cloud threatened this plan. After a four hour delay, we finally got airborne, and then after a similar wait at Kathmandu we were off! 

If you get the chance, do this walk, we would be so happy to give you advice on the route, timings, and the actual logistics. We have soooo many awesome memories (and a spreadsheet on our trek times etc).

Chris 

PS Jane put the loo roll in the side of my bag. So it was her fault it was temporarily lost. Just to be clear.

Not Chris' fault.