A few notes about our family trip to Japan. I'd been to Tokyo five times previously for work. The first time was in 2000 when I visited Yokohama to do training on WebLogic Server to the BEA office. Then four more times since 2007 with Amazon. We'd never had a chance to travel to Japan as a family while living in Bejiing. So after a week of work in Beijing we traveled to Japan for a week. Here are some things we did to get ready.
First we rented an apartment in Tokyo near Shibuya Station. This was a much more cost effective way to stay in Tokyo than at a hotel where we would have been crowded into a single small room or had to rent two hotel rooms. I found the apartment on Tripadvisor, though their rental stuff still wasn't really working quite right. We paid $150 per night for four nights. I'd also bought from a Seattle travel agency a Japan Rail Pass, which is only available for sale outside of Japan. These cost around the same amount as a one way ticket on the Shinkasen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Osaka, though they are good for 7 days travel on all Japan Rail lines. We planned to spend the weekend in Tokyo and the rest of the week in Kyoto.
Our flight from Beijing to Tokyo was on ANA, All Nipon Airways which was fantastic. Great service, great bathrooms (more on that later) and great food. We arrived on Friday night in Tokyo. Through our apartment rental I'd gotten the name of a private pickup from the airport. The airport is a looooong way from the city. There are trains you can take but rather than mess around with times and schedules I'd arranged for a van to pick us up. The price was 13,000 yen. Before we left the airport I took care of the following travel tasks. First I had to exchange money (we had to pay for the hotel and the car in cash). Then I went to get a sim card for our phones (both unlocked). You can't actually buy a sim card in Japan since you don't live there, but you can rent them (you can also rent phones). The cost for data was $15 a day, and the total cost for the sim card was $100 USD for a week, but it was dworth Stac and I being able to text or call each other. Lastly I went and exchanged my Japan Rail Pass vouchers for the actual pass. The pass is good for 7 days. Come to find out later you can do the exchange at any Japan Railway office. The process does take take a few minutes, as you have to fill out an application, and there is a lot of paper work, stamping and passes getting printed, so you need to give yourself a bit of time.
Our driver was an Indian guy who had immigrated 10 years prior to Japan and worked at Costco as a checker during the day. The drive took around 75 minutes and we ddn't get to the apartment until around 10:30 pm. It was raining when we arrived and Bruce (the Landlord) was waiting for us. He showed us the apartment. Two simple small rooms, a teeny bathroom with a super little deep soaker tub and a small kitchen with a teeny fridge and microwave.
During the weekend in Tokyo we enjoyed the great food. We had Udon one night as a family, served in huge bowls. Sofi and I ate ramen several times. Delicious rich creamy broth with al dente noodles. We should outlaw the "ramen" you buy in the US at grocery stores, it doesn't even compare and ruins the name of good ramen. One day we went to Roppongi Hills a huge housing/shopping complex. We went and saw a movie : After Earth. Tickets for adults were $18 US and kids where $12.
I worked on Monday and Tuesday morning we took a taxi to the Tokyo Station to catch the Shinkasen to Osaka, which is where the particular line starts. After you have the pass you can visit the Japan Railway office to exchange for your Shinkasen tickets. There are three classes of Shinkasen service, the Japan Rail Pass isn't eligible for the fastest (Nozomi line), so we took the second fastest : the Hikari class. We had reserved seats in a car. We had a few minutes before the train and we went to the basement of the station to a deli that had an amazing variety of different food options. I got a couple of rolls, Miles got some gyoza, Sofi got a bagel and cream cheese and Stac got an egg benedict and a mini pizza. We found our platform, the train arrived and cleaning women swarmed the train. We lined up at the designated spot and got on the train. We stored the luggage in the overhead and sat in spacious
seats.
The train ride to Osaka took around 3 hours. Our final destination was Kyoto. For some reason I missed the fact that the Tokyo-Osaka train stops in Kyoto along the way. I thought we had to take the train to Osaka and then transfer back up to Kyoto. About 2 minutes from the Kyoto Station, Stac noticed the sign advertised the Kyoto stop and we quickly grabbed all our things and rushed off the train. We caught a taxi to our hotel : The Kyoto Brighton Hotel which is located in between the Nijo Castle and the Kyoto Imperial Palace. The place is super pricey, but its a 5 star hotel and we'd waited too late to book a ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel). The staff were super professional, helpful and all spoke English.
You could spend several weeks in Kyoto and not see it all. We loved the feel of the city. The city is only 1.5 million people, it was the imperial capital of Japan for a thousand years and has innumerable temples and cultural sites. They have enacted city laws that prevent high rises above a certain height, and there are many small narrow alley ways that run through the main thoroughfares so outside of the main roads you get a small city feeling.
The first day we woke in Kyoto it was raining buckets. Rained all day long. We finally went out around noon to get some lunch, we went to a soy based ramen shop and then walked over into Kyoto Imperial Palace area. We spent quite a while walking around the huge interior palace, the gate was on the other side. We arrived at 1:58 pm and the guard said hurry you need a ticket, so I ran to the office but the lady said they closed at 2 and said we'd have to come back tomorrow. Bummed Stac and the kids went home to get out of the rain but I stayed out and walked around the castle grounds. The trees were amazing, huge Japanese maples and towering evergreens. I walked around them taking photos for a couple of hours before finally walking down to the river and over to the Pontocho district, which has had 700 years of entertainment and eating establishments. They say this is one of the places you can see a real live geisha walking to work in the evening. I wandered around the narrow alleyway admiring the restaraunts with all their lanterns and decorations. I never saw a geisha but I did stop at a sushi place where I had an 8 course meal that was amazing. Delicious food amidst delicate presentation.
The next day I woke early and rented a bike and rode out to the north east section of town just below the mountains to Enkoji Temple. I arrived at 7:15 am and walked up the entryway to the main gate only be told to a priest who was raking lines in the rocks that it didn't open until 9am. I walked back out to the gate, and hung out and read my book while waiting for the hour of opening. At 9 sharp I walked up and paid my 500 yet entrance fee. I had the entire temple to myself. The grounds were so green an emaculate, such beautiful design; the trees, the giant bell, the ponds and the bamboo path. I wandered around for over an hour before hoping back on my bike and pedaling over to the Hachidai Shrine where a famous samurai battle was fought and then the Shisendo Temple a zen retreat for an Edo period intellectual. I wasn't as impressed with their gardens, though I think they are more spectacular during the fall color. In fact November would be an amazing time to visit Kyoto as the maples must be absolutely stunning. Later that afternoon we went to Nijo Castle as a family. This was an old fortress that has huge moats and stone walls that are set together with huge blocks with delicate angles and no cement holding them together. We walked through one of the shogun halls that had what was called a nightingale floor with boards that squeaked when you walked on them so no one could sneak up on you. We walked all the way to the top of the wall where we could see down into the moat which Miles said he would fill with pirrahna, alligators and sharks.
Friday as a family we rode the JR Railway out to Sagano Arashiyama on the western side of Kyoto. Here there a bunch of shops and restaurants and narrow alleys that lead to a gorgeous bamboo grove. There quite a few tourists as its a popular spot. We loved walking among the bamboo and stopped to tour the zen Tenryuji Temple with its gorgeous gardens and a nice bamboo grove. Back along the bamboo grove path we bought some post cards and bamboo carved dragon flys you could balance on your finger. At the end of the grove we bought tickets for the Sagano Scenic Railway which runs along the Hozugawa River up to the small village Kameoka. You sit in red cars with open windows as you go through tunnels and stare down at the river rushing down deep below. At Kameoka you can take a short walk through the rice fields back to a station where you can catch the fast JR Railway back into Kyoto.
That night the kids complained about always having to go do activities that were "boring" and not something they wanted to do. So on a whim we decided to depart early for Tokyo and head to Tokyo Disneyland. We woke at 5:40 am and rode to the Kyoto Station were we went to the JR Railway office and got our Shinkasen tickets and caught the 6:40 train to the Tokyo Station. There we transferred to the KR line to ride to Disneyland. That station is HUGE. We walked for at least 15-20 minutes and it felt like we descend another 5 flights of escalators. We got off at the station for Disneyland and then we had to (unfortunately cause it was hot and Stac was mad) walk about 20 minutes to our hotel. (Tokyo resort hotels on the park on a weekend were $450 US a night so those were out as an option). Stac checked in early and the kids and I headed back in a shuttle to Disneyland where we bought our tickets and entered the chaos
.
Later I read a blog with three tips for conquering Tokyo Disneyland, we broke all of them. The most important were don't come on a weekend and get there before 10 am so you can get fast passes. We walked into the park at 11am and all the fast passes were taken and closed. The crowds were crazy! Everyone had to line up at each "photo pop" and pose for a photo. In front of the 30 year commemorative display, in front of the 30 year bamboo display where you could write you name on Mickey's ears and hang them up, in front of the castle etc etc. Lines, lines, lines. There was even a 35 person line for soy flavored popcorn. We grabbed some waffles for brunch before heading out to find some rides. We headed for Splash Mountain but there was a 2.5 hour wait so we road the Sky Jets and the Indy Car ride. We checked Splash Mountain again but the lines were still 2.5 hours long! After that the sun was at its peak and Miles was hot and tired. So we headed back to the hotel for a break. Miles stayed behind and a couple of hours later Sofi and I returned. We immediately checked Space Mountain, nothing had changed so we ate some fried chicken and did some of the less crowded rides like taking the raft out to Tom Sawyer's Island and riding the Ferris Wheel. We had a good time as the crowds thinned. Finally at 8:45 we headed back to catch Splash Mountain. The park closed at 10 pm and we hoped the line was short. Things seemed much shorter and we waited and played Farkle on the iPhone. Just when we though we were getting "into" the building and getting close we were thwarted by the fact that the line then wound down and around to the actual ride, we still had a ways to wait! So wait we did, when your 45 minutes in you can't give up. Finally at 10 pm we got on the ride and got lucky by being able to sit in the front. We enjoyed our ride and the splash down before walking out of the park. We caught a taxi and got back to the hotel at 10:45 pm.
The next day we checked out late and tried to figure out how to get to the airport. We could take the train which would involve back tracking into Tokyo and then catching the JR Railway out, which would have been free on our JR Rail pass but seemed like a logistical pain. Our other option was catching an airport bus but tickets would run $24 US per person and we'd have to catch a taxi to a Disney resort hotel. So I figured at 4 people a taxi would be about the same cost. Wrong. The taxi to the airport (40 minutes) was around $200 US! Uggh. We spent the afternoon hanging out at the Tokyo Airport which might sound boring but they have great food and the shopping is really superior to anything I've seen except for maybe the Bangkok airport. A 5pm flight put us back Sunday morning at 9:30 am, but lucky its only 8.5 hours from Tokyo to Seattle so not nearly as long as Beijing.
Here are some other observations over the course of spending a week in Japan :
Toilets - The toilets in Japan are amazing! They all have heated seats. You can push a button on them to generate "back ground noise" (usually a waterfall sound) to cover any noises that might coincide with your bathroom duties. They all have bidets that can spray or stream, move back and forth and the pressure is adjustable. Some of them even will auto-flush when you stand up. Pretty amazing. The US has had the same toilets for the past 75 years and Japan has brought the toilet into the modern age.
Safety - whenever there are workmen doing construction or repair there is always a safety guy standing there to guide you around the construction area. If there was a shopping center garage there was a guy at the entrance of the garage to stop people from walking on the sidewalk when cars where entering or exiting.
Obedient - no one ever jay walks - they all wait for the light to change at the crosswalks or when riding their bikes.
Lines - lines are very important in Japan. At the movie everyone politely lines up and in an orderly fashion files into the theater. Same goes for getting on the train, no pushing or shoving. Wait for folks to get off and then enter in the order you are standing in line.
Clean - No one leaves garbage behind at your seats. Not on the train nor in the movie theater. I felt compelled to be neat and clean in everything I did.
Presentation and quality over quantity - food is as much more about how it looks and how it tastes than how much you get. The portions aren't large but there are often many dishes. Reserved &
Polite - Japanese are very courteous. They all seem to be so very nice. They excuse themselves if they bump into you.
Service - they are extremely service oriented. Super attentive in restaurants or hotels. Amazing how well they treat the customer.
Professional - taxi drivers all wear white shirts and gloves
Note takers - everyone seems to always be taking notes on little notebooks. The stewardess on our ANA flight kept pulling out a little notebook from her pocket and was jotting down notes the entire flight. Same with the taxi drivers. Every stop light they would be pulling out their notebook and recoding details about the fare.
Money - always (even if its your card) is passed on a tray not exchanged hand to hand. Speaking of money...
Banks - There are ATMs in every 7-11, and banks spread across town, but I could never actually withdraw money using my ATM card from them. However at the Post Office they also have ATM's that do allow you to withdraw YEN from overseas ATM cards. I had no problem using my debit master card at any restaurant or shop to pay.
