Hello from Kyoto, Japan!

We have had a wonderful time in Japan so far, and our great experience started with the flight. Despite being in Economy Class, we had a multiple course meal that actually tasted good, a constant flow of drinks and snacks, and lots of nice little extras such as toothbrushes in the bathroom after an overnight flight. I wish I could fly in Asia vs. the US! We also appreciated that they didn’t turn off the heat for the entire flight. Ryan put on his coat like he normally does and had to take it off as the plane was actually warm. 🙂

We have adapted to the time change well and hit the ground running. We purchased a JR Rail Pass in advance which allows you to ride on nearly all of the high speed train lines. We had mapped out our route in advance (it involved several exchanges coming from the airport) which was helpful – plus Japan’s subway and railways are almost all in English and are very intuitive. For instance, there are digital maps inside the subway cars that visually show the direction you’re headed, where you are on the map, and how many minutes it is to the next stop. This is incredibly helpful when you don’t know the language!

We took a Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto and arrived in just a couple of hours. The trains go up to 200 mph so they feel like they are going very fast! The trains are great, and we so wish there would have been a bullet train between Cincinnati and Chicago as we could have been to Chicago in just over 2 hours!

We also quickly noticed the precision of the train – every train arrived exactly on time and left the station within 2 minutes of arriving. Ryan timed out the arrival with his GPS :), and they even seem to try to arrive at 30 seconds into the arrival minute. After some research, Ryan learned that the error goal is +/- 36 seconds the exact arrival time…. And some years it has been as low as 18 seconds on average. Ryan is in awe.

After arriving in Kyoto, we checked into our hotel and were ushered in for tea, coffee, and cookies. We quickly learned that this would happen every time we came back to the hotel. 🙂

We kicked off our sightseeing in Kyoto with a visit to Kiyomizu Temple (Kiyomizudera).

Our next visit was actually to a barber shop. After 5 weeks of traveling, Ryan couldn’t hold out any longer so we had a fun experience there! ;). Thankfully, I remembered the millimeters I cut Ryan’s hair (he is cheap) so I was able to explain what we wanted with a picture, labels, and our iPhone translator app. The Kyoto haircut was the most precise haircut he has ever had! The barber must have gone through Ryan’s hair at least 10 times trimming each area precisely.

We finished off our first day in Kyoto with a walking tour through the Gion District and dinner at a local Japanese restaurant. The Gion district is an area where some women can become what are called maikos and geishas. You have probably seen pictures of these women with white faces, hair up, clogs, and beautiful dresses. The history of this tradition is hard to understand (and still is a bit!), but the tour was quite helpful and interesting. We finished off with Japanese food where we sat at the counter in the kitchen where Ryan had tempora and sushi.

Our next day in Kyoto was wonderful! There is an awesome student organization called Good Samaritan Club that is comprised of 80 students from local universities. For over 50 years students have guided foreign tourists through major Kyoto sites to show visitors the city. The students volunteer to be hosts free of charge – with the sole intent of showing Kyoto to you and providing you with a wonderful experience. How amazing!

We had absolutely awesome guides (we even had 2 since one of our guides was in training). In fact, one of our guides actually led a Kellogg GIM (Global Initiatives in Management) tour last March (for those of you not familiar, GIM is a course we took at Kellogg last fall in which we went to Brazil and Argentina). Thank you so incredibly much Yuka and Motonobu for a wonderful day! http://www.geocities.jp/goodsamaritanclub_hp/index.html

Yuma and Motonobu took us to some of Kyoto’s most beautiful sites:

– Ryoanji Temple which has a fascinating Zen rock garden
– Kinkakuji which is known as the Temple of the Golden Pavilion and is made of real gold
– Arashiyama which is a district of Kyoto with a beautiful, natural setting if gardens, mountains, and a bamboo forest (the bamboo was so neat!)

The sites were fascinating to see, and getting to learn about the local culture from Yuma and Motonobu made the day incredible! They also took us to two great places to eat. We had rice and noodles for lunch and then had shaved ice and ice cream sundaes that were delicious. Ours had fresh mango (I love mango, and Japan grows mangoes so they were so fresh they melted in your mouth!)

After our tour we did laundry which proved to be quite an adventure. 🙂 The machine ate our only set of the correct denomination of coins (perhaps because we had no clue what buttons to hit since they were all in Japanese!). We were about out of Japanese Yen so we headed off to an ATM to get cash and discovered most ATMs in Japan don’t taken Debit cards issued outside of Japan. Apparently only those ATMs in post offices, 7-Eleven stores, and huge train stations like Tokyo take international debit cards. Since it was after business hours, we had a scavenger hunt for a 7-Eleven. 🙂 Now armed with cash, we were able to get our clothes in the washer. All went well until one of the washers wouldn’t unlock when the cycle ended! Thanks to the kindness of a local man and some prying, our clothes finally came out. We are so grateful for the locals here who are so friendly and helpful!!

We finished off our time in Kyoto with dinner in the Pontocho-dori, one of Kyoto’s most scenic dining areas. It is a narrow alley which runs beside a river and has pretty, traditional lanterns that glow at night. We ate a restaurant that combines French and Japanese food in a Japanese style. The food was amazing, and we had a wonderful experience visiting with our server, Miyu. She had been an exchange student in the US and is studying English at a local university now. We had so much fun learning about Miyu’s time as an exchange student (she even played percussion in her marching band) and learning more about Japan and Kyoto. Thanks Miyu for such a fun visit!

Is bminusc.com now sponsoring cabs in Kyoto?!

One of best memories of Kyoto will be the people. The service was incredible, and everyone was so friendly, kind, and helpful to us. We learned so much not only about the sites but also the culture. Thank you for a wonderful time in Kyoto!