Emotional Madness.

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Travelling North.

Matsushima,
Natural beauty in abundance. A truly wonderous place - never the less it is similar to many coastal areas dotted with islands. A beauty that would captivate all.
Never assume anything. I had wrongly assumed that since Matsushima is one of Japan's three most beautiful locations that it would be natural beauty uninterrupted (something I was craving after the endless artificial commercial madness of Tokyo). Matsushima is a working port - despoiled by man. The tourist boat I caught around the islands ran at maximum revolutions the whole journey, pumping diesel fumes and noise pollution the entire time, that was OK because all the channel markers, commercial fishing leases, cargo ships and the geo thermal power stations took my focus off the boat I was on.
The tour itself provided insight into Japanese tourism - I now know how the speed package tourist operates. The tour boat running at max revs the whole way and was designed for 200 odd tourists (deck space for about 20). On your left an island, on your right an island, on your left - blink you missed it. A location like Matsushima should be visited over a period of a few hours by kayak or on a yacht under sail - or is it just me that believes you should take time to enjoy scenes of immense natural beauty and that they are best enjoyed in peacefull stillness and quiet?

Cartoon,
I know that the Japanese like all things cutesy and cartoonish but there should be some limit. My Shinkansen (Bullet Train) stopped outside a large military base and the sign out the front had cartoon males and females from the three services saluting. How can you take an Army seriously that has cartoon charachters representing it? How do the troops create a tough self image? Crazy cute.

Kakunodate,
Warrior traditions have fascinated me for my entire life and the Samurai are no exception. If you are interested in Samurai at all this place is for you. Here there are houses that have not changed in 300 odd years and museums of how they lived. I also discovered that Samurai were often fine artisans as well, they were forced into work in order to make money. Foolish me - there I was thinking that these guys did nothing but kill and train to kill, chop peoples heads off and occaisionally commit ritual suicide. It seems that there is more than meets the eye to so many things in this amazing country.
The town itself is a fairly crazy little place, it is surrounded by the mountains and would have been closed in for the entire winter. When I was there it was covered in snow and still snowing whilst an hour by train away and there was no sign of snow. Crazy. Winter would have been hard in the old times. It gives me an immense appreciaiton for people that have lived on the frontiers and still do. Maniacs.

Still travelling North. Hokkaido.

Winter,
As a person from a mild climate I can only imagine how the hell anybody handles a winter like I experienced in my few days in Northern Japan. I dressed in every single piece of clothing I had with me (including thermals) and I had my face covered with a scarf, I looked like some kind of mad Michelin Man Ninja and I was still cold. I was walking around to get places and there were not many people doing that, maybe they are on to something? I now know why the heaters are always so good on Japanese cars.
For those that live in snowy cold climes - I can appreciate the beauty of a snow covered landscape. For this Aussie it is truly wonderous to gaze on - a beauty unlike anything I have ever experienced (or hopefully ever will again). Colour moves me, snow is like a white desert yet it is not without its beauty. Amazing vistas of frozen lakes, bare trees with awe inspiring mountain backdrops. I was left tuly amazed by the natural beauty of these scenes. Beyond this amazing beauty (best viewed from a nice heated train carriage) remains the one thing - bitter man killing cold. I have one simple piece of advice for those of you that live in these climates - MOVE.

Cars,
I have a great respect for all those that drive in snow and ice, I can barely stand up! There are so many All Wheel Drive (AWD) cars on Hokkaido (Japan's north island) but it is more than understandable, AWD cars that I never even knew existed. There are current model Corolla's, Pulsar's and commercial vehicles and even tiny little Kei cars like Diahatsu Mira's. Cool - weird. I was impressed by the driving antics of one mature (?) aged gentleman who went round the corner near the police station in his EVO VIII Lancer at warp speed. Impressive snow driving - maybe not World Rally standard but impressive none the less.

Amazed,
Dozens of tiny fishing villages clutching on to the tiny piece of land between the freezing waters of the northern pacific and the frozen pure white snow covered mountains. Artificial concrete harbours the only protection. These mad little villages are witness to the Japanese obsession with Maguro (Tuna). Hard people.

Cold Land - Warm People,
If Tokyo is known for the coldness of its people then the opposite is certainly true of those outside of it. I was lost in Kakunodate and armed only with my phrase book to help me I wandered into the Post Office to ask the location of the tourist office. The staff asked each other until eventually an old guy spoke up and in fairly fluent english he started giving directions, gave up and then he ushered me outside and walked me to the tourist office. An unexpected and deeply appreciated gesture - warmth in sea of snowy white cold.
In Hakodate at the local fish market a couple of blokes my age selling crabs invited me over to share their space heater. The trusty phrase book came out and we chatted until I was sweating. Another bloke saw me looking at his hairy crabs so he pulled one out and let me feel it (insert bad joke about me feeling another mans soft hairy crabs here). Hokkaido has a certain frontier feeling about it - isolation, depravation perhaps, or maybe it was the cold that me think that but certainly there is a real warmth of heart in the people that is missing in the emotional wilderness of a modern city.

Farming,
Tiny fields. Fields wedged into any space at all. Fields in the middle of suburbia. Fields beside factories, wedged under high power electricty transmission lines, between railway lines and highways. It is a new way of farming for me. For an aussie who is used to fields that stretch to the horizon I suspect that the owners of these fields would be jealous of the average hobby farmers plot in OZ. I have a sneaking suspicion that a large piece of farm machinery from home would not actually fit in one of these tiny fields. Though for what they lack in size they make up for in numbers. The fields are absolutley out everywhere.

Trains,
Mixed emotions. Convenience, value for money. By neccesity trains run from populated point to populated point along the easiest route. Unfortunatley for me this means seeing endless buildings. You are never quite sure when you leave one city and arrive at the next, they blend, the buildings never stop. Once you get north of Morioka this is not true and I am told on Shikoku it is not so bad. I guess that is the problem with trying to fit 130 million odd people onto a few small islands that are really just mountain chains.
The Shinkansen are very cool. They are like airliners that drop you right in town, they even look like planes both outside and inside. They even have hostesses that come through with drink and nibblies and meals but like a budget airline you have to pay for them. When the staff exit a carriage they turn and bow to the passengers. Different - cool. I wonder about the train hostesses, did they they always want that job or are they failed airline hosties?

Ramblings,
Interacting with people and enjoying a new culture and gaining insight into a people is a thoroughly enjoyable part of travel. Equally so is marvelling at beautiful works of art, engineering and architecture but I truly enjoy marvelling at natural landscape. Perhaps that is why I enjoy the actual travelling part of a journey so much. The everchanging beauty and scenery leaving you yearning for more and teasingly make you wish you could linger just a little longer every so often.The seemingly endless urban sprawl of Japan is disheartening - perhaps even depressing - but it shows the reality of Japan for the majority of its people and is thus this industrialised madness is an insight. Supposedly 70% of Japan is still forested (it's just all on the side of big hills and mountains) I have seen the other 30% I reckon. I wonder then about the definition of forested. I guess all the trees that remain have the inaccesibility of their location to thank for their contiued existence here.

Sapporo,
Trudging. The Historical Museum of Hokkaido. A museum of architecture and technology from the settlement of this island by the ethnic Japanese. Interesting more for a Japanese person or European. For this Australian it was like visiting any frontier town museum (like Sovereign Hill or Old Sydney Town). The island of Hokkaido was settled by the Ethnic Japanese around the same time as NZ, OZ, the US and Canada were all expanding and with similar parralells of forcibly displacing indigenous local inhabitants. As such it had a similar feel to much at home with the building ideas being mostly western (Japan opening up to the west around the same time). The parralells were interesting for me as I had wrongly assumed Japan to be so vastly different to my home. The most interesting part was seeing these western buildings fitted out internally in traditional Japanese style. There was an interesting recreation of an old fishing village that was far more traditional than the other buildings. Interesting.
A quarter past four in the afternoon. Minus two and one half degrees celcius. Warm - comparitively. Warmer than Hakodate at least.

Communists?
Walking around Sapporo City I could not help but notice all the five pointed red stars on all the public buildings. I know that the Russians took the Kuril islands in the very last days of World War Two but I have a sneaking suspicion that the Northern Japanese had strong communal feelings long before that, perhaps they were commies even before the Russians. Tokyo may bitch and complain that Kuril Islands are actually Japanese but I think the northerners sympathies may lie elsewhere...........

Misery,
Hakodate that cold white freezing Hell of a place caught me. A town where it snows and is wedged between the Sea of Japan and the north Pacific Ocean, the only thing stopping the ocen freezing is the salt and even then I wonder how the ocean resists. I came down with a cold. I was so cold there that I needed a HOT bath just to thaw out. How do people do it? My cold induced misery and the language barrier had me feeling lonlier than I had in a lang time. Isolation. Depression. I can think of little worse. I travelled to Sapporo and went to my accomodation early. Ino's Place is the best backpackers I have ever stayed in on any continent. It was a haven of warmth, cleanliness and light in my cold white dark miserable hell. I curled up with a DVD on the couch and vegged out. Precisely what I needed.

Heading South.

Train.
Never having travelled on an overnight train before I availed myself of the opportunity on the return journey between Sapporo and Tokyo. The JR rail pass didn't cover the cost so I had to shell out but I did not mind. I paid for a berth but the girl at the counter upgraded me to a single room - I have a strong suggestion that she did not want me spreading my horrible Gaijin cold germs to the other passengers - cool.
I was always under the impression that long distance train journeys were supposed to be romantic affairs. The train was nice, it had a lounge car and a dining car all that you could need. I guess between me having a cold and having no-one willing to talk to me romance in any sense of the word was never on the cards. I was warm and toasty on the train but there was no hot romance - not even any luke warm romance, just a reasonably comfortable but warm single bed.


Lucky,
It has often been said that Australia is the lucky country. Every time I travel I am reminded that when it comes to natural beauty I really believe we are the lucky country. Distance, space and a tiny population really do make it so. Honshu the main island of Japan is easily described. If the land is flat it is built up, any time I journey to an observation point I see buildings, they stop at the mountains and the ocean. Buildings, buildings everywhere I look. Depressing.

Advice,
Winter is a great tourist season here. There are no queues for anything - many of the attractions are nearly empty as well. You miss out on the colours of Autumn (thats Fall for you yanks) or the cherry blossoms of spring. You also miss the oppressive humidity of summer. Bring WARM clothing if you are thinking about winter here.

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Photos

Matsushima
The photos show me more beauty than I remember - perhaps my brain was frozen?

Matsushima
Given the water temperature I wonder if this bloke had leprosy or something?

Kakunodate
Samurai Armour

Hakodate
I always thought that awnings were meant to stop the weather reaching the pavement. I guess that is hard when the snow comes in sideways.

Sapporo
-2.5 Degrees Celcius

Sapporo
Note the Red Star - Commies.......

Romantic?
Overnight train lounge. Where are all the people? Perhaps the scary white man drove them away?