Japan 2009

Japan Blog: 1-15 March 2009   Airline: Finn Air (ok, not great but made do for 8 hours)   1 March 2009 – Tokyo Hello! I’m exhausted. Have been awake for who knows how many hours but despite the zombie eyes I’ve seen an awful lot today.   I’ve also managed to sit on two heated toilets – one of those a public loo in a park. If the rest of Japan provides these wonderful amenities then I am certainly in for an absolute treat...   But let’s go back to the beginning of my time awake. 5am yesterday morning in London, desperately trying to pretend that my alarm didn’t just go off. Basically I just rolled out of bed  20 minutes later, brushed my teeth, kissed bleary eyed Danny goodbye and trotted off on my sleepy way to Leytonstone Station. We’d eaten at Won Kei Chinese restaurant the night before so I wasn’t feeling overly great – grease, grease and more grease which shows you get what you pay for when it comes to Chinese food in central London.   Flight to Helsinki was quite remarkable. We flew low for ages and whatever we were flying over looked beautiful – lots of lakes, a lot of snow and it all looked so calm and serene. Will definitely be putting Finland on my list of places to go to one winter soon. Then we landed in snow – my god, if Heathrow’s runway ever looked like that, flights would be banned for a long time. Snow and ice everywhere except for a slim patch of runway just large enough for a plane to land on. No air-bridges either so we had to step out into very very cold weather just to get into the airport. That trip to Finland one day will certainly require a warmer coat than what I currently own.   Hungry and already very  tired, I eventually got to Tokyo, went through the quickest customs ever and picked up my Japan Rail Pass – unlimited bullet trains for 2 weeks. Wohoo! Just as I was packing up my handbag in the Japan Rail shop, two of their staff came running at me and the other tourist in there screaming “YOU MUST RUN! THE TRAIN IS FAULTY TODAY BUT WE HAVE ONE LEAVING NOW! RUN! I’LL RUN WITH YOU! QUICK! NO! NOT THAT WAY! THIS WAY! YOUR CABIN IS CABIN 2! GOOD RUCK!”   And that was my first experience of Japan. Jet lagged as hell and suddenly running faster than I’ve ever run before for a train not remembering if I’d left my passport in the office and bolting at some insane speed through the Japanese countryside. Having finally found my seat I checked my bag to find my passport. It was still there. Phew.   45 minutes later I was at Tokyo subway station negotiating its massive system, stopped at 7/11 where the friendly attendant asks where I’m from “Oh yes! The All Bracks! Very good!” Much better than the usual sheep comments.   My hostel has the post amazing power shower ever... had it not been for the cleaner giving me the evil eye on the way in I would have ended up in there for hours – hot and glorious.   Knowing that sleeping away the afternoon would not work later on I decided to go to Harajuku and ended up at the Meiji Shrine. It was one of the most amazing temples I’ve ever been to. Beautiful green surroundings, only made more serene by a vast difference to neighbouring mad-house Harajuku. There happened to be a wedding procession going through it making the scene feel completely surreal. I didn’t want to leave it and if time allows I might go back on my last day in Japan (Sept, that didn’t end up happening...).   I came out of the Meiji’s 70 acres and stopped on the Jingu-bashi bridge – famous for teens strutting their bizarre costumes for photographers. There weren’t many and they were a bit crap so it was a slight disappointment, as was Harajuku itself which was just a really colourful version of London’s Camden, just set in Tokyo.   Coming back on the tube to my hostel I fell asleep on the train. I’m off out for dinner now but have every intention of completely crashing when I come back. It has been a very long day!   3 March 2009 – Tokyo and Kamakura   Since the other night I’ve done loads of stuff. Dinner on Sunday night with Alice from Brighton was in Asakusa at an Okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese style pancake filled with meat, seafood and vegetables done over a flat bbq type thing. They were amazing, even for an egg hater like myself (the base of it is eggs).   That night I crashed. I was absolutely shattered from a very long sleep disturbed flight and had managed to stay awake an entire day in a completely different time zone. I slept ultra well and woke up the next morning at 8am ready to take an excursion out of Tokyo with Alice.   Kamakura was Japan’s capital from 1192-1333 and has loads of Buddhist and Zen shrines around. Alice and I went hiking through a trail dotted with little shrines along the way. It was nice to be out in the countryside away from all the concrete and crowds. There was even a Buddha of Happiness (Hoti) which had to be the highlight.   2 hours and a twisted knee later we arrived in the centre of Kamakura, checked out a giant 800 year old Buddha and went on the search for the beach and a seafood lunch. The beach was disappointing and he walk in search of seafood seemed to take forever but we eventually found a sushi train where I tasted some of the freshest fish I’ve ever had.   After lunch and tasting all sorts of random Japanese delicacies (think Japanese sweets, pickled seafood and unidentifiable hard gooey things) we got on the train back to Tokyo just in time for me to go and meet Hiromi, a couch-surfer from Tokyo.   Hiromi was hilarious. A totally un-cutsey yet gorgeous broadcast journalist who went to uni in Washington DC and works inane hours writing the news but not reporting it. We met up in Shibuya at the Starbucks right on the famous crossing and went for dinner at a place called “The Attic Room” which took a fair climb up some dodgy stairs. Dinner in the Attic Room was fantastic – first a salad followed by a light curry and margarita pizza washed down with a lovely couple of glasses of plum wine. Plum wine would grow to become a complete obsession on this trip.   After chatting for ages we went to a standing bar where we had plum wine again, then went for a big walk around Shibuya looking at the sites from Lost in Translation and window shopping. At one point we came across a brass band playing on the footpath. It was freezing cold but they, and everyone who stopped to watch them, were having an absolute blast and not letting the cold bother them at all. They were wearing cool matching suits, sunglasses and very crazy hair dos.   We finished up our evening with the most expensive tea and cheesecake ever, said our “sayonarras” and got on the last train home.   Still in Tokyo- Fish Market, a loo museum and a case of shopping After only 4 hours sleep it was 4:45am and time to get up and join Amber the mad Australian (what is it with Aussies called Amber, seems a popular name for them) and Fran, a very strange and angry German girl (again, what is it with angry German girls?) on a mission to the Tokyo Central Fish Market. It was a frenetic experience only made more intense by my very tired, slightly hungover, weary state. Japanese men were racing around on these delivery carts that look like a cross between a mack truck (with no back), a tiny little digger and a sedgeway. They were driving around at frightening speeds and made allowances for no one.   I don’t think I’ve ever felt so unwelcome in a place. Amber, Fran and I were only a few of hundreds of tourists there and this place was not designed for hoards of westerners toting their digital cameras around and not buying a thing. On display were the biggest tuna I’ve ever seen, giant mussels, octopus, huge shrimps and the bossiest “I will control tourists” attendants waving light sabres (big rod like orange lights) away from the auction room where Sydney Barista Amber announces loudly “THAT’S WHERE THEY’RE GUNNA AUCTION WHALES!”   After 1.5 hours of jostling around and making our clothes (and hair) stink of seafood we declared we’d had our fish-market fix and headed back to K’s House (hostel).   Angry German Fran was horrified that Amber and I could even contemplate going back to bed (hello, hangover, 4 hours sleep, still only 7am!). “Baat zere is zoooo much to see in zis zity!” to which I gave her one of my “I’ve seen more than my fair share of Asian cities and my priority right now is getting some sleep” lectures and headed back to my warm comfy bed, with a rather plush duvet for a hostel, and slept until 11am.   Amber the Barista and Adriana Van Boxtel (great name) who teaches in Australia’s Northern Territory were waiting for me when I surfaced downstairs. The night before I had excitedly told them about a fabled toilet museum in downtown Tokyo and they were patiently awaiting my guidebook to point us all in the right direction.   This is where I must point out my amazement at Japanese loos. They are incredible. Not only are they all spotless, but most are heated which is perfect on a winter day, and have a selection of buttons you can push. My favourite is the sound button which makes the toilets sound like they’re flushing so your neighbours can’t hear you pee – and you can adjust the volume! There are also several options of toilet “shower” buttons which I was too afraid to try but I was told that they’re not for the faint hearted.   On the way to the toilet museum we got lost. Even with the power of 3 antipodean minds we couldn’t work out how on earth to get to this museum... but it was ok! We found love on the way in the form of a massive bright red sculpture of the word and posed for more than an hour on it before realising that the loo museum was actually just across the road. When you’re lost, LOVE will help you find the way.   The toilet museum wasn’t quite what we’d hoped for. This history of toilets had been neglected but it did have an impressive array of Toto company’s modern designs all for sale. The loo museum was actually more of a loo showroom with a few baths and showers included in the displays. We did come away freshly enlightened however and of course, checked out their impressive magic buttoned loos with music included on the way out. I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out Shinjiku shopping district. It had an enormous Muji – that Japanese department store which sells everything practical, and a crazy department store specifically for trendy young Japanese which sold all sorts of funky clothes, a massive range of Hello Kitty and the amazing Blythe dolls whose eyes change colour and cost a fortune.   I got lost going back to the hostel but got there in the end, got completely drenched on the way and then joined the Aussies (and a new one who they’d picked up, Niiiigel from Woolongong) for a dinner of  magic tempura. The prawns were out of this world.   Asakusa Temple, final encounter with Angry German Girl and being abandoned at Tokyo Station For some reason I was wide awake at 6:45am on Wednesday. Gaaaah! After 20 minutes of realising I was simply not going back to sleep no matter how much I wanted to I got up quietly, showered and went to start my day with my traditional Asian breakfast of pocky and green tea.   There was yet another highly irritating girl hovering around me. First of all, she took my freshly boiled water meaning I had to wait 10 minutes for another boiled jug, then after I’d finally had my tea she actually shoved me out of the way while I rinsed my cup so she could was hers... Worst of all, here in Kyoto I’ve just seen her in my hostel. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.   I had a couple of hours to check out my neighbourhood properly so I haeded to the Thunder Temple at Asakusa. At 7:30am it was super quiet and really serene. The only people there were a few worshippers. Though it wasn’t much different to most temples I’d been to in Asia, it had a nice calmness which I was certain wouldn’t last the full day.   On my way back to the hostel I dumped into Fran, the angry German girl from my room “OOOOH! YOU HAVEN’T LEVT YET” in her angry tone... To which I replied that I was leaving in an hour and good luck for her travels. I hope I never see her again.   So I picked up my stuff, bid adieu to my new found traveller friends and headed on my way to Tokyo Station to meet Mum and Dad.   What a fiasco! I stood in designated meeting spot for almost 2 hours having been unable to locate the nearest Starbucks which was our back-up. While I sat there sour-faced they turned up relaxed and smiley as can be, we booked our Shinkasen tickets to Takaoka and headed on our merry way to see Raewyn.   Takaoka – noodles, futon, school, amazing temple and Raewyn’s friends   We barely saw a thing on the Bullet train to our first stop as there was a massive wall alongside us for the entire journey. But when we changed to the local train the scenery was lovely – first mountains, then a bleak coastline that faces Russia.   Raewyn was hyper-excited when we arrived. We didn’t do much that evening except go for really tasty noodles and drink tea on her heated floor after we’d checked Mum and Dad into their tiny room at the hotel down the road.   Thursday morning we got up very early and went to school for the day. The kids were hilarious and the teachers were lovely. In R’s classes the kids were working on a topic called “what do you like?” so for five periods we were thrown those questions – a bit boring but it was good to see the school and environment that Raewyn works in. The school was really basic and actually reminded me an awful lot of the schools in China.   After having lunch with the teachers I joined Mum and Dad and heir tour guide, John from Oxford, for a visit to Takaoka’s Zen temple, Zuruji. It’s listed as a National Treasure and I can see why – it’s enormous and stunningly beautiful with an eerie silence surrounding it. We got in for free as John introduced us as “Representatives from the New Zealand Tourist Commissioner’s Office”, even though there’s no escaping the fact that you can tell I am the offspring of an excellent line of freckly strawberry blonde MacGregors...   That evening we joined Raewyn and her friend Dave for dinner at her friend’s Okonomiyaki restaurant. The food was great as was the plum wine, but what really made the evening was that most of her friends just “happened” to drop in. They were a young group of assistant language teachers all having the time of their lives – a not too dissimilar group to whom I spent my time with in Changzhou.   Evening over I spent my second night on Raewyn’s floor based futon and woke up several times with a dire back ache, woke up at 7am and the family headed off into the mountains together...   Hakuba, Snow Monkeys, more Plum wine and a trip to Kyoto   The train had to stop due to high winds. We thought we’d be stuck in this random town for the night but Japan Rail actually paid £150 for our taxi ride all the way to our destination resulting in us arriving an hour early.   We settled into Santana Lodge for the afternoon, chatted away to the kiwi owner (who reminded me an awful lot of my cousin Gordon), went up and checked out Hakuba Goryu ski field and then argued incessantly trying to find a 7-11 for Raewyn to buy a drink from. We couldn’t find the damned thing and she had to settle for a Spar which of course didn’t have what on earth she was after. Dinner was an expensive meal at an Australian hotel around the corner where Dad, Mum and I drank away our sorrows...   We all got up super bright and early on Saturday to ski and it was absolutely outstanding up there. The field is massive (actually, 2 fields joined together) with lots of slopes that were a bit on the steep side but fun regardless. Even though I hadn’t skied since 2002 (7 years ago), getting back on the slopes was like riding a bike – it all comes back to you in seconds.   How much can you really write about a day’s skiing? Not much. Mum, Dad and Raewyn all gave up around 2pm and I continued on for another hour. It was a really fun day and surprisingly, I wasn’t too stiff.   Mum, Dad and Raewyn spent the rest of the day down at the onsen (hot pools where you can only go into naked, needless to say, our family is close, but not that close...) while I chilled out at the lodge in silent bliss reading my book. That evening we had more Japanese food (including sashimi and umeshu) and all god a very early night.   Sunday we took our time in getting up and took a 2 hour bus ride plus 40 minute walk to see the snow monkeys in their forest based onsens.   The long ride there was so worth it. The walk through mountain forest was really beautiful with snow still settled through the tall pines. Raewyn and Mum managed to stop bickering for a few minutes and we walked up to the hot springs in relative peace (probably helped by Mum and I dawdling quite a long way behind the other two).   The monkeys were amazing – probably the highlight of Japan. They were big fluffy Japanese macaques each with their own distinct faces and personalities and all with almost humanlike hands. They were mostly hanging out quietly in the onsen warming themselves away from the snow. They weren’t bothered by human presence, nor were they interested in the fact that we were there.   The photos of them were way better than I could ever describe the furry creatures.   The ride back was totally uneventful until we got back to Hakuba where the olds and Raewyn went back to the lodge and I went on my own to the onsen.   A couple of hours later, clean and with the softest hair ever, I was warm in bed drifting off to sleep with a smile on. I was really having the most incredible trip.   On Monday we all go on the train to our various destinations and I said goodbye to Raewyn who would be coming to London in July for 2 weeks.   Kyoto   Kyoto is a strange city. I had really been looking forward to going there so when I arrived late on Monday afternoon and rearing to go, I felt quite a shock to discover people who were jaded by tourists and that everything was super expensive.   As a result I found myself more and more jaded with every temple and souvenir shop I went into. My first afternoon was spent updating my journal in the hostel bar (too late to go to any temples) followed by a walk to the shopping district to get the souvenir shopping over and done with. I had hoped to pick up a cheap tea set but I quickly realised that Kyoto was not the city to buy anything remotely cheap...  I did however lay my hands of a Barrack Obama (my new political crush) mask – oh how random this country is!   Luckily in the evening my new English friend Alice, the one I met in Tokyo, was staying in my hostel all week so we had an evening of cheap ramen at the train station and spent the rest of the night drinking the wonderful and magical umeshu.   I don’t know how, but I woke up well and truly hangoverless on Tuesday and very excited to explore the city on my bright blue front basketed bike rented from the hostel. I think someone really tall but have had it before as it took an eternity to adjust the seat to a height my legs could actually cope with.   Once on the bike I set off only to realise that it was really wobbly. Now, if there’s one thing I’m generally confident on, it’s a bike in Asia – I’ve used them all over the place and but my China weight loss down to negotiating Changzhou’s roads several times a day.. So I got off only to realise I’d turned my seat pretty much to my side. Stupid Kat.   Seat fixed, I finally got on the road and headed to the Inari Shrine. It took me almost 2 hours to get there (yet only 20 minutes back) as the roads weren’t on the map where the Lonely Planet said they were. I was crossing over bridges I shouldn’t have been, ending up in traffic going the wrong way and worse still, getting stuck in gangs of Japanese school kids all on flash new bikes. It was not a pleasant experience, particularly when I managed to get lost 3 times and had to negotiate not only the road traffic but also footpaths which were way worse.   Inari Shrine was fantastic though. The main feature was a massive series of bright orange archways and stone foxes wearing red scarves scattered about the place. It was a beautiful site and incredibly peaceful, the only other tourists there being a small group of Italians and a Japanese primary school. The primary kids were mega cute in little bob the builder hard hats.   I decided that the next step on my bicycle ride would be the temple near my hostel which hosted Kannon, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy (some call her the Goddess of Peace, and in China she’s known as Guan Yin). There were over 1000 bronze statues of her and the place was again, super calm and quiet, well needed after getting lost again and almost falling off my bike on the way there.   I decided at that temple, Sanjusangen-Do (1164ad) that I would probably be better off returning the bike and that chances were I’d be quicker on foot.   So big blue bike was given back and I made my way to the Gion in the hope of seeing a Geisha. I didn’t, even though I went back several times throughout the afternoon just in case.   I then went to yet another shrine, the Chion (1234ad) and still managed to get lost on the way there. Again, I have no idea what the name of it was but it was interesting with a series of objects you’re supposed to look for, one being a squashed stone, another being a hidden umbrella. I was one of the last of the day to be let in so the grounds were again, really quiet and peaceful, and the temple itself completely empty.   I then walked back through the Gion hoping for a glimpse of a geisha but no, it was certainly not my day. I was gutted to find out later on that Dad managed to get a brilliant photo of two of them.   I continued on what was turning into an insanely long walk and headed to Ippo-do, a very old tea shop which though expensive sells some of the most exquisite tea. I arrived at closing time but did get the chance to have a proper tasting of Gorkyu tea – it tasted very savoury and I left buying something much sweeter – Genmaicha and a small pot of Sencha.   By this time I was exhausted so headed back to the hostel where I met Alice for a drink and had Tonkatsu down at the station.   Wednesday was spent doing more shopping – this time at the Nishigi gourmet market. I didn’t care for the food but I did buy a gorgeous bag. We were there for ages, had a nasty lunch of soggy tempura, then made the trek to the bamboo forest – an absolutely stunning place. The towering green bamboo made the trek out there totally worth it.   On the way back to K’s House (the hostel), we stupidly managed to get stuck in rush-hour traffic meaning we were squished in a tiny train carriage against a lot of Japanese commuters.   Mum and Dad arrived that afternoon and we spent the evening eating ramen at the train station followed by more umeshu in the hostel bar.   Nara   We got up quite early to get to Nara, dragging Alice along with us. Reisa (pronounced Lisa) and her mum Keiko met us at Nara Station and took us out for a fantastic day. Both impeccable speakers of English, Keiko and Reisa, and little brother Kento were a force of nature. Super outgoing, super friendly and all three determined to show us the best parts of Nara. We were to have a blast.   First stop was the deer park where we got attacked by deer far too accustomed to tourists feeding them especially made biscuits. The LP says there are 1200 deer in the park, I think that number is probably a lot higher. It took days for my bruises to go down!   We had a walk through the historic district, went to an amazing temple, Todai-ji, which had been in existence since 746AD and had another enormous Buddha. They were filming for a TV show while we were there so there was a Japanese version of Mr Blobby, though furry and with bright polka-dots all over him, bumbling around the place.   We walked through old Nara, down nice alleyways lined with bamboo doors and ended up at Keiko’s favourite tea garden where we drank macha and ate little cakes and looked at the view over Nara. It was such a pleasant setting and we were reluctant to move from it. However, we continued back down through Nara’s alleyways, past a monkey temple and into a really old and beautiful tea shop owned by a little old man and his super smiley wife. I bought a great supply of Bancha which I sadly finished just recently. We didn’t have much time left in the day so made our way to Keiko’s favourite Italian restaurant. On the way there I somehow ended up being filmed for Japanese TV. The video of it is somewhere on the internet – I’m basically pounding rice against two massive bakers who could double their lives as sumo wrestlers. Pulled out of the crowd, I pounded away and had a blast. Unfortunately my 15 minutes of fame was never quite realised as it never ended up on TV... shame, it could have been my chance!!!   Lunch was the best pizza I have ever eaten in my life. The Japanese have this incredible ability to take something, copy it and make it even better. That has been said for whiskey and I can now hand on my heart say it has been done for Italian food. Wow. We all came out of it absolutely stuffed, sadly said our goodbyes to Keiko, Reisa and Kento (fantastic family!) and slept our train journey back to Kyoto.   That night for dinner was more Tonkatsu... delightful.   Hiroshima and Himeiji   We set off the next morning for Hiroshima and spent just three hours there. Three hours was enough to get a sense of knowing just how awful the world can be and I truly don’t think I’ve ever felt so chilled in my life from standing in a park. Hiroshima’s Peace Park marks the exact spot where the A-Bomb exploded 1km in the air above Hiroshima and obliterated everything within a 3 mile radius and caused serious damage to a much wider area.   We got off the train station and headed straight to the Peace Park, looked at the one surviving structure – iron foundations of a former conference centre, left there to remind the world what atrocities war can bring, and went to the museum. It’s been done incredibly tastefully – without emotion or blame – just stating the facts of what happened on the day, the events leading up to it and the results of which continue through to today (disfigurement, cancers etc, awful). The park around it is today very lush with beautiful memorials to those who died – quite a lovely, if not really sad, place to walk around.   Having spent 1.5 hours at the museum we had to make our way back to the station and get on our way to Himeiji, a town famous for its castle built in 1580 and apparently famous in the West from Samurai movies. It was nice but there wasn’t anything there other than an empty castle, plus the rain and clouds dampened our spirits even more after a heavy morning. I had a bit of déjà-vu from China when we got befriended by a Japanese student desperate to practice our English. She walked with us for about 45 minutes then randomly disappeared... Nice girl though!   We headed back to Kyoto, fought over where to have dinner, ending up with me eating quite nice yakitori in the hostel bar, of course with matching umeshi and with the olds joining me later on for more of it. The next morning would be the start of our last day in Japan.    Tokyo – one last day We were really looking forward to the train ride back to Tokyo, mainly due to leaving overpriced Kyoto but also because the train was going to pass Mt Fuji. Unfortunately it was super overcast and we missed seeing it – my one glimpse unfortunately blocked by a tea lady blocking my view taking someone’s order... In typical fashion, Dad managed a great view!   I parted from Mum and Dad for the afternoon to go and get a last spot of Tokyo’s awesome shopping. As great as it was, I was running out of money and looking forward to getting back to London. I met up with Mum and Dad for one final Japanese meal – and what a meal it was... Massive tempura prawns and not much else. We ate a lot.   It was time to say goodbye to Mum and Dad until next time. I was off out for one last night in Tokyo with new friend Hiromi. We hit Shibuya again – went to a really neat bar for dessert (I do believe I had apple crumble), had a few umeshus, went to a crazy arcade for sticker photos and then it was time for another goodbye. I’ll definitely be seeing Hiromi again – great girl.   I caught the very last subway back to Asakusa, packed up my stuff, slept for 4 hours and got up early to head with Alice to the airport. From there it’s pretty self-explanatory – 8 hours later I was in cold Helsinki, absolutely starving due to Finn Air’s tiny portions, 4 hours after that I was back in London with Danny waiting for me at Heathrow and knocked firmly back into the world of awful conference organising job the next morning.... Luckily 3 months later I’d be made redundant and end up finding a job I’m really happy in.   I had an incredible 2 weeks in Japan. It’s such a unique and interesting place. The people are so friendly it’s not funny, the food is great and all round it just has a great feel to it. I can’t wait to go back there again.