Here it is, right before the next big family trip. The last family trip description:

The post Toyama trip started out for me a couple days after my family had left to go to Paul's place. I got a phone call from Keith. He had accidentally left his CD case on the train to Osaka. It was next to him in a crack between the seat and the window. When they had to get off to change trains, he forgot it in the hustle to get suitcases off, too. Inside were several hundred dollars worth of DVDs and CDs, plus some things that would be difficult to replace, due to availability. The folks at Paul's train station had tried to call to Osaka, but without any success. Keith asked if I could check at Toyama, since it was the other end of the line.

I was doubtful they would have it, but I figured I would check anyway. I went to the Toyama train station, and inquired about the lost CD case. They didn't have it, but they volunteered to call Osaka and check. I figured it was a lost case since the folks at Paul's station had already called. But it was worth a shot. They guy called, and sure enough, they had it in their lost and found. I don't know why it wasn't found the first time they called, but they had it.

So on Saturday morning, I decided to leave for Kyoto an hour early and go to Osaka first (past Kyoto 40 minutes). I determined that there was a special rapid train that went from Osaka to Kyoto without stopping, but cost the same amount as a local train. It would save a lot of money, but it left about 7 minutes after I arrived in Osaka station. So I basically sprinted off the train to the Lost and Found. Someone was in line ahead of me, but I still managed to pick up the CD case and make it to the train on time.

Paul was the only one who knew I had found the CD case, so I told him that I would either be waiting for the family at Kyoto station, because I would get there before everyone else, or I would be about 15 minutes late, due to getting the CD case first. I didn't know if I was going to get it originally or send Keith off to collect it. Anyway, when I arrived, I pulled out the CD case, and he was very relieved.

Once I arrived, we headed out to the hotel, Hotel Station Kyoto. It was a pretty nice hotel, with surprisingly large rooms, for Japanese hotels. There was also a public bath at the hotel, which we took advantage of a couple times. They are basically big hot tubs. I roomed with Keith in Kyoto. One of Victoria's friends from university, Will, was living in Kyoto at the time. (Victoria and I stayed with him and his girlfriend the previous fall). I gave him a call, and he said he was busy, but that there was supposed to be an interesting light festival at the Fushiki Inari Shrine, which is in south Kyoto. I don't remember what we did during the day, but we met up for dinner near the train station that night. After we ate, we went to the shrine. They had hundreds of red lanterns hanging around the shrine, and several hundred hand-painted lanterns, which they lit up at night. Before it got too dark, some of us wandered around the mountain, which had huge passageways of torii gates. We walked under several hundred torii gates while walking around the mountain. It was really pretty. We also got to see lots of personal shrines on the mountains (which were inhabited by wild cats, who seemed to feed off the fish offerings left at the shrines). As it got dark, they lit all the mountains, and the dancing started. They also had a ceremony at the shrine, so the priests were very dressed up for it. After awhile, we decided we had seen enough and headed back to the hotel.

The next day an old exchange student who stayed at our house a long time ago, Junichi, came to the hotel, and picked us up. He hired an English speaking taxi driver (the taxi was a van) to give us a tour of some places in Kyoto. We went to Nijo Castle, an old castle. The coolest thing about the castle is the floor whistles when you step on it. The floor is nicknamed the Nightingale Floor, because it sounds like birds chirping. The sound was intentional, designed to detect sneaky ninjas. Besides the floor, the castle was similar to many other Japanese castles. Mostly Japanese castles had tatami mat floors, and no furniture. They are extremely boring to look at, except for wall screens. I believe this castle had a cool wood carving room divider that was different on either side. One surprising difference between Nijo Castle and other castles is that it was not constructed on a hill and is not multistoried, like many of them are.

After Nijo Castle, we went to Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Temple. It is quite famous and I had heard about it before, but I didn't visit it during my first trip to Kyoto. It is actually a very small temple, and the inside is not open to the public. It is called the Golden Temple because it is covered in gold leaf. The temple was one of the oldest ones that was left standing after the war. However, after surviving the war, it was burned down by a crazy monk who decided it was too beautiful, or something like that. So what stands now is a recreation, unfortunately.

Next, we moved on to a nearby temple with a famous Zen garden, Ryoan-ji. Ryoan-ji's centerpiece is a sand Zen garden, with some 15 large rocks in it. It is said that if you sit by the garden, you can't see all 15 rocks at any one time. This was apparently to show you the limits of your knowledge, or something like that. I couldn't see them all sitting down, but I could when I was standing. Also, with rocks in sand, you can imagine all sorts of things like tigers in fields, islands in the sea, or a bunch of rocks in sand. That's what Zen is all about, I guess. The temple also had a large pond, which was covered in lilies and quite pretty.

We had lunch with Junichi's family in an really old (100 years?) noodle restaurant, which had apparently served the emperor and other famous people. Junichi's mother and father were there, along with his wife and two kids. The kids were surprisingly quiet. Normally young kids are quiet talkative in Japanese, at least.

After lunch, the grandparents went home, and the rest of us went to the Kyoto Handicraft's Center. They had some private classes on how to do traditional Japanese arts, like woodblock prints or tiny dolls. I signed up for what turned out to be the most difficult one, the tiny Japanese dolls. They required a lot of patience and strength. My grandmother signed up for it also, and pretty much let the instructor make most of hers. Still, it was fun. My doll ended up with a little afro. It looked cool. Keith and Paul didn't want to be at the crafts center, so they took a shuttle back to the hotel. The rest of us took a class and shopped around the center some. My grandmother found a kimono she liked. My cousin bought several prints to decorate his house with.

After the Handicraft Center, we said good-bye to Junichi and his family. They were really nice to us, and he paid for everything (he feels he owes a lot to my parents). It was a fairly busy and exhausting day.

The next morning, we went to a big market in a temple southwest of the station. It was basically a flea market, with all sorts of stuff being sold. My grandmother bought a couple things. When it was time to rendezvous, my aunt was missing. Keith and I searched for her, but we didn't find her. Eventually Paul sent me a message that she had shown up, and we went back. After the market, we took cabs over to my favorite temple, Kiyomizu-dera. It looks really pretty during sunset, but still nice during the morning. We toured the temple and then split up. Grandmommy went back to the hotel, my parents and Anna went on the Philosopher's Walk, which I did last year, and the young men went to downtown Kyoto. We walked along the geisha strip, past the fancy restaurants, and other establishments. We even saw one geisha girl. Keith got bored and went back to the hotel, while Paul, Edward, and I went to a shrine and watched a short play. The three of us went to dinner in Kyoto, while Keith met up with the rest of the family for food. I was hoping everyone would come downtown, but it didn't work out well.

The last morning in Kyoto, my dad took my grandmother to get her hair washed at an expensive hotel near the station. The day before, we went there and Paul explained to the lady what my grandmother wanted, and then we left the rest up to fate. My grandmother emerged later with her hair looking a bit different than it normally was. But at least it was clean.

That morning, us boys went off on our own again, this time outside of the city. We were a bit templed-out, which can happen quite easily in Kyoto, since it is chock-full of temples and shrines. We took a bus out to one temple, which had a hiking path near it. It was recommended in the Lonely Planet guidebook. It was a steep climb to the temple area from where we started, so we were tired at the top. The temple complex was pretty much abandoned, and we wandered around its paths in the woods. We bought some small clay discs at the ticket gate, and threw them off the cliff near the temple. They fly a bit like frisbees down into the valley below. We weren't just being strange, it was a custom to throw away your bad karma. Afterwards, we hiked back down the mountain to the valley below, and walked alongside the river all the way to a small town. On the way, we found a bunch of clay discs in the water and on the path. It must be dangerous during peak season, with clay discs flying everywhere. I picked up one of the unbroken ones as a souvenir. Now I have someone's bad karma. I think it might be one of ours, because it was in the middle of the path, and wasn't dirty or anything.

The walk was very pretty, and we passed a bunch of swimming holes. We went to one with a nice sized cliff and got in the water. Edward jumped in from up high, but the water was so cold, I didn't want to. I just jumped in from a small rock. I don't think Paul or Keith got all the way in. The weather was perfect throughout the hike. We reached a tiny town part way through and got a snack and a drink at a restaurant there. Then we passed lots of schoolboys jumping off a bridge into the water below. They kind of stared at us wandering by. Hardly anyone else was on this trail today, except a couple people killing weeds. So we must have seemed strange to them. We kept going, and the trail ended on the side of a highway. Our small river merged with a huge river, and we walked above that towards a train station. When we got to the train station, we read the time table, and it said there were no more trains. We were a little shocked, because it was only 5 or so. Luckily, there were some folks playing cards nearby, who told us that was a private line, and we wanted the JR line, which was further down the road. They told us to walk next to the train tracks, and jump the fence to get to the JR line. It was faster than going down the road. So that's what we did. The train station was deserted, except for some delinquents who were smoking by the tracks, and doing annoying things. The trains to this station were quite regular, and one soon came, and it was pretty crowded. This station was between more populous ones and Kyoto, I guess. We made it back, and we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. It had a buffet, which was okay. After dinner, Paul, Edward, and I met up with Will, Victoria's friend, at an Irish pub. We had a good chat, and I was glad to see him again.

The next morning, we left Kyoto and went to Okayama. From there, we had to take a limited express train to the island of Shikoku. The first city we visited was Takamatsu, which means Tall Pines, and it was near the long suspension bridges that lead to the island. It is in Tokushima Prefecture (in the northeast) While our train was crossing the bridges, a helicopter appeared and started filming the train, right outside our window. It was very strange. From the train station, we took taxis to our hotels, because it is much easier with all our luggage than trying to take public transportation. The hotel was nice, but cramped, like Japanese hotels normally are. I roomed with Edward this time.

We took a train over to a 'museum' that afternoon. It was an outdoor park with lots of buildings from all over Japan. They had traditional guard houses, homes, factories, and even a bridge. The buildings were varied, and the English explanation was good. However, the park was quite big and built on a hill, so it was tiring walking around so much. Before the museum, I think the young ones all ate udon noodles at a restaurant next to the park. It was very cheap and good. Paul managed to spill hot water on himself, though, so that wasn't too fun.

After the park, we went up the funicular to the top of Yashima Plateau, which is a large mountain towering over the city. The last funicular was quite early, so we didn't have much time to explore the top. Paul, Edward, and I raced around the top of the mountain some, and I got to see the suspension bridges from earlier that day, but the view was too hazy for good pictures.

We took taxis back, and we ate dinner at a chain Indian restaurant near our hotel. It was the most convenient place for us to go. The food was pretty good there. Some of my family did laundry, and they were nice enough to take my stuff too, so I wouldn't have to go.

The next morning we went on a tour. We arranged the tour of the Iya River Valley the day before. We had to take a train to Awa Ikeda, which was actually in the next prefecture, Tokushima Prefecture (to the southeast). However, we had heard this gorge was beautiful, so we wanted to see it. The tour bus was a small bus, and our guide was a woman with a lot to say. She managed to speak in Japanese for the entire bus ride (several hours), barely pausing. It was really annoying after awhile. When surrounded by lots of trees and rivers, I don't want a blow by blow commentary. I want silence. In some ways I was thankful I couldn't understand. At the first stop of the tour, we got out of the bus and went down by the river to a boat. I hadn't realized a boat ride was included. Before the boat ride was the obligatory group photo, fun as ever. Then we took the boat ride. Basically we all crammed into this boat and sat on mats on the bottom of it (taking off our shoes, of course), and it puttered down the river some so we could look at the rocks. Then the boat motored back up the river and dropped us off. The rocks were quite pretty, however. After the ride, we had lunch, which was traditional Japanese fare, much to the chagrin of some of my family members. I pretty much eat any lumpy stuff nowadays, so it didn't bother me much.

After lunch, we drove to a rock museum that was close by, and we saw that. There were many beautiful rocks and minerals in the museum. The museum seemed a bit out of place in the middle of nowhere by the river. Afterwards, we went to some silly house on a hill, which seemed pointless. It was basically a bunch of someone's junk (antiques) crammed into a tiny house. I don't know why we toured it, exactly.

Finally, we came to the focal point of the tour, a traditional vine bridge over the Iya River. The bridges are rebuilt every 10 years or so, but maybe not this one, because it was actually reinforced by steel wires (cheaters!). There were big spaces between the boards on the bridge, so you did have to watch your step some. I basically sprinted across the bridge while my mom tentatively crossed it. There was a small waterfall on the other side of the bridge, too. We couldn't cross back over the vine bridge (it was one way or something), so we walked back over the concrete bridge next to it that the buses and stuff go on. After crossing the bridge, we got back in the bus and drove alongside a huge gorge (we were much higher this time). The tour guide said that other buses can't drive along this road because it is too narrow for them. It seemed quite narrow. The last stop on the tour was a mannekin pis (peeing boy) statue replica from Brussels. It was basically on the side of the highway over the gorge, for no good reason. Then the tour finally dropped us off at the train station again. I was relieved it was finally over, though it was very pretty.

We caught a train back to Takamatsu and went to a nearby mall to find a restaurant. We ended up at an Italian restaurant again. This restaurant was okay, but they seemed to think that a Caesar's salad meant that you just dumped a lot of salt on the salad (a whole bottle, perhaps). Edward ordered the salad and he said it was like eating pure salt. In the end, I dumped water into the salad, and drained off some of the salt that way. It was an adventure salad.

The next morning, my mother and Anna left bright and early to go search for silk cocoons. Apparently Anna's mother likes to spin her own thread, so Anna wanted to buy the cocoons for her. The tourist information office was quite helpful in giving them directions on how to get to a silk farm in the next prefecture.

The rest of us woke up at a sensible hour, took all the suitcases and went to the next town, Matsuyama, in Ehime Prefecture (to the northwest). We took cabs to our hotel, but we were too early to check-in. So we left the bags at the hotel, and walked down to near the castle to eat lunch. After lunch we went to the castle. This castle was on a hill in the center of town, and is one of the nicest looking ones. They had a cable car up the hill, and a chair lift. Grandmommy and dad went up the cable car, while us Four went up the chair lift. They both got there at the same time, so it didn't make much difference. At the top of the hill, we were attacked by mosquitos, which rarely happens in Japan. We quickly moved on to the castle. It was a really pretty castle, and it's made of wood. However, they had to rebuild large parts of the castle due to arson and WWII bombings. Many reconstructions are concrete, so a wooden one was a nice change. Inside the castle were lots of steep ladders for moving from floor to floor. They didn't believe in stairs. They also didn't believe in tall people, so I have to watch my head a lot. If I were a samurai, I would be knocked out from running up and down the steps. My grandmother couldn't go inside, so she waited outside while we yelled and waved from inside the castle.

After that, we went back to the hotel, and checked in. The rooms were huge. The room Paul and I were in was like a jumbo-sized suite. It would've been big in the states, too. So we really lucked out with these rooms. The other sets of rooms weren't as big, but were still good. After awhile, mom and Anna came back with cocoons (with dead worms in them), and we went to dinner. We found a place called Chico's, which was a new-style Japanese restaurant, sort of a Japanese take on different foods. The food was great, but we waited for over an hour for some of it. The manager felt really bad about making us wait so long, and gave us complementary desserts. I think my food was particularly slow in coming. Us young folks wandered down the street after dinner and decided to go see "Terminator 3", which was playing nearby. There was hardly anyone in the movie theater, because Japanese people don't seem to like seeing movies late at night. In fact, the showing was discounted, despite being a new movie, because it was after 8pm. I really liked the movie, much more than I thought I would. It was quite funny and good.

The next morning, Paul, Edward and I took a train an hour to a station to the north. We wanted to go climb Mt. Ishizuchi, Shikoku's highest mountain. We were really lucky and there was a bus which arrived shortly after we got to the station. It turned out there were only four buses to and from the mountain each day! It was not an easy place to come and go from. The bus dropped us off next to a cable car, which led part way up the mountain. The river next to where we were dropped off was an amazing bright blue color. I have never seen water like that in a river before. It was beautiful. However, we couldn't see the mountain, so we couldn't tell if it was beautiful. There was a lot of mist about 200 meters up.

We took the cable car up to about 1300 meters. We barely squeezed past a tour group to get in the cable car before they did. If we hadn't gotten in first, I don't think we would've made it. But since we were already in, they couldn't kick us out. The cable car basically rose through the mist very quickly to get to the top, where we were enshrouded with mist still. We then walked over and took a chair lift, that was part of a ski resort in the winter. It didn't save us any time, but it was fun, and had a decent view.

Next we had to go down about 200 meters before we could start up the mountain again. It was a bit annoying, and we ended up at 1200 meters. Then we started the climb back up to the top of the mountain, at 2000 meters. This trail was very interesting, because there are often two ways to go up the mountain. One, you can take the trail. Two, you can grab onto some giant metal chains and pull yourself straight up. We decided to always use the chain method, but it was very strenuous work. The first chain was basically pointless, since it led to a little peak, and then you had to chain your way down the other side of the peak. Still, it was a lot of fun climbing on the chains. We climbed a total of four chains, which was hard work. The last one was fairly difficult and you had to put your feet in the rings to help you climb. I just didn't want to fall, since there was no safety equipment. The last chain brought us to a shrine where there were many pilgrims praying. Then we walked another 200 meters to the peak of the mountain. At this point the weather was cooperating and we had some great views. We hiked the way back instead of going down the chains (dangerous). It was much easier, but longer, too. We took the chair lift back again (despite being out of the way) and saw the view was even better now. You could see the ocean from the mountain. Finally we took the cable car back down the mountain.

At the bottom of the mountain, we waited around until the last bus came to get us at 3:30pm. Some people who started climbing at the same time as us didn't make the bus. I don't know how they got back. Paul also had a run in with a store owner who tried to sell him tickets to the bus, saying it was impossible to buy them on the bus. Of course, it wasn't actually impossible and Paul knew this. This guy just wanted to get a commission from us for selling the tickets. He guilted two Japanese girls waiting next to us to do it. Things were fine on the bus, and we arrived at the train station in good time, only to find out that the next train going to our station wasn't for an hour, and was a slow local train! This wouldn't have been much of a problem, except we wanted to get back in time for a nice dinner. My grandmother really wanted us to have a nice dinner, because it was the last day Edward and Anna would be with us. Instead I called my mom and told her when we would arrive, all filthy and stinky. They decided to order pizza instead, which is an expensive dinner in Japan, if not particularly nice. The pizzas were pretty good, except the one with salmon cream on it. We had mystery pizzas since both Paul and I were out hiking. My parents and Keith basically looked at pictures to decide. We all ate in my parent's large hotel room.

The next morning, Edward and Anna left, and the rest of us headed to Kochi, in Kochi-ken (southwest). The train ride to Kochi was very pretty and went by many gorges. Shikoku seems to have a lot of gorges in general. Our hotel was close to the station in Kochi, and called Los Inn Kochi. The guy was from Paraguary and spoke perfect Spanish. He was really nice, and let us move into the rooms, even though we were early. After dropping off our stuff, we took a tram into town, and visited Kochi castle. It is up a little hill, which my grandmother went up. But then she didn't go inside the castle. It was a fairly old castle, and a little small. It had nice views because it was on a hill. There seemed to be some sort of dignitary visiting, because there were bodyguards around the castle, checking things out. I didn't see the mysterious guest though.

Afterwards we thought about going to a street market, but it was closed. Instead we wandered to the river, where we heard there was a giant festival going on. They had big inflatable whales in the river spewing out water, and tons of food booths. We attracted a lot of attention from the food vendors and many other people. I don't think they were used to seeing foreigners. I talked to some junior high school girls who were really nice. Many people took pictures of Keith's hair using their cell phones (they think you can't tell, but it's obvious). We ate some food from the booths and then left the festival, as everyone seemed to be arriving, all the women in their yukatas (summer kimonos). On the way back, we ran across a group of people practicing for the Yosokoi Festival, a dance festival with tons of groups that is held here in August.

Our final day in Shikoku, Keith, Paul, and I didn't do very much. We mostly relaxed, and went shopping for birthday presents for our grandmother. Paul and I got her a dance clapper, and an obi (belt for her kimono). That night we went out to Garlic, Garlic. It is a loose chain of restaurants which serve lots of garlic foods. However, this one wasn't as nice as the one in Kanazawa, which has a larger, English menu. So I had to play the translation game once again. Which is a fun enough game to play by myself, but with a whole family waiting to eat, it is not as fun.

The next day we took a series of trains to Nara, near Osaka. Keith didn't go to Nara but went to Kyoto again, instead. Nara has a giant temple (Todai-ji) with a giant bronze Buddha statue inside it. The temple is the largest wooden structure in the world, I think. The Buddha is 49 feet high, and was made in 745. Apparently the temple is only 1/3 of it's original size, which makes it even more amazing. The temple is located in a large park full of deer. They are considered national treasures and number over one thousand. Grandmommy got chased by a deer who wanted her ice cream. We had delicious soft serve caramel ice cream. I highly recommend it.

Next we walked through the park, a bit further than we thought we would. We found a shrine with hundreds of stone lanterns. They would've been awesome lit up, but they were still nice. We ended up on the wrong side of the park, away from all taxis. We wandered down the street to a shop and Paul asked the man to call a taxi for us. Paul was inside a long time, so I thought the man had killed him or something. Luckily, that wasn't the case.

That night we went to a family restaurant with a salad bar and steaks, because it was my grandmother's birthday and she doesn't really like Japanese food, especially fish. I always thought she liked fish, but it turns out she hates it with a passion. That evening we gave her the presents we had bought in Kochi. I think she liked them a lot.

The next day we had a Chinese breakfast (complimentary at the hotel) and split up at the train station. I went back to Taki with Paul to stay at his house for a couple days, and the family went to the airport. They all had a safe and long trip home. Now I'm making some of them take an even longer trip to Australia. I'm so cruel. I wrote about the rest of my trip at Paul's place earlier in my blog.