DAY 1 - KANSAI/UMEDA SKY BUILDING

The flight from Dallas to Osaka was long, arduous and tested every ounce of our willpower. Not that we were unprepared for it. Back in Dallas, after a relatively easy check-in and security check, we parked ourselves at the Cool River Cafe - for brunch and some cocktails. The waiter did'nt even bat an eyelid when I asked for mine extra strong, guess he's used to travelers fortifying themselves before the big trip!

In the flight, that spanned nothing short of fourteen hours, we saw a couple of movies, heard a bunch of songs on our ipod (what did people do before ipods??), took numerous walks in the aisle, and even opened up a bar tab with the stewardess. In the end, we were elated when the pilot touched down at the Kansai International airport.

When one lands in Japan, one expects something spectacular to happen. After all, this is the land of Lexus motorcars, Honda motorbikes, almost-human robots and lest I forget - SONY Playstation. Sad to say, there were no such vibes. It would be many days before we figured out what makes Japan Inc. tick the way it does. The one Japanese attribute that hit us like a ton of bricks was the politeness that was showered upon us by so many people, right from the start. I am so used to being harassed world-wide by immigration officials, these jerks take special pride in pissing me off. Not the Japanese immigration officers though, they are a kind and gentle bunch. They courteously and graciously welcomed us into their home.

On getting out of the airport, we proceeded to the Japan Railway office to get our Railway Pass validated. The girl at the counter could not stop giggling at our questions, and one would have thought we were the first foreigners she ever laid eyes on! She was extremely kind and answered all our queries with her limited English knowledge. We christened her "Giggly girl". Soon, we made our way to Osaka, which was about a 30 minute journey from the airport.

Osaka Central was daunting to say the least. There were hundreds of people running around like they had something to do - and this was on a Sunday evening! There were so many exits,and a plethora of shops and kiosks. Some wrong exits later, we managed to find exit 33, the stairs from which led us directly to our hotel, the magnificent Dai-Ichi hotel. After checking in, we made it to our room (with a view), and plopped on our beds knowing fully well that lying down for more than five minutes would find us sleeping the evening (and by extension) the night away. Not wanting to fall into deep slumber, we freshened up and proceeded to find our way to the Umeda Sky Building. On the way out of our room, I noticed a beer vending machine - a first for me. I made a mental note to make a point of it in my travelogue, and here it is!

There are quite a few ways one can spend an evening in Osaka, but all we had was that - one evening. To make the best of it, we chose to visit the Umeda Sky building, which is almost 200 metres tall and has a floating "observatory" near the top. The Sky building is neither an architectural marvel nor is it any wonder of the world, but it is grand, imposing and very much a visual delight. To save the remaining reserves of our energy, we took a cab to the Sky building, and were whisked to one of the upper floors, by a super-fast evelator. Here you can buy merchandise, take in a movie or eat at the restaurant. At this point, if you are really adventurous, you can take an escalator to the floating garden observatory. This is no ordinary escalator - as you can see in one of the pictures. The escalator connects one side of the building to the floating observatory. All around this escalator is thin air, that's it! Riding this contraption is not for the weak hearted! Hanging out at the observatory is pure bliss; you get to walk around and see Osaka at her panoramic finest. You also get to see many young Japanese lovebirds (the human kind) in action, but then again - the toppermost part of the Sky building evokes such strong emotions.

As it was getting late, we decided to get back to Dai-Ichi, and explore some culinary options. The girl at the desk thought we would be delighted that there was an Indian Restaurant (Ashoka) situated in their basement two floors below. For some reason, she was a bit perplexed when we informed her that we would like to let loose our epicurean desires. She relented, and directed us to Bali - an Indonesian restaurant located in the hotel itself. The place reminded us of Indonesia (although neither of us have been there!). Okay, let me reiterate, it reminded us of what we "thought" Indonesia outght to look like and feel like. Unfortunately, their Chef had no desire to even look at vegetables, let alone cook them. We felt a bit disappointed that we had to dine at Papamilano, an Italian trattoria. Going all the way to Japan and eating Italian? Little did we know that Italian cuisine in Japan tastes so GOOD. They say that when you travel, the food always tastes better. Having said that, the Risotto and the Spaghetti we had for dinner that night would trounce anything Italian this side of the Pacific.
At long last,we could hit the sack knowing fully well we had done good. With what little we had seen of Japan, her people and the sights, we were confident that the next week would be thrilling, and mind-opening.

Posted for movie then showing at the Umeda Sky Theatre

Inside Umeda Sky Building

A display inside the Umeda Sky Building

This is the only picture in the blog not taken by me - it was swiped (with pride) from the web. However, it clearly shows the escalator that takes you to the top. Pretty scary if you're scared of heights!

Inside the Umeda Sky Building

Pasta arrangement at Papamilano

Artwork at Papamilano

DAY 2 - NIJO/KINKAKUJI/TODAIJI

Where do you think we had our first coffee in Japan? The right answer would be Starbucks. In this part of the globe, they take elaborate pains to drink tea by means of a ceremony and the Japanese love their coffee. Yet, we found ourselves sipping a Latte for breakfast at Starbucks for very much the same reasons we do here - it's the convenience of not going too far and the feeling of meeting a familiar friend in a strange place. Globalization rules!

We had every reason to be excited - we were on our way to Kyoto, the spiritual capital ofJapan. The trip from Osaka to Kyoto is only about 20 minutes by Japan Rail. Our Hotel (the Westin Miyako) was situated in a place called Keage, which is a partof Kyoto. To get to Keage, we had to get off at Yamashina, and then ride a subway to Keage.

Exiting the Keage subway station, we met a construction dude and asked him how to get to the Westin Miyako. You should have seen the expression on his face. He was all excited as he knew we were two minutes away, but at the same time...was pained that he could not convey that information to us! We knew from our research that the hotel was within minutes of the Keage subway station. At any rate, he pointed us in the right direction.

A few minutes later, we were at the lobby of the Westin Miyako and were blown away by the splendour of this very warm and luxurious hotel. However, our check-in time was only at 1:00pm, but they were kind enough to tag our bags and store them as the locker room till we got back. One image of this uniformed person with white gloves in the lobby keeps rankling in our heads. His only job was to direct traffic to the three women behind the counter, and do it in themost humble and gracious way!

Next stop - Nijo Castle. Nijo castle dominates the center of Kyoto and was built in 1603 by Togukawa Ieyesu, the first Shogun of a united Japan, it served as his official audience hall. Intended to impress visitors, the showy castle is more palace than fortress, with defenses designed for looks rather than combat. The subway ride from Keage to Nijojo Mae was pretty short, and the Nijo Castle is walking distance from there.

Humongous and inspiring are some of the words that come to mind when viewing the castle. At the ticket counter (you need to buy tickets for most attractions in Japan, even temples), we met this American teacher who was escorting some of her students on an educational trip. As teachers get awarded with a reduced entry fee, and rightfully so, she was asked to produce some proof stating her vocation. She responded saying that she must, by default, be a teacher or else what would she be doing with all these kids? That got her nowhere in the land of rules. One enterprising kid nonchalantly told her that her passport must have her occupation listed as "teacher", and that this proof would suffice, and it did! At that juncture, I remarked to Indu that with my Indian childhood and upbringing, I could not even think of telling my teacher what to do!

Nijo Castle consists of two concentric rings of fortifications - the Ninomaru Palace and the Honmaru Palace. There are also several gardens, support buildings and small ponds. Even after spending a couple of hours on foot, we felt we really had not done justice. We did learn a few things though. The cautious Shogun knew that the most likely avenue of attack would be from treachery within, so he had hidden guards posted in the rooms and "nightingale" floors that squeak at the lightest pressure. Remember, they did not have security systems back then....one had to be enterprising :-)

Before leaving, we rewarded ourselves with a cool glass of Fanta Orange, and discovered something unique - atleast for us. The Fanta Orange concentrate and the soda are mixed in the vending machine just before the mixture is delivered to a paper cup. This was the best Fanta ever, and we really needed the break after all the walking.

Our agenda now pointed us towards the Kyoto Imperial Palace, so we took a cab to get there. We quickly discovered that in order to visit this Palace, we had to get ourselves booked on one of the guided tours. As we had some spare time on Wednesday morning, we got ourselvesa tourist pass for the guided tour on Wednesday morning (July 5th/Day 4).

Knowing fully well that there was no shortage of sights in Kyoto, we boarded a cab to the Kinkakuji temple - or the Golden Pavilion. Constructed in Kyoto's northern hills in 1398 by Yoshimitsu, the third Ashikaga shogun, it was once part of a much larger villa complex. When he died it became a Zen temple in accordance with his will.

Each floor of the Kinkakuji is a different style. The first floor — called The Chamber of Dharma Waters—is often described as the Shinden style. It is merely a large room surrounded by a verandah. The second story, called The Tower of Sound Waves, is the Samurai house style. Intended as a Buddha hall, it encloses an icon of the Bodhisattva Kannon. The third story is built in the Zen style, with cusped windows and ornamentation. Appropriately, it houses an Amida triad and twenty-five Bodhisattvas. A Chinese phoenix crowns the eaves.

Needless to say, the temple complex had an abundance of greenery and water. The vibes were very serene and spiritual. One could definitely get a sense of peacefulness there. It was now time for some Green Tea ice-cream, another first for us. For some reason, the creamy vanilla flavour goes well with the green tea flavour, who would have fathomed that this combo will work?

I was in dire need of a pen and some paper, as I could only retain so much information in my head. During my earlier trip to Japan (20 years ago) with my family, I had maintained a journal that contained all our experiences - it was exciting, relevant and entertaining to read even a few months prior to this trip. In fact, the events of that trip served as a blue-print for this one.

Outside of the temple perimeter, there was a small store run by a little old lady - and we were able to purchase an inexpensive notebook from her. Just as we were asking her how to get back to Nijojo station, the appropriate bus was about to take off from the bus stop across her shop. It was then that she literally sprung into action. With severe gusto and animation, she managed to halt the bus, and ensured that we boarded it! In this bus, we met an exchange student from England and her brother, who were also sight-seeing. For some reason, I presumed she was South African; her accent had me fooled.

The plan was to head to Nara that afternoon, but first we had to eat something. Coffee, ice-cream and Fanta had now given way to ravenous hunger! In our hurry to leave the hotel that morning, we forgot our camcorder, so we headed back to Westin (Nijojo to Keage) to retrieve our camcorder and get a bite to eat. One of the bigger sins is to eat a really good meal really fast, which is what we did at the "Aquablu" restaurant. The reasoning for this was simple -we could catch an earlier train to Nara! Luckily for us, the hotel ran a shuttle service that transported people to and from the Kyoto Central station.

Our trip to Nara (a small perfecture about 40 minutes by train from Kyoto) was kind of a rest and gave us some time to mentally savour the events of the morning. One of the main attractions in Nara is the Todaiji Temple, and a pond that is about a mile away fromthe temple. When we visited Nara (with my family) 20 years ago, this pond mesmerized all of us with its effective combination of tranquility and breathtaking postcard-like beauty. Even though (at the time) we only spent less than an hour at this spot, the memory of that frighteningly pretty pond kept me going all these years. I have often asked everyone visitingJapan to not miss this pond.

Upon leaving the Nara station, we chanced to meet a German visitor who was traveling by himself. I have often noticed that Europeans sometimes travel alone, and wondered how anyone can visit such an awesome place like Japan and not be able to share his or her feelings with a loved one. But here he was, immersed in reading some travel guide and making polite conversations with anyone who was within chatting distance. I managed to obtain some change from him for the bus ride to the temple.

The area around the temple is home to some 1200 deer. Yes, that's correct 1200 deer!!! It's not that these deer are caged or kept in a pen, they are allowed to roam loose, and are part of the landscape there, and what an exciting feeling it was for us (animal lovers both) to be part of this visually delightful experience. The deer also interact with the humans, as Indu was soon to find out. They almost harass you for food; the British exchange student we met earlier in the day had warned us about the deer.

Todaiji ("Great Eastern Temple") is one of Japan's most famous and historically significant temples and a landmark of Nara. Not only is Todaiji housing Japan's largest Buddha statue, but it is also the world's largest wooden building, even though the present reconstruction of 1692 is only two thirds of the original temple's size. The temple was grand and was home to some very well-manicured lawns; the aforementioned Buddha status was humongous to say the least.

Indu was "attacked" by a deer as she was walking towards the temple. As I am very direction-challenged, she was our navigator and always carried the corresponding maps with her. This playful deer went close to her, and nabbed the map away from her after a very brief struggle. Now we were really in trouble, how were we to get back?! On our way to the Nara Pond, we stopped by the Japanese sword store for a memorable visit. We enjoyed the look and feel of some many fine swords and finally picked up one when a voice inside shouted, "I want"!

Armed with our sword, we were now on our way to the Nara pond. My excitement was mounting and knew no bounds as I was soon to see one of my favourite spots in the whole world. Alas my joy was short-lived; the pond in real life was nowhere close to what I had imagined all these years, I somehow (at the time) felt that something had gone awry. To be fair, the pond looked the same, but did not feel the same - there were some key elements missing. Why was that? It's true that things always look good in retrospect, and maybe the last 20 years had made the pond look mentally better. Maybe I had really wanted to believe in something and fixated myself on that pond. Not to be outdone, I even visited the Nara Tourist Center and asked some old-timers if they had done anything drastic around the pond area; they replied in the negative. We also visited two other ponds in the vicinity, unknowingly thinking maybe we'd gone to the wrong pond in the first place!

It was getting late and we made our way back to Kyoto. For the first time that day, we made it to our room. What a delightfully refreshing feeling it is to come back to your hotel room and bask comfortably in it's luxury! After the blistering (no pun intended) number of miles we had covered that day on foot, it was a treat just to take off our shoes and lie down!

Across the street from our hotel, there was a strange bar called "Kick-up" bar. This was a cool little place (shack really) with only three tables and 9 bar stools. They bar area itself was not bigger than your average kitchen counter top. It was extremely dark as the ambience was tuned towards the dim end of the light spectrum. The only other visitors to this joint were this couple who were immersed in an animated discussion. As Indu was extremely tired and close to exhaustion, I ordered myself a cold draught beer and we split a pizza which was extremely tasty as all the ingredients were fresh and the cheese was virtually non-existent. While we were waiting for our pizza, the owner-lady (who was theonly person there) gave us appetizers in these really small plates...these plates were like 4 inches in diameter! My reasoning is that it ensures people eat less and enjoy each bite; not to mention the savings in cost (and calories)!

Needless to say, we got back to our hotel and were soon dreaming up new adventures!

Starbucks to the rescue!

Scanned copy of Nijo Castle entrance ticket

Main entrance to Nijo Castle - near the ticket counter

View from inside Nijo Castle

Grand entrance to one of the palaces in Nijo Castle

Inside Nijo Castle

Moat in Nijo Castle...ducks instead of alligators!

Beautiful scenery inside Nijo Castle

Inside Nijo Castle compound

Scanned copy of ticket used to gain access into Kinkakuji Temple

En route to Kinkakuji Temple

Greenery around Kinkakuji Temple

Picture taken inside the Kinkakuji Temple compound

Gardeners meticulously tending to the gardens at the Kinkakuji Temple

Arun in front of Kinkakuji Temple

A lovely photo of trees overlooking the Kinkakuji Temple

Another view of Kinkakuji Temple

Water body inside Kinkakuji Temple

Indu at the Kinkakuji Temple

At the Kinkakuji Temple

Green Tea ice-cream joint which we visited after the Kinkakuji Temple

The store where we bought our sword that currently sits proudly in our living room

Scanned copy of ticket used to gain entry into Todaiji Temple

The deer that ate Indu's map - that's our map it's chewing :-))

Our first glimpse of Todaiji Temple - simply awesome!

Outside the Todaiji Temple

Gong inside Todaiji Temple

Picture taken inside Todaiji Temple

A warrior stands guard around the Buddha (pretty big in size!)

Wooden small scale representation inside the Todaiji Temple

The Buddha statue inside the Todaiji Temple

The magnificent Todaiji Temple at Nara

The well-manicured lawns of the Todaiji Temple

Sacred water at the Todaiji Temple

The fish outside the Todaiji temple would almost "scale" the pond wall in order to come up and eat bread pieces - NO KIDDING!

A partial view of the Nara Lake

How nice would it be to chill with these four-legged friends?

Deer hanging out at the Nara Lake

Indu in front of Nara Lake

A small market in Nara

Funky scooter in Nara

DAY 3 - HIROSHIMA/HIMEJI CASTLE

As this was another packed day for us, we decided to leave the hotel as quickly as we could. Little did we know that the breakfast buffet they had at the hotel would be so varied and so completely delicious. As it was 6:30 a.m. when we got to our breakfast place, there were not too many patrons there. It was there that we first saw a chef preparing a custom omelette using only chopsticks! So many different fresh juices, delicacies, and pasties - but wehad to leave in exactly 20 minutes to catch the train to Kyoto Station. You see, we had a long ways to go before we could reach the city of historical significance - HIROSHIMA.

The ride from Kyoto to Hiroshima was our first on the "Shinkansen" (bullet train), and one we were eagerly anticipating. If you feel the need for speed, the cheaper alternative to a Ferrari would be a ride on the blazingly quick Shinkansens that populate the railway tracks of Japan. To me they seem like huge snakes that bob and weave their way through many cities; criss-crossing one another, moving people and more importantly - the economy. If you were waiting in any station, and if one of the faster shinkansens were to pass you by,the whole train would just be one big blur...that's how fast those contraptions are!

After reaching Hiroshima, we took a bus to get to the Atomic Bomb Dome, one of the few buildings around the explosion's epicenter that partially survived the blast, and the city's only remaining bomb damaged building. This is one of those buildings that I am sure nobody enjoys visiting; but it would be a sin to be in Japan and not come here. What we found out was that many Hiroshima residents were very much in favour of demolishing this building, as they wanted nothing to do with the past. Fortunately, the opposing school of thought prevailed, and this building is a UNESCO World Heritage site; and serves as a grim and ghastly reminder of how it could all come tumbling down.

Having come this far, we had to visit the Peace Memorial Museum. As I had visited this museum before, I warned Indu about how mentally disturbing the graphic displays of the A-bomb's horrible effects could potentially be. She insisted we still go there, and we did. There we would learn many things - facts, figures, statistics etc (the details of which we will spare you!)...more importantly we would learn that nothing is more precious than life itself....yet we take it for granted.

Luckily for us, there were so many school children enjoying their field trips on that particular day. These little tots with their carefree spirits and can-do attitudes helped alleviate what we were going through. Many of them would cheerfully wave at us, and we took photographs with all of them. If we don't save the planet for them, what are we really doing here?

We could have hung around Hiroshima and seem some more, but we had to make it to Himeji to climb the awesomest castle of them all - HIMEJI Castle aka Taj Mahal of Japan. This castle was built in the 14th century and serves as a classic example of Japanese medieval architecture. Some historians speculate that it took 25 million man days to build this castle. The Himeji castle was never used in battle, which is why it is so well preserved. However, it's solid and well-thought out construction would have confounded and exhausted any opposing army. No visit to Japan would be complete without a visit to this castle, which resembles a "bird about to take flight".

For some reason, we walked out of the wrong exit at the Himeji station. A Japanese businessman who spoke perfect English guided us in the right direction, and advised us to take a bus (as opposed to a cab) to the castle. Himeji castle at first glance is simply breathtaking and awe-inspiring. Yet, the more time we spent scaling the castle and studying the inner-workings, the more our respect and admiration multiplied!

On our way to the entrance, we met this older couple from Eastern Europe (our guess), and asked if it was worth our time to go all the way to the top of the castle. They replied that we must do it having come this far, and mentioned that it was bit of a trek but worth it. Little did we know that going all the way to the top requires you to be fit, nimble and abit of an acrobat (with 20/20 vision)! Upon entering the castle, you have to walk quite a bit upwards, before you can get to the indoors. Once you are in, there are several floors you need to scale, before you can get to the top. The stairs between floors are steep, treacherous and sometimes very dimly lit. Once/IF you get to the top, it is really cool - both figuratively and actually - there is a lot of air circulation going on..you can catch your breath and enjoy an awesome view of the city from there.

Soon we were back on our way to Kyoto. We had planned to stop at Kobe, but were exhausted from all the traveling we had done the last couple of days. Back at the hotel, we freshened up and were planning an evening out when we decided to just hang back, relax and enjoy the hotel....in the back of our minds we were falling in love with Kyoto and just did not want to leave this beautiful city.

If you wind up at the Hiroshima Station, you take tram #6 to the Peace Memorial Museum/Atomic Bomb Dome

The Atomic Bomb Dome proves that "less is more"