Nomads for now...a mum forever

Amazing Japan...Kyoto

It has been quite a while....nomads have no proper internet facilities....by the time I started blogging again, we have already arrived home but still a promise is a promise, here's our adventure in Japan.

It was an 'Amazing Race'. It was our very first time in Japan and we had no idea what to expect. We arrived at Narita Airport and went straight to Kyoto thinking that it was as simple as hailing a cab and asking the driver to drive us to the hotel. To our horror, we had to catch the super bullet train and it would cost us US$300 plus for a family of four. DH jaws almost dropped. Having just arrived, we only had very little money with us. Thankfully, we had changed our last few US dollars at the LA airport before our departure and God is always great, always watching over us...the amount we had was just nice to purchase the train tickets.

Read this...four luggages, two laptops, two carry-on bags and two kids, we did a heart-pumping sprint from the ticketing office to the train station. If we missed it, we had to wait for another two hours and in Japan, some hotels do not operate round the clock and the one we booked, would close by 12 midnight. If we missed the train, we would only be able to arrive at the hotel past midnight and we sure do not want that to happen.

Read this...in Japan, the transportation is ON THE DOT. If it says it will depart at 7.41pm, it WILL. Not a second earlier, not a second later.

So picture it in your mind, two adults and two kids dashing around with all the big bags and small bags. Even little Ann was seen running and dragging her little trolley bag.

We finally arrived at the train and jumped onto the carriage, then we realised that we couldn't just hop onto any carriage, there were seats and carriage numbers allocated. Our carriage number was 11 and we had hopped onto carriage two and the train was about to move. Humans and bags, jumped off the carriage and made another dash for carriage 11 and the train officers were not helping by signalling us to hurry up!

Finally, the right train and the right seats. It was already 8.30pm in the evening and all of us, without dinner! It was a relief to see a lady coming by with a trolley of food and drinks...more culture shock! Rice was cold rice but when you are hungry, it made no difference. Ann, particularly loved the cold rice.

With all the dashing and flashing from place to place, dh gave up...he suggested we should just go home early.

But let me tell you, Japan is a beautiful place. There were surprises for us. After settling in, we fell in love with the place....as usual...pictures paint a thousand words...

Buying tickets for the bullet train

The famous Japan bullet train also known as Shinkansen

Inside the train. Clean, neat and really cool!

Part of the train network...just looking at it will drive you nuts.
What is our MRT network compare to this?

Ticket holder for your tickets

We stayed in a real Japanese inn. It was something we wanted to experience and it was really nice

Around 7.30pm, two people would come and do up the beds for us to rest for the night. It a whole new experience

Guess what we saw inside our room...and yes, it was working

Outside the Kyoto Station

Sakura, the famous Japanese cherry blossom. We were there at the right time, it was just blooming

Outside the Kyoto Imperial Palace

Inside the Imperial Palace

Some Japanese cartoon characters which the kids could identify with

Trying to figure out their bus system. In Japan, we tried all their different forms of transportation.
The subway, the bullet train, the taxi and the bus! Bye bye to self-driving.