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Published: June 24th 2009
So here we are, nearing the end of our 4 week stay in Japan, where to start? At the beginning I guess.....Tokyo over 3 weeks ago.
We flew into Tokyo from South America, and it might as well be on a different planet, it really is worlds away from anywhere else we have been. The first thing that struck us was just how modern, organised and quiet the place was, despite having one of the largest populations of any major city. No horns beeping, no police sirens blaring, no people shouting, we thought it must be a public holiday or something at first, but then it was the same the next day and the next!
Tokyo is a great city, some say its all a bit superficial with no real depth of culture, but we loved it. It has a great feeling of energy and exitement, and there is so much to take in no matter where you head to. There was the hip 'Brighton esque' shops and stalls of Harajuku, the huge Skyscrapers of the shinjuku business district, the lovely gardens and arhcitecture of the Imperial Palace and the funky vibe of Shinuya district.
We spent a
week in Tokyo and spent some time in each major area, relaxing each evening with our tokyo travelling companions from New Zealand, Malaysia and even Tunisia. One of the more exiting outings was a trip to a baseball match between the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, and the interesting named Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. We turned up at the packed Tokyo dome to take our 'seats' (we only paid $10 so were in the standing only section, but being one foot taller than most people Matt was fine and could relay all the in game action to Nat). We half expected the Ham Fighters to have some exotic Pig/Ham themed pre game dance or at least a ham on their hats, but alas just a plain white and blue outfit, not even a rasher of bacon in sight. The game itself was fairly uninteresting, think of one man throwing a ball to another man for 4 hours and 16 other people standing in a field watching them play catch. The fans were the best part of the game, they were mad, singing chant after chant and following a conductor of sorts who started each chant and played a trumpet, with his back
to the game. Giants ended up winning 3-2 (not sure if this is points, or number of fans awake at the end of play) and Tokyo basked in the delight of beating the Hams.
Other highlights in Tokyo were a trip up the Tokyo tower to take in the sunset and night views, cycling to the Emperor's palace, the amazing Tsujuki fish market (largest in the world), and up to the Rainbow bridge from Odaiba, the Bay Area.
We had bought a Japan Rail pass for 3 weeks and to make the most of it we decided after leaving Tokyo to go all the way up to the most Northern Island of Hokkaido for some countryside, mountains and lakes. The first stop (after a brief Ski Jump & Brewery Tour in Sapporo) was a visit to Akan National Park to visit beautiful Lake Mashu and Lake Kusharo. Our hostel was a massive Youth Hostel from the 70's which held about 100 people, but we were the only ones, and we had a good laugh with our host who was keen to practice his English, and even picked us up and dropped us off at the train station!
We took a bus to Mashu to 'view' the lake (apparently the clearest water in the world), but unfortunately couldn't see past the thick fog, so we got a few regulation photos of the signs for Mashu with us next to them, then one of a postcard for the 'this is what it should look like' shot. Next we dropped down in altitude to a point where we could actually see some scenery, and we arrived at a volcanic area with many sulphur/steam vents spewing into the air, they had turned the rock a bright yellow colour and had a strong smell of egg (that or nats breakfast omlette was causing her problems). We then took the bus to Kawayu Onsen, which was a first *Onsen experience (only a foot one though - not the full body one). We got drenched through on the way here though as we took the decision to rent the worlds smallest bicycles to ride 7km down a river/road to see Lake Kushiro in fully misty magnificence, we also saw a lot of Swan pedaloes on the lake, which were to become a common theme on the lakes of Japan, I thought they were only
at Alton Towers, but no, Japan seems to love a Swan Pedaloe too.
*Onsen is a Japanese bath with natural hot spring water, usually you go in naked in single sex baths, and wash beforehand, but there are also hand onsens, and foot onsens (ideal after a long walk, and no need to strip down to the old birthday suit).
So after a long day we warmed our feet in the foot Onsen at Kawayu station (Liverpool Street take notice!) and went back for a well earned sleep before heading to our next stop in Hokkaido, Lake Toya.
Lake Toya was a strange place, almost like a ghost town, lots of large concrete hotels which could do with some paint, and seemed empty along the shoreline of a beatiful lake surrounded my mountains, and with a miniature equivalent of Mt Fuji in the distance.
Some smaller volcanos have erupted near the town recently in 1977 and 2000 and their were many roads and buildings destroyed and now left as reminders which you can walk around, which was quite interesting, the town seemed like it was waiting for the volcano to erupt again.
So after two
days we left Lake Toya to head to.......suprise suprise.......another lake! this time Lake Tazawa (Tazawa-ko) back on the main island of Honshu, needless to say it was beautiful scenery, again a bit of a ghost town though (the Japanese dont really take their holidays until July/August), but we saw more Swan pedaloes and took some cool sunset pictures, as well as a dip in a really authentic Onsen, with usefully milky coloured water to hide any embarassment of nakedness amongst fellow bathers.
As you can imagine we were both a little 'Laked Out' by this point so we decided we needed a slightly more built up area and headed via Nagoya to a larger town in the Japanese Alps called Takayama. We both decided this was our favourite place so far, as it had a great setting in the mountains, interesting alleys and traditional housing, as well as a gorgeous river flowing through it full of Koi Carp, the town was small enough to be quaint but big enough to be more practical with loads of 7/11 type convenience stores, which we have used extensively as their ready meals are so amazingly tasty. The owner of our hostel, J-Hoppers,
Aki, was great and he drove us to a nearby hike to a waterfall which we managed despite only having flip flops and Nat seeing a huge man eating hornet and nearly hyperventilating! (it was the size of a small child at least!)
Takayama behind us, we headed south west to the temple fest that is Kyoto. As the guide books say, initially it is pretty uninspiring, but on our 2nd day after discovering the enchanting alleys and traditional Gion district on our bicycles we decided it is definately worth its reputation as a must see in Japan. We took in Philosophers walk (or cycle in our case) along a gorgeous canal lined with cherry trees, shrines and temples, and another walk/cycle along the edge of the Gion district. We didnt see any Geisha's as apparently they only come out in the night time (like badgers), and we didnt fancy the 3000 Yen ($30) to watch them make a cup of tea and dance in the pre-arranged tourist show.
We enjoyed some great self cooked meals in our great hostel, saving us some pennies, as the accomodation here is a lot more expensive than South America, $25 each
per night is the norm, but you do get a great hostel for this, very clean organised, with aircon and quick internet and vending machines with beer in them!
Our next accomodation wasnt quite at the same level as it was basically sharing a house with a lovely local family in the seaside town of KiiTanabe (south of Kyoto). We used this as a base to hit the beach here and at Shirahama, which has more concrete hotels, and also a gorgeous white sand beach. The sea was quite warm and we both had a swim, and amazingly the rain held off despite the sky looking 95% dark grey and only 5% blue sky directly over our heads, thankyou lord.
After this brief respite in coastal Japan we headed back to the densely populated area around Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka corridor. There must be 70% of Japans population between these three and Tokyo, and you can see it from the train, literally wall to wall housing and tower blocks, all the cities blend into one (imagine London, Birmingham and Manchester in one seemless urban sprawl). The mountains however are always close at hand and offer escape to all the
urbanites, as well as offering a nice backdrop for the cities, which are suprisingly neat and tidy and again well organised considering the density of housing. Theres always a nice paddy field in any free space between buildings offering a smattering of green and supplying the nations rice requirements!
That brings us up to our present location in Hiroshima, western Honshu, where we both sit typing this blog, Nat correcting Matts many spelling and grammar errors. Today we went to the Peace Memorial Park where there are some emotional reminders of the A-Bomb, indluding the A-Bomb Dome of a major govermnent building which has been left as a reminder of the devastation, and a very interesting museum detailing the events and the lives of the victims and survivors. It certainly makes you think, and the pictures of the wounds and burns inflicted on people by the bomb are pretty hard to take in. Japan is now sternly opposed to nuclear weapons and the Mayor of Hiroshima has written a letter to every single ambassador of each country which has conducted a nuclear test since 1945, most recently to North Korea.
Its gone so fast its all a bit
of a blur, but here we are with 4 days left in Japan, before our ferry takes us on a jolly jaunt to South Korea (which was a bit unplanned but having bumped into a South Korean in Tokyo we decided it was worth a punt before we hit China).
hope you are all well... please keep sending us your stories.. we love to hear of the goings on from back home!
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