family vacation, part one!

Well, it certainly has been a while since my last post! In my defense, I haven't really been traveling recently, but this week has certainly made up for it - my family is visiting for two weeks, so we have been wandering the country for the past few days and will be off again tomorrow! In an effort to keep this post from becoming enormous, I'll just give a quick summary of each day up until now.

On Saturday we got up bright and early to take the shinkansen to Kyoto! We had booked a travel package that included two nights in Kyoto, a night in Hiroshima, and transportation in between. I think it was a first shinkansen experience for everybody except me, so that's exciting.

After getting to Kyoto, we checked into our hotel and then got on a bus to Ryouanji, which is a temple famous for its Zen rock garden and also a World Heritage Site (we went to quite a few of those in just a few days, actually!). Before heading into the temple grounds, we stopped to have a late lunch at a tofu restaurant recommended by my sister's boyfriend's teacher. We ate at a little table right next to a very picturesque little pond, and it did not disappoint! After we ate, we went around and saw the temple and the rock garden (the appeal of which, I have to admit, was a little beyond me). We had been planning to go to Kinkakuji as well afterward, but ran out of time and ended up just taking the bus back to near our hotel and wandering/shopping for a little bit before bed.

View from our tofu restaurant

The next day we got up early to go to Kiyomizudera, another famous temple and World Heritage Site. We got there after a nice scenic walk from the hotel, and the temple was also very pretty. We didn't actually do any of the famous things like walking in between the love stones or drinking from the waterfalls, for the sake of time, but I really enjoyed it anyway. I especially liked all the little shops and streets on the way back down from the temple, which were full of omiyage and free samples!

After that we took a very quick glimpse around Yakasa Shrine (where a wedding ceremony was taking place!) before meeting up with my parents' friends for lunch. I think my sister and her boyfriend enjoyed their first conveyor belt sushi experience a lot, and he even won something in the lottery that you get every 5 plates!

Next our parents' friends took us to Shigaraki, to look at ceramics in the Ceramic Cultural Park and in their museum. I had fun seeing all the tanuki everywhere and was also really impressed by the very very small tea sets that were part of the ceramic exhibit in the museum - they had teapots only about as big as a quarter and cups just bigger than a fingernail! Then we went to a little shop with Shigaraki ceramics, which I gather is pretty famous, before heading to the Hotel Granvia Kyoto to eat at a buffet there. But this was no ordinary buffet - it was super fancy, with gourmet delicacies like Kobe beef and matsutake mushrooms. It was very delicious, and I definitely ate enough to make it worth the price!

The next morning we finally headed to Kinkakuji, or the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, which had been one of our goals since the beginning. It was pretty awesome to see the Pavilion, which was actually gold, even though it was pretty crowded with school groups and other visitors, even on a weekday. It was pretty impressive to see how efficiently they guided visitors in and out - we left a lot earlier than we expected and so we decided to go to Nijo Castle as well!

Kinkakuji

I was expecting it to be like all the other castles I've visited in Japan, which (frankly) are all pretty similar, but it definitely exceeded my expectations! To be fair, it seems like it was in fact a palace where the shogun lived, and so a little different from your typical castle. You could really feel the grandeur and beauty of the place as you walked around, from the beautiful art on the doors/walls to the details on the ceilings and the absolutely gorgeous gardens. I think Nijo Castle was one of my favorite places that we visited, and if I can I'd love to go there again! If I could go once the leaves have all changed color (we were unfortunately a bit too early to see any of the famous Kyoto autumn leaves), I bet it would be stunning (but also super crowded).

Then we had a quick ramen lunch before taking the shinkansen to Hiroshima! Shortly after we got there we decided to take the ferry to Miyajima, to see the famous Itsukushima Shrine (yet another World Heritage site). I love boats, so even though the ride was only 10 minutes I really enjoyed it. We got there just as the sun was setting, and it was already dark and the shrine was closed by the time we walked down to it, but the lights on the iconic torii gate were lit up and it was really beautiful! We spent a while just admiring it and taking (lot and lots of) pictures before wandering down some of the streets with souvenir shops, even though most of them were closing. There we saw the biggest rice paddle in the world and found out that they were invented in Miyajima, which was pretty awesome! After that we had Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki for dinner (not gonna lie, I think I like Kansai/Osaka-style better) before heading back to the hotel.

Itsukushima Shrine's famous torii at night

The next morning we got up and got on the streetcar (I think it's so cool that Hiroshima has streetcars!) to the Atomic Dome, which is the only building hit by the atomic bomb that has been allowed to survive, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Park. We watched part of a documentary about the bomb before going into the museum with a volunteer English guide, who was a Japanese lady and very knowledgeable. Going into the museum and seeing all the effects of the first ever nuclear weapon was definitely an experience; very sobering and sad but definitely something I think everybody should do if they can. Afterward I wandered around the Peace Memorial Park by myself for a little as my parents went back in the museum and the other two went to find food. It was a gorgeous day, which I really appreciated. Then my parents and I had another quick ramen lunch before we all hopped on the shinkansen back to Tokyo and Chiba!

Atomic Dome

Today was a leisurely day spent back home in Chiba, which was really welcome after four days of travel. In the morning after breakfast we walked to Port Tower, which is a 125-meter tower along the harbor. On clear days you can see the Tokyo Sky Tree and Mt. Fuji, but we weren't that lucky today. After Port Tower we bought bentos and had a picnic outside in Chiba Minato Park, near my work. Then we went to the Chiba City Museum of Art to check out a pretty cool art exhibit involving 3D flowers and plants that you had to take your shoes off and enter small spaces to see, or find hidden in what seemed like an empty display room. After spending some time shopping at Parco, then we came back for a homemade dinner and a night of rest before our next trip starts tomorrow!