Nara

I think this post is now back to chronological order. Right after Kyoto, Hannah and I decided to jump over to Nara for a quick trip to see ever more of Japan.  Since we were super rushed on time we did a lot of research on what exactly we wanted to see and were able to hit all the major sites in just a few hours! 

We put all of our bags in storage lockers at Nara station and figured out the local bus station to get to the center of town.  When you get off the bus in the main city center it is the coolest/weirdest site because there are deer literally roaming everywhere.  They are in the gardens, streets, and even poking their heads into restaurants.  They are soooo used to being around humans that they are not scared of us at all.  On the contrary they actually come up to humans and beg for food.  Hannah and I bought a few deer biscuits and fed some of the deer.  Unfortunately, we were around an aggressive male deer group who head butted us endlessly for food.  It was scarier than I would imagine, or I'm just a wimp! 

Then we walked to a very large temple which houses the largest sitting Buddha in Japan (the second largest being in Kamakura).  I wasn't expecting much as this Buddha was in a temple and didn't have the back drop of a nature, however when you walk into the temple you are literally blown away by the size of the statue.  What was especially interesting to me was that people were not just there as tourists, but so many of them were there to actually pray.  

Japan iPhone Launch

I don't know why but whenever I am in the USA I never go to any of the retail stores for launches.  In Tokyo my team has sort of made it into a tradition to go to one of the retail stores right at opening to see the crowds and then get brunch as a team.  I knew it would be a fun morning, but I had no idea how awesome it would actually be to see a launch! 

I was lucky enough to be in Tokyo during the iPhone 5S and 5C launch.  The line for the Apple store as well as the carrier stores were blocks long and contained hundreds of people.  Apple fanatics came from far and wide to be the first people to have their hands on the new phone.  You could literally feel the energy in the air.  It was so exciting to be there and see such hard work pay off! We were even able to get into the main Docomo store without standing in line and get to touch the new phones and see customers faces as they got their phones activated.  It was a totally cool experience.

As promised after an hour exploring the stores, my team went out for brunch.  We tried this amazing brunch places in Ayoyama called Clinton St Bakery.  This is a hot new breakfast spot in Tokyo and it is the second branch of the famous NYC Clinton St Bakery.  As they advertise they have some of the best pancakes I have ever had.  A coworker and I split their version of huevos rancheros and blueberry pancakes! 

Yaki Tori Night!

I know this is kinda out of order, but in an attempt to keep my blog comprehensive I am going to add some enteries that I forgot to write as they happened. 

Hannah's first night here we decided to make this a total YOLO trip so we wanted to start it with an all you can drink yukata booze cruise.  After work, we rushed over to the pier, however we were too late! The cruise was fully booked.  We were the last few people to show up who were not able to get on the boat! 

However, we were not ready to admit defeat this early in the evening.  On our way back to the subway station we saw a small beer garden with live music.  We stopped to listen to the music, enjoy some beer, have the best grapefruit sours, and eat some fresh gyozas.  

Matt then took us to this new Yakitori restaurant that one of our coworkers showed him.  Matt declared this a night to be adventureous, so adventurous we were….We ate chicken neck, chicken heart, raw eggs, and quail eggs.  This was quite the adventurous meal, however everything was delicious!  

Kyoto

Kyoto, a former capital of Japan, is the second most popular tourist destination in Japan after Tokyo.  Naturally it was on my must see list of places in Japan and I was lucky enough to have Hannah as a travel buddy for the trip.  My coworkers had told me how incredible Kyoto was but no amount of words or pictures can really describe how amazing this city is.  It is really the perfect combination of modern and traditional coexisting side by side.  I loved that in the middle of a bustling city one could turn and find an incredible garden or temple really anywhere.  Even though we only spent a day and a half in Kyoto we were able to see and do a TON.  Get ready for a bunch of pictures! 

First we got a really late start from Tokyo, but took the super speedy Shinkansen train to Kyoto.  

Once we arrived we were starving so Hannah and I chose to eat a traditional Japanese meal of sobal and a chicken/rice bowl.

Since it was well past sunset when we arrived in Kyoto we decided to see as much as we could by night.  We started at the Nishiki market.  This is essentially foodie heaven with some retail stores sprinkled through the area.  We then continued on our way to a lovely shrine that was illuminated after dark.  After seeing the shrine, we walked down past the river to the famous Gion area.  Here we were able to see many traditional tea houses and restaurants.  Within mintues of arriving in Gion we spotten a group of Geisha women walking an elderly man out of a restaurant.  Hannah and I were warned that many geisha women in Kyoto are fake as they are tourists dressed up.  However, I think we were very lucky and actually spotted some real ones! Once we returned to our hotel for the night, we tried on our summer yukata's that the hotel provided us with!

The next morning we had an early start in order to see as much as we could in our only full day in Kyoto.  We saw soooo much I am getting exhausted just writing about it.  Since we left so early most restaurants were not open for breakfast yet, so we opted for classy cup of noodles out of a vending machine near the golden temple.  It was surprisingly delicious and took me back to my middle school days.

Our first stop was at Kinka-kuji or the Golden Pavilion.  Even though it was quite small it was just simply beautiful.  Tourists can take a walk along the perimeter of the lake and get many different views of the beautiful landscape garden as well as the beautiful temple. 

We then grabbed a cab all the way across town to Arashiyama to go see a bamboo forest as well as a monkey park. 

In Arashiyama I figured out that my favorite snack is fresh pineapple on a stick! It is a totally refreshing healthy snack on a really hot and humid Japanese summer day. 

This seemed to me to be an example of some poser geishas.  They were still wearing really elaborate outfits and were  a lot of fun to take pictures with! 

One of my favorite things that we did in Kyoto was do a steep hike to the Iwatayama Monkey Park.  At the top of this mountain one can get a beautiful view of all of Kyoto as well as interact with snow monkeys that roam wild and free.  Although they seem really cute from a distance they can be quite aggressive.  The monkeys seemed quite accustomed to having having people around.  It was so cool to just see them running everywhere around us. We were even able to feed them bananas. 

After our exhausting hike to go see the monkeys we grabbed lunch at an adorable cafe in Arashiyama.  We ate traditional Japanese curry and mochi.  

Our next big stop/hike was at the Fushimi Inari Shrine.  This shrine is located at the bottom of Mount Inari and the mountain has many steep trails that lead up to many smaller shrines.  The really cool thing about the train is that it is created by many torii lined up together.  Torii, or red arch, is donated by a business hoping to get blessings from Inari.  However, technically, Inari is the god of rice.  

Lastly after our second tough hike of the day, Hannah and I decided we wanted to be really ambitious and make it to the Kiyumizu-dera temple.  This temple is a world heritage sight and has absolutely breathtaking views.  

After a crazy busy day we were ready for some good food and some R&R.  While this picture doesn't look all that great, this ended up being one of the best meals I have had in Japan.

The next day Hannah and I wanted to see the Nijo Castle before heading out to Nara for another day trip.  The castle was beautiful as were its surrounding gardens.  This is a random fact, but one of my favorite things about the castle was that the floor boards creaked, but the noise was not normal.  The floors were engineered so that the floor boards creaked with the sounds of nightingales whenever anyone walked on them.  This was used as a measure of security to make sure the guards knew where in the building people were, but in order to not disturb people the sounds pleasantly creaks with the pleasant sound of birds.