Japan (Entry 16)
Sep. 16th, 2018 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geowenchWe flew into Osaka, and took a train to Kyoto, where we spent two days sightseeing in the rain. The first day we went to a castle and a temple (both UNESCO World Heritage Sites), and I think something else, but I forget - oh I know, this huge street shopping area, where I bought some gifts and souvenirs. Next day we went to several museums. The thing about Kyoto is that you will never feel like you've done enough - there are 39 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and we saw two. But we had a good time. Oh and I discovered soft serve green tea ice cream served by street vendors everywhere, and that stuff is like crack. Gimmee.
We then took a train to Tsuruga, which is basically directly east of Tokyo, and on the west coast of the island. The train ride was long, but very enjoyable - trains are far more comfortable for travel than planes, plus the scenery was awesome. We got to the train station, and our hotel was literally like 30 meters away, which was very convenient. It was still pretty early, plus there was a yearly festival happening, so we walked through the festival, saw the local shrine, and continued walking down to the seashore. That night we had a delicious traditional fish dinner with several of E's compadres.
Since we were in Tsuruga for a conference, we didn't do as much sight seeing as we might have, but we did manage to see the fish market, the five lakes region, and Fukui Dinosaur Museum, which is easily the most amazing dinosaur museum I have ever seen, and, I suspect, the best in the world, and the Jomon Museum.
Of course half way through our trip the typhoon hit. We only got the edge of it, but it was still pretty impressive, and did bring down two trees at our hotel. Plus our airport was shut down and heavily damaged - it is on an island and the only way in/out was damaged when a tanker crashed into it. Many of our comrades had to spend thousands to get home. We waited a couple of days, and when it became clear that Osaka airport would not open in time for our return flight we called American Airlines and they simply put us on a flight out of Narita (Tokyo). They even managed to arrange it so that we were still able to make our connecting flights in the US. So it ended up costing us about $300 bucks in train fares (we had to take 3 trains to get to Tokyo), and added about 12 hours onto our trip, but ce la vie, we eventually got home just when we were supposed to (a week ago).
Overall a very enjoyable trip and I'm glad I went and got to see a different part of Japan. However, I don't see me returning to Japan any time soon ... there are too many other places I'd rather go. Next year the conference is in Athens, and we have an invite to go early and stay with friends, so I'm looking forward to that - I've been wanting to go back to Greece since we went there in 2002 for our honeymoon. In the meantime ... jet lag. Argh.
We then took a train to Tsuruga, which is basically directly east of Tokyo, and on the west coast of the island. The train ride was long, but very enjoyable - trains are far more comfortable for travel than planes, plus the scenery was awesome. We got to the train station, and our hotel was literally like 30 meters away, which was very convenient. It was still pretty early, plus there was a yearly festival happening, so we walked through the festival, saw the local shrine, and continued walking down to the seashore. That night we had a delicious traditional fish dinner with several of E's compadres.
Since we were in Tsuruga for a conference, we didn't do as much sight seeing as we might have, but we did manage to see the fish market, the five lakes region, and Fukui Dinosaur Museum, which is easily the most amazing dinosaur museum I have ever seen, and, I suspect, the best in the world, and the Jomon Museum.
Of course half way through our trip the typhoon hit. We only got the edge of it, but it was still pretty impressive, and did bring down two trees at our hotel. Plus our airport was shut down and heavily damaged - it is on an island and the only way in/out was damaged when a tanker crashed into it. Many of our comrades had to spend thousands to get home. We waited a couple of days, and when it became clear that Osaka airport would not open in time for our return flight we called American Airlines and they simply put us on a flight out of Narita (Tokyo). They even managed to arrange it so that we were still able to make our connecting flights in the US. So it ended up costing us about $300 bucks in train fares (we had to take 3 trains to get to Tokyo), and added about 12 hours onto our trip, but ce la vie, we eventually got home just when we were supposed to (a week ago).
Overall a very enjoyable trip and I'm glad I went and got to see a different part of Japan. However, I don't see me returning to Japan any time soon ... there are too many other places I'd rather go. Next year the conference is in Athens, and we have an invite to go early and stay with friends, so I'm looking forward to that - I've been wanting to go back to Greece since we went there in 2002 for our honeymoon. In the meantime ... jet lag. Argh.
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Date: 2018-09-19 01:01 pm (UTC)Gosh, I haven't been to Athens since I was three...