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Published: April 3rd 2011
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The young girl pushing the coffee trolley was on the Shinkansen I was taking to Himeji, a city about 100 km west of Kyoto. I asked for my 300 yen coffee, and watched bewitched the ritual with all the smiles and bows as she delicately placed my coffee and little plastic pot of cream on the tray beside me. Young Japanese female staff have a very high pitched sing song voice for such rituals – in normal conversation the pitch of Japanese women is very similar to that of British women. It’s all quite different from the British equivalent which is quite matey, where your coffee is plonked down beside you with some dry witty remark as they pour it over you.
Once in Himeji I went to the Tourist Information Office at the station and armed myself with an impressive selection of leaflets in English on Himeji and on Mt. Shosha, where I was heading for. While I was on Bus No 8, heading for the foot of Mt. Shosha, I read all about the temple complex, Engyoji, situated on the top of the mountain. It was founded over a thousand years ago by Shoku, a holy Buddhist priest
Maniden
A sense of peace and is the 27th of 33 temples appointed as pilgrimage sites in Western Japan.
A large cable car whisks us up the mountain. A path leads further up the mountain through the wooden gate, winding through the cedar trees until I suddenly catch a glimpse of Maniden, the main building. Climbing up the steep set of steps, I begin to take in the huge size of this temple, with its balcony made up of enormous timbers which you look at from below, and up to the soaring sweep of the roof.
At the entrance, I take off my shoes, climb up the steps onto the massive wooden balcony, and then up more steps into the temple itself. The tatami mats are cold on your feet as they haven’t absorbed the spring warmth yet. A soft breeze touches you as the sides of the temple are open. You notice the scent and then see a pot containing sticks of incense inserted into some kind of earth. You follow a Japanese woman, paying your 100 yen for a candle and 3 sticks of incense. You light your incense sticks, place them in the pot, and add your candle to the
Maniden
Pilgrims visiting Mt Shosha collection on a metal candelabra structure in a glass cabinet. You become aware of a monk chanting in an inner sanctuary, his voice resonating through the air. You feel a sense of peace.
As I leave the temple, a large group of Japanese are coming nearer. They are all wearing identical white jackets, the same style as Judo jackets, white trousers and carrying staffs. They are led by a monk. They are smiling and laughing, a happy band of pilgrims.
There is a panorama viewpoint near the cableway, overlooking Himeji city, with its population of about 500,000, and out towards the sea. It’s slightly hazy and at the first glance, all I notice is a sea of buildings with small islands of mountainous green. There is nowhere else for the buildings to go, but to be tightly packed between the sea and the mountains.
On the way back on the bus, I got off at the stop near Himeji Castle to have a quick look. I’ve been twice before and it’s my favourite castle in Japan, a fantasy of tiers of white wood, each crowned with sweeping roofs. Our daughter was about 10 years old when we
View from Mt Shosha
Overlooking the sea of buildings took her there, and her memories are of climbing flights of stairs and long corridors with enormous slippers given to everyone to wear, which kept falling off. The castle is known as ‘Shirasagi-jo’, the White Heron Castle. For the moment the White Heron is enclosed in a cage of an enormous box structure while important restoration work is carried out.
With the Japan Rail card you can follow your will, and so I stopped off at Kobe on the way back. I was drawn to it as my Japanese friend and teacher in Germany comes from Kobe. After the Kobe Earthquake of 1995 in which over 6000 people died, she had to wait three long days to hear that her family there were safe. I picked up some city maps from the tourist information office at the Shinkansen station and set off in the direction of Kitano, an area which once housed some of Kobe’s early Western inhabitants. I caught sight of a small old style bus (they are quite common in Japan), with 'City Loop' on it, so I jumped on it, thinking it would be a more effective way of seeing the city as it was now
Himeji Castle
Her beauty hidden in a giant box about half past five. The guide gave me a leaflet, and as I read it, I saw that the last departure from Stop No 1 was at 5.58 pm. I had been thinking I could do a round trip on it, to take me back to near the Shinkansen station, but now I wondered whether the bus wouldn’t do any more round trips, and I’d be left somewhere in Kobe. Just before the last stop but one, at the other side of Kobe to the shinkansen station, I heard the guide say in her sing song voice, 'Tsugi wa shuten, shuten desu' – the next stop is the terminus. Everyone else got off the bus, leaving me no choice but to join them.
I looked at my maps to work out how to get back to the shinkansen station. The map in the Lonely Planet guide book wasn’t much use as all it showed was a network of streets at right angles with no names, not surprising as most streets in Japan don’t have names, which doesn’t help you when you’re lost. I looked at my map in English from the tourist office but that was even less help as Japanese street maps – and maps of parks or gardens – are drawn schematically rather than to scale, and north can be in any direction.
I decided I needed some fortifying first, and after walking a few paces down the street, I noticed a sign with 'Tea Lounge'. I went up a steep flight of stairs and found myself in a café just like my favourite one in Mito, Café Rin. It had a wooden floor, a miscellaneous collection of old, possibly imported, chairs and tables and an old wall clock, which looked as if it could have come from England. I wondered if Café Rin still existed or if it had been badly damaged in the earthquake as I think it was an old building. I ordered a 'Royal Milk Tea' and a 'keki setto' – a cake set with half a muffin, some apple pie, and a scone with jam and cream.
Revived I considered my options. There was an underground nearby, but my maps didn’t show the underground accurately. There was also a bus stop. I got on the first bus and asked the driver – in Japanese - which bus went to the Shinkansen station. 'This bus' he answered and told me where to get off. All I caught was 'bikki'. The bus set off, to start with down the street the City Loop bus had taken. I noticed how prosperous Kobe looked – much of it must have been rebuilt as it was substantially damaged in the earthquake. We started going down a different route. I thought we were going in approximately the right direction, but part of me was wondering if I was going to spend the next hour touring the suburbs of Kobe. But then I heard, 'Tsugi wa, .....bikki desu'. So I wove my way to the front of the tightly packed bus, asked the bus driver if it was the right stop for the station, and he told me it was just round the corner. I got off the bus, walked round the corner, and there was the Shinkansen station.
I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so happy to see a Shinkansen station.
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