Kyoto and surroundings day 2/part 1 Nijo-Jo Castle

everywhere in Japan are beautiful flowers and gardens~subject of a later blog and video

Monday July 9th 2019
Clumsy guy summer travel tip: Get up and go early, beat the heat and beat the throngs. It helps to have some jet lag since we had flown first to China from Boston (18 hours) and had only stayed in Shanghai a couple of nights. So the internal body clocks are all whacked. Any way the plan today is to go to Kyoto Central station and have a look around before going to the bus terminal and heading out to castle and temple tours.

It's nice to arrive early before the rush hour begins
Then you get to observe the rush hour and not be caught up in it! In the video below you can see a few high school kids, since school is still in session in July!

You can get a sense from the little peek above that each bus has a specialized queue line on the pavement...quite possibly Japan is the most orderly place on earth. It is a nice experience actually and brings some calm to a crowded place, and I guess safer as well. As opposed to random bumping into people pickpockets etc.

We arrived at Nijo-Jo Castle around 30 minutes prior to opening, which turned out to be perfect, since we were able to buy our admission ticket and tour the gardens and gates of the castle.

worker preparing for the open of Nijo-Jo Castle

This castle was built 400 years ago by the founder and first Shogun of the Tokugawa Shoganite, Tokugawa Ieyasu. This time established a unified government for Japan, ending a long period of civil war and ushered in a era of 260 years of peace and prosperity. 

hand carved finery at the entryway to the castle

Inside is mainly like a museum, with exhibits in the various rooms depicting royal court life in the 17th century. Photographs were not allowed inside...Nijo-Jo Castle is a Unesco World Heritage Site and the City of Kyoto is undergoing major renovation work. You can go to their main website here: http://nijo-jocastle.city.kyoto.lg.jp/

It was definitely worth the visit and check back for the garden videos coming soon!

beautiful wood inlays

school still in session in July

Coming next: The Golden Temple

Arrival in Shiga Prefectore

kyoto central station

You can get a *cheap* flight from Shanghai to Osaka, Japan from Peach Airlines. We wanted to make a short side trip to Japan while we were in Mainland China visiting family and settled on Kyoto, the ancient capitol. Since Kyoto is a bustling modern city of 1.4 million, we decided to stay at an air bnb in the suburb of Otsu, about a 20 minute train ride from the center.  Nancy found us the perfect host, Huizen, who is from the mainland but has lived in Japan with her husband and daughter for many years. Our host was so much more than the nice traditional Japanese bedroom, she was our expert guide for the five days we spent in Japan. As a scholar of ancient Japanese culture, this was perfect for us--we always like to travel and access what a group cannot.

outside the local middle school 

There's a special place in my heart for any school anywhere, and I found the shoes left outside of the gymnasium during a basketball tournament adorable. Looking at the top right, one or two outliers...at the edge of the group and not so orderly as the rest! (that would be me, the clumsy guy).

view from Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake

strolling through the rice and vegetable fields

This section of Otsu is mainly newly developed homes, with some older, more established homes closer to the waterfront. There are community garden plots and rice fields...the rice is considered among Japan's best and was very very good. We brought back some tea which has rice mixed in, very very delicious.  We had found the perfect place to use as home base as we got ready to experience the culture, sights, and food of this part of Japan!