Day 14: Home

Like most of my actual time, I spent none of today in Japan. Our flight arrived back in Sydney ahead of schedule by about 30 minutes which was nice, and there is a weird new check in system for Australian residents at the airport which made the process go pretty quickly. We were also selected to skip the customs queue which saved a good deal of time as well.

So now I’m back home, having picked up Pippi from the cattery (her meow seems to have changed – is that normal? Maybe she’s like one of those tourists who goes to America or London for a couple of weeks and comes back with a foreign accent – what a poser).

Anyway, I thought I may as well do a bit of a recap/debrief of this trip. I imagine the blog will be quiet for a while until I work out precisely what to do with it. I will likely use it to blog about any other trips (even if they’re just local) and some of my interests. Who knows?

This trip was a bit lesser in the way of buying heaps of souvenirs or goods for ourselves (though we still got a fair bit), which is only natural after having been to Japan less than a year ago on our last trip. I didn’t take a picture of all of our purchases, just some of the things we got for me, and a few of the jigsaw puzzles we picked up as well. By far my favourite is the jigsaw which has a variety of famous artworks that have replaced the subjects with cats. It’s truly incredible (we got that from the Hakone Open Air Museum).

So I’ll try to run down some of the highlights of the trip. For the sake of some pitiful attempt at balance I’ll start with the lowlights.

Worst Day/s: First and Last Day in Japan

The worst parts of the trips were the bookends of the trip. This is in large part due to the fact that neither I nor my wife are particularly good flyers, so the first day was not great due to having had to fly in to Japan and my wife feeling pretty off from it. The last day wasn’t too bad but it was one of those days where, because you know you need to get somewhere, it’s hard to settle into any fun activity (lunch was cool though) because you know you need to get to the airport and go through the travel motions. The experience at Narita and by Qantas was fairly seemless, but even the best flights aren’t fun.

Honourable Mention: The weather.

To be fair, the weather didn’t end up being all that bad on the trip. The only truly horrid day was our day in Hiroshima, and this actually ended up having a couple of impacts. Firstly it did alter how much we were able to take in at places such as the Hiroshima Peace Park, meant we were sodden going to the Castle and missed the Shukkien Gardens. Also it was on this day that we’d learnt about Super Typhoon Neoguri and made the decision to move our trip away from Takayama and cancel our trip there. Missing Takayama was disappointing, but the decision to go back to Tokyo was still the right one and we had some really good experiences at Yokohama, Nihon-Minkaean and Ikebukuro. The other end of the spectrum was the truly oppressive heat on the last couple of days, coupled with the surprise of the earthquake on the second last day. Despite all of this, the weather wasn’t too bad. If it had been as hot as it was the last few days for the entire trip, that probably would have made things pretty awfule.

Most surprisingly fun/interesting place:Kita-Kamakura

I’m not sure if I’m swayed because it was early on in the trip, but going to Kita-Kamakura and the temples there before going to Kamakura proper was a great way to do that day trip. Kita-Kamakura wasn’t even a certainty as I had considered trying to fit Enoshima into the day somewhere, probably in lieu of the temples at Kita-Kamakura. I’m glad I didn’t do that, it was just lovely and peaceful and not at all what I expected. Definitely worthwhile.

Honourable mention: Miyajima

Best experience:Hozugawa River Cruise

There were so many things to choose from in terms of best experience, I was actually planning on writing about the onsen baths in Miyajima for this section. However after reflecting, the cruise down the Hozugawa River in Arashiyama was spectacular. It was so beautiful and serene, calm yet exhilarating. The constant chatter and jokes from the crew (despite the fact that I understood none of it – except for when one of the rowers missed his mark with the pole he was using) added to the atmosphere and made it a day I’ll remember for a long time to come.

Honourable mentions: Onsen in Miyajima, Night Boat tour, Eating Black Eggs at Owakudani, Monkey Park

Best Museum/Site: Hiroshima Peace Park

I’ll include temples and other sites in this category. As I mentioned earlier, Kita-Kamakura and it’s temples were stunning, so too were some that we saw in Kyoto again and in Miyajima also. Overall though, the Hiroshima Peace Park and it’s Museum is so well curated that I had to list it as the best. Even with the weather, it is clear that everything in the Peace Park treats the subject with the dignity it deserves and serves the message of nuclear disarmament clearly. From all the signage being multi-lingual, to the layout of the Museum and its exhibitions, the whole thing was awe inspiring. It was so effective that I, who took over 1500 photos on the trip (and still feel like I didn’t get enough of particular things) felt quite uncomfortable taking any at the Museum and didn’t feel regretful that I ‘missed’ some photo opportunities. The Peace Park alone is worth a day trip down to Hiroshima if you’re staying somewhere like Kyoto or Osaka.

Honourable mentions: Nihon-Minkaean, Itsukushima Shrine, Meigetsuin Temple

Best night out: Baseball at Tokyo Dome

It’s difficult for me to write too much more on this because it is so recent and I feel like I’ve covered it in detail already. Again though, this is an experience where, if you can possibly do it, even if you don’t love sports, I highly recommend it (so too the Sumo tournaments which we saw last time). In large part, the enthusiasm of the Hanshin Tigers crowd (who are based of Osaka and aren’t the home team of the Tokyo Dome) and the craziness of the Tokyo Dome itself made the entire night worthwhile.

Honourable mentions: Capcom Bar, Watching Origin at Paddy’s Junction in Shinjuku

Best Meal: Soba in Shinjuku

Meals made up a large part of our trip and were probably the biggest hit to our budget. This is because of us and the way we approach meals, rather than Japan being overly expensive. At times I felt a bit of regret, stress and guilt at having some of our more expensive meals, because in knew we could do it a bit cheaper. However, we enjoyed pretty much every meal and again, retrospectively, I have no regrets about any of them. Amusingly though, I think that our best meal was also our cheapest, working out to something like 1300 yen. This was from the little Soba place around the corner from Citadines Shinjuku. We ordered the food from the vending machine at the front, took it to the counter and got our delicious meal.

Honourable mentions: Ninja Restaurant (for the experience), French at Fujiya (so expensive, so delicious), Cook your own in Pontocho, Sushi in Kyoto.

And with that food category, I’ll finish it there. I could write about a lot more but I’m tired and have already spent too much time doing this already. Also the iPad is playing up and the cat is threatening to eat it’s charging cable and, in being unable to do so, is contenting herself by malting everywhere. Thanks to everyone for following this trip. Please keep on, I’m sure I’ll write more at some point. The trip was great and I really enjoyed writing this to provide some context for the thousands of pictures I take. It has been a blast.

Cheers

Day 8: Hiroshima

A bit of an unexpectedly stressful day today in a few ways. Firstly my flu/chest infection/god knows what that I’ve had for a bit has developed into more consistent coughing and a bit of light headed ness (I probably ought to see a doctor when I get home). Secondly it was torrential today in Hiroshima. Yesterday I made the when it rains, it pours joke regarding my newfound enjoyment of onsen. Today it was some of the worst weather I have ever been outside in (that’s and odd sentence). As such we had to amend our plans a little bit and spent less time exploring the Peace Park than I would have liked and had to skip the Shikkuen Gardens. Finally, due to the imminent arrival of ‘super typhoon’ Neoguri (which we only found out about today), we made the snap decision to cancel our trip to Takayama. I am bitterly disappointed about that as I was very much looking forward to seeing Takayama and Shirakawa-Go but in the end it seemed like the more sensible decision to amend our plans and return instead to Tokyo where the effects of the typhoon (I keep going to instinctively call it a cyclone) are supposed to be a bit less and where there are more inside alternatives available. From the looks of the weather report our whole time in Takayama on Thursday would have been a forced retreat inside anyway so I think the right decision was made given the information. Gives me another excuse to come back to Japan one day anyway.

Last night we had our ryokan meal which was nice and did a boat tour to the Itsukushima Shrine which was beautiful. Couldn’t really capture it with any justice in the pictures I’ve taken.

In the morning we checked out and set out for Hiroshima. When we got off the tram at the A-bomb dome I foolishly remarked: “the weather is not that bad”, at which point the weather gods turned on me (which also happened because after the first week I thought how lucky we’d been with the weather – cue super typhoon). We visited the Hiroshima Peace Park and the museum. I didn’t take a lot of pictures here because it wouldn’t have felt respectful. The museum was outstanding in terms of the message of peace and nuclear disarmament it is trying to get across and the marvelous way it presents the message to the public.

Next we took a taxi (see: weather) to Hiroshima Castle. I love a good castle, even if it is a reconstruction. However the weather and weather reports had put a bit of a dampener (Ha!) on how I was feeling so we didn’t spend a great deal of time there. We spent just enough time though for me to make a fool of myself.

Lunch time. Having heard about Okinomyakai, and hearing that it’s a specialty in Hiroshima, we went to Okinomimura to try some. I quite liked mine although not quite as much as I thought I might. It was kind of like a pancake meets kebab with a lot of cabbage, spring onions and noodles thrown in for good measure. It was a fun lunchtime though.

Back on the train the Kyoto where Australia’s deadliest predators struck. No, not the Great White Shark, or the Redback Spider, or the Brown Snake, but the Great (White) Idiotic Tourists. In Japan, things are quite orderly. Everything runs on time, people queue up. It works. People don’t loudly barge in front of a queue, hold everybody up trying to get on the train, run about the carriage trying to find your assigned seat and then carry on with conversations in a completely silent carriage. The gift of the Great White Idiotic Tourist though is that it can achieve all of these marvelous feats and more!

Back to Kyoto for an easy afternoon of shopping near the hotel and a friggen awesome Japanese hamburger steak dinner (if you come to Japan, Japanese hamburger steaks are a must) and now I’m trying to recover health wise and plan around the super typhoon and our amended accommodation and itinerary. Sucks to have to change it but you gotta roll with the punches, or something like that. Hopefully I can keep this blog varied. With the weather, who knows what we’ll get up to. I’m sure we will find something.

Day 7: Miyajima

After a bit of a poor showing yesterday (though let’s face it, even my poor showings are pretty solid), I’m hoping for a return to form today. My internet however is once again being a bit etch-a-sketchy which is not a major surprise given my beautiful surroundings.

Today began like many others have and a few more will, riding the rails. This time in the form of a Shinkansen bound for Hiroshima.

A pretty quick trip (less than 2 hours) and we pulled into Hiroshima station. Here we changed for the JR to Miyajimaguchi station. The rail network in Hiroshima was noticeably less advanced than others, or at the very least not as tourist friendly in offering language alternatives. But even the signage and vocal notification of what station you’re at was down from Kyoto and Tokyo (they still have Cityrail comfortably covered though).

Side Note: I just took a break from writing this blog to have another onsen relax. (When it rains men, it pours), and at this ryokan the onsen was incredible. Nice wood paneled interior (no, I’m not selling a car here). The best part was the outside portion of the onsen, contrasting the warm soaking water with the outside rain, nearby sounds of running water and the passing deer was simply sublime.

Anyway, after negotiating garbled announcements we made it to Miyajimaguchi where some light rain had just begun (the actual rain was yet to arrive) and we took the ferry full of people (mainly tourists, us included) across to Miyajima. I also came to the realisation that I really truly detest hearing the Australian accent overseas. It’s grating and it doesn’t make me feel comfortable or at home whatsoever. If anything it makes me question ‘do we really sound like that?’, ‘do I sound like that?’ (yea mate, ya do) and it really irritates me.

Arriving on the island of Miyajima we initially planned to walk around for a while before finding our accommodation. As luck would have it the shuttle service for our accommodation was arriving so we simply took that up to the ryokan. The bus wound it’s way up mountains, around backstreets and it seemed like we’d chosen somewhere that was in the middle of nowhere and miles away from anything. As it turns out, it is nicely in the middle of nowhere but not far from the main sites.

I’d almost rather not mention the next chapter but, for you dear readers I will not self censor every detail. The good must come with the bad (am I the ugly in that case?), and the truth must be told. We had an abortive expedition to Mt Misen. We paid our fairly large amount to get the return rope way journey up the mountain. However, partway through our first rope way portion we both realised just how much we hate rope ways and wanted to return. So we did, and as such, did not see the top of the mountain or the views from it. Not a major loss but admittedly a bit of a disappointment. For my part I wish I had researched a bit better in terms of cost and what was involved, and some better decisions could have been made. There’s a lesson for you. Do I get paid overtime for educating people on my holidays? (No is the answer there. With the way things are going, we’ll all be lucky to get paid at all, but enough politics).

The rope way adventure successfully aborted (can you successfully abort a mission? I suppose the Gallipoli withdrawal is counted as a ‘success’ even though it was a retreat, so yes), we made our way down to the shrines which dot the island. We first went to Senjokaku which is a huge open shrine/temple that you are able to walk around. From here we could see the large 5 storeys pagoda. It was a nice spot to sit and relax and unwind after the previous hour.

I almost forgot our foods on sticks! My wife had roasted corn on a stick (boring! But probably quite tasty) and I went with the deep fried oysters on a stick (less boring! Pretty tasty, the jury is still a bit undecided though).

We wandered around for a while just checking out different shops and the area around the main shrine (we were waiting for high tide) before stopping for proper lunch (not stick lunch).

It was raining fairly heavily at this stage (and was to rain heavier later – I have only just realised that the “wet season” is not just a clever name, who knew? – that said, the temperature today was pretty good and the rain actually served to make everything look beautiful) and we made an unplanned stop at Miyajima aquarium. This is a pretty small scale aquarium, and I felt a bit bad for the otters who were on display at their living quarters were not that large (I will never pass up a chance to see otters though, if I was insanely rich, I wouldn’t have tiger cages Mike Tyson style or monkeys Michael Jackson style (Also what is it with “Mike’s” and animals?), I’d have a huge otter park with like a dozen otters that had room to run around and swim around and just go nuts. It would be otter mayhem! Yes, I did just do a terrible pun and a bracket within a bracket – bracketception. The aquarium had some kinky eels I had never seen the likes of before.

Next stop in the increasingly heavy rain was Daisho-In temple, a Buddhist temple at the foot of Mt Misen. As I mentioned previously, it was bucketing down now, though the atmosphere this created, coupled with the scent of incense and the sounds of running water and the drumming of a ritual is enough to make anyone at least somewhat spiritual.

Finally our last stop before returning and actually checking in to the ryokan was the Itsukushima shrine with its famous Torii gate over the water, the shrine itself also being elevated. The Torii gate was not precisely a surprise, it is the most recognizable symbol of Miyajima island and viewable from practically anywhere. The tide was not a particularly high one today though it was worthwhile going at high tide and seeing the water, in part, come up to the shrine. Words don’t adequately describe places like this (well, they probably do, my words don’t) and I’m not an expert photographer so you’ll kind of just to accept my word that it was great.

I think I’ll just try and chill out now. Tonight will be a ryokan dinner (not our first ever), and hopefully a night boat tour around the floating Torii gate. Tomorrow we head to Hiroshima proper to check out the Peace Park, Castle and other areas (depending on time and tiredness) before returning to Kyoto.

The Itinerary – 2014

 

No Sumo tournament this time around. With the itinerary for this trip we decided to re-visit a couple of similar areas, and even stay in some of the same places but to also make sure that we did and visited different things in those places, while also visiting completely new one. I’m always really detailed with our itineraries, and they are usually pretty packed without much down time. Down time and relaxing is for when I get back home, not when I’m overseas somewhere I haven’t been all that often.

Day 1 – Arrive in Tokyo. Explore Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku. Alas no Robot Restaurant madness planned this time.

Day 2 – Day trip visit to Kamakura and maybe Enoshima

Day 3 – Ueno Park and Museums, See Asakusa (didn’t see this last time), Odaiba (also new)

Day 4 – Hakone

Day 5 – Hakone Round Course

Day 6 – Kyoto, Explore Gion region.

Day 7 – Hiroshima, visit Miyajima

Day 8 – Hiroshima

Day 9 – Kyoto, Fushimi-Inari shrine (our favourite, must visit again). Arashiyama.

Day 10 – Takayama

Day 11 – Visit Shirakawa-go

Day 12 – Tokyo, Baseball Game!

Day 13 – Last Day, Explore other areas of Tokyo: Ginza, Akihabara. Then return home

A lot packed in to a short amount of time. Really looking forward to it. Always feel like it is a long time away from home yet conversely it doesn’t feel like we have enough time. I’m sure in the future we’d be back again so that would always motivate us to see more and do more.

Coming up: Packing (probably at the last minute knowing me)