Osaka - Japan

After about 7 hours on the train and experiencing our first delay on Japanese public transport (I know, we were disgusted as well), we arrived in Osaka late in the evening. On the first day we pretty much got our bearings and wandered around the city, oh and we also went to the gym....but only to get Sumo wrestling tickets (and no we are not participating!). Osaka has the feel of a very modern city and most people dressed quite smart - to be honest I did feel a tad underdressed most of the time, but no point in buying any new clobber though as everything would be way to short and tight. Imagine Rob, The Incredible Hulk springs to mind!

So in an effort to take in some Japanese culture, we visited Osaka castle and got tickets to have a nose at the inside. Sadly the inside was a little disappointing - everything appeared to have been modernised plus everything was written in Japanese so we had no clue what any of the artefacts were, except the obvious ones. The outside of the castle was pretty stunning though and Rob did spend a fair few hours taking photos!

View from the top of the castle

Dotonbori was on the list of places to visit and this place was filled with shops, some small traditional Japanese stores and some of the larger chains. Rob happened to stumble across one particular large store, BIC Camera, where after a few visits he decided to buy yet another camera to add to his collection! Being in the country of technology I guess it was hard to resist - oh and because it was on sale it made it much cheaper than the UK, so it had to be bought as it was such a bargain (apparently)!! The whole area was a really good place to shop, eat and people watch. We also saw some unexpected things like Japanese celebrating St Patricks Day (bit odd), stalls cooking some weird Octopus balls (no, not testicles) and the Glico man (apparently this sign is one of the most photographed things in Osaka which is the home of Glico, a Japanese confectionary firm).  I didn't really care about the man I just wanted to taste the sweets!

The Glico Man

Rob is Mr Glico!

Moss covered Buddha

St Patrick's day celebrations

Dotonbori illuminations

In some restaurants this is how you select what you're going to eat
plastic mock ups and you have no idea what most of it is - apart from eggs!

On one of the nights we took a visit up the Umeda Sky Building to get some night time views over the city - was quite nice, but the building was actually more interesting than the view really.

Umeda Sky Building

View from the top of the Umeda Sky building

Floating escalators - pretty cool!

Funky - the inside of the floating escalator tunnels

We spent our last day watching the big ole sumos wrestle it out. We decided to see the sumo in Japanese style and bought 2 tickets for a box seat, which actually meant sitting in a very small square area, taking off your shoes and making yourself (un)comfortable on a cushion for about 10 hours!  The box was supposed to fit 4 people, well 4 munchkins maybe, but the last time I checked neither of us came from the 'merry old land of Oz' - thankfully no one else joined us in the box seat so we could watch the wrestling in semi comfort.

Anyway, back to the sumo. Well as you'd expect some of the sumos were massive and the 'six pack' takes on a whole new meaning!  The wrestling was a little bit dull to be honest, there was always a massive build up and the match only lasted a few seconds - a bit disappointing.  We did get to chat to our Japanese box seat neighbours though which was interesting as they translated what the crowd were shouting and gave us the run down on the wrestlers! It was certainly an interesting experience - not one we would do again, but worth it nonetheless.

So that was our Osaka. Bring on the next city, Kyoto, which everyone has told us is lovely and very traditional - so lets find out ....

Japan - Part 1 - Yudanaka

We arrived in Japan on the 7th of March and went forward 19 hours, which was a bit of a shock - lost a day, boo hiss!  As we'd been a bit disorganised, we only had a few general ideas of what we'd be doing for the next few weeks, so we'd pencilled in a couple of days of much needed "planning" time which we maxed out.

Our first impression of Japan to be honest was not that great.  We both independently wondered what on Earth we had done and how we'd get through the next few weeks - coming to a place where we couldn't understand what the people were saying, they couldn't really understand us and had no real idea of how to get around (all public transport, no car this time!).  Frankly, we felt massively out of our comfort zone.

We also had concerns with other silly stuff like what we would eat!  Nothing had any words on that we understood (naturally, this is Japan after all), so from the start we had to try and guess what stuff was based on what it looked like - trust me, this wasn't always easy.

Fortunately, things started to get much better when we left Narita and headed for our first planned stop - Yudanaka.  Where you ask?  Fair question.  Yudanaka is a small town in a fairly rural part of Japan and is most "famous" for being home to the snow monkeys!  Yep, we're suckers for a bit of wildlife.

One of the first challenges was to navigate our way from the airport, via a variety of Japanese trains.  Turns out it wasn't too bad and about 3 hours (& 3 trains) later we ended up in Yudanaka.  Part of the journey was on the speedy Shinkansen (that's the bullet train to you and me) which was pretty fast  - just a shame it was quite an old train.  

It was really cold when we got there and it was even more of a shock as we haven't seen a proper winter for about a year!  So for the first time in a while the warm clothing had to come out.

We had decided to stay in some traditional Japanese accommodation (a Ryokan) and we chose well.  It was owned by Mr & Mrs Yumoto who are 2 of the friendliest and most genuinely helpful people we have met in all of our travels.  They had such great local knowledge, were very funny and I swear were ex ninjas as they would just appear from nowhere when you least expected them!  He provided his own personal shuttle service and would drive us pretty much anywhere we wanted to go - very handy indeed.  The room also had some Yukata's for dressing up!

Our Japanese room

Our Japanese beds

Rob in his Yukata practising martial arts!

So after our first night spent lying on the floor traditional Japanese style (very comfortably though), we woke up to lots of fresh snow!  In a way this was what we had hoped for so that we could see snow monkeys in some proper snow!  So, we made our way to Jigokudani park and walked along the 1.6km snowy path to the entrance.

We were greeted by monkeys before we even got to the entrance gate and when we got in they were literally everywhere - playing, fighting, warming up in the hot bath or just digging around for food.  They were very entertaining and because it was absolutely freezing they tended to spend more time in the onsen (outdoor hot bath) which is what makes the place so interesting.  Some were trying to drown each other like naughty children and others just seemed to be meditating!  

After quite a few hours being entertained we took a slow walk back through the town to the hotel.  This was such a great experience as well with all the locals we passed saying Konnichiwa and everywhere just felt so laid back and safe.  Even some of the school children liked to practice their English and would say hello (and others would give us an odd look as we don't think have seen westerners before)!

That evening we went to a local Japanese restaurant.  We couldn't actually tell it was a restaurant from the outside - such was its disguise, that Mr Miagi, I mean Yumoto, actually drove us to it, even though it was only about a 2 minute walk from the accommodation!  When we got in, it was just like being in someone's kitchen / diner!  We were greeted by 2 very friendly Japanese guys who could speak a little English and it was quite fascinating just sitting there and taking it all in.  We ordered a couple of dishes and we weren't 100% sure exactly what we were going to get - as it turned out, we got plenty to eat the quality was really good - tempura shrimp and vegetables have never tasted so good!  It was a really good experience and it was nice as it seemed like they were so pleased we were there.

Day 2 at the monkey park!  After bumping into a couple of Aussies in town yesterday (who we thought were a bit odd), we saw them again this morning at the entrance to the park.  Now, bearing in mind a lot of snow had thawed since yesterday and the path to the park was much clearer, it seemed really weird that these 2 Aussies were kitting themselves out with tonnes of ice climbing gear - not sure what they were expecting, but should have told them that Mount Everest is in Nepal!  So off we toddled in our wellies and left them to it, after one of them said to Rob "thanks for noticing how prepared we are" - weirdos!

The monkey park today was a bit warmer and a lot of the snow from yesterday had gone.  This meant that the monkeys didn't spend as much time in the onsen, so they mainly entertained us with a floor show.  Very similar to yesterday really, but still very entertaining - they even come close enough to pull at your trousers!  One did get a bit grumpy with Rob though when he got a bit close - he has that affect on people as well!

After we'd had a few more hours at the snow monkey park and tried to get ourselves on the online webcam, we headed off to experience a Japanese onsen of our own - no monkeys in this one. Mr Miagi chauffeured us to a private onsen which overlooked the Japanese alps where we just relaxed and watched the sun go down.

That night we also experienced our first significant earthquake which was 5.1 magnitude. I actually did feel the earth move that night!  It did wake us up briefly and we did feel the house shake, but as it was the middle of the night and we were tired, we just turned over and went straight back to sleep!  We honestly thought it was a big truck going past - it wasn't until the next morning that Mr Yumoto told us it was definitely an earthquake and quite a big one too.  No damage done though which was the main thing.

Mr Yumoto took photos of us before we left (proper family portrait stylee!) and decorated our luggage with souvenir 5 yen ribbons (for safe onward travel) - it was a nice touch!

Mr & Mrs Yumoto

One of our many 5 yen ribbons wishing us a happy connection

So in short, we loved Yudanaka.  The whole experience was so different to what we originally thought it would be.  Mr & Mrs Yumoto were amazing, the locals were genuinely helpful, friendly, polite and respectful which was quite refreshing, and naturally the monkeys added to the memories.

So having feared the worst only a few days earlier, we were now on a real high and massively excited about what else Japan had to offer.  Next stop Osaka and a look at Japanese city life.....

Oahu

So here we are in Oahu - our last Hawaiian island for this trip.  We started out by taking in some of the sights towards the south of the island but this was mainly coastal stuff like we've seen elsewhere and to be honest we were more interested in the North Shore fun and games.

As you may (or may not) know, Hawaii, and Oahu in particular is famous for surfing.  Oahu's North Shore is home to some of the fiercest surfing waves in the world and is a mecca for surf loonies trying to catch the  ultimate 'break'.  So we decided we had to take in some of the action, see if anyone came a cropper and maybe it would encourage us (well put us off probably) to give it a go as well.

Well there were some big waves (like the ones you see on TV) with quite a few people trying to surf them.  It was pretty entertaining just to sit and watch, and we couldn't believe that some people could actually stand on the board and ride the wave - they were so massive at times.  Some of the surfers wiping out and falling off their boards was pretty spectacular too - how there's not more wearing neck braces is beyond me!

Rob had talked about wanting to give surfing a go since we headed to Australia.  He finally decided to do it here - what better place to try than in the home of surfing?!  That said, after seeing the north shore waves he decided for the first time he needed somewhere a tad calmer, so we booked a lesson with the Hawaiian fire crew who teach surfing as well as fight fires.

I (Lisa) decided that surfing wasn't for me (I struggle with my balance at the best of times, so a plank on the water probably wouldn't be any better!).  So I took my seat on the beach, Rob kitted me out with the camera gear and I couldn't help but cheer him on - it was so exciting (for me anyway!).  He did really well and was standing on the board in no time - don't get me wrong he didn't stand all of the time and some of his 'wipeouts' did make me chuckle!

He's suited up and ready for surfing!

A land practice first

And he's off!

His first wipeout!

And he's standing - hooray!!

He did enjoy it but is not sure it's something he wants to do on a regular basis - apparently it was a huge amount of effort for the reward and he ached in places he never knew he had places.  I ached too, but mine was from laughter!

Shattered!

One of the things I wanted to do was go to a Luau - I thought it would be like it was in the film Grease but sadly Danny  and Sandy weren't there!  Seriously though it was good, we were entertained, had a buffet dinner and a Hawaiian story called 'Breath of Life' which had lots of singing, Hawaiian dancing and fire displays.  Sadly we weren't allowed to take photos of the show, but our memories are good ones.

Honolulu sounds very exotic, but in reality is pretty much a concrete jungle with beaches.  It has very good shopping and apparently that's exactly what a lot of people go there for.  We did some shopping on my birthday, watched the sunset on Waikiki beach and then off for a meal in the evening.  Nice way to celebrate being 32!

Other things we did in Oahu... Went to Pearl Harbour, watched a massive monk seal just lazing on the beach, saw green turtles (Honu) on Turtle Beach, visited a Hawaiian botanical garden, had to buy a new laptop as our one broke (damn you Samsung), took a drive to see over Honolulu... The list goes on!

Pearl Harbour

Hawaiian green turtle (Honu)

Mr lazy monk seal

A tree with big balls at the Botanical garden!

A view of Honolulu from Tantalus drive

So before we knew it our time was up in Oahu.  It kind of crept up on us and to be honest we could have done with a little bit longer as there were still a few things we wanted to do that we didn't have time for - but that's always a reason to return. 

In short, Hawaii has been great.  We have met some really lovely people, learnt a lot about the Hawaiian culture and seen & experienced some amazing things.  A great time was had by both of us and we'll look forward to going back some day.

Me and my fresh coconut

For now it's onwards to Japan, something we're not really prepared for!  We have no idea what we are going to do or where we are going to go, we have a flight booked and 3 nights accommodation - best we sort it when we get there!