Wander Wealth - A Common Sense Guide to Finance and Travel!: March 2016

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Final day in Tokyo - Owl Cafe - Ginza - Alice in Wonderland !

My wife is a true animal lover, all kinds from turtles to kittens. So it was only natural when she started exploring Tokyo's eclectic cafe's that she would stumble across a unique adventure we couldn't pass up.

The Owl cafe, wasn't so much a cafe as it was a place to interact with a unique species we don't get to see often. They give you a bottle of water , so I assume that counts as being a cafe.

Regardless, the experience was well worth the $25 fee for entry (per person).

We were close to the Ginza shopping district so we decided to wander around. It's not much different than other shopping districts in the U.S., with high end stores. We didn't buy anything, although the highlight of the day came when I passed an older woman on the street. She had a shirt was some serious bling. It caught my eye because the words were in English, the shirt read " Don't smile , I just farted". I assume she had no clue what the words actually meant. It makes me think of those people in the U.S. with Japanese or Chinese tattoos, do they really know what they mean? :)

Ginza

Our day ended with another cafe adventure. Evidently the Japanese take their eating adventures seriously. There are numerous themed cafe's throughout the city. We chose "Alice in Wonderland". There are multiple locations, each with their own unique design. Upon entry we found ourselves immersed in a different world. We were adorned with hats: My wife got bunny ears and I chose the Mad Hatter !

We flew out the next day from Haneda Airport, it's where most of the domestic air travel is located. Since were were headed to Okinawa we made plans to fly from there since it was closer than traveling all the way back out to Narita. It is located within the City of Tokyo, whereas Narita is almost an hours train ride from the center of Tokyo.

Check out our other days in Tokyo:

Day 1 : Getting there and a tour of Tokyo

Day 2: Mt. Fuji

Day 3: Tokyo Skytree and Ueno Zoo

Day 4: Tokyo Disney and the Robot Cabaret!

Day 5: Kyoto

Saturday, March 26, 2016

KYOTO

And on the four day you shall visit Kyoto !

Kyoto is the former capital of the country and is located in central Japan. To get there there are a couple of options.

An eight hour bus ride
Pony up for a Shinkansen Ticket. (Bullet Train)

The Shinkansen train takes a little over 2 hours .We did a little research a found that the bullet train ticket would be a little over $200 per person. With a limited amount of time left in mainland Japan we decided to take the bullet train. We decided to leave early in the morning around 7am. That put us arriving into Kyoto a little after 9am. We would take a late train back and arrive in Tokyo around 9pm.

It was a going to be a beautiful day and our train went past Mt. Fuji, We got a better view this day then when we had actually visited the mountain.

When we arrived at the train station it was a short walk to the bus station. Kyoto is an older city and does not have a huge subway system. They do have a good bus system, so for $12 per person we got ourselves a day pass that would take us all over the city.

Our first stop was Shanjusangen-do also known as the "Temple of 1,000 Buddhas". You're not allowed to take pictures inside because you might steal the soul of the Buddha. However they will sell you a picture in the gift shop for $5 :)

Shanjusangen-do is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in all of Japan.

This was a very large compound with multiple buildings and a beautifully landscaped garden.

Just to recap there are two main religions in Japan; Shinto and Buddhism. Shinto is more aligned with Nature and is not an official religion, but more a way of living. Buddhism is more an official religion. A lot of Japanese people follow both religions. As you can see above in the compound we saw a Buddhist temple a small Shinto shrine in the same location.

We mapped out our day and planned to see locations that featured both Buddhist temples and Shinto Shrines.

After grabbing some lunch we decided to head Shinkyogoku. My wife had to get her shopping fix in!

It was a neat experience. There were plenty of traditional tourist things to buy, but intertwined amongst the cliche were traditional Japanese items that offered an insight into the old culture; like baby squid on a stick!

Our next stop was the old imperial palace. Little did we know that it closed early so we only got to see a view from the outside. Which included a formidable moat:

We hopped a bus and headed to another large Shinto shrine. It was a bit of a walk from he bus stop to the next shrine. We crossed a river and meandered through a serene park on our way.

Along the way we stopped by another smaller shrine:

We decided to make one last stop a the Fushimi Inari Shrine which has 1,000 gates. It was about 10 miles from where we were int he north part of the city. So we grabbed a cab and headed south to the Shrine.

What is a gate? They are the wooden structure that straddle the entrance to the shrine. What makes Fushimi Inari unique is the number of these straddling the paths behind the main buildings leading up the peak of Mt. Inari.