Yearly archives "2015"

Japan – Day 7 – The exchange of sight seeing for skiing

This was our last day of sight seeing the main aim for the day was to catch the 1:16pm shinkansen from Shin-Osaka to Iiyama which goes via Kanazawa. Kanazawa is on the western shore of Japan and the rail trip from Osaka to Kanazawa is apparently a lovely rail trip in winter, although since we were in the worst snow season in years we mightn’t see much snow but at least we’d see some of the Japanese alps.

The rest of the plan for the day was to make our way through Osaka castle. We had low expectations for this and had not budgeted a lot of time, only two hours, which included breakfast. Sadly however it turned out that Osaka castle was actually very impressive. Our understanding of what a castle is is something big, strong, fortified with a mote. This matches Osaka castle which is a mammoth structure built to keep everything out.  This is unlike unlike the imperial palace which appeared to have no great defensive structures aside from a wall. The castle included some huge wooden gates planked with impossibly large sections of trees and enormous stones hauled across the bay. The stones were not consistently enormous like you might see in a castle built with square stones cut from a quarry but huge slabs and small slabs stacked together exquisitely to form a flat impressive mosaic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We sourced a couple of octopus balls for a walking breakfast and also to complete our Osaka food tasting requirements. In total it all took us about 2.5 hours instead of our planned two which was fine until we realised we had to really make a run for it and catch all necessary subway connections to get to Shin-Osaka. This was good fun, running for platforms in stations and lines which we’d only know for a whole one day. It included at one point having to open a closed gate at an unattended set of gates which we couldn’t pass through with the JR-Rail passes (maybe you’re not aware but the JR-Rail pass while giving you unlimited travel on the JR lines only allows so if you go through an attended counter so someone can wave you through). However with only three minutes to spare we made our train, this was lucky as had we missed it, it would’ve meant waiting an extra two hours at Iiyama station waiting for a bus and missing the connection with our friends.

The train journey itself was quite lovely and while the train does have power points on the bulkhead seats ours didn’t. This was a little concerning as one of the great things about the Japanese fast trains is you can plan while sitting in relative comfort. However the view out the window was rewarding and even if you really felt inclined to use the internet on your phone, you go through so many tunnels that the internet only intermittently works.

We made a brief stop in Kanazawa where we waited for a little over an hour for the next shinkansen to Iiyama. Tim opted to eat a large bowl of soba noodles as in Kyoto/ Tokyo meal sizes of large in fast food places was reasonable, however large in Kanazawa apparently large meant 3-4 people according to the cheff, so we resized to two mediums. We believe he however left the large as a test to see wether outsiders are as mad as they say. Challenge accepted and punished, but the late night suggestion by our friends for more soba noodles was so well recieved.

From Kanazawa to Iiyama was on the faster and quieter Hakutaka shinkansen, this was quick and we met our friends beforing bus-ing it to Nozawa-Onsen. The Iiyama shikansen station was very new and when we finished skiing (one week from now) quite a lot of people were bus-ing it to Nagano instead of Iiyama to catch a train. This might’ve been because they booked things prior or didn’t know. However you can definitely use the JR-Rail pass to get to Iiyama station from either Tokyo or Kanazawa. Bus timetable is here.

That placed us in our most expensive but definitely best accomodation for the trip at Address Nozawa. I couldn’t recommend a place more as they have lovely roomy suites for couples and provide breakfast.

Time for Soba noodles again and some skiing tomorrow……

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. – For the carpenters out there check out the impossible dovetail and sawtooth joint used in the castle supports. We can’t understand how you put that together.

 

 

 

Japan – Day 6 – Finalising Kyoto and our hotel bookings

As mentioned earlier we had recently discovered that we actually did not have a hotel booking for our fourth night in Kyoto and came to the conclusions that this was indeed intentional. The intention being that we would make a decision about how long our stay in Kyoto would be as it wasn’t clear whether we should spend a full four nights there or just three. As it turned out we had forgotten this and only realised on our second last night. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately for us at this point there weren’t any further reservations available at the Capsule Ryokan hotel. This forced us to make a proper decision (fortunate) and for which we decided that we would shorten our stay in Kyoto and spend a night in Osaka. Why Osaka, well it’s a full 14 minutes away on the Shinkansen which makes it a quick trip as it’s a large city with much fresh seafood eating to be had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided that we would be best spending the morning in Kyoto and then head to Osaka in the afternoon. This gave us enough time to see the markets in Kyoto, Toji Temple as well as the Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine, the best thing to do in Kyoto apparently. We find Trip advisor a little spurious, as to the eye, most of these temples and shrines are wonderful, but it would be hard to say one is better than another, but Tripadvisor can differentiate. This is we believe because at some point, like gravity clinging to particles of dust forming a planet, a user (possibly bogus) give a location a great review, then as someone reads it and sees that it’s great, goes to the location and then because it’s apparently great has a great time and reports back that it’s great. This progression continues endlessly until all of a sudden one shrine for no reason is much more interesting than another. We think the best thing to do would actually be to read up on some particular facet of Japanese culture which you most liked/ found interesting/ connected with, then based on that see what you like. The problem with trying to see everything is that it becomes one continuous blur of activity without much connection. While there is nothing wrong with this it does tend to remove the level of awe and make the trip more like a school excursion. However if you holiday wish is just to name drop later about places you’ve been then trip advisor the crap out of the place and make sure you get bus passes or rent a bike and avoid spending more than an hour at each location as there are a lot of them. Rant complete.

 

Heading from the hotel to the station we put our bags into a locker (the large 600 Yen locker which can hold two 40 litre backpacks) and headed for the Nishiki Markets. To get to the Nishiki Market you need to catch the 4, 5, 17 or 205 bus from the Kyoto station and then hop off at Shijo Kawaramachi bus stop (again thanks to the Capsule Ryokan for this information). The shopping district you arrive in at the bus station is massive but very western, walking north from Shijio street you will find a narrow street which is full of food stalls and ‘Japanese edibles’ as Google describes. This is the Nishiki Markets (to the best of our understanding) and runs for about a kilometre or so (I’ve put in a link to Street view here so you can actually see the street with a reference to it’s location, to enter go to here walk north and then left into the old Nishiki markets).

We wandered through the Nishiki Markets and looked at the food (cooked, prepared for consumption or fresh for you to cook later) and knives, which seem to be the main things as well as the occasional sochu or sake seller. We couldn’t bring ourselves to buy a knife which seems to be the thing to do, they look sharp but we have a great set of global knives at home so it needed to be something seriously special to warrant it. After a bit of eating and some coffee from a street vendor we headed back to Kyoto station on the 205 bus. This bus also took us conveniently fairly close to the Toji temple as it’s last stop and the bus driver was a lovely fellow who helped direct us in the right direction as we were the only people on the bus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toji temple was another peaceful place and we spent about an hour walking through the grounds enjoying what appeared to be the last of the autumn leaves, the gardens and some koi swimming in the water. The place was largely un-touristed which was great and made for a more individual experience unlike Kiyomizo the previous day. The two structures housing some Buddhist artefacts were also interesting and the sheer size of the wooden beams supporting the building was quite amazing. Since we’ve travelled in Japan we haven’t seen enormous trees so where these came from is something to ponder.

Finishing up at the Toji temple and heading back to Kyoto station was wear we made our mistake, don’t take your luggage out before going to Fushimi Inari, there are no lockers at the station where the shrine is so if you take your bags out and intend to leave them there you’ll be doing the same as us and taking the walk through the Torii with your backpacks. Not only this but it’s not easy to get to Osaka on the line that takes you to Fushimi Inari station and your are best to return to Kyoto station (as we realised when reading the station map for Kyoto/ Nara that the Fushimi Inari station). Therefore, just leave your bags in Kyoto station if you’re doing the same as us and pick them up on the way back as you head toward either Shin-Osaka on the Shikansen or Osaka station if on a JR line.

Fushimi Inari – trip advisors top thing to do in Kyoto-Nara area. Notable as commented by many users as ‘orange’. What we can tell you in with large backpacks and crowds of thousands this is not an entirely peaceful experience, but we can certainly say that it’s a lovely shrine and more interactive than others. One advantage of backpacks if that when you stop it’s hard for people to get past and thus you can take a photo of a relatively empty set of Torii. After a walk through the Torii we headed back to Kyoto station and then to Shin-Osaka, then the metro to hotel Mystays in Osaka.

The Osaka metro while relatively easy to navigate at 4pm in the afternoon would be a nightmare with backpacks in peak hour (apparently 5-7pm). Walking to our hotel we noticed several posters indicating Christmas lights as well as a boutique craft beer house, if we incorporated that, sushi and a trip to the Osaka sky deck we’d have a packed evening. Unloading the packs in the hotel we headed straight for the main eating street of an unknown name but in Botonbori in Osaka. We initially wanted to go to a crab place as it seemed to be popular but it turned out that its line was about 50 strong and waiting that amount of time seemed irresponsible to our stomachs. Instead we wandered a little further down to Daiki Suisan sushi which had a sizeable line of what looked like non-tourists but not quite hours worth of waiting. It wasn’t quite the life changing sushi we were after but it was definitely fresh and not too pricey. After about thirteen plates we headed for christmas lights and the skytower. The lights were quite lovely and walking together through another country in Christmas observing their sense of festivism was great, our only issue was that when we decided it was about time to head for the sky tower we located the wrong building, then when working out where the building really was it was too late to enter (closes at 10pm) and we headed back to Mystays with a brief drop in at the craft beer cafe Harenohi, they only have American style beers which were nice but the gyoza was the winner … Maybe next time we’ll find a craft beer place in Japan that brews Japanese craft beers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That almost brought our Japanese touring to a close, the next day would be a brief stop at Osaka castle and then onward to Nozawa-Onsen

 

 

Japan – Kyoto Day Two of the Fifth Season

Waking up on day two in the fifth season made us realise something extremely important. That was that we had actually not booked four nights in Kyoto, but only three, this was a bit of a revelation. Luckily enough this was actually because of a plan that we had but had forgotten about, which was, book three nights in Kyoto and book a fourth closer to the date or go to Osaka for one night. This was because we were unsure of whether Kyoto would have enough to do for four nights (of course there is plenty to do, some people even live here) given that we only had a relatively short time to spend in Japan travelling before skiing on grass and dirt we had to make the most of our time. This was a problem that could be fixed with money and it was once Expedia had accepted our room in Osaka with a small double bed (more on that later).

Our plan for the day was largely plagiarised from the Capsule Ryokan’s booklet. We haven’t handed over the whole thing – if you’re really curious head for the Capsule Ryokan as it’s a great place to stay.

Our first stop was breakfast, and that was straight to the cheap as Nakau Shichijoshinmachi for breakfast.

Next stop was to catch toe 205 bus straight from the breakfast place to Kinkaku-ji which was a golden leaf’d temple (The Golden Pavilian). This was a very nice place, apparently so nice that the Shogun at the time decided he’d make it his, it is a very short walk through the temp and unless you wished to spend some quality time basking in the glow it’ll only take a few minutes as it did with us. Interestingly enough the temple was rebuilt in 1950 as it has burnt down by a monk who suffered a mental breakdown.

We had long been interested in seeing a rock garden as they’re a curious thing and they genuinely look serene, maybe they could impart some Zen on us, is that even possible? To get from Kinkaku-ji we walked about 15 minutes to Ryoanji (Temple of the dragon at peace) to see the tigress and her cub crossing a river. The walk was quite nice and we stopped by a Japanese wood block art shop Gallery Gado which had some really nice pieces, looks nice on the website as well if you can read Japanese. However on a trip donning backpacks purchasing a piece of art seems fraught with complications so we decided it best to leave it for purchase another time in the future remotely. After that we managed to make our way into the temple and stopped off for a look at the last of Autumn (the fifth season) in their beautiful garden pond. According to the brochure that was kindly given to us at the entrance the pond was made in the late twelfth century. And until recent years many mandarin ducks were seen on the pond hence why the temple was used to be known as the temple of mandarin ducks. Look like the ducks haven’t visited this place for a while… Surprisingly there were a lot of quite pretty woodpeckers and silver eye’d finches skittering about throughout the garden. The gardens are very nice, if it was Autum and not the fifth season this would’ve be spectacular. We had to move on, seeing everything in such a short time leaves few moments for idle thought and genuine appreciation of beauty.  Thus we headed off to the UNESCO heritage listed Zen rock garden. This famous garden was created around 1500 by a highly respected Zen monk. It appears as a rectangular (25 meters to 10 meters) and is completely different from the gardens of the noble people of Middle Ages. No trees, just 15 rocks and gravel. Now I must say at this point, don’t call us heathens, but I think we failed to appreciate the garden. Shuffled through the temple hustling with other tourists eagerly snapping away while shuffling along the viewing bench left not even the slightest Zen moment (is that even a thing) to be had. Instead it was a rather lovely raked garden with some nice moss covered rocks. We are quite sure that there is more to it than this, I’m sure with the correct explanation (maybe a guide would be a good idea) you would be able to see the tigress and her cub crossing the river. For future analysis we did manage to take a lovely panorama of the garden, you can download it, plug it into the TV and then tell us what it means.

From the temple of the peaceful dragon, we marched ever onward. We caught the bus toward the Imperial Palace which, we were going to skip, but then we figured maybe we’d regret this later in life when we could old manage a few steps from the bathroom. Upon arrival in the huge gardens you’re greeted with the lovely sight of a walled enclave and a large gravel road, in the fifth season gardens while green look like they’d prefer to be out of sight but otherwise its nice. We made our way to the entrace of the enclave only to see people going through if they had white papers. Upon further investigation we realised that you must be part of an organised tour to enter the Imperial Palace. Not only this but when they suggest you turn up at 1:40pm for a 2:00pm tour they’re neglecting to tell you that, there is only a 2:00pm tour. So if you want to go to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, turn up at 1:40pm and if you miss it, you’ll have to try again another day. This meant that for us, we may regret that moment but there was simply nothing for it but to be more organised next time and forget about the incident.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop was Kiyomizu. This was another one of Kyotos famous temples. This particular one has a large veranda where people had jumped from it and if they lived they would be granted a wish. Given that it’s a 13 meter drop onto a stone pavement and some terraces I am not surprised that only 14.4% (courtesy of the Wikipedia) of them survived. While not the top attraction in Kyoto area or quite away down the spurious trip advisor ‘top things of Kyoto’ list this was a lovely place and the sheer size/ grandeur of the structure can be seen well in the fifth season. This also seemed to be incredibly popular with the local residents (or at least Japanese) who were hiring/ wearing their best kimonos as couples, singles, girls together or families all together. This looked like good fun, although I believe dressing up in formal Japanese wear when you’re a westerner always looks a bit strange so we did not partake in the affair but enjoyed and photographed those who let us.

From Kiyomizo we walked down to Gion to see the fabled Geisha, or more likely a stage production at Gion Corner to see some of the traditional arts. While you wait in the cue for the Gion Corner production to by tickets you will get to watch a short film about Geisha and Maiko, this was pretty good. You need to cue up as you can’t reserve tickets and thus you need to get there early as the line builds up very quickly. The show itself is quite informative and covers several areas of traditional Japanese ‘historic’ culture such as the tea ceremony, flower settings, kyogen theatre, Gagaku Court Music, and Maiko dance. The performances were well done and the effort put into the staging was great, the problem was the audience who were disgraceful talking on phones, eating (packets of aromatic dried fish), drinking, talking, hundreds of phones up taking photos at all points babies crying. It was like taking something beautiful and doing all you could to wreck it. If they got rid of the audience this would be an excellent show.

After that we headed for a dinner which involved meeting a well versed Ukranian in a Japanese restaurant which seemed a little lost in translation but the food was great. We then caught a bus from Gion back to our hotel, now we should mention that you should be careful with the busses as unlike in Australia where a bus which follows a similar route but in the opposite direction has a different number in Japan they do not. This means that as we did, catching the 205 to return to our hotel (20 minutes away) resulted in an hour and a half journey through an enormous loop in the opposite direction. This was not clearly indicated in our hotel guide so it might be something worthwhile for other travellers to observe. If you wish to catch a bus, make sure you know which direction in the loop it’s taking before you hop on.

Day two of the fifth season has drawn to a close……

 

Japan – Day 4 – Kyoto and the fifth season

We awoke in our box with the happy toilet, a little leg tired but nothing compared to the previous morning. We had decided that after hiking all over the place in the last few days we deserved a sleep in.  This also included reading snow reports about the lack of snow at our ski resort, organising backpacks and most importantly attempting to correct the back and front focus problems with our Sigma 18-35mm lens, I’ll leave the full story of this for another post but lets just say it took some time with mixed final results. As we had left our start a little late we wanted a more cut down schedule, the hotel’s four-day guide to Kyoto which we’ve given some notes on below gave us a few good ideas and it’s great that the hotel included it.

We did not really use the itineraries as something to follow but more of an idea guide and some help with getting the bus to and from the destinations we needed. Our first choice was to go to Arashiyama, which was mostly because we were interested in the bamboo grove which we’d seen photos of previously which looked quite spectacular. There are also as with everywhere in Kyoto, world heritage listed temples.

 

 

Making our way there was pretty easy except that it wasn’t clear which train we should take. Our guide said take the JR line to Arashiyama, but finding a train called ‘to Arashiyama’ is another thing. Turns out that on platform 32 of the Kyoto train station the train destined for Sonobe run and will take you to Arashiyama. Be prepared to stand up, it seems that while Arashiyama is not the top foreigners choice of destination a lot of locals seem to trek there.

 

 

Upon arrival you’ll be able to find maps at the station with fairly clear directions of how to walk to the areas of interest. One such map is below. Leaving the station you’ll be greeted with the usual Japanese school girls fighting over Argentinian soccer fans for selfies, oh right that’s odd, . , hmm . Anyhow it became quite obvious to us that once we’d left the station it wasn’t, sunny and warm, fresh green and springy, cool and full of rich autumn colours or bitterly cold and snowing. No, we were in the fifth season, that’s the one that no one tells you about. It’s between Autumn and Winter, it’s bitterly cold but it has no snow and all the plants are dead. That’s right, you guessed it, the fifth season is not the best time to travel somewhere, but this was a skiing trip with a side dish of accidental travel. We’re being harsh, there was the occasional brown leaf on a tree, or some red plastic leaves on a light pole and the camellias and quince flowers were still about. Actually if you looked sideways and quickly back you might be forgiven for thinking that while it’s not the most visually spectacular time the place is still quaint and beautiful in the Japanese “aestheticism of austere simplicity”.

 

 

We headed for the bamboo grove as this was the highest on our priority list and we’d always wanted to take a picture in there with no people. However with the forty thousand people who were currently walking through the grove with us this was pretty unlikely. We waited patiently in several places but people can be incredibly frustrating when they’re trying to enjoy the same thing as you are, and your enjoyment is reliant on them not being there. Possibly the most frustrating was a group of girls in full selfie and fashion shot mode who absorbed the best position for shooting for about half an hour while we patiently waited for them to clear off and give us a chance to catch a break in the crowds. In the end they won, we realised that this was a fools game and the picture if it were to be taken would have others in it, which, destroyed the picture. But this was not a great loss, we still had a lovely time walking through the village areas and the bamboo grove, eating roasted chestnuts and watching the rickshaw drivers pulling happy customers around.

As the day in the fifth season churned on we headed for a late lunch and then a walk through the Arashiyama temple and it’s gardens. This would be an extremely beautiful place in autumn (Japanese maple colours) or spring (peach/ cherry blossoms) but even in the fifth season it was still scenic enough and the lovely sculpted gardens and moss coverings are pleasant to walk through.

 

 

As afternoon drew into evening the people began to pour out of the Tenryu-ji temple and left us a little space to capture some pictures with a few less guests. I would have to say that if you’d like a photo without others this will most likely be your only choice and it’ll leave you with fairly poor lighting conditions but there is nothing else for it. We then figured that the bamboo grove would probably be deserted at night as why would anyone wander through a creepy place. We had also noticed a few lanterns along the way so as long as there was a little light a long exposure might turn up a good photo. How wrong we were, walking along the street we became instantly aware that we weren’t the first people with that idea, and in fact there was a huge light festival on and thousands people (more than during the day) were pouring into the grove. Alas, sometimes you just have to realise that you’ve been beaten. Instead we walked through the lovely light show in the grounds and then out at the river before heading back for another well deserved (probably less deserved than the previous day) rest.

The fifth season will continue tomorrow.