Vacation to Busan and Japan

Brenton and I went to Japan for 7 nights over our summer vacation (via a few nights in Busan and the Ferry). This blog post will probably end up being quiet wordy so if that's not your thing stop reading now :-)

We spent 2 nights in Busan. The weather was terrible so no beach time for me :-(. On the Monday we went to Hyundai beach (in the rain) and to the aquarium there. That night we met up with our friends orientation (2 couples) and had dinner and a few drinks. It was really nice to see them. I thought it would be strange, seeing as we only knew them for 2 weeks 5 1/2 months ago (we have only kept in touch a little bit over facebook), but it was great. We went right back to sharing stories about our first days at school. It was like orientation was only a week ago! Hopefully we will get to see them some more over the next 6 months! 

Leaving Busan on the ferry

Tuesday we caught the high speed ferry to Japan (to Fukoka). I guess the ferry was really fast (it took about 3 hours), but it is hard to tell when there is nothing to judge the speed against apart from open ocean! It took us a bit longer to leave Fukoka than we had thought (it was hard finding an ATM that accepted foreign cards and we had no Yen) so a bus ride and 2 train trips later we were in Kyoto, we got there a little after 11.

Leaving Busan on the ferry

A high speed ferry going the other way

Kiyomizu-der Temple

Wednesday we did the suggested walking tour in the Lonely Planet, which included a few temples and walking through a couple of tradition neighbourhoods. It was really nice, but also really hot. The heat made the entire trip not quiet as enjoyable as it could have been. It was 35-40 everyday with the same level of humidity as Daegu. Because things are so much more expensive in Japan and we were trying to not spend to much it meant we didn't take as many breaks in coffee shops and the like as we should have!

Kiyomizu-der Temple

Thursday we hired bikes and rode to the Manga museum and another temple complex. Bikes were much better than walking because Kyoto is so flat it meant you could get out of the heat quicker! That night I went to have a look around a traditional night-life area. When I was riding my bike back to the hostel I went down some back streets and saw a Geisha walking towards me! She went into a house before I could get a photo, but pretty cool none the less!

Traditional night life area in Kyoto

Traditional night life area in Kyoto

                                                                         

Friday we were meant to go to Tokyo but I accidentally told our couch surfing hosts Saturday and Sunday so we stayed in Kyoto another night. 

Saturday we finally made it to Tokyo. I was worried we wouldn't be able to as apparently that weekend is the busiest for people going on holidays and all trains and flights out of Tokyo were full booked and there were 40 km traffic jams! Not as many people were going to Tokyo, so we only had to wait 45 minutes for a train with free seats. That afternoon we went to Shibuya crossing, a park and the observation deck in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

Bullet train to Tokyo

Shubya Crossing

View from the government offices

Sunday we visited the Sony display centre, the Imperial Palace East Gardens, and an area where all the Cosplay girls apparently hang out (we only saw 2, but it was an interesting shopping area full of alternative kind of things).

Imperial Palace East Gardens

Cosplay Girls

Monday we moved from the couch surfing to our hostel. Then we went to electronics town and explored a bit. That night we went to Tokyo's oldest temple.

Tuesday was home again! So there is it a quick (ish) summary of our trip to Japan. Overall it was a really good trip, but like I already said the heat took it down a bit. It was really interesting to see the differences between Korea and Japan, I thought they would just be the same! Japan had a lot more varied fashion, obeyed road rules and the architecture was more varied than your standard grey apartment block. Korea does have some things over Japan, the public transport systems are much easier to navigate!