While I live a life many seem to envy here in the Caribbean, waking up to white sand beaches with turquoise water, and getting a suntan on the boat between scuba dives, only a few close friends know that my heart really lies in Japan.
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wearing my hello kitty yukata at a ryokan (tradional inn) |
An obsession since I was tiny, Japan embodies everything I love: efficiency, innovation, perfection, order, traditions and precision. A wide geographic range from snowy mountains in the north all the way down to tropical beaches in the south has always amazed me for such a small country. When I started taking Japanese language classes I admired the simplicity of the language structure (screw you, French and Spanish). Japan is also home to my favorite cuisine by far, and I have sushi tattoos to prove it!
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kaiseki breakfast (fancy traditional meal) |
When I finally visited Japan in 2009 after finding a miraculous $400 return ticket from Vancouver (!!!), I was worried that I had built it up so much in my mind that I would be disappointed when I got there and finally experienced it for myself. Luckily, it was better than I could have ever imagined. I fell in love with nearly everywhere in Japan, but my favorite city in Japan (and the world) is Kyoto.
Three things that I love about Kyoto:
1) Running into a geisha in a giant bamboo forest.
While wandering the streets in the Arashiyama district of Kyoto, we stumbled upon a bamboo forest. Walking inside the forest through the path gave me an instant sense of calm and serenity (which was much needed, as I had just gotten lost for 2 hours trying to find my hostel). I turned around to take a photo, and realized that the photo I was taking was my exact desktop wallpaper at home – talk about deja vu! – and around the corner came a geisha walking with a companion. I couldn’t believe it! She was so gracious, and let us take a picture with her. Still, 6 years later, this is one of my favorite travel memories.
2) Visiting one of the oldest Zen temples in Kyoto.
Kennin-ji was founded in 1202 and is still kickin’ it. This temple was so beautiful and we were lucky enough to catch a traditional wedding procession moving through it with the bride, groom and wedding party in full regalia. We explored the meticulously kept grounds and ended off the visit by writing our wishes and prayers on a little piece of wood and hanging it on a wall with thousands of others. Mine was to return to Japan someday – hopefully that’s still in the works!
3) Eating the best ramen in the world.
I don’t know if it was the steaming bowl of dark soy broth, fatty cha-su pork, springy negi (green onion) and chewy noodles, or the company, or the view, that made this the best bowl of ramen I’ve ever eaten… but I don’t care! Hiding out from the rain in a ramen-ya with my Japanese university roommate and her friend who came up to Kyoto to meet me and my travel buddies was one of my favorite times in Kyoto. I think I’ve eaten about 856 bowls of ramen since then, but this one is still #1.
This post has sent me into another Japan-frenzy and I’m putting email alerts on all the airlines! It’s also a contest entry for Accor Hotels that sounds pretty awesome – a chance to win a nine-night European trip to London, Paris & Amsterdam, plus £1,000 (about $1,200) in spending money and a GoPro camera to capture everything. I’ve never been to Europe so this would be a great place to start! If you want to enter, create a blog post or video around the theme ‘Three things I love about my favourite city’ and notify Accor by sending a link to the entry either via a tweet to the @Accorhotels Twitter account including the hashtag #3cities or via email . Full contest details can be found here.
So cool that you got to see a geisha in real life. Would you still say that this ramen place is still your favorite? What separates it apart? I feel like after trying to many ramen places, they all start tasting the same.
Honestly, after eating hundreds of bowls of ramen in this country, I’d still say this was #1! And that’s a memory that’s almost 10 years old… so it must have been pretty great 🙂
I guess compared to the other languages I've learned as foreign languages (Spanish and French) it was mostly just a welcome relief as a beginner to not have 17 different tenses and a million exceptions to all the grammar and pronunciation rules 🙂
It's so interesting for me to hear your impressions of Japan! It makes me so happy you love it there. As you may already know, I am half Japanese so my perseptions of the country aren't entirely from the outside looking in. I was surprised to hear you thought the Japanese language structure was simple – perhaps at the beginner stage? It's an easy language to learn the basics of, but very difficult to master!
I definitely fell in love the first day in Kyoto too… we only had a short time as well, and I would love to go back for an extended period and really explore it!
Unfortunately my time spent in Kyoto was but a day, but that was enough to fall in love with it (before going to Tokyo for six). I agree with everything you said about Japan. Language barrier (for some of us) aside, I can't think of a move lovely, efficient, friendly country.
Yay!! It's such a great place to visit!
I've never been to Japan, but the sushi and ramen are slowly pulling it further and further up my list…
I love the torii gates too! We went to the Fushimi Inari shrine, which is the same one as they used in the movie 'Memoirs of a Geisha' – loved it!
This takes me back. My favorite memory of Kyoto is the torri gates. There were so many of them and the place is so quiet — you feel so at peace walking through those gates.
Beautiful Post Dear… I Like Your Post…….
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I can't wait to read all about your experience there – totally gonna live vicariously through you… wish I was going back now!!
Me too 🙂 Glad to meet someone else in the "I heart Kyoto" camp!
Sometimes when I see pics of ramen on Instagram I get a little teary!
It's awesome!! Sooooo different from anywhere else I've been!
I am so excited to go to Kyoto next month- it seems like such an interesting city.
Kyoto is just stunning – my favourite city in Japan. What great experiences you had there and I'm so glad it lived up to your expectations 🙂
Ahhhh such cool things! I really miss proper cheap ramen…
Awesome. I hope to visit Japan someday too.
You would totally love it… let's meet there!
I hope you get to go Emily – it's AMAZING!!!
We didn't make it to Japan in our 2014 travels and so the country is bumped up to our top 5 places of where we'd like to visit next. *sigh*
This post kind of embodies why I know I would love Japan. I have yet to visit, but I know when I go, it will be 100% magical. I hope you can get there in the near future too! 😉