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Day 7

John Noel — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 10:00:16 +0000

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

The typhoon had passed by and the weather was glorious and stayed that way for the rest of the trip.

Leaving the guest house, we went to the main Hakone station for our first ride on the Bullet Train (which is a translation of the old project name and is actually called the Shinkansen).

The train is stunning and zips by at 270kmh (~160mph), the entire train is air cushioned meaning it’s quiet and smooth. The second picture doesn’t really show you the amount of leg room you get on these, you can pretty much stretch your legs out and only just touch the seat in front of you. For being 40 year old technology, the Shinkansen just blows away anything we have here in the UK.

The hour and half journey to Kyoto went by swiftly and our first port of call after dropping our bags in the gorgeous ryokan was Kyomizu-ji, one of the oldest and most visited temples in Kyoto (which avoided the bombing of WWII so a lot of the temples are original).

Kyomizu-ji managed to be uniquely different to all the other temples we’d yet been to, with it’s signature temple on 400 year old camphor-wood stilts and various other attractions. The main one being the “Love Rock”, which is two stones separated by about 4 metres, and couples start at each stone and walk towards each other with eyes closed; if they meet in the middle without falling over or bumping into people then they’re “meant to be”. I saw two school-boys doing it (numerous times), as well as a single woman doing it (a different kind of love, a forbidden love).

Moving on we walked through Hagashiyama park on towards our meeting with another tour guide.

We met up with Peter Macintosh, basically a world reknowned expert on Geisha. He was recently hired by a Hollywood studio to do research and location scouting for “Memoirs of a Geisha”. He’s been in Japan for 13 years, owns his own bar and is married to an ex-geisha so he knows his stuff, he also seems to know half the people in the Geisha districts.

The first picture is of a 14 year old maiko we met who Peter asked about her mother and so forth so evidently they knew each other. The second is of a typical geisha residence, the latern above the door has three circles which (I think) denotes the Miyagawa-cho geisha district (the other two being Gion-cho and Ponto-cho). The only good photo of a full geisha is there, they may have wooden sandals and can’t move their legs much but boy, they can really book it. All my other photos were of geisha blurs. The lighting at this time was absolutely stunning and my Gion photos are some of my favourites.

The last image is taken from a bridge which is apparently where the protagonist of MoaG meets the love of her life and is an awesome picture if it wasn’t for that annoying bit of foliage in front of the lens. After the tour we all had food at a local restaurant (geisha-free unfortunately). Peter also said that if we wanted to (as a group) we could hire a geisha for the evening, however some people were against it which meant the price for the people who wanted to do it was prohibitive.

Places visited:

Hakone
Kyoto
Kiyomizu
Higashiyama
Gion
Shirakara Canal

Day 4

John Noel — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:00:28 +0000

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

This was to be the day we leave Tokyo and head on down to Kamakura, however there was the option to head to the Tsukiji fish market early in the morning. So having just gotten over my jet-lag, I wantonly get up at 0430 to get the first subway train to the fish market.

Tsukiji is the biggest working fish-market in the world and is this huge place that sells pretty much every variety of sea-food possible. We were warned beforehand, but because it’s a working fishmarket and we would be tourists, you have to watch your back constantly as stuff goes on swiftly and if you don’t move for someone or something, then you’re going to get shouted at. Good thing really as these crazy electric cart things scream around you constantly as you’re weaving in and out of what is essentially organised bedlam. How people know what they’re doing is beyond me.

The first call on the trip was to the tuna auctions. Kicking off at around 0530, these auctions sell these huge whole tuna, sometimes for exorbitant prices to restauranteers, other sellers etc. Essentially the tuna come with their gills hollowed out and a small chunk out of their tail, all fast frozen from being caught literally 4 hours ago. People wander about in wellies and aprons with a torch and small pick axe and examine all the tuna before the auction gets underway. Each auction only takes about 15 seconds in which there are some unintelligible words and raising of hands.

After the auctions had calmed down and we’d had a little wander on our own we all went to a pseudo-famous sushi restaurant right there in the fish market. Pseudo-famous as people like Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz has been to the restaurant before, even though it was only big enough for about 8 people max. I’m not a big fan of sushi, but fresh sushi caught the night before was pretty gorgeous, certainly makes every other sushi I’ve tried else pale in comparison.

Heading back to the hotel, it was now about 0730, when I should have been getting up instead of almost being run over by little electric carts or being talked to by drunken businessmen. We grabbed one of the local trains from Tokyo station and headed out to Kamakura which only took about 30 minutes.

Now brilliant sunshine, Kamakura is pretty much a small village on the outskirts of Tokyo. However, it was now in the midst of a festival for the 3 day bank holiday weekend for Japan which meant there were all sorts of things going on.

(The drumming lady on the right was exceptionally cute but didn’t hang around enough for a better photo.) The shrine maiden you see there is a candid shot as you’re not allowed to take photos of the maidens as it apparently steals their souls (or some such). Suffice to say that one doesn’t have a soul now, mwuh ha ha ha ha.

The main temple we went to was hosting the Yabusame festival, which translates to Horse Archery. Our tour guide had sweet talked our hotel owner into getting us some decent tickets which meant we all got a rosette which let us into a nicer section for viewing the event.

After standing about for 2 hours (having been up for 12 hours now) and listening to them drone on over the tannoy about the origins of the festival, the archers paraded up and down. The long track was lined with three targets, basically plywood boards, the archers set off down the track and tried to hit each target in one run. As the event wears on, the targets get smaller. Even with our rosettes the position we were in wasn’t great so I had to point my camera and hope for the best during the runs.

The power of the bows and speed of the archers though was stunning. If an arrow actually hit the target dead on, it pretty much just obliterated it, sending bits of wood everywhere.

After watching a few rounds of that, a few of us headed out to see the big Buddha, another of Kamakura’s attractions.

Not much to say really, it’s a big bronze Buddha. Good thing the religious man who built it put those handy dandy windows in the back for tourists to look out of. Prognosticators the lot of those Buddhists. Heading back with Gemma, we both got lost trying to get back from the funicular rail station so we grabbed a rickshaw to the hotel which was awesome.

Dinner that night was Kaiseki (stone pocket) which amounted to nouveau cuisine Japanese style.

Places visited:

Tsukiji fish market
Kamakura
Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu
Great Buddha

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

Day 1 – Travel and tourism

John Noel — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:00:23 +0000

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

Went through passport control and customs then met up with the tour leader, James as well as another group member, Lisa. James got our JR Rail Passes there then gave us instructions for getting to the hotel in Tokyo. Essentially it’s an hour and half train journey from Narita airport to Tokyo and James had to meet others at the airport so didn’t have time to take us to the hotel personally.

Dropped my bag off at the hotel (no check-in until 4pm) then went with Lisa to Senso-ji which is a temple just round the corner from the hotel.

By this time there was a fine rain or mist around and after 14+ hours of travelling it was nice just to wander in the peacefulness and soak in some of the ambience. The story behind the temple involves 2 fisherman finding a statue of the goddess Kanon while fishing; figuring it was uber holy they built a temple up around it which became Senso-ji. The figure is not on display as it’s considered too holy for us common people to view.

After a spot of lunch (menu pointing is the only way to go) Lisa and I split up and I went off to Tokyo Tower, which – as nice and touristy as it was – didn’t really hit home in the rain and mist.

By now the subway was becoming quite familiar: it was quick, efficient, clean, easy to navigate and generally quite awesome. There is of course the concept of a “Gaijin Raidus”, whereby if other passengers can possibly help it, the seats either side and in front of you will not be filled. When you’re the only westerner in a 10+ carriage train I can kind of understand it.

Now able to check into the hotel, I came upon the glory of the Japanese toilet:

Having been awake for 28+ hours and being faced with this, it was a case of “I just want to use this thing not drive it.” So you can heat the toilet seat (apparently very useful in winter-time up in the mountains) and get front and back water streams (of which you can control the water pressure). Without putting too fine a point on it, these things have impeccable aim.

Now 5pm, I couldn’t be bothered going to scavenge for food so I went to bed and slept on and off until the next day.

Places visited:

Senso-ji
Tokyo Tower