Day 8

John Noel — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 10:00:59 +0000

N.B. This was written shortly after I returned and will be rewritten as and when I get time.

A full day for wandering around Kyoto however we started with a boat journey down the Hozugawa river. We all piled into a large gondola and had three staff in the boat as well, one who punted, the other steered and another paddled / steered (I couldn’t work it out, I guess both).

The journey took a good 3 hours but was absolutely spectacular. We cruised down rapids and got stuck on a reef at one point, but the weather and the countryside were just awesome. We were also made to walk a short distance of the journey as a rock slide had happened, so people in hard hats drove our boat down the treacherous part while we walked. As we approached the end of the journey, a small motor boat came up alongside us.

It was a snack boat, replete with little cooking stove (squid!) and snacks. The three staff on our boat tied the motor boat to ours then proceeded to have a can of coke and a packet of peanuts while the motor boat steered us.

Now in Arashiyama on the outskirts of Kyoto, we grabbed lunch and had a wander around the Zen gardens nearby.

The gardens were exactly what I was expecting: ordered, calm and relaxing. A small monk came out at one point to neaten up the gravel however he was too swift for me to nab a photo of him.

After that we headed towards Kinkaku-ji, or the more common name of “The Golden Pavilion”. Originally the pavilion was covered in gold leaf by an opulent warlord, however WWII saw the gold leaf get picked off for the war effort. The current pavilion had been renovated in the 1960’s and you can no longer go in or even touch the pavilion.

After that, a few of us headed to the sister site of Kinkaku-ji, Ginkaku-ji or “The Silver Pavilion”. Unlike the golden pavilion, it never actually got covered in silver as the warlord who owned it ran out of money, however the pavilion is original so it’s about 400 years old.

Joel managed to drop his sunglasses in the Koi pond, he managed to get a gardener to fish them out for him; however he joked the sunglasses were now blessed, and if worn would give him sight beyond sight.

Day 3

John Noel — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 10:00:08 +0000

N.B. This was written shortly after I returned and will be rewritten as and when I get time.

The first official day of the tour and the weather was looking up. Apparently there was a typhoon battering the south of Japan which caused the rain and so forth where we were, but with that abating the sun was finally coming out.

Onto the government buildings (Tochomae) and the 45th floor observatory.

Nothing spectacular as the humidity made seeing Fuji impossible, but quite nice urban views.

On the subway down to the Harajuku area and into the Meji-jingu shrine. All of the shines and temples in Japan have one thing in common, and that’s that they’re the most peaceful places you could visit that are smack bang in the middle of the city. There’s plenty of vegetation around you, but the places just feel so serene, and everyone else around you is generally pretty respectful. So things like mobile phones are always switched off, I literally didn’t hear one mobile phone go off in my entire time in Japan.

We managed to catch the end of a Buddhist (or Shinto?) wedding ceremony there, must have been strange having a bunch of foreigners all snapping your wedding photos. The was also a huge wall of sake barrels all donated by various companies and people with their names on the front.

Lunch was in Harajuku which is like ground zero for trendy. You could literally just people watch for a week and you probably wouldn’t see the same style twice. The restaurant some of us ended up in was a facsimile of a generic British restaurant but with scruffy-hip Tokyo students waiting tables.

On from Harajuku through Shinjuku Times Square which houses a huge department store which was interesting for a bit, but essentially it’s a big department store. Moving on from there we passed through Shiodome which had the Dentsu (huge advertising company) skyscraper.

On from there we got a circle-line overland train to Hama-rikyu, but got on the wrong direction so the train journey took a while which meant we needed to book it through the gardens if we wanted to catch the last river taxi back to our hotel.

The river taxi is a working public transport route that heads up and down the Sumida river but was a brilliant way to finish off the day.

In all the journey took about an hour and a half which meant when we got back it was time for dinner. This time it was Okonomiyaki which is essentially “make your own omelette”. So you get a huge electric griddle in front of you, you order your ingredients and you make it there yourself. I had octopus and some random sea food (shrimp I think). The octopus was fine if not a little chewy, but the suction cups get stuck on your tongue pretty easily.

Places visited:

Tokyo Metropolitan Building
Meiji-jingu
Dentsu building
Hamarikyu
Sumida River

japanographia.com » river

Day 8

Day 3