This Is A Lake - A travel blog

Well, this is better! Today it was still cold, but it was sunny and the sky was clear -it was a pleasure to walk all over Kyoto today, and I did! I started my day with a healthy Kyoto-style breakfast, which includes three different types of tofu (a Kyoto specialty, Liza explained), fish, an assortment of pickles, and rice and miso soup, of course. Seeing all the little cups and dishes arranged so beautifully can be deceiving -I ended up so full! My first stop was Kiyomizu-dera, an impressive temple notable for its wooden deck suspended above a hill; it was assembled, without nails. It has an amazing view of the forest as well as the city of Kyoto itself. After being in the flat, dense urban jungle that is Tokyo for a week, it's refreshing to see hills and mountains. They provide a visual limit to the space you inhabit, and the uneven terrain offers great sightseeing opportunities. Apart from overlooking the forest, there are a number of things to do at Kiyomizu. One is a pi

What happened?! Yesterday was all sunny and warm and wonderful and today was all gray and rainy and cold and windy and marathonian (more on that in a bit). Can we go back? I had a moment of choice paralysis this morning, when I sat down to draft my itinerary for the day and saw all these wonderful sights asking to be explored, spread out all over the city, and virtually no idea of how to better transport myself from one place to another. In the end, though, I thought it better to start from the top and go to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. I got myself a One Day Bus/Subway Pass as soon as I left the hotel. I'm sure it saves you money, but really what I wanted was to spare myself having to fish for exact change every time I took a bus. The JR Pass isn't super useful in Kyoto! So I got to Kinkakuji, eventually, and it was gorgeous. My guidebook said you have to visit really early on a weekday to avoid the constant crowd, but this early in the season there were actually ve

Early this morning I left Sawanoya and Tokyo altogether -for good, because I'm not departing from there to get back to France. I was certainly a bit sad to leave Sawanoya, because it was such a nice place to stay, but I was also more than ready to move on. I saw so many different places in Tokyo that I feel satisfied of my visit. I took the shinkansen to Kyoto. As I had been told to expect, travelling by shinkansen is quiet, it's fast, there's lots of room for your legs and your bags, it's scrupulously punctual, it doesn't shake or sway... The only disappointment was to find that I had been given an aisle ticket. Egads! After I arrived in the gigantic Kyoto Station, the hardest part was to make the transfer to the subway -there were literally entire classrooms of children sitting on the hallways. From there, getting to Hotel Sugicho was very straightforward. The place itself looks fairly old, but it's well kept, my room is enormous , and not just by Japanes

Yesterday, my last day in Tokyo, was mostly about tying up loose ends. I began the morning peacefully enough, by doing laundry. A little Ueno housekeeping to start the day on the right foot! Sawanoya has a washing machine, a dryer and an iron, and the whole thing adds up to only 300 yen. At around noon, I went down to Ueno Park to visit the Tokyo National Museum, which I'm told is the Japanese Louvre/British Museum. Unlike those two institutions, this museum is spread out over four or five buildings around a central square. The main building holds a very informative "Highlights of Japanese Art", about 8 or 10 rooms on the second floor that summarises the main developments of Japanese history through pottery, clothes, calligraphy, and other traditional crafts. It's a very well curated exhibition; with a manageable amount of objects, they manage to display the main characteristics of each period. Already in the afternoon, I went to Shinjuku, the last must-see on my

The other day, here in Ueno, I crossed two old ladies on the street who were walking an enormous brown bunny rabbit O_O For real. With a leash and everything. Walking here feels like driving a police car with the siren on. Girls will literally shove their friends out of my way. I like being able to walk in a straight line, sure, but it's not like I'm going to run you over! I can step around if necessary!

After five days that have been pretty much all urban madness, today was a day dedicated to reflection, introspection and contemplation: day trip to Kamakura, city of shrines and temples! There are a lot of shrines and temples to visit in Kamakura, so it takes a lot of walking and a lot of fishing for change (since they all have an admission price of 200 or 300 yen, €1,60-2,45 at the current rate), but the good news is that with the notable exception of the Daibutsu, most of the shrines can be visited as you walk along the road from Kamakura station to Kita-Kamakura station, or vice versa. In my case, I got on the train in Tokyo Station, skipped Kita-Kamakura and got off at Kamakura Station, because that's where the Tourist Office is and I wanted to get a map first. A very kind lady there took the time to give me some recommendations on my itinerary; my guides mentioned the most famous shrines, but she pointed me out a couple of lesser-frequented ones that had blossoming plum t

Some random thoughts: For something that costs hundreds of euros, the Japan Rail Pass could stand to be a little more attractive. It's a piece of paper with a train ticket taped to it. Honestly, I expected Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket. What with standing out like a sore thumb everywhere I go, if Japan wasn't such a safe place I would have been pickpocketed ten times by now... This trip is a gastronomical adventure, as you would expect, but what the cafés here call "hot chocolate" makes even Starbucks' hot chocolate look good. Japan, you still have a week and a half to make amends. Do not let me down.