Reflections on Japan

Twelve hours and thirty five minutes of flying later, we are back home in the UK. It is a little strange for me to call the UK home, since technically Australia should still be my home. Despite that, I still feel more comfortable and relaxed here in the UK than I do anywhere else in the world.

Funny how things like that turn out.

So anyway, thus ends my journey to Japan. My overall impressions? Well, that's a very interesting question, especially when you start digging a little deeper.

So I'll break it up into some categories:

Architecture

I'm not sure where Japan went wrong with buildings. I'm certainly no expert on matters relating to construction and building design, but Japan seems to abandoned any sense of aesthetics in architecture. The older (pre-1900s) buildings were and still are, beautiful to my eyes. Everything else looks, well, cheap and shoddy to be honest. Most cities have a slapped together feel, stemming from drab looking concrete buildings dominating everything. Some people have tried to make their homes prettier by putting up brick wallpaper on the outside of their houses, but as you can expect, it simply doesn't work.

All said, not a huge fan of the general look and feel of modern Japanese buildings.

People

Now here is an area where Japan meets and exceeds expectations. Most people are by and large, the most friendly, helpful and nice people you are likely to meet anywhere on the planet. There are the odd exceptions, nearly all very angry seeming middle aged men, who are the exceptions to the rule, but they are by far in the minority.

Love the people.

Food

I get the feeling that Japanese people love Japanese food. I can understand why too. The variety can be tremendous and the quality is usually excellent. From the Japanese banquets we had at the hotels to the 650 yen (£3.25) meals from quaint little restaurants, everything is prepared with the look as well as the taste in mind. If you don't like fish or rice you will be severely limited in what you can eat, but assuming you don't mind these ingredients, you won't be disappointed.

Big fan of the food.

Transport

I've covered this, so you know my views, but I left out some crucial information. The intercity travel is world leading, no doubts there. However the infamous peak hour press on Tokyo is absolutely dire beyond belief. "Packed in like sardines" doesn't do it justice, since I'm sure sardines have more wriggle room than the average commuter. For me, standing at 6 foot tall, it was less than pleasant, but for Julie it was a bit of a nightmare.

Off-peak and intercity travel is brilliant, just don't jump on a subway at 8:30am and expect to be able to breathe.

Language

I've been studying Japanese seriously for 18 months or so now. With my level of skill I was able to get my point across at nearly all times, even if it does involve some pointing, waving and confused looks. Things get complicated since there are varying levels of polite speech in Japan and since I've been taught mostly "polite" form, it was annoying to discover that people nearly always used "casual" form. The times they didn't use "casual" form was when they were using an extra polite form used when serving customers. Needless to say my greatest level of success came from using phrases and words from anime than the ones learnt in class. D'oh!

For anyone without Japanese language skills, I'd highly recommend not getting off the main tourist route where most staff are comfortable with English. None of the hotels we stayed at outside of a major city had any command of English.

The huge barrier is the Japanese kanji, which meant that even someone like myself who has studied Japanese still couldn't read more than the most basic signs. Descriptions or maps? No chance! Maybe next year I'll know enough...

Overall

On the whole I really enjoyed the trip. Great food and great people meant we had a great time!

Oh, the figure on the right? That's Mikuru from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a deservedly popular Japanese anime show. I picked her and Haruhi up while in Akihabara.

I really do love Japan :)

Homeward Bound

We are back in Tokyo now, the very last installment before flying home.

To finish up our tour we first popped over to Harajuku to see what this "youth fashion" stuff was about. I know I'm not really "youth" any more, but Julie is still "youth" sized, so what the hell. The famed alley/street with all the young people's clothes (get off my lawn I say!!) was great purely from entertainment standpoint. I spotted a girl with so much metal jewelry around her mouth I could have mistaken her for a James Bond villain (hint). God forbid she try to get through an airport metal detector. On the clothes side of things, they ranged from fairly standard Japanese fashion to what can only really be described as cosplay. As I said, entertaining!

A short way from the street-o-weird, Julie bought a nice top in a store called "Brownie Bee". Apparently a lot of the clothes only come in one size, which happens to fit Julie really well. Not sure what larger women are supposed to do - probably stay away from Harajuku would be my guess.

Still undaunted, we took the train one stop over to Shibuya for further shopping craziness. After getting hopelessly lost trying to get out of the damn station, we eventually found our way outside through more luck than skill. After walking around a while we found a building called "Shibuya 109" which had signs proclaiming to have 109 restaurants inside. We thought this a little odd and popped in for a look. Well, I discovered that to the hip and fashionable people in Shibuya, restaurant actually means "women's clothing stores". Must be some sort of code or such.

Anyway, inside there are a zillion (yes, I counted) levels of boutique clothing stores centred around a never ending escalator. The styles here were once again varied, but sadly we didn't find anything international enough to capture Julie's heart. Not through lack of trying I might add.

So thus wraps up our little journey. The next task it is get to the airport and take a flight home. It has been a fun trip with lots of ups (parfait) and downs (rain) along the way.

See you in the UK!

Nikko Day 2 - Communing with Nature(?)

The second day of Nikko was all about the natural stuff.

To kick off the day, we took a bus up the windiest mountain road imaginable. I mean seriously, switchbacks are nice and all, but this was taking things to an extreme. Once at the top we trekked a short distance to Kegan Falls (pictured right). The falls are quite pretty, but also somewhat of a tourist trap. You can't walk directly to the falls, or around the base, the best you can do is cough up 530 yen to take an elevator (yes, an elevator!) 100 metres down to the large concrete viewing platform provided.

Communing with nature it was not. It was very pretty though and I managed to take a few nice shots before pushing our way through the masses of uninterested school kids back to the elevator for the reverse journey.

After this we decided that packaged tourist spots really aren't for us. So we promptly hiked up the nearest mountain to get away from it all. A fairly short hike, 1.7 km, but quite steep and thoroughly enjoyable. The view from the top was nice, but far nicer was the lack of crowds, shops or toll gates :)

After the hike back down (oddly, a lot quicker than the upward journey) we took the bus back down the insane winding road to the Nikko Botanical Gardens, which were a real delight. More forest than gardens, we walked all around and took in as many of the 2,500 different plants they had on show as we could. We even got to see another waterfall - no elevators this time.

At this point we were pretty buggered, so decided to head back to the hotel, tired but happily nature communed out. We are returning to Tokyo next, for one last day of shopping before flying home. Awwww...

Tips on Japan - Special Guest Blog from Julie 2

We are nearing the end of our adventures in Japan and I thought I would give you some travel tips before you book your own holiday. This is not stuff like don’t forget to change some money into Yen, this is the real stuff!

1. Be prepared to be a celebrity – every shop or hotel you walk into, you will have a number of people greet you and then thank you each time you leave. I have also had a lot of people approach us who want to practice their English. I had a young boy come up to me today and say “hello”. He told me his name, so I told him my name and asked him “how are you?” I think I had reached the extent of his English skills as he quickly ran back to his friends.
2. It appears that Japanese school children are rarely at school – each tourist attraction we have been to, somehow there is always numerous school excursions there at the same time.
3. Go with the slippers – for most of the trip Matt and I have been on and off with our shoes as it is customary to remove your shoes for dinner or in your Japanese room, etc. So, finally we have come to the realisation that even though we may not be fashionable, the hotel slippers are in fact useful for those times you have to keep removing your shoes!
4. Don’t forget to grow shorter – Matt has now gotten into the habit of ducking every time he walks through the door way. It is fine for me, I’m already short, but here somehow I am a large in a Yukata!!
5. How to wear a Yukata – around the hotel the Japanese tourists look very comfortable in their Yukatas, so I figured I would try on the cute pink one the hotel supplied me. The trick is to wrap in around you tight enough so it isn’t baggy and then tie the bow around your waist. You may not be able to walk very easily, but that’s why you have to learn the quick step.
6. Teriyaki chicken is not Japanese food – we went to a Korean/Japanese restaurant for lunch and they had the closest match for the Teriyaki chicken and rice with miso soup which is what I always order when we go out for Japanese. Do you think I could get this in the rest of the country!!! No, Teriyaki chicken is nowhere to be found!
7. Every meal is Japanized – just take any meal, add rice and miso soup and it is now Japanese! Although I love rice, I have now had enough rice to last me for a long while!
8. Everything must have a cute factor – as an example, we had lunch at a café in Nikko and when our food was brought out, they were on very cute Bunny plates. I think there is a cute scale where everything must pass before it can be sold or presented in Japan.
9. Real tourist attractions – if there is not a souvenir shop or ten, then it is not a real tourist attraction.
10. Shrines or Temples – the answer is both and a lot of them! Just enjoy them and take the opportunity to pray to one of the 7 Gods, rub the statues for wealth or health and don’t forget to pick up your bell for longevity and your cat for good luck and good fortune at one of the above mentioned souvenir stores.

So there are my top 10 tips about being a foreigner in Japan!

Nikko Day 1 - Of Trains, Temples and Shrines

Today we travelled from Matsushima to Nikko by train. Most of our travel so far has been by train and it really has been an excellent experience all said. Trains are there when they are supposed to be, leave when they are scheduled to and arrive exactly at the time described on the ticket. Exactly... as in down to the precise minute. It is really rather amazing and turns planning your train travel into an exact science.

Our shortest time between transfers of Shinkansen (bullet trains) has been 12 minutes, which when you take into account it is a 2 hour journey beforehand, is not something you would normally risk. However we arrived exactly on time, changed platform and found our train within 5 minutes. Leaving us 7 minutes to relax before the new train left at the precise time it was scheduled to.

You know, a person could get used to that sort of thing. Mind you, thinking back to the last time I saw the Jubilee line with “Stanmore - 1 minute” for over 15 minutes, it is better I keep my expectations low.

So once we arrived in Nikko (exactly on time) we dropped our bags off at the hotel. This hotel is rather interestingly named “Senhime Monogatari” or “Thousand Princess Stories”. Not sure if I’m reading that wrong or not...

Anyway! We popped over the road (quite literally) to the “Nikko Sennai” or more colloquially, Nikko shrine and temple area, which is nestled in Nikko National Park. While it is a little crowded with screaming school kids and tired tourists, it is absolutely worth the visit. Each of the main temples and shrines have their own architecture and feel to them. I took a fair number of photos here as a result. As usual, I’ve created a photo set that you can view here.

Tomorrow we are doing Lake Chuzenji, Kegon Falls, Chanokidaira Plateau and (time pending) Ryuzu Falls. Assuming we don’t get lost and get eaten by a bear, it should be a fantastic day.

Matsushima Part 2 - Everything Else

Matsushima is one of Japan's 3 top scenic places to visit and it is easy to understand why. Even though it was a little hazy on the day we visited, each of the islands in the bay are quite beautiful and it can be a lovely place to walk around.

That said, the busy main street is best avoided, because Matsushima is best enjoyed as far from the cars, shops and souvenir stores as possible.

We started with our tour around the islands (thus the seagull experience), but we also saw a variety of temples and even walked across a 252 metre long foot-bridge for a lovely stroll through one of the larger islands.

Oh, and the hotel we stayed at "Hotel Taikanso" was one of the very best yet. The view from our window was spectacular, the room was great and the meal was as delicious as I've become accustomed to... Going to be hard to go back to normal food soon!

The photoset is here.

We are in Nikko now for 2 days before heading back to Tokyo. Stay tuned for news on our latest exploits!

Matsushima Part 1 - The Birds!

I'll tell you all about how groovy Matsushima is in another post. However what I really had to mention were the amazing seagulls we saw on our cruise around the islands.

The gulls were obviously used to having people feed them - further encouraged by the people operating the boat as they sell seagull friendly snacks specifically for this. Watching the birds swoop down and snatch the food from people's fingers was amazing. So amazing I decided to give it a try myself... And since I was feeding them, may as well catch it on the camera.

So, the set-up:

1. Prawn flavoured snacks
2. Hungry seagulls
3. Camera able to take 6 photos per second
4. Person not afraid to loose one or more fingers.

The result - here in this photoset.

Check out the action though:


In all the shots the seagull would be just in frame, food snatched and back out again within 3 shots. So half a second to get in and get back out... Impressive!

Hirosaki, a Historic Town

Hirosaki is a historical (well, parts of it) town with the old castle as the main attraction.

We had a great time wandering around looking at the castle, gardens, temples and shrines. We also saw old style samuari houses, a very nifty pagoda (see the piccy on the right) and even found a delicious parfait for lunch!

Our dinner that night was Japanese food again, but this time we got a non-fish set! That was quite a nice change, especially for Julie.

All said, an interesting old town and well worth a short stay to experience.

Hakodate and the (Almost) Clear Skies!!!

After Lake Toya we have travelled to Hakodate, which is a coastal city in the south of Hokkaido. The city itself isn't much to look at, but it does have some fun things to do.

First up we trekked to the Goryoku fort which was a stronghold built by the Tokugawa Shogunate, but is now completely flattened. All that remains is the star shaped moat. I nearly got us lost getting there, but thankfully the guide book described a “hideous looking tower” nearby which I was able to use as a navigation beacon. Hurrah for poor aesthetics!

We then took the tram over to the foot of Mt Hakodate and then the ropeway (ropeways are clearly the “in” thing in Japan) to the observation point at the top. I was particularly excited about this since an anime I liked (Noein) was based in Hakodate and featured the observatory and ropeway a number of times. The view from the top was quite nice:


After that we wandered around a bit and took in a number of other sites before collapsing back at the hotel. Tomorrow is Hirosaki, a historical town… I sure hope it has Internet access!

Update: Why yes it does! Hurrah! Also, photos available here.

Lake Toya and Yet More Rain!

Recently we stayed at Lake Toya, which is a large beautiful lake surrounded by national parks. It is all very picturesque, however heavy rain put a stop to any long range exploring. We did take the ferry to the islands at the centre of the lake, where on better days you can take a hiking trail around the island.

The town we stayed in was called “Toya Onsen Town”, which gives you an idea of the sort of facilities on offer. It was a very nice onsen but did not have a huge amount to do otherwise. One highlight of Toya was the fireworks display put on each night by boats on the lake. They travel around the lake and put on the show for the customers in each hotel – our room had a great view of the lake and the associated fireworks.

One thing about Lake Toya is that the rain cleared enough to give me a chance to take one of my favourite shots of the trip:


The photostream from Lake Toya is available here.

Japanese Meals

So after leaving Sapporo for Noboribetsu, we have stayed in Japanese style rooms at each hotel. And with each room comes a Japanese style banquet! As of the time of writing (I’m offline right now, since Internet access has been hard to come by) I’ve had three Japanese dinners, each as varied and delicious as the last.

The food is brought directly to your room at a pre-arranged time. Trays are brought in and placed in front of you on a Japanese style table that you sit cross-legged in front of. Each meal consists of a variety of different plates, bowls, dishes, etc. Some of the dishes I’ve had have ranged from delicately sliced sashimi or grilled fish right through to entire giant hairy crabs. Amongst this is a variety of vegetables I could not even begin to put a name to. They are very nice though... Doesn't it look great??


Julie has been getting the vegetarian version where possible since she doesn’t like any type of seafood. With this there is still an amazing variety of food, such as shitake mushrooms, tofu (hot/cold/fried/steamed/!!!) and tempura vegetables. Anything Julie doesn’t like (e.g. the mushrooms) are quickly and quietly devoured by yours truly. I’m so lucky!

Needless to say, it is all completely delicious. After each I’m just so stuffed, however since everything is so fresh and well prepared, I don’t feel like I’ve just stuffed myself like a pig. My hope to loose any weight while in Japan has gone right out the window since my introduction to these meals.

Itadakimasu!

Noboribetsu - Special Guest Blog from Julie

I asked Matt if I could write this blog post, as I wanted to say how proud of him I am, that he has managed to have entire conversations with people here in Hakkaido (where most people do not know a word of English). It just shows how much he has learnt over the last 18 months and although I have no idea what he is saying to anyone most of the time, they all seem to understand, which is the important part.

Right, so I said I would do the post, so here is a run down on today – Noboribetsu day – town of sulphur – big bears that scared me, but had fun feeding – funny little chair-lift – a hike that wasn't supposed to be a hike - floundering around with no idea what to do in a Japanese room – the hugest meal we have ever eaten – and busy bees making the futon beds...

So, I guess I should explain about some of that. The town of Noboribetsu is an natural hotsprings town (hence the sulphur smell). But first I need to tell you about our bear experience. This town has a bear park. First we had to go up this little chairlift which was about a foot off the ground and shook like nothing else. From there we got the cable cars up the rope-way to the bear park. Travelling up so high we were in complete cloud and mist when we got to the top. The bear park has 160 bears and there was some in enclosures where you could feed them. They actually stood up on their hind legs and waved at you so you would throw them a tasty oat ball. There was also a “human cage” where we went down underneath the enclosure amongst the bears. There was only glass separating us from the bears and I walked backwards only to come up close and personal with a huge bear. Thankfully the layer of glass held!

Our hike started off as a leisurely stroll up to the Hell's Valley (a moon-like landscape with lots of steam from the 80+ degree water underneath it) then we decided to keep walking on to the Oyunuma lake. About an hour and a half later we finally get back to town, starving, as it is already 3pm and we haven’t had lunch.

So we check into the hotel and it is our first Japanese room, so we have no idea if we should take our shoes off and change into slippers, so we muddle our way through with the server directing us to sit down at the table (cross legged) and we had a tea ceremony. For dinner they brought in way too much food – but Matt will do a blog post just on that! – then after they come and clear away all the dishes, they roll out the futons. I was just in awe of the entire experience. Can’t say I have ever seen anything like it!

All the photos for Noboribetsu are now in Flickr.

Sapporo - City of Cakes

Today we flew from Tokyo to Sapporo. A fairly uneventful journey all told... Although I should mention the "Tokyo Monorail" airport train service is not the nicest journey in the universe. I couldn't get the Simpson's "monorail, monorail!" song out of my head the entire journey. I could actually picture the slick salesman telling Tokyo city council that this monorail would be the success that all the others weren't.

Mono... doh!

So once we arrived, we discovered a very different city than Tokyo. A strong American influence meant that the streets are all laid out in a perfect grid and numbered by North/East/South/West. For example, our hotel is on West 5, North 5. If you have ever been to New York it is all very familiar and extremely easily to navigate around.

We did all the standard tourist destinations, we saw Sapporo Clock Tower, the Hokkaido Old Government Building and the Botanical Gardens. However they were far less interesting than the shopping provided here. Simply put, the shopping is quite brilliant! All nicely connected, tons of stores, plenty of variety. This is great, however the real treat is the number of cake shops. Oh, my, God! So many on offer and they all look so damn good.

I bought a strawberry and cream sponge cake that I had fully planned on taking a photo of to show everyone. The thing is though, once I had it out of the box... Well it looked so yummy... So I ate it straight up... 美味しかった！！！ (delicious!!!)

Tomorrow, before we leave for Noboribetsu, we plan to sample one (or two) of the many parfaits available. Stay tuned for our upcoming parfiat taste test!

Kamakura Walking Tour

Today we went off for a walking tour around Kamakura.

Kamakura is about an hour train ride from Tokyo and is famous for its many temples, shrines and general picturesque-ness. Julie and I joined a small group for our tour, just 2 other people plus our guide. We spent most of the day wandering around and seeing the many sites of the city and surrounds.

I would heartily recommend the place to anyone as a very serene and interesting experience.

I would also strong recommend you don't go on a day where it buckets down rain throughout the entire damn day. Puts a bit of a dampener on it really.

That said, we managed to:

1. Pray at a Buddhist shrine
2. Pray at a Shinto shrine
3. Buy good fortune tokens from both shrines
4. Visit a lot of souvenir shops
5. See a lot of wonderful (if somewhat wet) Japanese gardens
6. Purchase some delicious snacks!

All said, a fun day in the rain was had by all.

Mt Fuji and the Clouds

OK, so the weather was not all that kind to us.

Today was our Mt Fuji and Hakone tour. I can vouch for Mt Fuji, but I'm not sure I could tell if Hakone was the real deal through all the fog, rain and clouds. You can't win them all :)

We still had a fun day roaming about on our motor coach facilitated tour. We started the day being picked up at the hotel, then on to a bus depot, then shortly thereafter we were on our to Mt Fuji!

Hurrah!

There was a fair bit of cloud, which meant we didn't get a very clear view of the mountain, but when it did poke through, it was certainly an impressive site:


We were driven to the 5th stage up the mountain, some 2100 meters up. Unfortunately this landed us smack bang in the middle of the clouds most of the time, so the photos were pretty poor. The more spectacular aspect was that there was an amazing array of tourist shops crammed so far up a mountain. Not to mention they also squeezed in a shrine. None too shabby.

After Mt Fuji, we went on to Hakone, which I am told is very beautiful. I'll have to come back again to verify this for myself, as the rain/fog/clouds obscured much of the view. Always good to leave something to come back to though!

Tomorrow is our Kamakura walk. I'll be leaving an offering to the sky gods for fairer weather.

日本... at last!

So, Tokyo has a lot of people.

Actually, it isn't that it has a lot of people per se, rather they all seem to want to be in the same place at the same time. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Today is day 1 (proper) of our Japan adventure!!!

To celebrate, I dragged Julie around Akihabara (秋葉原) for 4 hours. I didn't say it was a celebration for everyone... Anyway, a trip to Japan's "Electric Town" (電気街) was a fun way to start to our trip.

As a side note, Akihabara actually uses the kanji for "autumn", "leaf" and "field". Yes, it has come a long way from those rural roots to become the home of all things electrical, manga and cosplay.

Which just about sums the place up really.

I'm not sure if there is a regional second-name giving committee, but if there is, I'd like to petition for the name to be "Loud Busy Not-so-cheap and Full-of-perverts Town". Not quite as snappy, but I believe the truth will set you free.

Speaking of weirdos, we had our first real encounter with one in the morning. We were approached by a polite young Japanese man, whom I shall name Otaku, and asked to take a photo of him with the main street as a background. Not too unusual, since I think most people can see my photographic talent radiating from me (never mind he asked Julie first). However after the photo was taken, Julie was informed that she was indeed a very beautiful lady. Now, I'm inclined to agree with him, but it isn't something you get solemnly told very often (or at all, if you are me.... *sniff*). After reinforcing his views a number of times he asked to take some photos of Julie and was finally satiated enough after a couple of shots to leave shortly thereafter.

There you go people, Julie is hot property. I'm thinking of taking out insurance, or checking black the market prices for beautiful women. I guess which one depends on my job prospects when I get back to the UK :)

I'm so going to pay for that...

So! Since we were close, we popped over to Asakusa (浅草) for a quick visit. This is where my many people comment earlier stems from:


Asakusa is a massive market and tourist attraction that just happens to have a temple attached to it. Oh sure, people went to the shrine to pray, but you want to see real fervour in someone's eyes, watch as they hunt for the perfect omiyage (お土産) at one of the many market stalls.

To wrap up our day we went out to dinner with Takako-san (hiya!), a Japanese friend I met in London who returned to Japan after her studies were completed. We went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and had a delicious meal. I'd recommend it if you happen to be in Tokyo - check out their web site for details.

Tomorrow is Mt Fuji and Hakone, which assuming we get decent weather, should be an ideal chance to give the camera a good run!