Mt. Fuji – November 14, 2007

We knew that we would be leaving Japan soon. It seemed that the smart thing to do would be to travel more and see as much as we could before we left. Paola suggested that we head to Mt. Fuji and see what there was to see there.

We woke up early, so that we could catch the first bus. We woke up at 5, and then took the train to Shinjuku, which took about an hour. We didn’t know where the bus stop was, so we walked around for a while looking for it. The bus fare was less expensive than we expected, so that was good. The bus took about 2 hours, and we were able to see the mountain pretty much the whole way from the window of the bus.

When we got there, we felt like we were basically at the foot of the mountain. However, we were actually about another hour from the base of the mountain from where people might begin hiking up the mountain. We were able to get a great view of the mountain from the bus station, but there were the ever-present power lines that blocked what would otherwise be a perfect view.

To get the perfect view, we walked to a hill that had an observation deck. At the bottom of the hill, we paid to take a cable car up to the top of the hill where the observation area was. It was a great view, and there weren’t that many people to contend with.

Once we were finished with that viewing, I wasn’t quite sure what else there was to do. Paola suggested that we go see another temple. The guide book led her to believe that it was a mere fifteen minute walk. It took us at least an hour to walk there. She was not in a good mood at all, and even though the temple was neat to see within the forest at the base of the mountain, it was rather uneventful.

Paola next wanted to see a cave that was nearby because she is fascinated with caves. We ended up having to take a taxi for about twenty minutes to the cave. The price of the taxi ride was very high, and this made Paola that much more upset. It made sense, though, if one were to look at the map, that this place was far away, and the taxi ride would be expensive.

The cave was an ice cave that was formed in prehistoric times by the lava flow of Mt. Fuji. Within the cave, ice occurred naturally, and so it was called the ice cave. Walking through the cave was fun. The floor was slippery, and the ceiling low. I didn’t slip, but I did hit my head a couple of times. At one point, we had to crawl through a short tunnel. As fun as it was, walking through the cave took less than fifteen minutes. Because we paid so much for the cab ride, it didn’t seem worth it.

After we left, we decided to wait for the bus rather than pay more for a taxi. When we got to the bus stop, the schedule said that we would have to wait an hour and a half for the next bus. It was worth it to wait. We waited. And waited. After two hours, the bus never came. Perhaps we misread the bus schedule (it was in Japanese, after all). We walked back up to the office of the ice cave, and called a taxi from there, so we had to wait for two hours to pay for the taxi. It seemed like a huge waste of time. To make matters worse, when we got to the bus station, we tried to buy a bus ticket home, but the next available bus was a two hour wait. So, although seeing the mountain, temple, and the ice cave was neat, we wasted a lot of time and money, and that took away from the joy of the whole experience.

Grand Palace

From there we walked through a south gate into the grounds of the Grand Palace. This is supposedly where the king lives. Indeed it is grand. We saw the big building, and then walked by into the concession stand, where I had something to drink, and put my head down. I couldn’t believe that I was still sick from the morning.

From there, we walked back up to Khaosan Road to get a few last minute souvenirs. Paola was hungry, so she got something to eat, but I couldn’t eat. I just had some lime soda. While I was there, I went to the toilet, used it, and then threw up. I felt a little bit better, now at the end of the day. Paola and I bought a few last minute things and then went to the airport. We were finally leaving Thailand.

Wat Phra Kaew

We walked down to the Grand Palace, which was in the same area as we had been earlier in the week. However, this time we came early, so it was open, and we got to go in the grounds. To be sure, we didn’t go inside the actual palace, but the grounds are very large. In fact, in addition to the Grand Palace, which is further south, there is a temple called Wat Phra Kaew, north of the palace, but on the same grounds.

We walked around the wat, and looked around. It was more of the same, which was basically Thai-styled temples. They were interesting enough, but I felt that by now I had gotten my fill. And since I was still feeling sick, I decided to find a nice place to sit down, and Paola ran around and saw most of it, and took pictures. When she was done, she came and got me, and we did a quick run through so I could see what I might have missed.

Bangkok – November 6, 2007

I woke up this morning fine. We went down to the hotel restaurant and had the complementary breakfast. After the breakfast, I did not feel good. My stomach got upset and, I felt nauseous. Once again, I got sick in Thailand. I could not figure out if it was the microwave dinner we got at 7-11 last night, or if it was the breakfast, but it was certainly something that I ate. Paola was fine. I guessed that it was actually the dinner from last night, since Paola stopped eating it, and I ate all of mine, and what was left of hers. Too much Thai curry, I suppose. In any case, I got sick, and sat over the toilet in the hotel room until I threw up… twice. I felt bad because I had told Paola that we would go out and see the sights that we had missed earlier in the week because I was sick then. After resting for a long time, I forced myself to go out.

This time we went out earlier, so we were able to see a few more things.

Back in Bangkok

By now I hated being in Thailand. This was in spite of the decent time we had in Koh Samui, laying out on the beach. Arriving back in Bangkok for one more day was not pleasing to me. We got a taxi back to the same hotel that we stayed at before, and checked in. I convinced Paola to just stay in for the night, and that we would go catch the last sights tomorrow. We got some prepared food at the 7-11 that was next door, and called it a night.

To the airport

When we finally got to the bottom of the hill again, we asked the taxi driver to take us to the zoo. However, I asked one more time how much this would cost. He finally gave an outrageous price. His excuse was that he had waited for over two hours for us while we were hiking. I felt cheated, and it seemed to me like all the mistrust that I had for the taxi drivers and vendors finally had concrete reason. In all fairness, he did wait for a long time, and since there were no other taxis, we needed him to do that. What bothered me, though, was that when I had asked him before, he didn’t tell me, and so I felt like he was dishonest. Rather than go to the zoo, I told him to just take us straight to the airport, since we didn’t want to spend more money for him to wait at the zoo for us. After arguing about the fare, I just accepted that we would have to pay it, since I didn’t trust that, if we had just left without paying, the police would be on our side in this seemingly corrupt country.

However, before taking us to the airport, he took us back to our resort that we had already checked out of. I had suspected that he didn’t understand before we set out, and now here we were. When we arrived at the hotel, I redirected him to the airport. We finally got there, and stayed at the airport for a few hours rather than get swindled out of more money.

Hin Lad Waterfall

We got a taxi from the street, which I expected to be ok because it wasn’t a tuk-tuk, and the taxis are metered and regulated. We told him that we wanted to go to Hin Lad waterfall. He told us that he would take us there, and wait for us to take us somewhere else after, maybe the zoo, and then take us to the airport. I asked him how much it would cost, and he told me that I could pay him later. His English wasn’t too good, and I felt that there was something lost in translation. Oh well. When we got to the waterfall, I again asked about the cost of the trip, and he didn’t give a clear answer. In any case, since there were no other taxis around, we had to have him wait for us while we hiked up the trail.

The trail to the waterfall was not that grueling, as there was a narrow dirt path. We felt like it was a fun thing to do, and that we were doing something adventurous. Paola was reminded about her trip to the Amazon, where they had to trek through similar jungle, except without a laid out path. Because the path was not well defined, Paola kept asking if we were going the right way. I tried to assure her that we were, since we kept walking up hill, along the river that the waterfall must empty into.

Before getting to the top, we came across a retired couple who were walking down. They told us that we had about twenty more minutes to go. We really thought that we were doing a challenging hike, but when we saw this older couple going, and the lady wearing flip-flops, it no longer seemed like it was that hard. The whole way up, and then back down, which took about two hours, we only saw that older couple, and one other couple when we walked back down, so although I am sure lots of people have been here before, the isolation made it seem like we were on an adventure all alone.

When we got to the end of the path, there was a man who set up a shack to sell water and other drinks. There were a lot of big rocks in the river that helped us walk out and even across the river. From there we could look up and see the waterfall, passing through the path it has carved through the rocks. It was neat to see the waterfall, and turn around to see the river flowing down the hill. Taking the hike was a fun adventure that helped us see a different, more natural side of Thailand, and that was pleasant.

Koh Samui – November 5, 2007

We are leaving Koh Samui today. Our plane left late in the afternoon, so we felt like we should do something a little more than just sitting on the beach. Paola read in the guidebook that there were neat waterfalls in the area, so we packed our stuff, and headed out to a waterfall.

Koh Samui – November 3-4, 2007

Paola really adjusted to the charm of our little bungalow. We are not too far from the beach, maybe about 100 meters. Our door opens to a path that is lined with a nice garden that has different tropical plants, and even some fish ponds. We could go up into the small town, but we just stay here in the bungalow, or on the beach. There really isn’t much more to do here, and this is why I have never really wanted to take a vacation like this. However, being here now, I can see the value of just resting and relaxing on the beach. There is some value in forgetting about your worries, and laying on the beach with nothing to do and getting a tan. The only negative thing is that there are more than a few mosquitoes. They sold a natural bug repellant at the counter of the resort, and I have been spraying it on myself a lot. It smells a bit, but I have not been getting any more mosquito bites, unlike Paola.

Dinner

Later on, we took a little walk down the beach. Paola wanted to compare the other resorts and bungalows with ours. After seeing the other ones, she did finally come around to liking what we got. Ours was less crowded, with fewer people that looked like snobs (according to Paola’s standards), and she actually liked the shabby look of ours; other bungalows were too overdone, and that seemed to take away from the charm of a small tropical island.

Just before we got to our bungalow, the resort next to ours was setting up for dinner. They were setting up tables right on the sand. This appealed to Paola, so she made a reservation for an hour later. Like I said before, we came during the off season, so there was no need to make the reservation, but we wanted to be sure.

We had a nice little tropical dinner with seafood and drinks. The server was very nice and friendly. He served us a drink in a pineapple made like Mr. Potatohead. It was very charming, and enjoyable, so we came back here for dinner every night that we were in Koh Samui.

Lamai

Our resort was on a beach called Lamai on Koh Samui. There is a more popular beach, but Paola did not want to go somewhere that was too crowded with tourists, so she booked our room at a place that was a bit further out of the way. However, this was the second most popular beach on Lamai, so it wasn’t completely free of tourists.

Having the taxi drive us from the airport to our resort, we passed a lot of other resorts. Paola has a bad habit of always doubting herself, and so she was thinking that she should have booked our room at this place rather than that. I tried to assure her that everything would be ok, and that the place that we booked would be fine.

When we finally got to our resort, called U___, it looked much more shabby than some of the other places that we passed. Paola was immediately disappointed, but I tried to convince her that she should give this place a chance.

The man who welcomed us remembered speaking to Paola on the phone. He was nice, and guessed that her name was Italian. Although he was German, when he does not live in Lamai, he lives in the north of Italy. He was very friendly, and showed us to our bungalow. Paola still felt a little disappointed, especially when we did not get the beach front bungalow. I really didn’t care, and I was happy with what we got. It was very quiet, and had a very tropical feel to it (all the way down to the mosquitoes that were constantly biting). I felt like I could get a lot of reading done while we were here.

After settling in, we walked out to the beach. Paola found something else to be disappointed about when she saw the beach chairs. Other resorts had lounge chairs that were made of wood, and had cushioned mats to lay on, with umbrellas covering people from the sun (or in our case, since we came during the off season, the rain). Our hotel had white plastic beach chairs with no umbrellas or cushions. With a towel on top, I was fine, and I sat and began to read my book. (Being that we live in Japan, I am trying to read as many books about Japan, or by Japanese writers as I can.)

It seemed that everything that Paola had expected was not there. Our bungalow was shabby, the sky was overcast, and the sea was not a crystal blue that had been advertised. I knew that this is how Paola always gets with new places, and that she would soon come around to accept and even like this place. The same thing happened when we first arrived in Japan, and when we first arrived in Bangkok. All she needed was time.

Lamai

Our resort was on a beach called Lamai on Koh Samui. There is a more popular beach, but Paola did not want to go somewhere that was too crowded with tourists, so she booked our room at a place that was a bit further out of the way. However, this was the second most popular beach on Lamai, so it wasn’t completely free of tourists.

Having the taxi drive us from the airport to our resort, we passed a lot of other resorts. Paola has a bad habit of always doubting herself, and so she was thinking that she should have booked our room at this place rather than that. I tried to assure her that everything would be ok, and that the place that we booked would be fine.

When we finally got to our resort, called U___, it looked much more shabby than some of the other places that we passed. Paola was immediately disappointed, but I tried to convince her that she should give this place a chance.

The man who welcomed us remembered speaking to Paola on the phone. He was nice, and guessed that her name was Italian. Although he was German, when he does not live in Lamai, he lives in the north of Italy. He was very friendly, and showed us to our bungalow. Paola still felt a little disappointed, especially when we did not get the beach front bungalow. I really didn’t care, and I was happy with what we got. It was very quiet, and had a very tropical feel to it (all the way down to the mosquitoes that were constantly biting). I felt like I could get a lot of reading done while we were here.

After settling in, we walked out to the beach. Paola found something else to be disappointed about when she saw the beach chairs. Other resorts had lounge chairs that were made of wood, and had cushioned mats to lay on, with umbrellas covering people from the sun (or in our case, since we came during the off season, the rain). Our hotel had white plastic beach chairs with no umbrellas or cushions. With a towel on top, I was fine, and I sat and began to read my book. (Being that we live in Japan, I am trying to read as many books about Japan, or by Japanese writers as I can.)

It seemed that everything that Paola had expected was not there. Our bungalow was shabby, the sky was overcast, and the sea was not a crystal blue that had been advertised. I knew that this is how Paola always gets with new places, and that she would soon come around to accept and even like this place. The same thing happened when we first arrived in Japan, and when we first arrived in Bangkok. All she needed was time.

Koh Samui – November 2, 2007

I was happy to get out of Bangkok today. It was especially pleasing since I felt a lot better than the previous day. Today we went to the airport, and took a plane to an island of Bangkok called Koh Samui. It is one of the only (if not the only) island to have an airport. If we would have had more time on the schedule, then I would have been for traveling to some of the other islands by ferry. However, since our time was limited, I thought that it was best to just fly to this one island, and try to enjoy what we could there.

I think that the thing that Paola wanted to see most about Thailand was her tropical islands. When we lived in New York and talked about going on vacations, Paola would always suggest that we go to the Caribbean. She likes the idea of laying out on a pretty, tropical beach with blue water and yellow sand. This appeals to me only very slightly, and for that reason, I had to use my veto power to stop us from vacationing so, since I would rather spend travel money on places that are of cultural value, rather than recreational value. However, since this trip was planned on the fly, and the places that I wanted to visit were too expensive, I had to give in and accept that we would take a nice tropical vacation.

Wat Phra/ Wat Pho

It seemed to us that all of the main cultural sights of Bangkok were located right adjacent to each other. The Grand Palace was closed, so we walked past it to Wat Pho. It is one of the large temples in Bangkok. (Just to be clear, I am not sure, but it seems to me that the same complex is alternately called either Wat Pho, or Wat Phra. If this is not the case, then we saw one, but not the other, and I am not sure abou the name of the one that we saw (although I am confident that the two names are used for the same place).)

The main attraction at Wat Pho is the Reclining Buddha. It is a large sculpture of the Buddha lying down, as he is dying. Like the other Buddha that we saw yesterday, it is covered in gold, and has the distinct Thai style. Again, other than the face and the size, the sculpture does not appeal to me much because of the lack of detail. The feet were mere blocks with lines in them for toes, and the hands were globs with long cylinders coming from them for fingers. Before we came to Thailand, when I finally got excited about coming, one of the reasons for being excited was to see this sculpture. In any case, it was rather underwhelming, and I just went outside to a fountain and sat down, trying to recover from drinking too much. I let Paola walk around a lot while I sat, which suited me fine. Even though these temples in Thailand were stylistically different from the ones in Japan, I still felt like I saw too many temples, and I wasn’t too excited about seeing another one.

Because we started late, and it took a while to walk to the temple, it got late in the day quickly, and we called it a day. I promised Paola that when we came back to Bangkok at the end of the week, we would see more, and I would not get sick from drinking too much.

Bangkok – November 1, 2007

I woke up completely sick from last night. I didn’t want to go anywhere, especially sightseeing in this filthy city. I felt bad, though, because I knew that my own behavior was stopping Paola from seeing some things that she wanted to see. I knew that it was a bit inconsiderate of me to make Paola stay in, so I asked her if she wanted to go out on her own. She didn’t feel comfortable doing that, so I knew that I would have to get my self together, and go out. I kept asking her to wait a little longer, and longer still, but finally I had to give in, and we went out the some temples around 3 o’clock.

Walking on the filthy streets that smelled so bad only made it more difficult for me to recover. Every few steps I took I had to stop because I thought I was going to gag on the stench in the air. Even if I tried to ignore it, I still walked very slowly. In any case, after walking past lots of filthy people sleeping on the benches at three in the afternoon, and tuk-tuk drivers trying to convince us to let them guide us, we got to Wat Phra.

Going out on Halloween

It didn’t occur to me that we came to Bangkok on Halloween. Paola suggested that we go out to get something to eat, and maybe enjoy a little nightlife that Bangkok is famous for. Basically, everybody who was out looked like a hippy that wanted to take advantage of the cheap party atmosphere. We knew that since this was the type of person that came to Thailand, the tourists would generally be cool to party with. We returned to Khaosan Road, picked a little restaurant, and drank a lot of beer after eating phad-thai. While sitting there, we met a couple of Dutch guys, and they invited us to this bar/ club where they were going. When we got there, one of them bought a bottle of vodka, and I drank a lot of it. After drinking a lot of beer, and then mixing it with a lot of vodka, I threw up on the floor of the club, and couldn’t get up from where I found a seat. I couldn’t open my eyes either, especially since my head was in my hands. Soon enough, some workers from the club came up to me, saw the throw-up, threw some sawdust on top of it and cleaned it up. Then they walked away.

Apparently I was gone for a while, so Paola came and looked for me. When she found me, she started to cry because she thought that I was going to die. While I didn’t have the motor functions to walk or even talk properly, my brain and mental functions were working just fine, so I tried to motion to her that I was ok, and that everything would be fine. This didn’t convince her. Soon enough she found some big African who carried me outside and loaded me onto a tuk-tuk to get home. I do not exaggerate when I say that my motor functions were completely dead; I couldn’t move at all, and when I tried to walk, my legs wouldn’t hold me up, nor would my eyes stay open. This seemed so odd to me since I felt that my brain was working perfectly, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do; I just couldn’t do it. It was a good thing that the African was strong.

When we got the hotel, a hotel worker helped carry me to the room and I fell asleep. While in transit from the door of the hotel to the door of our room, I threw up again, this time on the hotel floor. It surprised me that the people in all these different places where I threw up were so nice; I am sure that if the same thing happened in Los Angeles or New York, they would have simply thrown me out on the street (I know from experience). Paola was still worried, but I am sure that when I woke up the next morning she was confident that I wouldn’t die; since my brain was working the whole time, I knew that I was ok.

The Marble Temple

By the time we got to the Marble Temple, it was dark. I would have been very upset if we did not get to see it because it was closed. However, as luck would have it, the gates surrounding the temple were open, and we could walk into the grounds. Sure enough, the name says it all, as the exterior walls of the temple were made of white marble. The roof was red, and the doors to the temple were all decorated with gold trim. There were some Thai people inside the grounds who seemed to be sightseeing along with us. I was scared that they might come up to us and try to sell us something, but that didn’t happen.

When we left, we decided to take up an offer from one of the tuk-tuk drivers outside since our hotel was quite a ways away. He told us that it would cost about 20 baht to get us to our hotel. That is less than a dollar. Having read horror stories in our travel guide book, I wanted to make sure that we would go straight to the hotel, and not take any detours. He told us that he would take us to a jewelry shop because his sponsor pays him to take people there. All that we would have to do is look around for about 15 or 20 minutes, and then he could take us to our hotel. I told him that we had shopped enough today, and that we were tired and just wanted to go to our hotel. I asked him how much it would cost for us to get a direct trip straight to the hotel, without any stops for shopping. He hesitated, and laughed with the other tuk-tuk driver while mumbling between themselves in Thai. This did not make me comfortable, but then he finally said that he would take us straight to the hotel, without any shopping for 150 baht (about five dollars). I took him up on his offer, and let him take us to our hotel.

Because I didn’t know the layout of Thailand too well, I wasn’t sure that we were going the right way, but I did finally recognize some of the landmarks that we had passed while walking earlier, so I felt better. I suppose that the reason that these tuk-tuks are so popular are because with their small size and three wheels, they are able to make cuts and sharp turns in the heavy traffic of Bangkok. Because there weren’t any doors or windows, we got all the stink of the gas, fuel, and exhaust of the traffic. It was gross, but we got to our hotel. Before we got out, the driver offered to take us sightseeing the next day. We hesitantly accepted, but nothing was in stone, and we didn’t give him any money, so we weren’t too worried.

Walking through Bangkok

From the 40 meter Buddha, we walked to the Marble Temple. We walked through the streets in the early evening, and the sun had already set. Walking through the streets in Thailand seemed more dangerous than I was used to. The main road was very wide, and it was not clear to me when it was safe to cross, since right turns on red lights were common. When I thought that it was safe enough, we simply ran across, and luckily, we didn’t get hit by any cars.

Another interesting feature of the cityscape was the ever present image of the king. There were large posters at every intersection (even at the smaller streets), of the king of Thailand in various activities. Apparently, he likes photography, playing saxaphone, and talking to the locals. In addition to pictures of his activities, there were also several official looking portraits with him posing next to his wife. It astonished me that any one man should be so revered in a country. I cannot imagine what this might look like in the United States. I also could not imagine how someone so rich puts on such a display in a nation where there are so many poor people.

40 Meter Buddha

We saw this tall sitting Buddha that looked like it was made with gold. I can’t imagine that it was solid gold, but rather that it was covered with gold leaf. Apparently the people of Thailand are very religious Buddhists, and this can be seen everywhere. Lining the sidewalks were posts with the flags of Thailand, their international flag (red, white, and blue stripes), and a yellow flag with a temple on it.

Having seen the sculpture at sunset, it seemed a bit underwhelming. Perhaps it is merely my own preferences in art, but that being as it is, I was not impressed by the quality of the sculpture. Being a fan of contemporary art, I had somehow assumed that there was some underwritten law that bigger was better, and that size helped make something of low quality look better. Seeing this sculpture seemed to fly in the face of my theory; bigger is not necessarily better.

There were other temples within the grounds, and they all gave some concept of what Thai religious art looks like.

Khaosan Road

We finally figured out how the city was oriented, and we set our way towards some of the local sites. It so happens that the hotel that Paola picked was right in the middle of most of the traditional sites like temples and such.

The first place that we went to was Khaosan Road. It is basically a short pedestrian street with shops, restaurants, bars, and vendors completely covering the sidewalks. Again, the vendors, and waitresses at the restaurants were constantly hassling us to buy their stuff, or to sit at their restaurant.

At the end of Khaosan Road, another tuk-tuk driver came up to us, trying to convince us to take a tour that he was offering. This is typical of these tuk-tuk drivers, and I suppose that they make a lot of their money this way. Because we said that we didn’t know where to go, and that we were just walking around, he suggested that we go to a wat (temple) where there was a Buddha sculpture that was 40 meters tall. I told him that we wanted to walk and not interested in a driver. So we walked a little while to that wat.

The walk took about an hour, and we got to see a lot of normal life in Bangkok. Like before, I thought it was mostly filth and poverty. The stray dogs walking around looked diseased, and the vendors on the side of the street sold food that, mixed with the gas exhaust from the cars, buses, and tuk-tuks, contributed to the overall stink of the city. We had a little trouble finding the wat, as the map showed it at a certain cross street, but in fact it was further within the block.

Arriving in Bangkok

Having been at JFK airport in New York, I understand that there are illegal taxi drivers that hassle you right when you walk outside. However, this was taken to a different level in Bangkok. One right after the other, cab drivers came up to us, and asked if we wanted a ride. I looked around and tried to find where the line for the regulated taxis were, saw it, and tried to head straight there. We told the dispatcher where we wanted to go by the name of our hotel. The dispatcher seemed to know where we wanted to go, but when we got into the cab, the driver had no idea where to go, nor did he speak English. Luckily, we had a phone number, so he called the hotel, and straightened everything out.

Driving into the center of Bangkok, I saw a lot of shacks that were made with corrugated metal. I doubted that people lived there, but then there were clothes hanging outside, probably drying after being washed. There was even more poverty once we drove through the center of Bangkok. We could see little camps of people who lived in little groups on the side of the streets. We could see clothes hanging on the sides of crates and carts that were offering to sell little trinkets and food. This actually got me a little excited to go out and see more of the city, since this type of third world poverty was not anything I had experienced before.

However, after we checked in, and walked outside, I could smell a stink that permeated through the air. The whole city seemed more like a swamp, as there were waterways, rivers, and canals everywhere. When we walked past these canals, the smell coming from them told me that they were contaminated with raw sewage.

Walking around outside, there were a lot of people coming up to us, telling us that they could give us a ride to wherever we wanted to go. These guys usually drive tuk-tuks. These are little more than go carts with three wheels and a canopy to protect us if it happens to rain. It so happens, so it says in our guidebooks, that these tuk-tuk drivers offer people rides wherever they want, but then take them to stores that offer the drivers kickbacks for bringing tourists to buy their stuff. Since I didn’t want to get in the middle of any of this, I didn’t accept any cab rides from anyone, and didn’t talk with any locals who came up to start a conversation with me, and there were many.

Bangkok, Thailand – October 31, 2007

Paola told me that she has always wanted to go to Thailand. Since all of my choices, like China, were too expensive, I decided to give in and head to Thailand. She wanted to see as much as we could in a week, and so she wanted to head into Cambodia via land crossing, and she also wanted to see as many islands as we could. The way that I saw it, one week was only enough time to see Bangkok and one island. Paola gave in, and we decided on Koh Samui. The itinerary planning was therefore a great example of cooperation and compromise.

The reason that I did not want to go to Thailand is because my feeble mind has been too influenced by movies that I have watched. I have not seen any movies set in Thailand that makes it seem like a good place to go, but rather, the opposite. So, before we left, I was a bit negative about going, but then after thinking about it more, I came around to looking forward to going to Thailand, and saw it as an opportunity to go somewhere new and interesting.

On Kyoto

I have just uploaded a lot of posts about being in Kyoto. You should click on "October" to the right to see all of them.

Daisen-in Temple

Praying Jizu
Temple
Rock Garden
The last temple that we had in our plan to visit before going to the train station was Daisen-in Temple. It was, of course, just one temple that was part of a larger complex of many temples and shrines. Apparently this temple is famous for its rock garden. When we got to the gate, we expected that we would have to pay. However, we did not expect to be told that we would not be able to take photos of the rock garden, or of anything else in the temple. What surprised us even more was that didn’t even allow people to go in and draw or sketch anything within the temple. I thought that was absurd, so we left. Since we were already tired, this only bothered us more, and so we decided that it wouldn’t be worth it to pay to go in and see it. Like I said, we were already tired, so this was the perfect excuse to cut it short and head to the train station.

On our way out of the temple grounds, we saw another small temple, and they allowed us to take photos, so we went in there instead. The experience was very pleasant since, at the end of the day, we were the only ones who were inside the temple, and we felt like we could do whatever we wanted (except that there was a guy who kept following us, probably making sure that we didn’t spit on the Buddha, or whatever). It was a rather small temple, and actually felt like it was a house. Paola and I decided that after we buy our first house, we will raze it to the ground, and rebuild it with the same design and layout as this temple.

After that, we jumped on the first bus that we saw that said it would take us to the train station. From there, we waited about five minutes, just enough time to buy some meals for the ride, and jumped on the train back to Tokyo.

Kinkaku-ji: the Golden Pavilion

Golden Pavilion up close
Golden Pavilion
The only thing that I had my mind set on seeing today was the Golden Pavilion. It was built by Yoshimitsu, the grandfather of Yoshimasa, who built the Silver Pavilion (in fact, Yoshimasa built the Silver Pavilion as a response, and in deference to his grandfather, who had already built the Golden Pavilion). Having walked through Kyoto for a couple of days now, we had already seen lots of postcards and other pictures of the Golden Pavilion, so I didn’t expect to be surprised when we saw it in person.

Walking through the gate, and seeing it through the trees, the Golden Pavilion’s size, and gold-leaf walls shocked me. It really was something. I don’t think that there is another building like it anywhere, all covered in gold like that. Standing in front of a lake, with his gold building reflecting off of the water, I am sure that Yoshimitsu was proud of what he had built.

Ryoanji Temple

Ryoanji Rock Garden
Buddha at Ryoanji
Shrine gate
It was said that Ryoanji Temple has a nice rock garden, and so that is why we wanted to come here. There are 15 large rocks that are masterly placed throughout the rock garden, and so it is beautiful, or so they say. I was rather disappointed by the rock garden. I guess that it was neat in some mystical sense, and I am sure that the Buddhist monks who first arranged the fifteen large rocks such knew something about feng-shui or something like that, but it didn’t appeal much to me. Perhaps I was a bit tired after three days of temples, shrines, and rock gardens. Another things that made this particular site less pleasant was all of the other people around. The whole area where people were allowed to sit and take pictures was crowded, and with everyone snapping away at their cameras (myself included) it didn’t seem that special.

Myoshin-ji

roof tiles
Myoshin-ji Buddha
The first temple that we went to, after getting lost, and going way out of our way, was Myoshin-ji . There was a great garden that also had a dry rock garden. Everything looked very pretty. One great thing was that since we went there relatively early, we were really the only ones in the garden, and having it all to ourselves, we felt that it was almost ours. One surprising thins was that next to a well, where people wash their hands, a frog had taken a rest in the fountain. We felt lucky to have seen it, and it turns out that a day that had started rather unlucky (having gotten lost on the way to our first temple, and not having intended to come here at all), it seemed like it would be a day that would go just fine.

Outside of the garden, in front of the main temples, there was some sort of celebration, or gathering for all of the people involved with the temple, including monks and nuns. It was neat to see all of this going on. I suppose that it takes this many people to keep the large temple grounds functioning.

Kyoto, day 3 – October 24, 2007

George, as a relaxing samurai
The main question of the day for us was, knowing that we had to check out, should we leave our heavy backpacks with the front desk after checking out, in order to walk easier, but necessitating us coming back at the end of the day to pick them up, or should we just carry all our stuff with us, which would be more of a burden, but then we could go straight to the train station? It so ends up that we decided to just take everything with us, since we didn’t feel that we had that much anyway, and since we had walked with all the same stuff our whole first day in Kyoto.

Conveyor belt sushi, again

We wanted a good deal for our money, so we went back to the conveyor belt sushi place. We had several plates of sushi again, and felt like we got a good meal.

Kiomizu-Dera Temple

Kiomizu-Dera
Paola and George
Kiomizu-Dera pagoda with moon
From there we walked around the streets of Eastern Gion some more. Like yesterday, it felt good to walk around in this traditional neighborhood that had a lot of nice little stores, and little shops.

We happened upon a temple, Kiomizu-Dera, where they were shooting a picture of what might have been some graduating class of students, and they were using the pagoda at the site as a backdrop. It so happens that the backdrop also appealed to me, so I stuck around and took some pictures too. Just like the other temples and shrines we had been to, this one had a lot of smaller little temples and shrines on the grounds. I think that what made this one stick out a little bit more for me was the pagaoda that was the centerpiece of the temple grounds.

Ryozen Kannon

Ryozen Kannon Buddha 1
Ryozen Kannon Buddha 2
I looked at our book, and realized that yesterday we had missed the Ryozen Kannon. Inside the grounds there is a large sculpture of a Buddha that is about 30 meters tall. I am sure that it is not the largest Buddha in the world, but it was the largest Buddha I had ever seen.

Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the place was closed. However, it was east to see the Buddha over the short walls of the grounds. Actually, it may have been better to see it from this far away, because if I were up close, I wouldn’t be able to allow the whole sight to be absorbed (at least that’s what I am telling myself since I didn’t have the choice to see it up close). In any case, it was quite a sight to see, and the low sun of the late afternoon lit it perfectly.

Philosopher’s Walk

Philosopher's Walk
George and Paola
Temple
The Silver Pavilion was at the north end of a path about a mile or two long called the Philosopher’s walk. I thought that it would be a nice pleasant walk that might inspire some thinking. It was basically a path that followed a stream that flowed down. On either side of the stream and the path were houses and little shops. I imagine that in the spring there might be cherry blossoms in bloom, but when we were there, none were. All that said, I didn’t find the walk to inspire any thinking, and I was glad when it was over.

At the south end of the Philosopher’s Walk there must have been some temple, or another, but it appears that it did not leave an impression on me (perhaps I had already seen too many temples and/ or shrines). One thing that I did want to see, that we had missed yesterday was back in Eastern Gion. Because it was getting late, we felt that it would be best to take a taxi, so we did.

Ginkaku-ji: The Silver Pavilion

Rock Garden
Silver Pavilion
Forest
I was very interested to see the Silver Pavilion. I already had a book about its maker, Yoshimasa, who was Shogun sometime in the 1300s (I think that it was the 1300s, I could be wrong). In fact, in the prelude of the book (which is all that I actually read) the author writes that he did not know much about the Silver Pavilion, or Yoshimasa. He commented that he didn’t understand why such a drab looking place got so much attention. Indeed, there is no Silver to be found anywhere in the Silver Pavilion, and it merely looks like an old wooden Japanese building. The original design was supposed to have silver leaf all around the outside of the building, but Yoshimasa died before that was able to happen, or there was some war that prevented such luxuries to be addressed. In any case, the building was never finished, and it still stands in its unfinished state.

The reason that I did want to see this place, though, is because of its function as a monument to Yoshimasa. He was not the most militaristic of Shoguns, but instead focused his attentions on the artistic and cultural flowering of Japan. It was under Yoshimasa that Japan had its equivalent to the Renaissance, when Noh theater, poetry, tea ceremony, and other arts flourished. So for that reason, I wanted to see this monument to the leader who allowed that to happen.

Other than the actual building, there was a nice garden to explore. However, one had to stay on a path, and that path was very crowded with other tourists, Japanese and foreign, who were all trying to get a nice view of the different things. What made this garden particularly stand out was its location. The grounds are right at the foot of the main mountain in Kyoto. This meant that on the other side of the fence, there were trees and bamboo growing all the way up the steep mountain. This made for a pleasurable sight.

Imperial Park

I thought that there might be something of interest to see here. This park was close to Nijo Castle, and it had the old imperial houses where the emperor lived. However, because everything was closed to the public, I did not find too much that interested me here. It was a large park with large paths where people could run, or walk, or ride their bike. We quickly walked to the other side of the park, and found a bus that might take us to Ginkaku-ji.

The bus system here in Kyoto is very nice, especially if you are able to read Japanese. However, I cannot read Japanese, and I was still able to make sense of it (for the most par). The city is laid out in a grid-like manner, so it is easy to understand where the busses should go if you have a map. Luckily, the map that we got from the hotel very clearly drew out the streets that had bus service, so it was easy to find busses to where we wanted to go.

Nijo Castle

Nijo Castle 1
Nijo Castle 2
Tea House

Chrysanthemum
After walking through the grounds of Nijo Castle, I have to say that it is the most impressive single site that I have seen while in Japan. It is basically an old castle that was built by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the early 1600s. Although they later decided to move the capital from Kyoto to Edo (modern Tokyo), they needed to establish themselves as the main force in Japan, so they built this castle near the Imperial Palace, the residence of the Emperor, and tried to outdo the Imperial Palace in size and grandness (in fact, it is my conclusion, with the limited knowledge of Japanese history that I have, that the Emperor of Japan has never really had that much power, until Meiji reassumed the power of the Emperor in the late 1800s to early 1900s). In any case, Nijo Castle is what is left.

There are as many similarities as there are differences between Japanese castles and European castles. Nijo Castle had a moat surrounding it, and only a single bridge between it and the outside area. When the castle was complete, it had a large five story tower in the center that allowed the inhabitants of the castle survey the surrounding area. There were also towers at each of the corners of the castle that functioned as fortifications. In fact, at its peak, this castle and its grounds were larger than any castle in Europe. However, as is the case with many buildings in Japan, fire consumed the tower, and other parts over the years. Also, since the Tokugawa Shogunate transferred the capital from Kyoto to Edo, this castle diminished in importance, and so its upkeep was not maintained, and it fell into disrepair. Basically, what was left, then, looked more like a large sprawling mansion rather than a well fortified castle.

They allowed us to walk through the mansion part of the main castle, and see the different rooms. There were a lot of wall paintings, and the famous nightingale floors that squeaked when you walked across them, thus alerting the inhabitants to intruders. The paintings on the walls of the rooms were in what I might call the old Japanese style, and usually had themes of nature, such as swans, tigers, and flowers. I was really stunned by the whole thing.

The grounds were large enough that they had gardens, and ponds. There were even chrysanthemums in bloom, which might be a symbol of the Shogunate.

Kyoto, day two – October 23, 2005

The hotel that we are staying at is pretty centrally located in Kyoto. All that means is that we are only a few blocks from Nijo Castle, and a little further from the Imperial Park. After both of those, we would decide where we were going to go next.

Gion

Once we were done in Eastern Gion, we decided to walk to our hotel. It didn’t seem like it would be too far, but it turns out that it was. On top of that, we had not eaten a proper meal since the morning, so we were also looking for a good place to stop and eat for the evening.

I am particularly fond of a dish called gyudon. It is basically a bowl of rice with beef on top, and I usually get it at Yoshinoya. Paola thinks that the meat tastes like it is either raw or fat, so she doesn’t like it at all. However, after dragging Paola to Yoshinoya, she finally found a dish that she likes. We figured that Yoshinoya was a decent choice, especially since it is cheap.

Instead, right across the street from the Yoshinoya, we went to a sushi place. There are a lot of sushi places in Japan that are really cheap. What they do is make sushi (a cube of rice topped with a piece of raw fish), set it on a plate, and put it on a converyor belt. The conveyor belt then goes around, which either a bar is set around, or all the booths for families are set around, and you pick up whatever you see and want to eat. When you are ready to leave, they then count all the empty plates, and add up the bill. You pay on your way out. This was good because the sushi is usually cheap, and you eat until you get full, so you know you are getting your money’s worth.

We then walked to our hotel, which was easy enough to find, and called it a night.

Eastern Gion

With all our stuff in our backpacks, we walked up to the Eastern Gion district. Being that it is on the other side of the river, Eastern Gion has not had its area really developed in the same way that the central part of Kyoto has. This is a good thing. This is the part of Kyoto that we had in mind when we thought of Kyoto. There were small streets lined with little shops and homes, going up and down, winding through the hills of the area. All of the buildings looked like they were in the old style. Eastern Gion had all the charm that the rest of Kyoto seemed to lack.

There are a lot of temples, pagodas, and gates. The first thing that I saw was a large, five story pagoda. It turns out that it was called the Yasaka Pagoda. The people here claim that there are relics of Buddha in this pagoda.

From there, we walked a little bit north to the Yasaka Shrine (no relation to the Yasaka Pagoda). The Yasuka Shrine is at the foot of the Maruyama Park. We walked deeper into the park, and came upon the Chion-in Temple, which has the largest gate in the world. A bit further up from there is Shoren-n Temple. It seems like no matter where one might walk, there is a temple or shrine within a kilometer or two.

As I said before, this part of Kyoto seemed to have all of the charm that we imagined Kyoto would have. This included people who were dressed in traditional costumes. We saw more than a few women dressed as geishas. These were different from the several women who were already dressed in kimonos, who also walk around in Tokyo. However, these ladies had their faces painted white as well (I couldn’t tell if there was a difference in the kimonos that they wear). I couldn’t be sure if the women who were dressed so were really geishas, or if they were just in costume. In fact, the group that we saw was with a professional photographer (I say professional because he had an assistant holding a light reflector) taking their picture. It was finally nice to be somewhere that seemed like what we thought Kyoto might be like.

Sanjusangen-do Temple area

I cannot say how long exactly, but I think that we probably walked for less than twenty minutes before we got to our next destination. We could see the Sanjusangen-do Temple over the short walls that surrounded it. On the eastern side of the grounds was a bright orange wall that stretched from the bottom end up to the end of the block, about two or three hundred meters. Outside, all across the streets, there were smaller temples and shrines. The grounds for these ones were about as big as a plot for a large sized house in America, on which there was at least one temple or shrine, and a small, well groomed garden surrounding the grounds.

The Sanjusangen-do Temple was rather large. Perhaps I should say that it was long. One of our guide books said that it is the longest wooden structure in the world. Neat. It wasn’t so tall, but, indeed, it was long, about the length of a football field. Along the side with the orange wall, there was a nice garden with a pond, which contrasted well with the bright orange structures (there was a gate, the wall, and a bell tower). On the other side of the long temple, there wasn’t much besides a small shrine for people to come and pray to.

Across the street, on the north side, was the Kyoto National Museum. I suppose that it is closed on Mondays because it was closed today. Either way, we would not have gone in, so it didn’t matter to us that it was closed.

Walking through Kyoto

Walking from the Toji Temple to the next place, we could see what Kyoto (at least the south part) looks like. I got the impression of an industrial city that doesn’t have much to show in terms of modernity. Certainly, we know that there were a lot of historical places and museums. However, the modernization of the city has not thought a lot about how to make the rest of the city look nice. Most of the buildings are simply large rectangles with bland colors. Basically, the city is not so attractive other than the historical and religious sites. This was especially true when we walked over the river to the eastern part of the city. The river did not look pretty, but rather looked like the industrial river of Los Angeles, being surrounded by concrete.

Toji Temple

Toji Temple Buddhas
Toji Temple
Toji Pagoda
The first site that we went to was Toji Temple. Once we got a little close to it, we couldn’t miss the 5 story pagoda. It is said that it is the tallest such pagoda in Japan. We followed it to get where we wanted to be. There was a large temple ground with a lot of different shrines and temples.

Besides the large pagoda, looking back at it, there is not too much to say. However, I felt very excited being there because it was the first site that we were at in Kyoto. It wasn’t a very far walk from the train station (about 15 or 20 minutes, which was nice. Because we knew before hand that we wouldn’t be able to check in before 3 o’clock, we packed light enough to put all of whatever we took into backpacks. This was easy since we were only going to be gone for three days. We knew that we would have to walk a lot on the first day to try to get in all of the different things that we wanted to see in Kyoto.

Seeing everything we wanted to would be a bit easier since we also learned that the train going back to Tokyo leaves so frequently, and we could basically leave on Wednesday whenever we want to. That said, looking at our maps, it looked like there were four main tourist sections of Kyoto that seemed like they were a bit apart from each other: southeast, northeast, center, and northwest. As always, I was concerned for the time we had, and worried that we might not be able to get everything in that we wanted to. We spent a while at Toji Temple, and ate some lunch on the grounds before setting off for our next destination.