Biking in Kyoto - Part I

Yesterday my wife and I visited Kyoto. It's the time of the year when the leaves on the many maple trees at the shrines and temples and parks in Kyoto change colors, and we wanted to enjoy the many beautiful sights.

We took the train there. It takes about a little over an hour from where we live. Once we arrived in Kyoto, we rented two bicycles and we were on our way.

The first place we visited was Nanzenji, in the eastern mountains of Kyoto (pictured left). As you can tell from the pictures, the red and orange leaves were in full force, as were the crowds. One thing you have to prepare for when you go to Kyoto in the fall to look at the leaves is dealing with the crowds. It seems that everyone in Japan loves to view the fall leaves.

To the left is some aqueduct-looking thing on the grounds near Nanzenji. It's popular for some reason.

Here 's me standing next to another temple-looking building.

Latest Update

I just noticed that my blog has gone over 200 total posts. This is number 201. Congratulations to me!

Sorry about no recent posts. There hasn't been any exciting news from the Japan front. My wife and I will be visiting Kyoto tomorrow to peruse the orange, red and yellow leaves as well as check out some of the temples and shrines. My camera will be in tow, so I'll make sure to post some pictures about the trip when I get a chance!

Saipan Trip - Day 4

On Sunday, November 2, we woke up, had breakfast, and prepared to check out of the resort. We called the front desk to get one of those guys with the golf carts to come and pick us and our luggage up and take us to the front desk. We planned to catch the bus to town to do some last-day shopping after we checked out. But the golf cart guy was running late, so I ended up pushing the luggage to the front desk, which made me sweat in the humid Saipan heat. However, we made the bus on time.

We didn't do too much in town, it turned out - just ate at McDonald's and looked around a bit. I was happy to see the soda machines there where you can get refills; they don't have those in Japan except at the family restaurants with the drink bars. What they also don't have in Japan are the promotional games where you have a chance to win money, and a much better chance to win a free drink or something. They had a Monopoly promotion when we went, and I won a free McFlurry. However, the M&M McFlurry that I ordered was far too sweet for me. I guess I'm getting used to Japanese tastes.

After shopping, we went to the airport to return to Japan. The wait in line to check-in at the airport was the longest I've ever been in, because they had security there checking every single bag and suitcase. Seriously. They opened each bag and checked everything, from underwear to eye drops. I've never seen such thorough searching before. I asked one of the staff if it is always like that, and she said, "Security is always tight in Saipan." Indeed.

We felt a lot better, though, when the Northwest Airlines counter lady gave us each a $5 gift certificate for use in the airport snack shop because we checked in online. We got $10 worth of snacks free. That's a very nice parting gift!

On board, the flight attendants handed out these cookies to the left. If you click on the picture to make it bigger, and you look carefully at the top, you can see my name. Why did they go through all that trouble to personalize my cookies? :)

Overall, the trip was okay. It was relaxing and enjoyable. If you want an active vacation, though, don't go to Saipan. There's not that much to do besides relax.

Rain in Paradise?

While the trip was nice, we weren't without occasional rainstorms, such as this one around breakfast time one day in Saipan. Still a nice view, though.

Saipan Trip - Day 3

On this day, we woke up to partly cloudy but beautiful skies. To the left is a picture of the villa grounds - so pristine and beautiful.

We continued to do what had become routine: we went to eat a buffet breakfast at 7:30 AM. After that, we went back, dressed in our swimming gear, and once again went to the beach for some snorkeling and swimming. We hadn't reserved a Nature Beach BBQ lunch that time, but around noon the grill was going and the crowds were coming. So my wife asked me to ask if there was enough for us as well. Luckily, there was. One good thing about the Mariana Resort and Spa is that the staff was friendly.

Well, maybe too friendly. There were two Japanese girls there that had lived in the U.S. for a while. They chatted with the local guys manning the barbeque grill, and the staff responded by going into the sea with the girls and swimming (and flirting) with them. That's life, huh?

Anyway, we swam a bit more after lunch. While snorkeling, we came upon this fish, in the picture to the left. Can you see the fish? You might have to click on it and see it close up. Just another of the many, many fish we came across off of the Saipan coast. Amazing. We saw everything except sea turtles (my wife said she saw on the Internet that Tinian, just south of Saipan, is the place to go for finding turtles). That was some of the best snorkeling we've ever done.

That afternoon, we went once again to the spa and enjoyed it one last time. We had a frugal night: a Cup Noodle and instant yakisoba night in the hotel room. We watched TV and relaxed. This was the core of our Saipan trip: relaxation. When we travel, we usually are running around all day seeing the sights. It was nice to take it easy for a change.

Saipan Trip - Day 2

On Friday, we woke up and ate a buffet breakfast at a restaurant with an ocean view. The breakfast was okay, but not worth the $18 price tag they put on it. (Luckily we had the Lady's Plan.) After breakfast, we headed down to the beach for some snorkeling.

At first sight, the beach looked disappointing. There wasn't much sand at the beach; the coast was very rocky there. We had to slowly climb our way into the water, so that we wouldn't fall and break our heads open. However, once we made it in, we could see immediately that it was worth it. Take a look at this picture:

My wife and I had been snorkeling before in Hawaii and the Maldives, but we don't remember ever seeing as many fish in one place as we did in Saipan. There were schools everywhere, even close to the coast where the water was only a few centimeters deep. We spent hours swimming and looking at the various fish.

Here I am with a few of the friends I made while snorkeling.

We snorkeled for the rest of the morning. At lunchtime, we ate a "Nature Beach BBQ" meal - just chicken, pork chops, weiners, a potato, a kabob with onions, scallops, and a rice ball, all barbequed. It was good, though, and we enjoyed the ocean view while eating.

After that, we did some more snorkeling, then headed back up the hill to go back to Mandi Asian Spa.

This is a shot of the jacuzzi. Immediately to the right is the wading pool, which was not too cold. You can see the ocean view in the background.

My wife loved the mist sauna there; she literally spent hours in that thing during our stay. I tried to go in there with her, but saunas are not my cup of tea. She says that sweating makes her feel good. But me, I don't need a sauna to sweat, and in Saipan, I was sweating enough. And when I sweat, I don't feel good. So that didn't work.

That night, we thought about eating at the restaurant at the resort where we were staying. One quick look at the menu changed our minds; the prices were too high! It was about $50 a meal per person. So we took the free shuttle to the DFS Galleria in Garapan, which is basically Saipan's downtown. We ate at - of all places - Capricciosa! If you don't live in Japan, Capricciosa is an Italian restaurant chain here, a bit similar to Olive Garden. Capricciosa must get a lot of business from all the Japanese tourists that visit Saipan. (They certainly got ours!)

Once we were full on pasta, we went to the DFS Galleria to look around. We didn't buy anything (not at those prices), but I did get a good picture of the world-famous (?) Saipan-da!

This memory will remain with me forever.

Chillin' In the Villa

Here I am, enjoying the living room part of the Saipan vacation villa.

A view of the villa from the outside. A bit run down, but not too bad.

Saipan Trip - Day 1

On Thursday my wife and I went to Saipan for a three-night stay. The flight was free, as we had saved up enough miles through Northwest Airlines to go there. But I was wondering if this trip would be anything like the trip we took a few years ago to Guam, when we felt like we never left Japan. The conclusion: it wasn't bad in that respect, but probably because there weren't as many tourists around as we had expected.

After leaving the small, old airport, our first impression of Saipan - other than the old concrete Japanese WWII military bunkers just outside the airport grounds - was that the buildings and houses seemed run down. A lot of buildings hadn't been painted in years, and some looked like they needed repairing. It looked more like what we saw in Malaysia during our honeymoon. The driver of the van we were in quickly drove past all of that, and we were on the other end of the island in a short 20 or 30 minutes, at our hotel: the Mariana Resort and Spa.

At first glance, the resort also looked run down, if the front entrance was any indication. Things looked better once we made it to the Center House. We checked in (with explanations given in Japanese), then a busboy in a golf cart kindly took us to a villa: a small cottage that would be our hotel room for the weekend. We didn't spend much time there, though. We unpacked a bit, then headed over to the spa area, called Mandi Asian Spa.

The spa was part of a package called the Lady's Plan (their spelling, not mine!). For $65 each, you can get unlimited usage of the spa area for up to 7 days, plus free buffet breakfast every morning. I was able to get a Lady's Plan, too, because I was with a lady.

The spa was nice. They have a jacuzzi, a wading pool, a flower bath, a warm reclining pool with a great ocean view overlooking the cliff that the resort sat on, and several massage rooms. That night my wife and I had a "cream bath" massage, where they put a bunch of scented cream stuff in our hair while massaging our head, neck, shoulders and arms. It was a good massage, but they made us sit upright on bamboo stools - quite uncomfortable, if you ask us.

The villa was a bit run down on the outside and in need of painting, but inside it was good. The bed was situated on a loft above the ground floor, and there was a nice stand-in shower as well as a bath for Japanese tourists. The room came with slippers, robe, toothbrush and toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, razor and lotion. There was also a hot water heater for tea (although we used it for instant noodles that first night, to save money). There was also a refrigerator with drinks and cola, but if we wanted to drink a can, it would cost at least $3! Needless to say, we didn't touch them at all during our trip.