First of all I will explain what Golden Week is. Basically 3 national holiday days are in a row so most companies take the whole week off work. Nissan's Golden Week is actually 1 week and 2 days!
Sunday night we headed off to Shinjuku to get an overnight bus. Arrived and we were looking for some people with red aprons. Couldn't see anyone although lots of other bus companies were there. Emi said "I always wait here for the bus, it's no problem". Thankfully I persisted as I had a gut feeling so Emi checked all the paper work. I was right! Off we ran with 5 minutes before the bus was to leave, thankfully it was only 1 minutes run away.
Got there, listened to the instructions, jumped on the bus and... only 1 seat! Turned out the idiot at the travel company had only ordered one seat and Emi was too tired when she made the order to realise. Thankfully they were really helpful - we got another bus and let me pay for my seat there and then on the phone with my credit card.
Arrived Monday morning at 6am. We visited load of places half of which I cannot remember so don't be supprised if I update this later. We went to Togetsukyo, Sagarashi Yama, Fukuji temple and Fushimi in the day. You can see some of these places from the pictures.
Fushimi is very famous because of its 10,000 red Japanese/Chinese gates and you might have seen it before as it was the setting for a scene in the film "Memiors of a Gaisha".
In the evening we ate in an Italian/Japanese resturnat, the food was fab but then it should be for 35 quid a head! (expensive for Japan)
Afterwards we went to a place called Shirakawa. Anyone that plays Gran Turismo 5 on PS3 will have seen this place, it is a small bridge over a river and is very pretty at night. And no, I am not sad visiting somewhere because it is in a computer game, it was Emi's suggestion!
Our hotel was a little odd but very nice in a olde worlde way, wasn't very expensive (especially considering it was in an expensive area of Kyoto - Gion - and was very close to Shirakawa and the super resturant)
Tuesday morning was Kiyomizudera. I visited this last time in Japan but if you do not know this temple on a hillside is the large wooden structure in the world, it even uses wooden nails.
After this we went to a place where you dress up in traditional Japanese clothing and have pictures taken. As you can see they look very good and Emi looks very pretty.
In the afternoon we went to Himeji Castle, this is outside of Kobe. The weather was brillient and castle was great although we were both very tired.
After this we met up with Emi's Father in the station and went to a Cafe for me to formally introduce myself and chat. To start I cocked up my introduction having introduced myself to 100's of people before, Emi explained we were both very tired. After this he said "I knew it was you in the station, I could see the sun shining off your head" and followed this with a roaring laugh. Once he stopped laughing and then spent the next 2 or 3 minutes apologiesing for insulting me!
Basically his only problem was that I am a deeply religious Christian whose fore-fathers killed in the name of religion in the crusades and Emi was a devout Budist. He also though we would have many cultural problems. 1) I'm not so deeply relgious and Emi isn't Budist and 2) I said we could work through the problems to which he said "of course you will say that now, you are in love! What about in 30, 40, 50 years from now?" - he doesn't know we have been living together for 3 months so have ironed out a number of issues already.
That's the end of part 1 for now...
Sunday night we headed off to Shinjuku to get an overnight bus. Arrived and we were looking for some people with red aprons. Couldn't see anyone although lots of other bus companies were there. Emi said "I always wait here for the bus, it's no problem". Thankfully I persisted as I had a gut feeling so Emi checked all the paper work. I was right! Off we ran with 5 minutes before the bus was to leave, thankfully it was only 1 minutes run away.
Got there, listened to the instructions, jumped on the bus and... only 1 seat! Turned out the idiot at the travel company had only ordered one seat and Emi was too tired when she made the order to realise. Thankfully they were really helpful - we got another bus and let me pay for my seat there and then on the phone with my credit card.
Arrived Monday morning at 6am. We visited load of places half of which I cannot remember so don't be supprised if I update this later. We went to Togetsukyo, Sagarashi Yama, Fukuji temple and Fushimi in the day. You can see some of these places from the pictures.
Fushimi is very famous because of its 10,000 red Japanese/Chinese gates and you might have seen it before as it was the setting for a scene in the film "Memiors of a Gaisha".
In the evening we ate in an Italian/Japanese resturnat, the food was fab but then it should be for 35 quid a head! (expensive for Japan)
Afterwards we went to a place called Shirakawa. Anyone that plays Gran Turismo 5 on PS3 will have seen this place, it is a small bridge over a river and is very pretty at night. And no, I am not sad visiting somewhere because it is in a computer game, it was Emi's suggestion!
Our hotel was a little odd but very nice in a olde worlde way, wasn't very expensive (especially considering it was in an expensive area of Kyoto - Gion - and was very close to Shirakawa and the super resturant)
Tuesday morning was Kiyomizudera. I visited this last time in Japan but if you do not know this temple on a hillside is the large wooden structure in the world, it even uses wooden nails.
After this we went to a place where you dress up in traditional Japanese clothing and have pictures taken. As you can see they look very good and Emi looks very pretty.
In the afternoon we went to Himeji Castle, this is outside of Kobe. The weather was brillient and castle was great although we were both very tired.
After this we met up with Emi's Father in the station and went to a Cafe for me to formally introduce myself and chat. To start I cocked up my introduction having introduced myself to 100's of people before, Emi explained we were both very tired. After this he said "I knew it was you in the station, I could see the sun shining off your head" and followed this with a roaring laugh. Once he stopped laughing and then spent the next 2 or 3 minutes apologiesing for insulting me!
Basically his only problem was that I am a deeply religious Christian whose fore-fathers killed in the name of religion in the crusades and Emi was a devout Budist. He also though we would have many cultural problems. 1) I'm not so deeply relgious and Emi isn't Budist and 2) I said we could work through the problems to which he said "of course you will say that now, you are in love! What about in 30, 40, 50 years from now?" - he doesn't know we have been living together for 3 months so have ironed out a number of issues already.
That's the end of part 1 for now...
1 comment:
Stu - looks like you are having lots of fun! Nice one on the dad - glad to see he likes a laugh anyway (even if it is at your expense).
Are you still cool with a few people attempting to come out and see you? you can say if you arent - just need to know so i can ask people here. Hope all is cool with you, will prob drop you an email in a bit anyway.
Take care Col
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