Props from Pattatuchi the penguin to YOU.But to be honest it's really just me stealing the email she sent to her family describing our trip to Japan because I'm lazy and don't particularly want to write something up on my own. It has been quasi-edited, and for the most part I changed it to sound like I wrote it. Click Here for the pictures of the trip!
DAY 1
- we took a ferry from Pusan to Fukuoka, Japan
- stayed in a hostel that night
DAY 2
- used our rail passes and took a train for 5 hours to Iseshi (small town)
- we got off the train and couldn't understand the directions to our hostel so we asked a taxi to take us there... he basically laughed at us because it was so close and wouldn't take us
- finally found our hostel... really cute Japanese style rooms where you sleep on the floor!
- went for a walk around the "town"... all we found were houses and a canal.
- after we got back from our walk we spoke broken Japanese/English/hand movements to our hostel manager and realized that we had been walking in the wrong part of town and that everything we wanted was in the other direction.
DAY 3
- tried to go to the bakery, but we were up so early that they weren't open yet :)
- took the train to Toba, a port city.
- when we first got there we walked up this huge hill and saw an over look of the entire city... we all got attacked by a swarm of mesquitos... worst little bugs ever! we couldnt stop scraching the entire rest of the trip
- walked around the town and saw some temples, shrines and a gigantic cemetery (i think the cemetery was one of my highlights of the trip! we didn't even mean to find it. We went to see the temple and behind it was this massive, beautiful cemetery!
- took a tour of Pearl Island (the first place where they started to cultivate pearls - see the picture below)
- we wanted some lunch, but the place that we stopped at didn't have any seats to sit in so we sat on the steps to someones house and ate our lunch!
- took a boat tour around the bay area
- sat around trying to figure out what we were going to do the next day and we decided that this little town had nothing left for us! we went to see one more site the following day and then head off to our next destination.
Mom and kid busy harvesting pearls...DAY 4
- went to go see the "wedding rocks". (think rocks connected by a rope)
- walked along the beach and Meredith found a WHOLE SAND DOLLAR!
- took the train back to our hostel and checked out, took a train to Nagoya
- We actually stayed in a hotel this time, real beds!
- we were really hungry and so we went to a place called the tiger cafe. and then rushed to a taxi so we could make it to an old castle in the town (and by old, i mean that it would have been old had it not been destroyed in WWII and rebuilt in the 60's. Sso now its a reconstructed "really old castle")
- at the top of the castle you can see the entire city. very pretty.
- while walking around the castle there was an announcement. We couldn't understand what it said so we just kept looking around. Soon, we were bum-rushed by security guards who were yelling and rushing us out the door. Our first thought was that there was a bomb or the place was on fire. Turns out the announcement was that they were closing and security just took their responsibility to clear the place very seriously.
- Walked around the city - they have a shopping mall that is entirely based off of space travel. So the whole mall looked like a space ship. You could walk on the roof, in the middle of which was a small pond with a glass bottom so you could see through it. it was VERY pretty and overall a really cool spot to go and chill (picture below)
- Mere and I then went up to the top of this thing called sky tower... it was night time and incredibly beautiful up there!
Mere and I in front of the Nagoya Sky Tower- woke up and went to the zoo and botanical gardens. It was about 100 degrees outside... so seriously i think that we were all so hot that none of us really enjoyed it that much. by the time we got to the gardens we decided that we had had enough and we went back to the subway. The zoo was neat to see though. It is always interesting to me to see how other cultures handle animal treatment. The zoo really wasn't bad, although i did feel bad for the polar bears and the penguins who were so hot! you could just see it. they were all in the water SOOOOO hot! but it was neat anyway
- We then went to Noritake (where they make plates and things). It was pretty neat so see how much really goes into a simple little tea cup. i COMPLETELY understand why they were so expensive now.
- after that we were finished, so we went back to the hotel and gathered our things to hop on the train to Kyoto
- we got to Kyoto and checked into our hostel... SMALLEST ROOM EVER! seriously. once we laid out our mats on the floor we barely had enough room to put our bags on the ground.
DAY 6
- got up and went to a little bakery for breakfast... YUMMY! seriously... it was an awesome bakery. we stopped there numerous times
- went on the BEST TOUR EVER OF KYOTO. By a man named "Johnny Walker". He took us all around the town, to temples, to shrines, to the industrial side of town where they were actually hand making fans and prayer beads and pottery! then he gave us some great vegetarian sushi (isn't he considerate) and traditional tea and pastries from japan... the pastry was made from beans and rice... very interesting. sorry i didnt buy some for you all to try. but in my opinion it wasn't the most delicious pastry i have ever had :)
- the tour ended and we walked up to this HUGE TEMPLE! we walked around for a while and it was really pretty.
- there was a fountain at this temple that a woman found after having a vision about it, which is why they built the temple in the first place. So now you can go and drink from the spring... people come from far and wide to do it... so i did it! Hopefully it will give me eternal youth or something like that :)
- we walked around the town a little bit more that night and then came back and went to sleep!
DAY 7
- we woke up early and traveled to Osaka (supposedly best known for their night life and their food... and by food i mean balls of octopus... we didnt find those to try)
- we started off the day by taking a boat ride along the canals of osaka... and then seeing another castle. the boat ride was nice, and the castle was mostly like the other one we had seen. it was VERYYYYY HOT!!!
- we then took the subway to the aquarium!!!! home to two WHALE SHARKS!
- then we left and Mere and i went up on the LARGEST FARRIS WHEEL IN THE WORLD! It was reallllllly cool!
- then we went and had what the three of us considered our best meal of the trip. It was awesome... I'm pretty sure we ate everything that we could eat! We all got different stuff, and it wasn't anything too special - but it was simply wonderful.
Day 8
- woke up in the morning, hit up that wonderful bakery again!
- took a train back to our starting point Fukuoka and checked into our hostel
- decided to go check out Canal City (ended up being just a huge mall) and ate at a rotating sushi bar!
- we walked around a park for a while after that... with sunflowers as big as Mere's head! Seriously check out the picture.
- then we dropped off our bags from shopping and headed out to find a fish market... which we totally didn't find, but it was a nice walk anyway
- got back to the hostel and took pictures of us in the traditional Japanese outfits that they give you when you stay there... had some fun with that! (Again, picture below)
Mom and kid again, dressed up in Japanese robes at the hostelDAY 9
- got up early and had breakfast in the hostel
- hopped on the speed boat back to Busan, South Korea!
-finished the day at the beach (where Koreans love to go... but don't really get in the water because they don't like to/can't swim) and had a delicious "goodbye" dinner for my mom at Outback! My first steak in Korea, it made me realize how much I looooove cow.
I hope that was detailed enough for everyone. If you want more information I can surely direct you back to Meredith :p Coming soon will be a not-so-detailed post about China with pictures of course! But I'm not sure when, I've been PRETTY lazy lately......... Adios!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment