second leg of the journey- tokyo and kyoto

Well it is past overdue but here is the second half of our trip. We spent some time in Asakusa and Ueno. Went to the National Museum and was overloaded with pottery. I love archeology and history but after the first 200 pots or so it all looks the same. The samurai swords and accouterments were very interesting though and some of the tapestries and scrolls were amazingly beautiful. We also visited Asakusa shrine and caught some low budget Japanese movie in the filming process. Did the sushi thing as well. Mom doesn't like raw fish.

Asakusa at night with movie lights.

Went back during the day to see the whole thing and encountered many crazies along the way.





Next to Kyoto and the nicest hotel along the trip. It is a beautiful city but the weather was horrible and never really stopped raining.

Streets in Gion






Was lucky to catch a few maiko (geisha in training) dashing between a teahouse and a waiting taxi. Some people are really shameless and were sticking their massive cameras right in these poor girls faces.

Kiyomizudera where the flocks of savage tourists gathered. It was incredibly beautiful but with the bazillion tour groups running around it was like a circus. Many of them didn't care about the historical significance or even the beauty they simply wanted to get their picture taken in front of it to say they'd been there.

The popular expression "to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu" is the Japanese equivalent of the English expression "to take the plunge". This refers to an Edo period tradition that held that, if one were to survive jumping from the stage, one's wish would be granted.

Survival appears plausible: The lush vegetation below the platform might cushion the fall of a lucky pilgrim, though the practice is now prohibited. 234 jumps were recorded in the Edo period and, of those, 85.4% survived.


We took a short rickshaw ride around Kyoto and felt incredibly bad for our little crazy-eyed driver traversing the slopes with our combined weight.

Next day went to Nijo Castle which was the Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa Shoguns from 1601 - 1867. It was quite fascinating the walls were all brilliantly painted and covered with gold leaf and wood carvings with secret doors for the bodyguards in cases of emergency. For additional security they constructed the floors of the walkways to squeak like birds thus named the Nightingale floors. This was to prevent sneak attacks and assassins from catching the family unaware.

Went back to Tokyo and had a night out with yaki-niku, an Irish pub and karaoke. We also went to Harajuku, Shibuya and Akihabara all in the midst of a typhoon. Needless to say the crossing at Shibuya wasn't as busy as always.


All in a good trip! Was awesome to see my ma and catch up and I think I had my Starbucks intake for three years. They are on every corner in Tokyo and Kyoto why do we only have one in Niigata?