Trip to Asia: Days 1-4 (Japan)

To celebrate my completion of law school, Andrea and I decided to take a 12-day trip to Asia. We left Olivia in Utah with our families.

On Wednesday, May 19, we flew from Salt Lake City to Tokyo on a direct flight. Because of the 15-hour time change, we arrived in Tokyo at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 20. We then boarded a series of bullet trains and subway trains and finally arrived at our hotel in Osaka at about 10:00 p.m. By the time we arrived, Andrea had already finished the novel she started on the plane.

With our week-long unlimited rail pass, we can take trains all over the country. So far, we have been thoroughly impressed with the rail system here. Much faster, cleaner, more punctual, and even easier to understand than what we dealt with in NYC.

From our hotel room in Osaka, we have a beautiful view of the city. I guess they haven't figured out daylight savings time here, because it is much lighter outside at 5:00 a.m. than at 5:00 p.m. But that's just fine with us, since we are much more awake at 5:00 a.m. than we are at 5:00 p.m. anyway.

On Friday, May 21, we spent the day in Kyoto. The train station (top right) was unlike any we've ever seen. Kyoto was the capital of Japan until about 150 years ago, and it contains many of the highlights of Japan's cultural history, including the Imperial Palace (bottom right). If we ever move to Japan, we would like to move into the Golden Pavilion, also called the Kinkaku-ji Temple (top left). The Ginkaku-ji Temple (bottom left) would be a close second with its beautiful gardens and sand sculptures. The famous rock garden at the Ryoan-ji Temple--15 rocks surrounded by white gravel (middle left)--may be incredibly inspirational to throngs of Zen Buddhists, but we confess that its meaning was lost on us.

 Today, Saturday, May 22, we spent the morning in Nara. The city was founded in 710 and is currently celebrating the 1300th anniversary of its becoming the capital of Japan (a designation it retained for less than 100 years). We saw pictures of the cute little guy on the left in many places throughout Nara Park, which contains a mixture of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.

One of the most surprising things about Nara Park was the herds of deer that wandered freely throughout the park. The deer are considered sacred in the Shinto religion, and are thus protected. Constantly seeking food from tourists, they are completely unafraid of barging into groups of people or even walking right into small shops. We enjoyed seeing the signs warning us that the deer are in fact still wild animals.

The highlight of our trip to Nara, and probably of our trip to Japan so far, was the Todai-ji Temple. The temple houses the largest Buddha statue in the world. The Great Buddha Vairocana (top right), was finished in 752 A.D. and is 50 feet tall. You could fit several people standing in just the upturned palm of the Buddha. The wooden building that houses the Buddha is the largest wooden structure in the world. Other notable elements in the building include the Kukuzo Bosatsu (or Enlightened Being, middle right) and the hole in a pillar (bottom right) that will allow those who pass through to attain Nirvana. The wind that mixed with Andrea's hair made her look like the many surrounding Japanese tourists.

Returning to Osaka this afternoon, we visited the Umeda Sky Building. We reached the top of the building by taking the glass elevator and then the glass escalator--a scary thing considering Japan's history with earthquakes. The view from the top was pretty cool.

Among the interesting things we've seen in Japan are gas stations where the pumps hang from the ceiling and train cars for women only. While we were excited to eat sushi rolls in Japan, our expectations were disappointed when we couldn't even find a sushi restaurant after a 30-minute search. Apparently, sushi is not nearly as common as other dishes, like yaki soba (a delicious noodle dish) or okonimiyaki (bottom right), which is a vegetable pancake. We added pork, cuddlefish, and shrimp to our pancake.

Another thing we have loved about our visit is the Japanese children. They are incredibly well behaved. We have seen several high school groups that appear to have little adult supervision. And nothing beats the hats that the little kids wear.

We really miss Olivia, especially when we see playgrounds or cute little babies in strollers, but we are having a fantastic time!