Kibbles and Schvitz: The Meanderings of an Itinerant Weltman: Here we go again! Trip around the world, Part 1--Japan

My dear friends, family, and loyal readers all:

What a few weeks it's been. There is so much to document and reflect on, so...

Let's start at the beginning.

Dec. 21st: On a temperate afternoon, my mom drove my dad and I to O'Hare. Inundated with lines all over, we made our way to the AA counter to check in to our flights. While everything appeared to be on time, it would turn out that not a single flight of the first four flights would be leaving on time. So be it. We dropped our bags off after shuffling some weight around (one weighed 65 lbs...whoops) and made our way through security and into the AA lounge for some snacks, drinks, computer access, and patience. We found out that our flight would not depart for nearly two hours after scheduled departure due to bad weather in SFO, and that it would possibly delay our flight further. For that reason, I knew to book that earlier flight and not the later one, and I'm happy I did. One gin and tonic and fruit smoothie later, we made our way to the gate.

Our first flight! AA1624

Bulkhead=good leg room

I have never been on a flight that felt so long like AA1624. It didn't help that we stayed on the ground in the plane for another hour or so before take off, but something about it just felt excruciatingly long. And while the new AA planes are nice, the free content does not suffice for a five hour flight (I mean, yes, something is better than nothing, but it used to be with the communal TVs that they would run shows throughout the flight).

Either way, we made it to SFO. We had to leave security and head to international departures. The security line was a nightmare. They only had 4 scanners, and between all of the flights leaving around then (JAL, Singapore Air, Cathay Pacific,and Qantas, just to name a few), that was far from sufficinet, which meant for a line wrapping all around and then three blocks back from there (not even exaggerating). But we made it through and out to the Cathay Lounge, followed by the JAL lounge when the CX one closed (nothing more than a small, cozy room), and then made our way to JL 1.

SFO Terminal Shuttle Train

Cathay Pacific Showers

Our JAL plane out of a rainy window

The long lounge hallway at SFO

Cramped JAL Lounge

Dec. 22nd: The 777-300ER of JAL had pretty roomy economy seats, but man were they hard. I mean, my butt was hurting an hour in, let alone when we landed some 12 hours later. And that was after putting the pillow under me. Also, the kosher food consisted of a challah roll with some still frozen deli meat, and then a small, unimpressive, stale tasting breakfast. JAL service was still great, though. And missing a fast day by flying over the dateline was pretty cool.

Paltry dinner

Stale-tasting breakfast. "Airline food" indeed.

Dec. 23rd: We dropped our bags at the domestic connection area, grabbed our boarding passes, and made our way to the JAL domestic Sakura lounge. Though sparse in its offerings, we relaxed a bit, I prayed my morning prayers, and we made our way to see the Emperor for his birthday! Let's just say it wouldn't have been my ideal birthday party, but it was pretty cool. He gave a 10 second address, and then people shouted and screamed their loyalty and everyone cheered and waved Japanese flags.

A look out of the JR train

Tokyo Station--beautifully historic

Hundreds of thousands of people waiting for the Emperor

Ready to celebrate with the Emperor

Walking past the gates into the Emperor's courtyard

The Emperor's blessing

Check out that English grammar!

From there, we made our way to the National Museum, since it would be closed when we would be returning to Tokyo the week after. They had a special exhibit on the Terra Cotta warriors.

Meiji shrine

A very busy Japanese train ride

Tired and ready to head for our hotel, we headed back to the airport early and asked to go standby on an earlier flight to Nagasaki--a taxing process, but we made it work. After a little R&R in the lounge, we made our way to the gate and flew west. After taking the airport shuttle to a block away from our hotel (super convenient and cheap for the distance), we checked into our teeny tiny Comfort Hotel room before getting some sleep.

Dec. 24th: I had never been to Nagasaki before, so it was cool seeing a new city. We started out by taking a lovely walk through the city, finding our way to the Glover Gardens, a fascinating look into understanding and appreciating foreign influence and development in the city.

Following that, as we made our way toward the harbor, we stepped into the Suka Gogodo museum. It's a small, two-story western house filled with his artwork. It was certainly a random variety, but for 100¥ I can hardly complain.

From there, we got in line to pick up our tickets for our reserved spots with Gunkanjima Concierge for our tour to Hashima Island, made famous in "Skyfall." It was pretty cool and the definition of urban decay, but only certain areas were open to foot traffic out of concern for safety. Still, I hear that there are secret ways to see the rest of the island.

Strange dessert

NO SMORKING!!!

Following the boat ride, we made our way to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb museum. It was a very somber visit, but we paid our respects and gave our prayers to all those whose lives were cut unexpectedly short. The impact of an atomic bomb is unfathomable, and I highly recommend a visit to one of these museums in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

From there, we

Denki #1

Mmm...delicious Indiana food. Roadkill, anyone?

From the museum, we made our way back to the hotel to pick up luggage, and from there made our way through a drizzle to the airport bus. An obaasan (grandma) was so impressed with my "skilled" (her words, certainly not mine) Japanese gave me some chocolates as a gift! I shared some with my dad.

We made our way to the terminal to check in for our last flight of the first ticket of our trip, from Nagasaki to Osaka International Airport (a funny name, considering it only flies domestic flights these days). The unique Japanese boarding passes came with a nice little gift and more chocolates!

Nagasaki Airport on Christmas Eve...its Christian heritage is showing!

We arrived safely to Itami and took the monorail to the subway. A lot of lugging of luggage (oh, that's why the call it that!), but we made it safely to our room on the 19th floor of the Best Western Joytel Osaka (which, as my friend put it, is the happiest hotel he's ever heard of). Look at that view!

So many attraction tickets!

Dec. 25th: Since the day of rest would come in fairly early, we decided to explore part Suminoekoen next to our hotel, which is a small park and shrine with plenty of dedications to war heroes in Japan's more recent history. We were able to leave our bags at the Best Western, as we would be returning there the day after. The staff could have been a bit nicer, but they got better as our time there progressed.

From there, we went off to explore Osaka Castle. It's a very nice attraction, extremely affordable, and quite telling of the warring periods of Japan in the 14th-16th centuries.

View from the top

We took the train from there to Kobe, and I finally tried the cable car (which, despite studying abroad for a semester and having been there since, I still had yet to do). We had a nice time, and the "tourist trap" atmosphere was not at all too oppressive.

Kobe from the cable car

Little villa at the top

Because Japan

Finally, we made our way to the synagogue. We just missed the rain, as it started to downpour soon after. Overall, it was a very nice day, ending in a Shabbat dinner with old friends.

Dec. 26th: After a day filled with praying and eating (mostly eating), along with some intense checkers games, my dad and I tried out the Kobe Sauna and Spa. It's definitely expensive for that type of place, but the amenities and offerings of the multi-story complex are definitely impressive. There were all sorts of saunas and baths--a Turkish Hamam, a salt sauna, a Finnish sauna, a standard sauna, hot tubs inside, hot tubs outside, cold baths, and more! From there, we had a bit of Ben and Jerry's and made our way back to our hotel.

Dec. 27th: On this cold, windy Sunday, we decided to go visit Nara. We took the JR line to Nara and walked through the deer park, filled with plenty of friendly (but still wild) deer. We walked around and made our way through various temples, shrines, and pagodas, ducking into wherever we could find warmth. After that, despite our better senses, we walked to the restoration of the 1300 year old capital, a long a tortuous walk that we could have avoided on a $1 bus. But whatever, I digress.

Making friends

Temple

Pagoda, (South-)East Asian variety

Japanese lanterns

A walk through sacred gardens

Trying the local fare (udon)

Pagoda, Japanese variety

The Imperial Audience Hall

The capital grounds are huge. We obviously entered the wrong way, walking through various people's backyards and fields on our way there. Clearly, this is not the most touristed sight, which is sort of a shame, because the restoration is very cool. You get a small picture of the power than an Emperor in those days would have wielded over his kingdom.

After the long walks around Nara, we made our way back to Osaka and walked around the city.

Dec. 28th: We needed to see Kyoto, a must for any traveler to Japan. As I had studied abroad there, I was able to provide many insights and suggestions as to the best places to visit in the city. We bought a two day bus and subway pass and made our way around the city. We got a little lost at the beginning, though, which led us to Ginkakuji, a lovely temple that I had forgotten.

Rock garden, Ginkakuji

Lookout from Ginkakuji

After Ginkakuji, we made our way toward Kiyomizudera (pure water temple) by bus, involving a steep path filled to the brim with all sorts of shops.

Part of the shop display on the way up to Kiyomizudera

Pagoda at Kiyomizudera

Underside of pagoda, with the red-orange color traditionally used in Shintō to ward off evil spirits

Good luck things!

Love Stone...sure, why not.

Jizo-sama, the guardian of the wayfarer and of children (note the bibs).

A little bit of momiji (fall colors) left!

From there, we walked to Fushimi Inari, my favorite. It has soooooo many Torii!!!

Creepy...

Entrance to Fushimi Inari, with lots of shrines

Finally, as a treat to us both, we took the Shinkansen, or bullet train, back from Kyoto to Shin Osaka. It was a very quick ride!

Nozomi Shinkansen--the fastest one!

View from the Shinkansen

Dec. 29th: Having not yet seen all of the necessary temples, we made our back to Kyoto to see Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion), shimmering in the sunlight. From there, we went to the famous rock gardens of Ryoanji.

Beautiful Kinkakuji glimmering in the sunlight

Following that, we stumbled upon the beautiful temple of Ninnaji while connecting buses, something that was certainly worth a look. I took many photos of the beautifully detailed arts on the panels, all below.

Enjoy writing in English letters that faintly reminds you of English sentences

Ninnaji Gate

Finally, we went to the area in which I had studied abroad. They knocked down our sleeping area, just like they said they would. It used to leak like crazy and was way beyond its prime.

Ryukoku Univerity--Omiya: One of the first western-looking campuses in Japan!

My favorite shop outside our old stomping grounds, Circle K. Even the squid has a kosher symbol!

We finished with a walk down the back alleys of Kyoto for some dinner at a known shop and a bath.

Kyoto Tower at night

So poorly worded, gets me every time

Gotta catch 'em all!!!

Dec. 30th: Timing was everything. No more than 15 minutes for breakfast with bags in hand, making the correct subway connections to the monorail, finding the correct check-in, and making our 8:30 A.M. flight. Well, we missed the first subway, causing a big hullabaloo. We made it to the airport with only 25 minutes before take-off. We were still able to check-in, check our (probably overweight) bags through, make it through security, and make it to the gate and onto our flight. And our bags made it. Talk about extreme and amazing efficiency. It was amazing.

Look at all of the passes and talismans from all of the places we visited!

The nearly square Japanese boarding passes with only QR reader

Check out Mt. Fuji!

Landing over Tokyo Bay

After landing, I messed up on getting the pass for the trains. Our 45 minute train ride to the hotel took 2 hours...whoops!

Finding our hotel

After leaving our things with the hotel concierge, we went off to the Tsukiji fish market. It was packed beyond belief. After getting squished and pushed around for an hour, we decided to just grab a bite from what we could find at a local convenience store instead.

We returned to our hotel.

Grand Hyatt Tokyo lobby--fancy shmancy

Our room. Normal sized, which is a great luxury in Tokyo!

Not pictured: the toilet seat that opens up when you enter the room. Unreal.

Thanks for booking the hotel room for us, Andrew!

We then made our way back out to the Tokyo Skytree.

View from the Skytree at sunset. What a city!

Random display in Skytree

Tokyo subway!

Busy busy Ginza!

Just 24 hours left 'till 2016!

Dec. 31: A pretty lazy day, all things considered. We started off late, then ate some breakfast in the room. We made our way around the city, walking fairly aimlessly. It was still enjoyable. We returned in the afternoon for a lovely soak in our hotel. We were then able to swing two seats at the restaurant at our hotel (after my dad chatted up some guy earlier that day, who just happened to be a maître d. Go figure. It was nice, we counted down the new year, and then saw a 12:50 showing of Star Wars in 4D. Yeah, that's right. The seats shook and vibrated, mist sprayed everywhere, etc. It was like being in a two hour amusement park ride. Pretty epic, although still not convinced of the necessity of it all.

Walking around the hip Harajuku shopping neighborhood

I'll take 5, please. What?

A bench? A bed?

Busy Sensoji Temple

Sento (hot bath) in our hotel

Happy New Year!

The countdown

After that, at around 3:15, we grabbed our bags and made our way to the subway (running all night), then connected to the Tokyo Monorail at 4:00 A.M. We arrived a bit too early for the JAL crew, so we waited a bit to check in.

Jan 1: I guess I kind of started it already, but we made our way after check-in to the Cathay Pacific lounge (we were flying JAL, but the Cathay lounge was better imho). We relaxed, called home, used the internet, and then made our way aboard. As we were about to board, the agent presented us for some reason or another with a happy new year upgrade...instead of sitting in the bulkhead in economy, we got business class seats with "economy" still showing on our tickets! Never seen that before. And in style, we were off to China for part 2 of our epic saga.