It's an Exciting World

Steph and I got into Osaka from Chuuk without incident.  We got a wifi hotspot that connected to the phone networks.  We stopped by the JR ticket counter and they got us tickets to Kyoto, which we then found the train for.  It was the express train, but not the high speed train.  We got in a little before we could check in, but the hotel held our bags and took them up to the room when the room was ready.  We went out and got a tasty meal of Ramen, at one of the best places on trip advisor, that our tour guide the next day recommended.  We looked around and decided to walk around the shopping district that night, and found that it was really just a tourist market, and not where the real Kyoto was.

Day 2 we got up early and had a tasty breakfast, and coffee.  We then met up with our guide, who showed us how to get around the city, and how to pay for things, like the busses.  It was very different from the way to pay for things in the US so this was a great thing for the first full day in Kyoto.  We went up into the hills and saw some amazing little temples with Buddha statues.  There were also tiny inns and buildings in traditional Japanese styles.  The area was so picturesque even if most of the buildings were pretty new.  They kept the old styles and made it feel like old Japan.  We then walked through a former Imperial palace that was converted to a Zen temple.  It is also one of the places that has one of the most attractive bamboo forests.  There was a cute road with bamboo made fences on either side of the road going straight through the forest.  We grabbed lunch after that at a cute place that had some cooled noodles with a dipping sauce,  I don’t remember the name of them, but they were tasty.  We went to the Golden Pagoda after that, and it was very pretty.  Unfortunately it wasn’t the original, which was burned down by one of the monks in the 1950’s.  He was a little out of his mind, and his mother and him both eventually committed suicide over the shame of burning down a 600+ old Kyoto landmark.  We headed to a little shop Stephanie had looked up that specializes in Bento boxes.  She got one there, and it happened to be in the touristy market we had been to the other day, and had even been within a block of that shop.  We said goodbye to the guide, and went to the hotel for a bit before dinner.  The guide had set up an amazing dinner for us at a Kaiseki place.  This is much like a farm to table multi course restaurant that one would find in San Francisco, but with a very Japanese style.  

On day 3 we met up with Jeremy after a nice breakfast.  We went to the Imperial Palace which was amazing.  They had so much open space, it was somewhat odd.  They didn’t do furniture, just lots of sitting on the floor.  We went to a few temples, like the Silver Pagoda (not actually silver, just made by the grandson of the guy who made the golden pavilion).  It was much more zen, and had an amazing moss garden.  We then took the Philosopher’s walk, which is a path that goes along a canal near many other temples.  We made it between a third and halfway through the walk before deciding to find a bus to the Gion district.  We walked around there and looked for some Geisha.  We didn’t see any, but we did find the best shaved ice in Kyoto (the shop is actually very hidden, and I was amazed that we found it).  We had a great time there, and went to the little restaurant street across the river afterwards.  We then said our goodbyes to Jeremy, and went back to the hotel for a bit.  We decided on shabu for dinner.  The place we went to was very nice, but I have decided that I prefer American style shabu, with the sesame sauce, and much more spice in the broth.  The food there was still pretty tasty.

Day 4 started with a quick coffee and breakfast, then we went to a temple to get some udon curry, which was a mix of udon noodles and Japanese curry.  The food was great, and we walked up to the temple it was just outside.  That temple was neat, but not that unique.  The really amazing shrine was the next one we went to, Inari shrine.  We walked up the road to the shrine, which was clogged with people and full of little shops selling touristy trinkets.  The shrine itself was the side of a mountain, and made of a path covered by thousands of Shinto gates.  these gates led up the entire mountain, and we only missed walking through one section of them.  The walk took over 2 hours at a good pace, and the gates covered nearly the entire path.  This is by far the most unique and amazing thing I’ve seen in Japan.  We then went back toward the train station, and decided to stop by the kitty cafe we saw on the way in.  The cats there were very nice, even if not loving like our kitties.  We then took the train back to the city center.

Day 5 we slept in a lot, then headed to Osaka.  Stephanie wanted to take the high speed train, and eventually we found out how to buy the tickets.  The train was easily 3 times faster than the train we took to Kyoto.  We then had to make our way through the Osaka subway to our hotel.  We made it there, and the room was ready for us.  I was sooooo tired from carrying the scuba gear, but we needed to go find one of the great restaurants that Stephanie had looked up, and it was very much worth it.  We went to the main food district, and found some amazing okonomiaki, which is all sorts of tasty things fried together and covered in sauces.  It was so delicious, and filling that I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat at dinner.  We found a great place for dinner, despite being pretty full, which was a ramen place.  The ramen place had you buy a ticket at the front, so that you could focus on the ramen, which you fill out a form to say exactly how you’d like it, and then you eat it in a cubicle that locks away all other interactions, so that the meal is only about the ramen.  I can’t say if that really matters, but they did make the best ramen I’ve ever had, by a good bit.  We then went to the aquarium, and saw a lot of great creatures and biomes.  They had a huge tank, which the path through the aquarium wound around, with lots of side tanks to display other biomes, one of which was Monterrey.  We got back to the hotel, then got some really nice sleep.

The next day we went through the Osaka Castle, and it was a great tour.  This is the third building on the site, and made wholly as a replica of the second building.  The inside of it is a museum telling about the history of Osaka, focussing on the castle.  The viewing deck from the top was also very nice.  I liked walking the grounds of the castle, and seeing the outside of it more than I did being in the museum.

We then grabbed lunch before grabbing our bags, and got a lunch of Japanese curry, which was delicious.  We then had an uneventful flight back, and Stephanie’s parents were nice enough to pick us up from the airport, despite us getting in early.

Saturday morning Steph and I got up early to head to the airport.  We were heading to Las Vegas to join a large group of people who knew each other in interesting ways.  I drove since it was early, and we got to the airport in plenty of time.  Once we got to Las Vegas It was time for lunch.  We started by meeting up with Kevin and Lindsay, who were having brunch with Andrew and Debby so we could pick up our keys.  We then head up to the room and I got all dressed up.  Steph also had a lovely top, and classy jacket.  We went to the Chihuly glass exhibit at Aria, then we went to a photo gallery nearby.  We then went to the Faberge Egg exhibit at the Bellagio and noticed some silly animatronic goats that had been placed for Chinese New Year.  There was a large amount of decorations everywhere for Chinese New Year, and almost nothing for Valentines.

We decided to head over to the Mandarin Oriental a little early for High Tea.  It was a very nice experience, and the view was spectacular.  It was the perfect thing for a Valentines day.  After that we spent a little time with the others over a delicious dinner before heading to the LOVE show by Cirque du Soleil.  It was quite good, and had a ton of references to British history, the Beatles lyrics, and greater history.   There were so many I’m sure I missed a good many, but I did pick up a number that the others didn’t.  I really enjoyed the show.

We got back to Aria and drank a bit in the lobby bar, where it was possible to hear each other.  We had some great conversation and called it pretty early for Vegas.

The next day we got a delicious brunch at the Venetian, and then went back to the Aria where we hung out a bit.  We went to the hot tub with Debby and Andrew, after which we went to hang out with Alana and Haru.  We chatted with them for hours, and even stayed past check out.  We managed to get back into the room, then headed out to the airport for the flight home.

We took a night in Belize city and had dinner at the Best Western there since everything was closed on Sundays.  The food wasn’t that great but the little bed and breakfast we stayed at, D’Nest Inn, was really nice.  The furniture was old but decent, and the patio next to the river was nice.  We played with all the catfish that were in the river.  Supposedly there were manatees living in the river, but they didn’t come by while we were there.  We caught a flight to San Pedro out of the international airport, and the pilot had to stop by the Belize City Municipal Airport, which was the shortest flight I’ve ever been on.

The island of Ambergris Caye was nice, and the City of San Pedro was cute.  I was surprised that there wasn’t more of a city center, but that made for many more places that you could find restaurants.  The nicest place we found was a breakfast and lunch place called Mesa Cafe.  It was run by an adorable Australian couple, and we had a great time chatting with them and eating their delicious food.  The Mesa Cafe was also one of the few places that we found with a decent vegetarian selection.

We were staying at the resort called Ramon’s Village.  The place was very nice, and they upgraded us to one of the nicest rooms.  We had a wonderful time at the resort, and the breakfasts were delicious.  There was a delicious pastry called fry jacks, which we had with most breakfasts, and I enjoyed opening them up and stuffing them with the omelettes.  We didn’t spend much time on the beach, as I was avoiding getting burned at all costs, but we did spend a good bit of time in the shaded beach chairs.  We also got a couples massage, which worked great for me, but they didn’t go deep enough for Steph.

Out of all the adventures at Caves Branch this one was the most lack-luster.  The hike was pretty tough, with it being steep and muddy.  We made decent time, with only a few stops, and got to the rim of the sink hole.  I was the first one to get strapped in, and I got a good 5-10 minutes to look down into the hole from half hanging off the edge before they had Steph ready to go.  It was a great view of a fascinating cave system.  I wish we had time to go through the caves a bit more, although we were a little caved out at this point.  Steph and I were followed by two couples and a group of two guys that were on the hike with us.  A large group of people were behind them, but luckily we were in a separate group and could hike out without waiting.  The lunch was the typical tortillas, veggies, cheese, and meat.  The other women were concerned about doing the drop, but everyone enjoyed it when they were done.  The first video is Steph and I doing it, with the other videos being the other people in our group and some interesting things we saw at the bottom of the sink hole.

Steph and I did a day trip to Tikal, getting up at 5:30.  The night before we had been allowed to stay in one of the nicer rooms.  The main thing I liked about it was the standard outlets for power.  The rooms were surprisingly nice, as they could easily sleep 6 people, and had balconies viewing the river.

We had a long drive to Tikal, in Guatamala, with a pass through the border checkpoint and switching cars.  The two people we went with weren’t particularly pleasant, and we were glad that they left us mostly alone.  I got the feeling that Edgar, the guide, didn’t care for them either.  The man of the couple was a know it all who kept trying to tell Edgar about Mayan ruins and what things meant.  Edgar was a good sport about it, but handled it by being quite.  I would much rather have listened to Edgar giving the tour than the other guy, and we did get some great stories from Edgar when the other couple was off exploring on their own.  I was amazed at the temples, but the most amazing construction was the man-made mesa that the entire complex sat on, with water reservoirs in between the mesas.  We got a good number of pictures of the wildlife as well and it was amazing to see the temples, housing, and construction.  I would have liked more time at Tikal just to wander around and explore everything, since the complex was so expansive we had time to just walk through everything before having to leave.

The wildlife around Tikal was amazing, and we got to see toucans, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, a red breasted falcon, turkeys, humming birds, the ‘royal rat’, and a quadimundi.

The food on the way there and back was decent, with the hot chocolate being amazing for breakfast.  I really enjoyed the trip, despite the other couple there.

The third day at Caves Branch we went to the Waterfall Caves, which were by far the most impressive caves based on the activity and the cave formations.  There were also apparently some leftovers of the Mayans, but they didn’t go up to that part of the cave anymore.  We were joined by April and Luke, who had both gone tubing with us and to the ATM caves over the previous two days.  They were a fun couple from NYC, and matched us quite well.

We had a decently long drive to the trail that then went through about 30 minutes of jungle to get to the caves.  The hike was very slippery and muddy, but we got to the caves quickly enough.

We went into the entrance of the cave and got to see lots of bats and spiders sitting there at the entrance.  There were both fruit bats and insect bats at the entrance to the Waterfalls Cave, with the insect bats being the small ones.

The start of the hike was really nice, as the formations were amazing.  I especially liked the overflowing pools formations.  They were beautiful, and I couldn’t get a good enough video of them since the GoPro didn’t do too well in the low light settings.   There was a large crayfish in one of the ponds, and a few fish in the cave as well.  I borrowed an image of the pools, and one video of them is ok.

Getting through the Waterfalls Cave wasn’t as bad as getting through the ATM cave since we were only knee deep for most of the time.  I really enjoyed the hiking through the cave.

Once we got to the waterfalls we had a great time climbing up them.  The climbing wasn’t hard by itself, but some parts were hard due to the amount of water pushing against you.  One of the climbs was particularly bad due to the handholds being directly inside the waterfall.

Going down the waterfalls was fun as well.  The last one was the scariest, as it was the highest jump and the smallest area that you could land in.  You could get seriously hurt if you jumped too short, too far right, or too far left.  Everyone made it down just fine.

After jumping down the waterfalls we had a great lunch.  The guides set up lunch on a big flat rock, that was perfect as a picnic table.  Next to the place we had lunch there was also a larger formation of the cascading pools; about 40 feet wide and 30 feet tall.  I couldn’t get a good video of it, but it was gorgeous.  I felt bad about hiking across it.

After getting back Steph and I cleaned up, then went to play some Hanabi with Luke and April.  We did decently well, with few mistakes, but the cards just weren’t with us enough to have a perfect game.  We did a good bit of table talk but it was all in having fun.