I'm bak in da house and my Kung Fu is stronger than eva'!!!!
Yours truly made it back, in good spirits, and getting spoiled rotten with a great home cooked dinner with my folks.
The day before Dan and I left, we had hit Kyoto. What a great place - an area dotted with historic temples, architecture, forests, and neighborhoods; almost like something out of a novel or fairy tale story (no, no...not Cinderella, more like the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but without the Tigers and Dragons or martial arts flying sequences and some places more modern...well..hmmm...ok, maybe not like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but still something very out of the ordinary). By far, it was, in my mind, one of the best excursions we've made during our short time in Japan.
The temples are centuries old with stone pillars at the gates of entrances, as tall as a man can stand straight, with deeply carved artistic characters (I want to say in Kanji writing) within the stone face. The light plays tricks with the eyes in how the shadows within the character carvings change the stones natural colors..from grayish blue to blueish black.
Each entrance to a temple and even the houses lining the streets have large gates, the width of 3 people standing side by side, all made of stone and gated with old wooden doors that look like they've only been hung within the last few years (even though it's more likely they have been there for centuries..it's funny how the old still looks almost new). The temple buildings are massive in size, at least 5-9 stories high, and sitting within large garden squares that must be a few acres (like 5) in size....neighborhoods themselves can fit in these squares with room to spare.
Speaking of neighborhoods, they are essentially self contained little communities. As much as Japan is known as a high tech development center, there are no huge supermarkets or Walmarts that I can see. In fact, I don't think the big box stores would work here.
As we walked down the streets (at times only one car lane wide), we can see old stone (huge blocks of stone) decorating the middle of the streets with the standard asphalt surrounding. The buildings up and down the street are homes, little shops that sell desserts (I was good and passed by), fish, butcher shops, grocery, convienience, home decor, jewellery, etc.. Perfection in each of these items (except in the raw fish and meats...really, how much perfection can there be other than the general "Is this fresh and will it make me sick??") is apparent and the buildings housing these little businesses are amazing architectural designs in and of themselves.
The coolest part was seeing a few homes fringing a protected Bamboo forest in the middle of where we were exploring. This is the part that looked, to me, like right out of a story. Like Hanzel and Gretel or something but without the evil witch. I think the closet I can describe would be like a few homes that blended in well along the seawall drive around Stanley Park and the buildings nestled in almost perfectly with the old forest and trees behind the drive. I saw it as a very rare opportunity to live in that scenario and if this same opportunity was available in Vancouver, people would kill to get into these homes. Way kewl!! And super quiet too...like the loudest thing you may ever hear, if you could hear it, would be the grass growing...the folks out here I seriously doubt stress in there homes about how loud it may be outside.
We explored quite a bit of this area and once done, took the bullet train back to Tokyo and we eventually made our way back to New Koyo Hotel at Minawa station. The New Koyo hotel is a backpackers hotel and very cheap - $29CDN a night. This was a good find for Dan and I'm sure we could have very easily have found a hotel to stay at that could have been a minimum of $150CDN or more a night. Very good place for the money though the rooms are very tiny. I joked with Dan that the rooms were like jail cells...4ft by 6ft...tiny and yet comfortable for our stay.
I looked forward to coming home. I think I get bored and restless quite easily and I've been eager to get back home, visit with family and friends, play with the dog (more like tease and pester her into a tizzy), and getting back to work. I'll tell ya that the first day back in the office I felt totally shell shocked..."Email what?! Duh...how do I turn on the computer again?".
The best part, which I didn't notice or think that I had improved, was that people mentioned how much thinner I look. I feel great about that; it's motivating and I'm back on the EDGE plan with a restored sense of viger...good/healthy eating and I'm back in the gym (I'm going to be sore tomorrow).
This is where I am now, Vancouver. The more I travel and return back, the more I appreciate home. Thailand was great, beaches were awesome, Japan was interesting, but Vancouver is home. I love B.C!! Of course, I'm going to a stag in Vegas in a few weeks (which will be mayhem) but until then, I'm content to stay put for a bit...well, until I get restless again that is....
This is now officially the final update on the Thailand/Japan trip. There will be one last update within a few days to include a link to pictures (with story content) but beyond that, it's done. Maybe Vegas can go up?!? Well...we'll see...you know what they said in the movie Swingers:
"There are two rules:
Rule #1. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas
Rule #2. Fat chicks are in!!"
(haha...that movie killed me....)
Harvey
The day before Dan and I left, we had hit Kyoto. What a great place - an area dotted with historic temples, architecture, forests, and neighborhoods; almost like something out of a novel or fairy tale story (no, no...not Cinderella, more like the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but without the Tigers and Dragons or martial arts flying sequences and some places more modern...well..hmmm...ok, maybe not like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but still something very out of the ordinary). By far, it was, in my mind, one of the best excursions we've made during our short time in Japan.
The temples are centuries old with stone pillars at the gates of entrances, as tall as a man can stand straight, with deeply carved artistic characters (I want to say in Kanji writing) within the stone face. The light plays tricks with the eyes in how the shadows within the character carvings change the stones natural colors..from grayish blue to blueish black.
Each entrance to a temple and even the houses lining the streets have large gates, the width of 3 people standing side by side, all made of stone and gated with old wooden doors that look like they've only been hung within the last few years (even though it's more likely they have been there for centuries..it's funny how the old still looks almost new). The temple buildings are massive in size, at least 5-9 stories high, and sitting within large garden squares that must be a few acres (like 5) in size....neighborhoods themselves can fit in these squares with room to spare.
Speaking of neighborhoods, they are essentially self contained little communities. As much as Japan is known as a high tech development center, there are no huge supermarkets or Walmarts that I can see. In fact, I don't think the big box stores would work here.
As we walked down the streets (at times only one car lane wide), we can see old stone (huge blocks of stone) decorating the middle of the streets with the standard asphalt surrounding. The buildings up and down the street are homes, little shops that sell desserts (I was good and passed by), fish, butcher shops, grocery, convienience, home decor, jewellery, etc.. Perfection in each of these items (except in the raw fish and meats...really, how much perfection can there be other than the general "Is this fresh and will it make me sick??") is apparent and the buildings housing these little businesses are amazing architectural designs in and of themselves.
The coolest part was seeing a few homes fringing a protected Bamboo forest in the middle of where we were exploring. This is the part that looked, to me, like right out of a story. Like Hanzel and Gretel or something but without the evil witch. I think the closet I can describe would be like a few homes that blended in well along the seawall drive around Stanley Park and the buildings nestled in almost perfectly with the old forest and trees behind the drive. I saw it as a very rare opportunity to live in that scenario and if this same opportunity was available in Vancouver, people would kill to get into these homes. Way kewl!! And super quiet too...like the loudest thing you may ever hear, if you could hear it, would be the grass growing...the folks out here I seriously doubt stress in there homes about how loud it may be outside.
We explored quite a bit of this area and once done, took the bullet train back to Tokyo and we eventually made our way back to New Koyo Hotel at Minawa station. The New Koyo hotel is a backpackers hotel and very cheap - $29CDN a night. This was a good find for Dan and I'm sure we could have very easily have found a hotel to stay at that could have been a minimum of $150CDN or more a night. Very good place for the money though the rooms are very tiny. I joked with Dan that the rooms were like jail cells...4ft by 6ft...tiny and yet comfortable for our stay.
I looked forward to coming home. I think I get bored and restless quite easily and I've been eager to get back home, visit with family and friends, play with the dog (more like tease and pester her into a tizzy), and getting back to work. I'll tell ya that the first day back in the office I felt totally shell shocked..."Email what?! Duh...how do I turn on the computer again?".
The best part, which I didn't notice or think that I had improved, was that people mentioned how much thinner I look. I feel great about that; it's motivating and I'm back on the EDGE plan with a restored sense of viger...good/healthy eating and I'm back in the gym (I'm going to be sore tomorrow).
This is where I am now, Vancouver. The more I travel and return back, the more I appreciate home. Thailand was great, beaches were awesome, Japan was interesting, but Vancouver is home. I love B.C!! Of course, I'm going to a stag in Vegas in a few weeks (which will be mayhem) but until then, I'm content to stay put for a bit...well, until I get restless again that is....
This is now officially the final update on the Thailand/Japan trip. There will be one last update within a few days to include a link to pictures (with story content) but beyond that, it's done. Maybe Vegas can go up?!? Well...we'll see...you know what they said in the movie Swingers:
"There are two rules:
Rule #1. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas
Rule #2. Fat chicks are in!!"
(haha...that movie killed me....)
Harvey
posted by Harvey at
9:36 PM
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