On Our Way At Last ….
We flew out of Melbourne on Saturday 24 August at 9.15 am and arrived in Los Angeles 14 hours later, through immigration, fingerprinted and photographed then transferred to a Westjet flight to Vancouver and arrived at the Sandman Suites on Davie St around 4.00pm the same day. After a really good nights sleep we were fresh and ready for an adventurous bike ride around Vancouver.
On Your Bike ….
We picked up our hybrid bikes from English Bay Cycles just down the road from the hotel and set off on our 8 hour ride. Our first stop was to see these 14 giant bronze shirtless laughing statues called A-maze-ing Laughter. Of course, this was our first photo shot for the day.
Liz with the “A-Maze-Ing Laughter” bronze statues
Then it was onto Stanley Park, a 1000 acre area of parkland full of walking trails, lakes, childrens playgrounds, eating areas, open air concert stage and a one way cycle path which bike riders love to ride. It was the 125th Anniversary of Stanley Park and a perfect sunny day for every local and every tourist to cycle their way around the 8 km one way cycle path following the Seawall all the way.
Totem Poles in Stanley Park
There were many different spots for photo shots and rests along the way including a music concert area where we caught up with two local Canadian ladies enjoying a beer in the sunshine. It was great to compare the differences between Vancouver and Melbourne and learn about Vancouver from locals.
Cyclists on the Seawall cycle path in Stanley Park
It’s A Matter Of Balance ….
One of the most amazing sights we witnessed during our ride in Stanley Park was a rock balancing artist, Kent Avery. This chap randomly picked up rocks from the foreshore and balanced them on top of one another. Rocks were stacked 4 and 5 high and seemed to defy gravity. Just amazing.
Kent Avery – Rock Balancing Artist.
From Stanley Park we followed the cycle path around to Granville Island. What an amazing ride. We have never seen so many cyclists and all very courteous and patient. The paths are well designated with signs and are separate from the walking paths. Granville Island is full of art and craft shops, a fresh food market, theatres, unique shops and lots of restaurants all set on an island with a huge boat marina. We had a late lunch here before setting off over the Burrard Street Bridge and back to the cycle shop. It was a perfect weather to see the sights of Vancouver and cycling was an easy way to get around.
Lunch in the Net Loftl Food Court on Granville Island.
By Ferry To Victoria ….
Monday we left for Victoria, on Vancouver Island and the the capital of British Columbia. The ferry run by BC Ferries took 1 1/2 hrs to reach Swartz Bay then 35 minutes by coach into Victoria. The crossing was calm and relaxing in the Sea West Lounge and in no time we were in Victoria.
Marine Highway Car Ferry
Victoria is a very pretty and compact town with an inner harbour and walkways along the waters edge. 950 colourful flowering hanging baskets hang in the streets from the light poles. A one hour harbour tour on a small ferry enabled us to get an overall look at Victoria from the water and we called into West Bay Marine Village and Fishermans Wharf where people have built these colourful floating houses for permanent and holiday living.
The cute little ferries on Victoria Harbour used as taxis and for tours. We had a very enjoyable hour on one of these boats viewing the harbourFloating Houses at Fisherman’s Village
A Garden Party …..
The next day was off for a city tour around Victoria and then to the world famous and beautiful Butchart Gardens located 23 km from Victoria. These gardens cover 22 hectares, are still privately owned, and host 1 million visitors each year. The gardens consist of six main gardens; the Sunken Garden (the old limestone quarry), The Rose Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Italian Garden and the Mediterranean Garden. As well, there is a very nice gallery, coffee shop, a restaurant and of course the compulsory gift shop. We spent 3 1/2 hours walking the gardens and would definitely recommend a visit.
The Sunken Garden at Butchart Gardens. This was an old limestone quarry.Entrance Entrance to the Japanese Garden
After an enjoyable, but short, 2 days in Victoria we departed for the Alaskan leg of our trip flying from Victoria to Fairbanks via Seattle.
In The Heart Of Tokyo ….. Our hotel for the last few days was situated right next to Tokyo Railway Station in the heart of Tokyo. Very convenient when returning from Kyoto and also for our journey out to Narita Airport on the Narita Express train. We arrived early afternoon and checked into the hotel then went out to explore the area spending much of our time in the Tokyo Station. It is just amazing how big these stations are complete with department stores and shopping centres and more restaurants than you can imagine. It seems that no one in Tokyo eats at home because many of the restaurants are full and some have ques outside of 30 to 40 people waiting for a table.
View From Our Hotel Window Down To Tokyo Station
Exploring A New Area ….. The following day we ventured further afield, but due to inclement weather our plans were a little curtailed. We hopped on the train and travelled 4 stops to a suburb called Okachimachi. There is a well known shopping arcade adjacent to the railway line called Ameyayokocho. This shopping arcade is built under the railway line and runs for a kilometer with other shops running off the side streets. And what a contrast to the Ginza. This area is where the locals shop. Prices are much lower but so is the quality of the stores. An interesting contrast to the Ginza and great if you are looking for sporting equipment or clothing.
Ameyayokocho Arcade – Where The Locals Shop
An Amazing Store ….. We walked from Okachimachi to the next station, Ueno, had a quick lunch then headed back to Electric Town, Akihabara to look in just one electrical store. Yodobashi Akiba. This 10 story building selling just electrical goods, cameras, computers and toys has to be seen to be believed. We took the elevator to the top floor and slowly worked out way down to ground floor level. We didn’t have time to do the basement floor and sub basement floor. One complete floor of this building is dedicated to cameras and camera accessories and every camera is on display so you can touch and feel it with no restrictions.
Yodobashi Akiba Electrical Store – 10 Floors Dedicated To Electrical Goods
Our Final Day ….. On our final day in Tokyo we went to Shibuya, about 20 minutes from downtown Tokyo. This is a major regional district and popular with teenagers for fashion and entertainment. It is an area where you can rent a hotel room by the hour or the half day. I have no idea why you would want to do this but if someone knows please let me know. We spent a couple of hours in Shibuya taking in the sights and fashions and then headed back to the hotel in preparation for our return home. A great two weeks in a most interesting and enjoyable country.
Hotel Rooms By The Hour – Interesting
By the way. We stayed in a much nicer hotel that the one in the photo above. We payed by the day, not by the hour.
A Great Way To Travel ….. It was with a tinge of sadness that we left our cosy apartment in East Ginza. We said our goodbyes to Scott who had three more days in Tokyo and headed for Tokyo Station and the Shinkansen (bullet train) bound for Kyoto. Just over 2 hours later and a very relaxing train ride we arrived in Kyoto, and after a short taxi ride we were in our new apartment in Kyoto. In the afternoon we walked around our local area, found the supermarket and took on the adventure of buying some supplies all in Japanese for our 5 day stay in Kyoto. That evening we took a short walk to the famous Gion area. Gion is Kyoto’s most famous geisha district. It is filled with shops, restaurants and teahouses where geishas entertain. Gion has a high concentration of traditional wooden merchant house and due to the fact that property taxes were formerly based upon street frontage, the houses were built with narrow facades only five to six meters wide, but extend up to twenty meters in from the street.
Gion – Hanami-koji St
On Your Bike ….. On our first full day in Kyoto we decided the best way to get around was by bike. There are numerous bike hire companies in Kyoto so we went to one relatively close to our apartment and hired two electric bikes for the day. Bike hire is very cheap and for the day for the two bikes only cost Yen 3000 which is about $36.00. Very good value. Our first stop on our bike trip was to Kodaiji Temple. This turned out to be an amazing experience. Instead of just a temple we found a complete area full of shops and restaurants all aimed at tourists. No need for morning tea, every second shop was offering samples of their food and drinks they were selling or just offering free coffee and biscuits to get you to stop at their store. There were hundreds of school children there on day excursions and they were so happy and friendly with many of them saying hello to you in English. The Temple though turned out to be a bit of a dissappointment as it was completely covered for renovation.
Kodaiji Temple Entaran
Our Next Stops ….. Our next stop was the Heian Jingu Shrine about a 4 km bike ride up one of the busiest streets in Kyoto. A walk around the Shrine for 30 minutes off to our next stop the Imperial Palace. For those that are interested, a Temple always has a Budda and a Shrine doesn’t. Usually Shrines are used for weddings and Temples are used for burials. The Imperial Palace is only open to the public twice per year and we were lucky enough to be in Kyoto for the Autumn opening. So along with 50,000 Japanese and about 4 Europeans we walk through this most impressive array of buildings and gardens. One thing we give the Japanese credit for is how to handle large volumes of people and whilst there was a lot of people at the Palace, you felt like you were just having a casual stroll around the Palace.
A Small Section Of The Imperial Palace – Kyoto
From the Imperial Palace we rode our bikes to the Nijo Castle. For a Yen 500 ($6.00) you were able to walk through the castle and all the gardens. Nijo Castle was built in 1603 as the residence of the first shogun of the Edo Period (1603-1867). His grandson Iemitsu completed the castle’s palace buildings 23 years later.
Back on our bikes to ride home as it was getting late and it was dark around 5.15pm, we came across a roof covered street (Sanjo St) which runs for a kilometer and contained shops and restaurants. Although it is pedestrian only, you are allowed to ride push bikes so we ventured down to explore. We came across a vendor selling traditional Japanese crepes using sesame seeds, honey and some unrecognisable ingredients and not having any lunch we stopped to give them a try. They were delicious.
Crepes For Afternoon Tea in Sanjo Arcade – KyotoCycling Kyoto – Liz in Sanjo Arcade
So our first full day in Kyoto turned out to be a great day especially since we were able to enter the Imperial Palace.
Venturing Further Afield ….. Day 2 and we decided to go to Nara, a 45 minute train journey from Kyoto. Our morning in Nara was spent visiting the Kofukuji Temple, going to the Government Offices which has a viewing deck on the top floor of the building for a 360 degree view over Nara, then on to the Yoshiki-en Traditional Japanese Gardens. From the gardens we walked to the Todaiji Temple which is the world’s largest wooden structure and built by the Emperor Shomu in the 8th century. This is an amazing building and contains a giant Budda (15 meters high) and two very impressive guardian deities.
Todaiji Temple – Nara (The Largest Wooden Structure In The World)
Many of the main attractions in Nara are situated in or around a 660 hectares Nara Park which contains an abundance of wild deer. It is a novelty when you see your first couple of deer as they are very tame and come up to you for food. It was a novelty to see school children lined up with a deer in the middle of them for a photo shoot. The deer are so tame they just stand there and take it all in.
Wild Deer In Nara Park
From the Temple we walked through the park back to town and by this time it was 3:00 PM so we searched out a restaurant serving traditional Japanese cuisine and had a delicious 4 course lunch for the two of us for just Yen 1600 (about $20.00). What we have noticed in Japan is that if you go to restaurants used by the locals, the prices are very reasonable and excellent quality. If you go to the restaurants targeted at tourists you pay very high prices. The same the world over.
Ichizoku Restaurant Where We Had Lunch – Nara
By the time we finished lunch it was time to head back to Kyoto and our cosy apartment.
A Day In The Metropolis ….. We had not explored the downtown area so on our third day, Saturday, we spent the day wandering the main shopping area of Kyoto. For a city of only 1. 5 million population this downtown area is amazing. The variety and quality of the shops, department stores and restaurants is just amazing. To put it in perspective the shopping district of Kyoto would be larger and have a much wider range of stores than Melbourne CBD. The Teramachi Shopping Arcade, pictured below, is one of a few arcades in the CBD and is about a kilometer long.
Teramachi Shopping Arcade – Kyoto
Another arcade, Nishiki Food Market, is not quite as long but contains only food stores of every possible variety. Nearly all the stores have tastings of their product and is is a real experience to walk along tasting the wide variety of foods on offer, and not knowing what you are sampling.
Market Stalls in Nishiki Food Market – Kyoto
Dinner In Gion ….. Saturday evening we walked back to the Gion area for dinner and went to a restaurant called Issen Yoshoku which is famous in Kyoto. We walked in and were promptly seated and given a rather large red menu with Japanese writing on the front. To our surprise when we opened it there was only one item on the menu. Yes one item. It consisted of a pancake style base made of tempura batter on which was piled spring onion, egg, dried shrimp, grilled fish paste, dried bonito (fish), ginger, Konjak jelly (plant) and flour. When cooked on a hot plate it is folded in half like a calzone pizza and served with a sweet soy sauce. It turned out to be delicious and we understood why there were queues outside the waiting for takeaway and the restaurant was full of customers.
Issen-Yoshoku Being PreparedOur Delicious Meal – Issen Yoshoku
Having no desert on the menu we then found a bar on the 5th floor of a building that specialised in only crepes and drinks and had the most delicious crepes you could imagine whilst sitting next to two elderly geishas and being entertained by a very competent barman.
Rob With A New Friend
Our Final Day In Kyoto ….. Sunday was our final day in this beautiful city and we decided to see a couple of tourist sites on the outskirts of Kyoto. The first, a short train ride away was the Fushimi-inari taisha Shrine. This Shrine was in immaculate condition and very impressive. Obviously Sunday is an important ceremonial day in Japan because there were many Japanese children dressed in Kimonos and boys in traditional dress. The Shrine is famous for its thousand torii gates which straddle a network of trails behind the main building. The trail leads into the forest of Mount Inari and runs for 4 km to the top of the mountain.
The Fushimi-inari taisha Shrine
Our train took us back to Kyoto Station in order to catch a bus to our next destination, the Kinkakuji Temple. Kyoto Station is an architectural masterpiece and I have never seen a train station so imposing. There are escalators that run up 10 floors in a row to the top of the building where you can see down into the main station ground floor. There are three departments stores in the station and the total floor area of shops is probably double the size of Chadstone Shopping Center.
Kyoto Station – An Architectural Masterpiece
Not Just Another Temple ….. This time we left the comfort of the trains for the Kyoto bus system to venture north to the Kinkakuji Temple or as it is more commonly known, The Golden Pavilion. Well we certainly left the best till last. This temple is covered in gold leaf and as we arrived mid afternoon it glistened in the setting sun. This is just a magnificent building set on the edge of a lake and surrounded by beautiful Japanese gardens.
Kinkakuji Temple – The Golden Pavilio
And so our 5 days in Kyoto comes to an end. An amazing contrast to Tokyo. You see Kyoto as old Japan and Tokyo as new Japan.
