Bom Dia! Hello from Lisbon, Portugal! Pretty crazy...we have now almost travelled around the globe, but doing it the long way by doubling back on ourselves! We got on a flight from Toronto on Sunday night at 5:30pm, it was pretty tight - again, think the flu may have worked in our favour so we could get on. Did a change in Frankfurt to fly to Lisbon - Frankfurt is one of the longest terminals - we must have walked over 3 km to get to our gate - they are all in a straight line. Pretty tired as our body clocks are now completely off, I have no idea what time I am on!
The plan is to spend until Friday here in Lisboa and then get on some bikes and spend 2 weeks cycling through Portugal. Off to bed, even though it is 6:30pm here, we can't stay awake another minute. Due to our strange travelling habits and using credit cards in 3 cities/countries/continents within 72 hours, Scott's card got shut down - all good now and fixed :)

Here's the link for the photos. Click on details to see my notes or watch as a slideshow. Enjoy!

Japan photos

I am a new day rising

I'm a brand new sky to hang the stars upon tonight

I am a little divided

Do I stay or run away, and leave it all behind

- Foofighters

Back in Toronto, and totally messed up for time! Scott was able to sleep on the plane, I couldn't. So he was up until 3AM, then I got up and he went to bed - feels like we are on shifts!

Ladies - if you want to travel somewhere alone, Japan is the place to do it. Have never felt to so safe. And it is easy to get around and everybody is so helpful. There are also special rooms at hotels for women, as well as cars on trains, seats in buses, booths in internets, etc. Unfortunately it is based on old customs in Japan, but it can work to your advantage if you are travelling alone.

We tried to find bikes to rent in Osaka but no luck so we picked up day passes for the subway - more simple system like Toronto vs Tokyo's amazing one. We were seeing the city on April 29th, Showa Day (the birthday of Emperor Showa), it is part of the Golden Week holidays - a full week of holidays that carry into first week of May. The downtown was deserted. Walked through the Tennoji park area, where the zoo, gardens and museums are located - but all behind high walls and fences - the first time we had seen this in Japan. Weaved through Tomeji Nanasaka, seven slopes of the Uemachi plateau, takes you through residential areas, temples and shrines. Jumped over to the Osaka-jo (castle). You get a great view from the 8th floor of the tower, across the city, then visit the museum as you work your way down to the ground. Famous for a collection of painted screens depicting battles from the Civil War era (1400s and 1500s) - the era of samurai and ninjas.

Then a quick walk through the Kita business area, typical downtown, but they have made the walkway along the canal very nice. Osaka used to be filled with canals (referred to as the Venice of the East), but most are filled in. Went by the National Museum of Art, a beautiful modern building of twisted metal that looks somewhat like a sail (or bunny ears from another angle, but that just doesn't seem as romantic!). Not interested in the collection showing, but spent some time in the book shop and library. The galleries tend to have great collections of books that you can sit down and look at, and members can borrow.

Out to the Bay area, a modern amusement type area and developed water front. Famous for the enormous Tempozan Harbour ferris wheel - 112m high and 100m across. While not the largest in the world, it is among the top 5. There is also a new aquarium (Kaiyukan) housed in a blue and red building, shaped like a butterfly, and covered with mosaics of fish; and a modern art museum, Suntory Museum Temporan, housed in a modern new building. Scott and I spilt up here - he went to the museum and I went to the aquarium. While the aquarium is expensive (2000 yen) it was worth every penny! You wind down several levels, past 14 huge tanks, depicting different aquatic environments from around the globe in the "Ring of Life" (Japan Forest, Aleutian Islands, Monterey Bay, Gulf of Panama, Ecuador Rain Forest, Antarctica, Tasman Sea, Great Barrier Reef, Pacific Ocean, Seto Inland Sea, Kelp Forest, Coast of Chile, Cook Strait and Japan Deeps). It was fascinating. Saw otters, sea otters, seals, sloths, penguins, dolphins, all sorts of exotic fish, whale sharks, manta rays, octopi, sea turtles, giant spider crabs and jelly fish - just to name a few. I'm such a geek! Scott didn't have a great experience at the museum/gallery - the collection he was hoping to see was not available (we weren't having much luck with galleries in Japan), but they gave him his money back when he mentioned what he came to see. He ended up in a local bar "chatting" with some locals (he speaks no Japanese, and they spoke only a dozen words of English)! I met up with him and we spent some time getting to know the people - lots of laughing as we worked to understand and be understood. The one  guy kept buying Scott some Schochu (think rice whisky), and his glass was never empty - he was pretty happy! They ended up trading hats by the end of the evening.

We took a bus back to Tokyo, about 8 hours - stopping at least 3 times for stretch breaks and food. Lots of green tea plantation on the south side of the island. We stayed out by the airport in Narita.

Some advantages and disadvantages to the current "swine flu" - the plane was initially oversold by 60 seats - we got on, so many people must have cancelled - but we were delayed 3 hours as the Japanese did a thorough check of all passengers before letting them deplane. So home by 7PM May 1st - we have gained a day, but I sot here at 5AM Toronto time writing...

Watch for picture link coming soon...

Time for catch up... Kyoto is an amazing city and would be the one I would recommend visiting if you could choose only one. It has hundreds (literally) of temples and shrines, great culture, very funky and trendy neighbourhood spot, great shopping for those inclined! Rent a bike... Japan is super bike friendly - you would think with millions of people, crazy traffic, etc it would be difficult - but the drivers are so polite for pedestrians and bikers. And everybody just works around everybody else. No one ever rings a bell, they just wait for a space. A bike made getting around Kyoto so much easier - we covered most of the East side and the centre. We had taken a train to Kyoto and as mentioned the ticketing is confusing. The ticketing agent, conductor and food trolley people never left the car without turning to bow and say thank you - like the rituals and manners. Farms are very small in Japan, with every inch covered. In the areas where farms overlap with cities every spare inch is filled with rice paddies or green tea fields - picture a rice paddy next to your local McDs! The hills are so green, lots of flowing trees and bushes right now, waterfalls and valleys. Simple homes to elaborate ones. Once in Kyoto we went to the Nichiki food market, filled with hundreds of food stalls and shops - shops here are so beautifully displayed and the service is immediate and polite. The shops draw you in with the displays, colours, sampling and smells. Walked through the rowdy Taramachi and Shinkyogoku arcades with shopping, gaming and restaurants. We had dinner at a funky American style diner with Asian influence - was neat to see how they put it together. Lots of magazines to flip through. Japan enjoys making things look pleasing to the eye - magazines are beautiful to look at, many focus on lifestyle, culture and arts. Walked through Ponotochi (remember Memories of a Geisha) and Gion. There are still geiko (what geisha are called in Kyoto) and meiko (apprentices) here. Thanks to the internet the numbers are on the rise - there are even a few meiko writing blogs which are attracting young girls to join - love when modern world meets ancient times. We went to an internet cafe for a bit, we finally figured out they are typically in the comic book places - so you can rent time to read and watch anime and manga. There are small cubicle rooms all set up with headphones, gaming paraphernalia, etc. There are drinks every where as they are included in your fee. Some people must really camp out here.
Went to several temples and shrines - I will share more when I post my pictures. But it was a great day, some rain mid way through but most good weather. Lots of old sections of town, and often at shrines where we were the only people, others more crowded. We were stopped at one by a group of Japanese school kids so they could practice their English, they introduced themselves, welcomed us to Kyoto and told us something special about the city. The teacher took our pictures as well. They gave us gifts of papers they had prepared. Japan is very much a gift giving culture, and you can see it with all the shopping, and whenever you buy something it is wrapped. We ended the day at the Imperial Palace riding through the park - very well used, lots of people out playing tennis and baseball.
The next day we took a Regional commuter train to Osaka, many people commute the hour from Kyoto. Stayed in the Namba area. The people in Osaka are incredibly friendly and want to please you so much. We found out that is somebody gives you directions and they were wrong they will come after you - we had it happen a few times! One man jogged a couple of blocks to get to us when he realized he may have given us the wrong directions. Went through the Shinsaibashisuji shopping area, and up the old Hozenji-Yokocho alley where we had dinner in a tiny restaurant with barely enough room for 10 people to sit along a bench. The food in Japan has been excellent. Then walked through the Minami Samba and Horie neighbourhoods - think very funky, Queen street type area with lots of neat shops, and very well dressed young people hanging out. Found the best bookstore that sold books and every bit of kitsch you could think of - we could have spent hours poking around.
Have to run - will have to write more about Osaka and our trip back through Tokyo later...

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read
only a page - St Augustine

Takayama was a wonderful city to visit. We arrived at the bus station and walked down a few streets checking prices at hotels. We got a night at the Country Hotel for 7000 yen. We went and walked through the old Edo merchant streets - beautiful wood buildings where the merchants lived, now litle shops and many are still homes. This city was famous for carpenters, who buildt many of the palaces and large houses of the elite. We had dinner in a little restaurant where we sat on tatami mats - they were nice enough to bring Scott a backrest as he was finding sitting crosslegged hard. He tried 3 types of Saki made in the area - 5 year old (at room temp), young (chilled) and unfiltered (a milky white). Unfortunately with the rain we had to move on. Kanazawa was a city filled with museums and culture - there is a beautiful new Modern Art museum, a large glass building - but it was just setting up the next exhibit, so we couldn:t go in, but we were able to walk around and see some of the works being installed. There was also a great library of art and design books and magazines that we spent some time looking at. We stumbled on a street festival going on outside the museum, with dancing groups performing traditional and modern numbers. We also wandered through the streets where the samurai used to live - many are still large private homes. We had tea in a traditional tea house - very strong matcha tea with a cherry blossom cake. The following morining we had hoped to go to the gardens, which are among the top 3 in Japan - being stuborn we tried but it was so cold, windy and wet we couldnt stay long. We took the train to Kyoto - quiet the confusing system for buying tickets - if you come, buy a pass, otherwise there is a 2 layer system of ticketing that makes it very expensive to travel on the train. We booked an inexpensive hotel through the information centre at the huge, modern station - Court Hotel Shinto for 5200 yen. We walked around the area, and went into the Geisha neighbourhood at night, with all the red laterns and ryokan (traditional guesthouses) and restaurants. Interesting being in these streets, like being back in time - then you walk out into the modern, bright streets of the rest of Kyoto. Like this city, smaller, simpler then Tokyo. Off to explore!