Newlyweds in Nippon: Kyushu and Back

Leaving Hiroshima, we headed to Fukuoka, to meet up with Sak's parents. They live in Sasebo, which is near Nagasaki, and decided to bus up to visit with us for a day.
Sak's dad wanted to check out a nearby park (Ohori), which had a traditional Japanese garden and the fastest-swimming koi I have ever seen.

The stump of Fukuoka castle was all that remained. So sad.

That night, us Saks went on a mission - to buy Sak a suit, off the rack. His dad figured he might as well have more than one suit, and that Japan would be the only place he'd ever find one in his size. That said, he was still the smallest size in the store, and the pants need to be taken in a few inches. Sak was none-too-pleased to find that he still wasn't considered normal-sized, even in Japan.

The next day, we headed over to Dazaifu, which is famous for being an old samurai town.

Although we didn't see any samurai, we did see some more turtles.
While in the area, we also went to the (air-conditioned) Kyushu National Museum. It had a lot of artifacts from ancient life in Kyushu, and an English audio-guide to help us along.

After a delicious lunch of my very-favorite shio saba bento (salted grilled mackerel), we bid Sak's parents good-bye.

And off we went to the next stop - Okayama.
If you're familiar with the story of Momotaro, Okayama is the town which his story is believed to be from. The whole place is decked out in peaches.

There was a washing machine in our hotel room. Which blows my mind, considering we don't even have one in our apartment at home!
And while we're on the subject of hotel rooms and plumbing - I spent more time in the bathroom again, this time playing with the dual-purpose faucet. It works in the sink, and then you can swivel the nozzle over and fill up the bathtub! That way you can sit in the tub without a tub water faucet whacking you in the back or anything.

Okayama castle was gorgeous.
And it had a pretty good museum of common Japanese life during the castle's lifetime. They have someone there that will dress you in a full-fledged kimono as well, for free. If it wasn't so hot, I would have stood in line.

Sak fell in the well though.

The Koraku-en garden outside the castle was huge and fascinating with fields of rice, plum trees and even butterflies.
But the arcade we went to later that night..Well. After losing 500 yen trying to win a stuffed guinea pig from one UFO catcher, I was upset. We watched another person spend around 4,000 yen winning a bath mat shaped like a cat, but at least she actually won it in the end. No more UFO catchers for me. I can't handle the frustration!

But the lego-build-it-yourself bumper cars they had were pretty cool, I admit.

As were the ice-cream UFO catchers.

After riding the shinkansen the next day, we stashed our luggage in a handy station locker and took a side-trip to the town of Hikone. Why? Castle, of course! This one was special, since it was an original and not a reconstruction. I was obsessed with finding the "real deal" at this point. And it was completely worth it.

They had everything, from the bridge and guard tower, to reconstructions of the master's quarters outside the castle.
They even had Samurai Warriors key chains in the gift shop. Which is funny, since nearly all my knowledge of Japanese history comes from that game series. (Don't hate, I'm trying to learn the "real" way now, I promise!) I ended up buying a capybara fan because it was so hot and un-airconditioned though.
The interior of the keep was probably the most fascinating though. It was gorgeous, unlit and rustic. The stairs were ridiculously steep, and there were sliding doors leading to who-knows-where. It was like taking a step back in time, like the great Nobunaga himself could turn the corner at any moment. Completely exhilarating.
We caught the romance car train to Hakone later that day. Which wasn't so romantic, given it's rather-high-price and rather-short-ride. After a crazy bus ride up the mountain, the bus driver stopped and left the two of us, unattended, in his bus while he went to take a leak. Of course he didn't tell us this, so we had absolutely no idea what was going on. Eventually we got to our ryokan though.

Now, Sak had done a great job finding us hotels in advance (mostly through hotels.com, actually). He averaged about $80 a night, which is awesome given the location. But he splurged on the ryokan. $300 a night. Whoa.


That $300 got us a private onsen though.
And a traditional Japanese house.

Oh, the fun we had role-playing samurai warriors.

Though we did get "locked out" one night when a giant cicada decided to sit on our door. I had to get over my fear and hustle through the door crack! He sat there all night, ugh.


There were ninjas there too! In the form of staff that sneak around and bombard you with offers of tea and futon services. Maybe I'm too DIY American, or maybe I'm just against having elderly people do anything for me - but having them move our heavy luggage for us and serve us tea so subserviently - it made me very uncomfortable. But that's what they do, no matter how many times you tell them it's not necessary.

On our last day there, we paid our bill and tried to sneak out with our luggage as quietly as we could. We got about halfway down the walkway before we tripped some sort of secret alarm, sending our host squawking after us and fighting for control of our heavy bags. We won in the end though. And we got to the front, hopefully saving her back from sprains. But she did manage to find my camera in the scuffle, and she dragged us back for pictures. She was a very nice host, and if there was tipping in Japan, we would have tipped her well. I still feel terrible for her though, but again - I'm not good with being pampered.

While in Hakone, we rode the ropeway up the mountain to Owakudani.

For some reason there were Stag Beetles at all the rail stops.

Anyway, the source of the hot springs smelled strongly of sulfur, and the water was boiling!
So hot, in fact, that they boil eggs up there until their shells turn black. Then they put them in a little pulley-cart and move them down the mountain to sell.
We bought them, as well as some hyped milk from local Hakone cows. Sadly, I couldn't tell the difference. It tasted like boiled egg and milk. Boo. But at least the process was still interesting!
Finally, at the station we decided to walk to Odawara castle, since it was nearby. Our last castle was the typical remodel-turned-museum, and lacked air conditioning.

It did, however, have monkeys. Which activated Sak's trauma-switch, once again.

With one day left, we traveled to Yokohama, a town Sak had spent a lot of time in when he lived in Japan. He had not been to Chinatown though, so that's where we went.
Call me biased if you will, but San Francisco's Chinatown still reigns supreme. Though their char siu bao were bigger, they were also like five hundred yen a piece. Yikes. We had a three dollar version, and it didn't taste any fancier than home, so I don't know why they cost so much.

And lastly - as we waited for the train to take us to back to the airport, Sak took me to Tokyo hands, the DIY store. Everything from DIY plumbing to DIY photo developing. Pretty awesome. I came out with some decorative tape and a egg-cooker. Sak wouldn't let me anywhere near the wedding section though.

Well, it's time to say good-bye to Japan. I was pretty unhappy. I didn't want to leave. It was the most interesting place I've ever been, and the best starter-country for my untraveled self to have visited. But Sak's promised me a return someday - with an itineary of more castle hunting. (Though probably not until the yen rate is in our favor again!)
In closing though - if you're looking for a honeymoon that has adventure, history, romance, and plenty of random things puzzle over - Japan is your destination!

Newlyweds in Nippon: Kansai-Chugoku

As we left Tokyo on the shinkansen that Saturday morning - we traveled back in time to a more traditional, more historical Japan: Kyoto.

I cannot say enough about how awesome the Capsule Ryokan we stayed at was. The owner greeted us at the door (in very good English, I might add), and showed us how our room worked. Yes, the room required explanation. It even came with a binder of instructions! Every Sak's dream room!

It was a tatami mat room with futons, with a secret storage area for luggage. There was a shower, which I'm fairly certain was really an alien transporter. And when you opened the bathroom door - the toilet lid popped up!
Oh - and did I mention there's a SINK on top of the toilet?!

Amazing. So just like last time, I spent an embarrassing amount of time playing with the toilet again.

Anyway, we started off our tour-of-a-billion-temples with a "hearty" breakfast.
Or rather, a heart-attack breakfast. It was two pancakes, held together with syrup, which was corralled into the middle by a giant ring of margarine. Artery-clogging, super-sweet deliciousness.

We checked out Nishi and Higashi Hongwanji, famous Buddhist temples.
We grabbed a day bus pass, and rode the tourist-line to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, famous for it's scenic hillside location. In between temple-visiting, we ate the local specialty - green tea, in the form of cold noodles and ice cream! Finally, we checked out the zen temples of gold (Kinkaku-ji) and silver (Jinkaku-ji) - which were quite popular for "Kodak moments". And turtles.
And since we had a little more time left that day, I pulled out our touristy map and pointed to this funny picture of a monkey and a mountain.

"I want to go there!" I stated. Monkey Mountain, I called it.
Well, it really is a mountain. And to say it was a huge strenuous climb at the end of an already long day was an understatement. Not to mention the place closed in thirty minutes, meaning we had to high-tail it up 75 meters. The first real test of our marriage was whether or not to kill penga for insisting on such a crazy and painful idea. But eventually we made it to the top of Arashi-yama (mountain).

And I was not disappointed.
There were Japanese Macaques everywhere! But you can't look them in the eye, or else they will attack you. Sak, having fear-of-monkey instilled in him from a very young age, grew very anxious, and insisted we go inside the "safe" area of Iwatayama Monkey Park. Well, even cooler - you can feed them from inside! Centuries of historical significance aside, I still think this is the coolest thing we did in Kyoto. But, to appease scared husband - after climbing down the mountain we indulged on some fried onigiri (rice balls) from a vending machine by the river. Food is so fun in Japan.
The next day we went back to metropolis life - to the city of Osaka. We walked down the Namba shopping district, which was amazing and oh-so-very-long. We ate okonomiyaki and takoyaki, regional favorites. We went to the Osaka Aquarium, where I saw whale sharks and giant crabs for the first time.

And I visited my very first Japanese castle, Osaka-jo. Which, by the way, incited some sort of castle-fever in me. Sak had only planned on visiting one castle. We ended up going to seven. I love castles. While in Kansai/Chugoku regions, we also visited Himeji and Hiroshima castles. Himeji (on the left) is considered the "best" castle in Japan, since it has not been reconstructed (most have burned down, or were bombed in WWII), but the main keep was closed due to reinforcement work.

After Osaka, it was off to Hiroshima. What I now consider to be the most depressing and emotionally "heavy" place I've ever been.
It sounds ignorant of me - but I didn't really care much about our (the US) involvement in WWII before my visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Of course I knew the bomb was bad and killed a lot of innocent people, but I was always more interested in the nuclear physics and the process in which the physicists at the time came up with the "A" and "H" bombs.
Yet through seeing the actual blood-stained clothing of small children who had literally melted from the heat, and the wax figures of their skin dripping off as they attempted to walk home to their parents - my shallow knowledge of history has changed. The preserved body parts showing the effects of cancer, the pictures of patients charred beyond recognition, and the cranes - oh, the four little pieces of paper that Sadako never got the chance to fold - it hit me very hard. The Peace Memorial Museum was a horrific and sometimes gruesome visual reminder of the cruelties of a nuclear war.

I asked Sak why in the world he would ever want to come back to the museum (he had been to it before). He replied that I would have turned around and ran right out had he not been there - and he is right. I'm glad that he helped me through it though - I have gained a new perspective, and shared in the grief that all humanity should feel for the loss of life. In this case, the loss of an entire city within the blink of an eye.

Upon exciting the museum, we walked around the park in a dazed funk, trying to process all that we had seen. We stumbled upon Sadako's monument, the famous spot where people leave their paper cranes. Renewed with a drive toward world peace, Sak and I were kicking ourselves for not remembering to bring our cranes. We had left them in Hawaii. Luckily, however - we can still send them via mail, so that's what we'll do after our second reception (courtesy of Miss Glasses' post with the address).

Too sad to be hungry or interested in doing anything - we did our laundry in the hotel and went to bed.

In order to cheer us both up, the next day we headed via ferry to the island of Miyajima, famous for it's giant torii gate which sits in the water. As soon as we arrived we were greeted by a herd of deer, anxiously waiting to sniff our pockets for signs of food.
It was low tide as we checked out the Itsukushima Jinja shrine, so we could see plenty of beachy critters.
We also visited a temple with a bonsai palm tree growing in front. You don't see that everyday. And I just had to try the local specialty of fresh grilled oysters with lemon juice and soy sauce. My mouth waters at the memory, they were so good! Sak, who decided he was not an oyster fan, let me eat his. Yay!
Once we had browsed the shops, and taken a picture next to the "world's largest rice paddle", decided to head back on the ferry. With one week left (and one post left) on our journey, it was time to ride the bullet train off to the island of Kyushu.