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.
