Kinkaku-ji

Today was another fast and furious day in Kyoto. We started off the day breakfast at a local chain where we had a Beef Bowl. I’m seriously loving eating rice at every meal. It fills you up and I swear I’ve lost weight here (I’ve had to cinch my belt up another notch). With breakfast behind us we hopped a train back to Kyoto for our last day.

We arrived at the Hankyu Arashiyama Station, a very small station and I have to be honest, it didn’t even feel like Kyoto. It seemed so much more rural and mountainous. We were in Arashiyama to take a ride on the “Romantic Truck Train” aka the Sagano Scenic Railway. A large older diesel locomotive attached to a series of English “truck” cars (converted from old freight cars) which goes alone the Hozu River showing some amazing nature views. It was crazy hard for my friend to get tickets and it was sure to be a highlight of our trip. We had some time before our 1230 train departure so we walked around a outdoor fairground full of some amazing foods. We ate grapes (as big as a toy ball) roasted with sugar and some sort of pastry as we walked in the very cool Autumn air.

We also had some to take a walk through Tenryu-ji, a very simple but beautiful temple surrounded by a beautiful garden and lots of amazing red foliage. There were so many people at the temple, well actually just everywhere as today was a Japanese holiday – Labor Thanksgiving Day. The city was packed wall to wall with people. I’ve never seen so many people and while I think that my Japanese friend was worried that it would sort of take away from our enjoyment but I think it was quite the opposite. It was amazing to see so many people around and to see them so interested in the temples and the historical places was just a treat.

After leaving Tenryu-ji, we headed to the JR Station to board the truck train. The train arrived and we all piled into the cars. We were lucky enough to get seats at the very front of the train and they were facing each other. The sad part was that the person who had the seat next to me was a little squished as the seats were so narrow and well I’m not (LOL)! We started off by heading into a very dark tunnel, which helped build the suspense because you could just hear the locomotive and feel the cool air but you couldn’t see anything. The train sped on and on until it burst from the tunnel and we were blinded by the sun. When our eyes could focus we were surrounded by just the most amazing and beautiful nature scene. A winding river on our right, gorgeous trees of green, yellow and red, and small little houses set up on the mountain. It was absolutely breathtaking. We tried to take photos but it was so hard since the train was moving so fast. We just went on and on over bridges and under mountains, just overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. We arrived at the other station just a half hour later but it felt much longer. Just amazing.

We had to walk a little from the station back to a JR station to take a normal train back to the JR station we had just departed. It was not a bad walk and on the way we talked non-stop about what we had just seen. We were headed off to Kinkaku-ji (Wikipedia Link, the famous golden temple. On our way we walked thru the Bamboo Groves, which even though I had seen them last year, never fail to amaze me. The height of the bamboo and the mist that surrounds them gives of a very mystical vibe. Once we were thru the groves, we started on foot toward Kinkaku-ji. On the way we decided to stop and try Mos Burger, a Japanese burger chain. They had things like fish burgers and rice burgers, regular burgers and chili dogs!. It was delicious and everything was made fresh, nothing was pre-made. Delicious.

After our lovely lunch, we trekked to Kinkaku-ji. Kinkaku-ji is an amazing gold-leaf coated temple set on a beautiful lake. There is an amazing story of how the house was converted into a temple and though it survived the Onin war (when all the other buildings on the grounds did not), it was burned down by a monk who was mentally unstable and tried to commit suicide. It is said to have been recreated exactly as it was before the fire. It’s absolutely beautiful and the grounds around it are lovely.

We headed back to Osaka after our busy day in Kyoto, had some Katsu,walked around yet another of Osaka’s amazing shopping areas and headed back here to the hotel where I’m just about to fall asleep!

Tomorrow we’re off to Wakayama, Nachi and the Ryokan in Shirahama!

Nijou-jo

We are just back from Day Two in Kyoto and today was wonderful. It was our “easy day” where we had only a few places to go, lots of time to see them and plans for dinner with my friend from Japan’s friends.

We started off the day by having breakfast at a very traditional tiny counter restaurant (it only seated eight people!). I had sake (salmon), rice, miso, beef and nori for breakfast. I am totally not missing eating “breakfast” the way I do at home! Once we finished breakfast we headed off to JR Kyoto Station.

This was my second time at Kyoto Station, but my first time during the day. Last year we went late in the evening. Kyoto Station is huge, in fact it’s the second largest train station in Japan. Recently rebuilt for it’s 120th anniversary it’s now a 15 story building housing a shopping mall, an Isetan Department store, a movie theater and a train station. It’s a sleek black building that is open on two sides and has a huge central stair case. We went up to the top and saw all of Kyoto. We then walked across the “Sky Bridge” and got a magnificent view of Kyoto Tower. We decided since it was our leisure day that we’d sit down at Cafe Du Monde (yes that Cafe Du Monde) for some Cafe Au Lait. It wasn’t New Orleans and there was no Beignets, but it was fun.

From Kyoto Station we headed to Nijo Castle (Wikipedia Link), a castle built in 1601, from the time of the shogun. It’s a huge single story castle with tons of space and some impressive gardens. It took a while to walk through it and the thing I found most interesting was that as you walked along thru the castle outside the rooms, the floors seemed to “chirp” like birds. A purposely built security mechanism to alert the people know if anyone was walking through the castle.

After Nijo Castle, we headed to kaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi). You basically sit at a table and plate after plate of sushi moves around the restaurant. When you see something you like, you grab it and when you’re finished you drop the plate into the slot at the end of the table and keep on moving. You can also order specific items from a touch screen and as it approaches your table, a beeping starts and the LCD lights up to tell you that your food is approaching! Most of the sushi is 100Yen (about a dollar) with somethings costing 200Yen and 400Yen. It was every bit as good as I remembered and this time we tried some more off the wall items like Tuna Fish Salad Sushi, Corn Sushi, Fried Shrimp Sushi and Chicken Sushi!

Once we had stuffed ourselves, we went for a stroll through the Gion District (Wikipedia Link). It was famous in it’s past for being home to the geiko or Geisha. It’s like walking through a time machine. Kyoto has tried very hard to maintain it as it was in the past and it shows. Walking along the streets next to the river with all of the weeping willows over head is just amazingly serene and relaxing. Even if it was pouring down rain!

One through Gion, we headed back to Osaka. We stopped Umeda station and were a little early to meet up with my friend’s friends, so we wandered thru the underground shopping areas. It’s amazing but there is an entire city of shops and restaurants underground here. You can walk clear from one station to another! We wandered for about an hour and there was no end in sight. We stopped for some “soft cream” or soft serve ice cream which was just delicious!

Eventually we met up with my friend’s friends and went for Shabu Shabu (Wikipedia Link), a Japanese Hot Pot. You sit around a hot pot of liquid and you boil all kinds of veggies and meat. I’ve had this before in Boston with Chuti, but this was all you could eat and drink for two hours. We ate and ate and ate and talked. It was so much fun to chat with them again. You’d think that the language barrier would be a problem but it truly was not. We found lots of common ground, I tried my best to speak Japanese, they did their best to speak English, my poor friend had to do a lot of translating… even when he was drunk! We had a wonderful time.

And once again, I’m exhausted, or maybe drunk… probably both! I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is Monkey Mountain, the Truck Train and Kinkaku-ji!

Fushimi Inari

Today was our first full day in Japan and boy did we hoof it around. We hit Kyoto, the first of our three days there. We went to four temple/shrines there. We hit Fushimi Inari (Wikipedia Link) first, an amazing Shito Shrine with thousands of Torii Gates going up the mountain. It’s truly an impressive site and it’s so quite and mystical. The sounds of acorns falling on the gates only made it more so.

We moved on after Fushimi Inari to Ginkaku-ji(WIkipedia Link). Called the Silver Pavillion, it’s a very beautiful and serene temple with unbelievable sand gardens and an amazing pond that makes the main pavilion of the shrine look silver from the reflection. Very beautiful place.

Next up was an amazing temple called Sanjousangen-dou (Wikipedia Link) where 1,000 statues of armed Kannon. It was really quite staggering. There was just row after row of unbelievable gold statues on either side of a very large Buddha. In front of the rows and rows of Kannon are 28 guardian statues. There was no photography allowed however so we didn’t get to capture a single frame.

When we left Sanjousangen-dou, we headed over to a small restaurant in Kyoto to have a traditional Kyoto style lunch. Japanese hors d’oeuvres, Miso Soup, Tempura and Tofu. I can’t say that liked it all, but overall the lunch was very enjoyable.

The next stop on our first day in Kyoto was Kiyomizu-dera (Wikipedia Link). It was my second time to this temple but it was so amazingly crowded with people. The walk up the hill to the temple on my first visit took about 15 minutes, today it took more than 45! It was a sea of people and we slowly worked our way past the “stage” where back in the Edo period people would jump off the stage (a 13m drop) and if they survived, their wish would be granted. We ended our day in Kyoto by drinking from the Otowa-no-taki, a waterfall made from three streams where one can drink for health, longevity, and success in studies.

From Kyoto we headed back to Umeda Station and had dinner at a Chinese noodle shop. I had Ramen with pork and a hardboiled egg… simple and delicious. Here we are back at the hotel and I’m ready to collapse from exhaustion.

Tomorrow… Kyoto Day Two!

Wow I can’t believe that I’m back in Japan again! Today was the travel day. A total of over 20 hours of traveling but it was worth every second. We flew from Philadelphia to San Francisco and San Francisco to Kansai International.

True to form we had a little trouble at Philly since the security line took us almost an hour to get thru! We literally got to the gate just in time to get on the flight. The flight to San Francisco wasn’t too bad and flying on the almost brand new 777 to Osaka was so nice. We upgraded to Economy Plus (for 5 extra inches of leg room), and I was loving the personal entertainment system in the headrest in front of me.

Once we got here it took quite some time to get thru Immigration and in customs I made my first Japanese language mistake. When asked “Are you here on business?” I replied “iie, kodomotachi”. I intended to say “No, friends” which should have been “tomodachi” but instead I said “children” Sigh. He smiled and begged me to enjoy my trip. I’m sure it won’t be my last mistake.

Once we met up with my friend from Osaka, we headed to Namba, where our hotel is. We got checked in at the hotel and went to walk around Namba Parks, a lovely eight floor mall! It was so beautiful and surprisingly decked out for Christmas. I wasn’t expecting that!

Dinner was a wonderful Katsu meal. I had roast pork and ebi (shrimp) and shawn had pork and oysters! Totemo oiishikatta desu! (really delicious). We also took a stroll around Yamada Denki electronics shop and looked at the Samsung Galaxy Tab as well as the Sharp Galapagos phone! Otaku fun at it’s finest.

Well I’m beat and we’re due up at 6am to be out the door at 645am to go to Kyoto!

Oyasuminasai!

Well I’m going to try to get my blog going again, especially with my upcoming trip to Japan. I hope you’ve hung in there with me!

Hi there. Remember me? Yeah I’m that guy who used to update this thing regularly. I used to talk about my life, and tech and cars and stuff. You used to pay attention. I used to pay attention.

Well today is my seventh Annniversary for this blog. To be honest, I’ve been toying with changing the layout… it’s hard these days to do a blog. What with Twitter, Facebook, Podcasts, Tumblr and all those other things and places to update… sometimes you forget about your first love.

I’ve things to say. Thoughts to share. Is there anyone left out there waiting for me to say something… if a gomo blogs and no one reads it does it even matter?

Things to think about… things to say… happy anniversary macboyx.com

Ugh again I’ve been remiss writing on this damn blog. I get so wrapped up with life I forget to post… but you must be tired of hearing me apologize… damn catholic school made me guilty and polite.

Okay so as I swore to in my last post, I ordered my iPad last Friday. As soon as the Apple store came up… I hit that SOB and ordered myself a 32GB WiFi only iPad. Why did I chose that model? Well to be honest with you.. it came down to balancing out price and functionality.

Firstly, the 3G vs WiFi only decision to me was not too hard to make. I think the 3G iPad is a really good idea for just about anyone, especially with AT&T not forcing you into a contract but allowing you to buy just a month at a time when you need it. My only hold over for that is that I already have an iPhone 3GS, and I’m not sure I want to pay AT&T twice for the same 3G network. I have no problem paying Verizon or Sprint in addition to my iPhone data plan because it gives me an alternative to the iPhone for access. I always hope if one network is weak in a given area, the other will make up for it. As I already own a Verizon MiFi and I’m in that contract for at least another year, the decision to forgo the 3G iPad seemed to make sense for me. I do have just one concern about the MiFi. It gets about 4 hours of use off a battery… I can see that ending up a little too short. I’m not sure if I want to invest in a second battery for the MiFi, or maybe a HyperMac battery [link]. I’m not sure if it’d power the MiFi or not, so it might be overkill.

Second, the size decision. I know that it’s always a good idea to buy the biggest hard drive you can afford so that if your data needs grow in the future you’re covered, however living with an iPhone that could never hold my entire library of music, and an SSD in my MacBook that made me think truly about what I carry around, it made total sense to me to go with just 32GB for the iPad. I don’t plan to keep music on my iPad. I already have an iPhone and an iPod nano for the car so I don’t see the point in putting my music on another device. I will fill the iPad with photos and movies/tv shows, but I’m used to keeping just 5 episodes of what ever Anime I’m watching and just a movie or two on my iPhone, so how hard could it be to manage it on the iPad. 32GB seemed like a good balance between price and storage.

So now I just sit and wait until April 3 for my iPad. I’m sure it will feel like an eternity waiting the next 20 days or so but I am sure I’ll just use this time thinking of a million ways that I can use it!

Today all the rumors and speculation finally came to an end with Apple’s announcement of the brand new iPad. A device that could hardly live up to all the rumors and expectations heaped upon it by all the click hungry Apple rumor and “news” sites out there. Rumors upon rumors, speculation right up to the last moment, ruining any surprise or excitement over the announcement of the a new product. In this rampant arena of over reaching speculation can any product really live up to the rumors?

So Apple released what for all intents and purposes is a larger iPod touch. I ran around in the months leading up to day talking about how I didn’t want a tablet that was just a big iPod touch, yet today after the announcement, that’s exactly what I want. Some may say it was yet another occurrence of the “Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field”, but I say it was my Christmas gift that changed my mind.

For Christmas, my boyfriend gifted me a 32GB iPod touch. Why on earth did I need an iPod touch when I have an iPhone? The answer to me was simple. I use my iPhone constantly, between music, surfing and running apps, I was constantly running down my battery. I use my phone in the car on the way to work to check my mail, read my news story etc. Arriving at work 25% down was a drag, so I replaced that function with my iPod touch and my MiFi, the only issue with that is that the screen just feels a bit too small, so I moved back to my MacBook Pro, which is also not an ideal solution. What I really need is an iPod touch with a bigger screen… and low and behold… the iPad.

It doesn’t just stop there I’m imagining all of the other ways I can use a 10″ touch screen. Sitting next to my MacBook Pro or MacPro, the iPad could be a secondary screen running my mail, or tweetie, or even a browser. Add to this the fact that Apple is allowing bluetooth keyboards, I can actually answer emails and even gasp… CHAT on it. I’m truly stoked and I will absolutely be ordering one as soon as I can.

Well I’ve been thinking long and hard about this and as much as I’m worried that blogging is over, I am not really over it and I’m going to try to catch up with all the blog posts that I have in draft and that I want to write. I’ve decided to not finish the Japan posts because I pretty much covered that in my blog and I’m not even sure where to start with it. I have about 12 drafts that aren’t about Japan so I’m gonna just go ahead and post them as I can.

Thanks to you who sent me emails and commented that you’re still reading

It’s been a pretty bumpy month for me. To be perfectly frank, since the day after Christmas, I’ve been in a very strange, desperately bleak mood. It’s not been a full time thing, there has been some breaks in both my mood and my sanity.

It feels strangely as I have lost control of it all. Since I got back from Japan, so many things have changed. Work, relationships, friends, family, etc. and I have been unable to sort out all of my emotions and feelings about the changes. I’ve also noticed that things that should roll off my back are just building up until I hit a breaking point and I just lose it.

This has got to stop. I need to get a grip. Life is not so bad and I need to get over it.