Japan – JACKMAN ESCAPADES

Tokyo to Sendai – Memorable & Eventful

Japan – Here We Come …. Our flight to Narita was uneventful, hopped on the Skyliner fast train to Ueno, a short walk in light rain and we were in our hotel. Next morning up early and into Tokyo Station to organise our Japan Rail Passes. The same girl booked all our planned rail journeys. This country is unbelievably efficient.

It was then back to Ueno, 10 minutes by rail from Tokyo Station. We spent the day visiting the Uenoonshi Park, walked the Ameyoko Market and exploring Ueno. This is a great area of Tokyo and the market has some real bargains which we resisted, not wanting to lug them all over Japan.

Off To Aomori … Next day, up early to catch the bullet train (Shinkansen) for the 700 km, 3 1/2 hour journey to Aomori. Hopped on a local bus and checked into our hotel. We then walked the town to get our bearings and plan our next full day. Aomori is a modern town with wide streets and a number of tourist attractions. They even laid on entertainment for our arrival. How thoughtful.

Sunday entertainment for the locals and visitors

New friends — Liz makes some new friends

Just Amazing …. Our first stop the next day was the Nebuta Museum. This museum features floats from the Nebuta Festival which is highlighted by a procession featuring 20 large floats, each measuring about 10 metres square and 5 metres high which are specifically made each year for the festival which takes place in early August.

Another Museum – Different This Time …. Our next stop was the Hakkoda-maru Seikan Ferry Memorial Ship. This is a floating museum which highlights the history of the Seikan Ferry Company which commenced in 1908 and operated for 80 years. Many of the vessels were destroyed and sunk by enemy air raids during the second World War II. The last ferry, shown below ceased operation in 1988 and was converted to a museum.

Back In Time 4000 years …. After the ferry museum it was out of town 7 km by bus to the Sannai-Maruyama historical site which dates back 4000 to 5500 years ago. Archaeologists have been excavating this site for many years and have reconstructed many of the dwellings based on their findings. There are a number of Pit Houses, Elevated Houses and Community Meeting places which have been reconstructed.

Inspecting a Pit House. Floor is about 1.5 metres below ground level.

A Bit Of Culture …. Our final stop for the day was just across the road at the Aomori Art Gallery. This massive building holds the Aomori collection of local and international artists.

White Dog — Aomori Art Gallery – One of the exhibits.

Shirakami Resort Train …. This train leaves from Aomori and works it’s way to the west coast through farming and small communities until it reaches the coast. It then travels along the coastline for around 50 km very close to the ocean. This turned out to be an adventurous journey as Japan was hit by a typhoon which we ended up right on the edge of. The sea was ferocious and people that disembarked from the train to take photos had their umbrellas blown inside out and came back onto the train soaking wet. Hardy people these Japanese.

Typhoon — Train stop to take photos in the middle of a typhoon

We arrived in Akita around 2:00 PM and was kindly escorted to our hotel through a maze of shops and department stores by an elderly station attendant. Could you imagine this happening in Melbourne. Not likely.

Back On The Shinkansen …. We left early the next morning for the 2 1/2 hour bullet train journey to Sendai. This turned out to be another highlight as the typhoon had passed and it was a mild and sunny day with almost no wind. What a contrast to the day before. The autumn colours of the trees, flowing rivers, small villages and acres of rice paddy fields made for an interesting journey. We arrived in Sendai just after 9:30 AM, dropped of our suit cases at the hotel, a 2 minute walk from the station, and then spent an hour familiarizing ourselves with Sendai downtown area.

A Harbour Cruise …. It was then back on another train for 45 minutes to a town called Matsushima, a holiday resort style town. On arrival we spent an enjoyable hour on a sightseeing cruise around the bay area which is really beautiful as it has dozens of small islands scattered through the bay each with a fascinating story. These small islands helped break the full force of the tsunami back in 2011 so there was minimal damage to the town and the marine craft in the area. On our return to shore we walked the town then back on the train to Sendai.

Sendai …. Aomori could well be described as a rural city but Sendai is a large beautiful metropolis. It has wide tree lined streets, an abundance of department stores and very long covered arcades. It is certainly a city that we would look to come back to if we visit Japan again.

And Now We Head South …. After 6 days in the north of Honshu we head south to the island of Kyushu for 10 days.

A Week In Tokyo

Off To A Wet Start …
We arrived in Tokyo 30 minutes ahead of schedule after a very comfortable business class flight on the new Boeing Dreamliner. This is a very quiet and comfortable plane so we both had a restful overnight flight. We checked into our East Ginza apartment and then went out for groceries and supplies. Unfortunately our first day in Tokyo was raining so we were a little limited in what we could do but managed our grocery shopping and a walk around the Ginza, the high class shopping district of Tokyo. Grocery shopping in Japan is a real experience as there is almost no English on any products so you rely on pictures and asking people for help.

Grocery shopping in a large department store in the Ginza

Edo Museum …
On day 2 in Tokyo we were presented with better weather and took off to explore Tokyo. Our first stop was the Edo Museum which covers the history of Tokyo from 1603 to 1868. We were extremely lucky to have the services of an English speaking guide who took us through the museum and explained many aspects of life in the Edo period. He was a very nice gentleman and a volunteer at the Museum and at the end of the 1 1/2 hour tour he insisted on taking our picture for his own personal website.

And On To Asakusa ….
Asakusa is a very popular tourist destination about 15 minutes by train from central Tokyo. It must have been school excursion day as there were hundreds of well behaved children all taking in the history and culture of the area. The main attraction of the area is the Senso-ji Buddhist temple. At the entrance to the temple is the Furai jin-mon (Gate of Wind God and Thunder God) adorned with a large red paper lantern that bears the inscription “Kaminari-mon” (Thunder Gate). Around this area are many tourist shops and restaurants. Our lunch consisted of tasting the many different snacks available from vendors in tourist the strip leading to the temple. From Asakusa we went by ferry and train back to our cosy apartment in East Ginza.

Enjoying Japanese snacks in the tourist area in Asakusa

We Venture Further Afield ….
Perfect weather on Friday and we were off to Hakone about 100km from Tokyo. This mountainous region of Japan and is a popular area for Japanese to take holidays and relax. After a 90 minute train ride we then hopped on a pirate ship for a cruise on Lake Ashi and then onto a ropeway (we would call it a cable car) to the top of the mountain range. We were lucky to see a perfect view of Mt Fuji topped with snow standing majestically in the background whilst in the foreground were the autumn tonings of the trees. What a great sight as there was no haze or cloud to block Mt Fuji. It was then onto a funicular railway which took us past sulphur mines and onto our last stop, Gora, before returning by train to Shinjuku where we spent 20 mins trying to find our way to the right subway line. Shinjuku is huge interchange station and even the locals get lost trying to navigate this station.

The pirate ship on which we cruised Lake Ashi.

The Weekend Arrives….
We decided to use the bicycles supplied by the apartment so took off after breakfast with our first stop being the Tsijuka fish market. It was quite busy with people buying up their fresh fish for the weekend and trolleys of workers delivering boxes of fresh fish everywhere. You must watch out for them as they whizz past you up and down the aisles. We wandered around the adjacent sushi restaurants where people have been queuing for hours just to taste the best sushi and sashimi in town. It is nothing to see 50 people lined up outside these restaurants.

The Tsijuka Fish market. The biggest fish market in Japan

Queues outside sashimi restaurants waiting for a table in the fish market precinct

From here we cycled to the Hama Rikyu Gardens, a park right on the river and surrounded by office buildings. It was a pleasant walk amongst some greenery and trees and away from the city. Back on our bikes and we rode around Tokyo for a few hours following the Sumida River, over many bridges until we were a long way from home. Our intrepid map reader, Rob, was able to get us back on track and we reached home just before dark.

A common sight in Japan. People with a telescopic pole taking selfies

Sunday it was back on our bikes early for a ride around the Ginza before the Sunday crowds visit the Ginza shopping and eating. We were almost the only people on the quiet streets and it felt strange that in 3 hours time there would probably be a million people in the Ginza. We couldnt go to Tokyo without going to Harajuka to see the young teenagers congregate in their dress up costumes. They meet at Harajuka Station and spend the day enjoying each others company. Takeshita Street is the street to walk down with all the food shops, teenager dress up shops and trinket shops on each side of this narrow street which is always busy, but packed on a Sunday.

Teenagers dressed up on Sunday in Harajuka

Meiji Shrine is set in Yoyogi Park quite close to Harajuka Station so we walked the 1 km into the shrine and found a few Japanese couples in their traditional costumes being married along with young children in their costumes all parading around with proud parents and grandparents.

Sunday best dressed for a special celebration at Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi Park

It was then a walk to Omote-sando and we found the street packed with a Halloween street parade. This was amazing as families all dressed up in halloween costumes and paraded up and down the street to the sound of music including a Scottish Highland Pipe Band would you believe. Crowds of people lined the street and everywhere to eat had queues outside waiting. We decided to return home before the peak hour.

Halloween, Japan style. A big street parade

Electric City Awaits Rob…
Today was our visit to Akihabara the electrical empire of Tokyo where you can spend a full day just looking at the latest electronics that take your fancy. Hundreds of stores dedicated to electronics, computers, animae and computer games. One store, Yodobashi has 12 floors of goods on display and almost every item you are free to play with at your leisure with nobody annoying you.

Yodabashi Electrical store. 12 floors of every electrical product imaginable

An Architectual Museum Worth A Visit ….
The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectual Museum in Koganai about 25 minutes from Shinjuku Station was an interesting day. This museum is set on acres of land and holds a huge display of houses through the feudal times to present day which have all been moved from original sites and reconstructed in the museum grounds. Each house can be entered and you can envisage through the ages how the Japanese people lived. There is also a township of different shops reconstructed on the streets to give the feel of the times gone by. It was a good half day of sightseeing.

Traditional bath house in the Edo Architectual Museum

View from the 45th floor of the Municipal Government Offices in Shinjuku

Our day ended with a visit to the Tokyo Municipal Government Towers at Shinjuku to see Tokyo and beyond from the 45th floor and then a walk around Shinjuku before heading home and packing to continue our travels.

Off To Kyoto – The Old Capital

A Great Way To Travel ….. It was with a tinge of sadness that we left our cosy apartment in East Ginza. We said our goodbyes to Scott who had three more days in Tokyo and headed for Tokyo Station and the Shinkansen (bullet train) bound for Kyoto. Just over 2 hours later and a very relaxing train ride we arrived in Kyoto, and after a short taxi ride we were in our new apartment in Kyoto. In the afternoon we walked around our local area, found the supermarket and took on the adventure of buying some supplies all in Japanese for our 5 day stay in Kyoto. That evening we took a short walk to the famous Gion area. Gion is Kyoto’s most famous geisha district. It is filled with shops, restaurants and teahouses where geishas entertain. Gion has a high concentration of traditional wooden merchant house and due to the fact that property taxes were formerly based upon street frontage, the houses were built with narrow facades only five to six meters wide, but extend up to twenty meters in from the street.

On Your Bike ….. On our first full day in Kyoto we decided the best way to get around was by bike. There are numerous bike hire companies in Kyoto so we went to one relatively close to our apartment and hired two electric bikes for the day. Bike hire is very cheap and for the day for the two bikes only cost Yen 3000 which is about $36.00. Very good value. Our first stop on our bike trip was to Kodaiji Temple. This turned out to be an amazing experience. Instead of just a temple we found a complete area full of shops and restaurants all aimed at tourists. No need for morning tea, every second shop was offering samples of their food and drinks they were selling or just offering free coffee and biscuits to get you to stop at their store. There were hundreds of school children there on day excursions and they were so happy and friendly with many of them saying hello to you in English. The Temple though turned out to be a bit of a dissappointment as it was completely covered for renovation.

Our Next Stops ….. Our next stop was the Heian Jingu Shrine about a 4 km bike ride up one of the busiest streets in Kyoto. A walk around the Shrine for 30 minutes off to our next stop the Imperial Palace. For those that are interested, a Temple always has a Budda and a Shrine doesn’t. Usually Shrines are used for weddings and Temples are used for burials. The Imperial Palace is only open to the public twice per year and we were lucky enough to be in Kyoto for the Autumn opening. So along with 50,000 Japanese and about 4 Europeans we walk through this most impressive array of buildings and gardens. One thing we give the Japanese credit for is how to handle large volumes of people and whilst there was a lot of people at the Palace, you felt like you were just having a casual stroll around the Palace.

From the Imperial Palace we rode our bikes to the Nijo Castle. For a Yen 500 ($6.00) you were able to walk through the castle and all the gardens. Nijo Castle was built in 1603 as the residence of the first shogun of the Edo Period (1603-1867). His grandson Iemitsu completed the castle’s palace buildings 23 years later.

Back on our bikes to ride home as it was getting late and it was dark around 5.15pm, we came across a roof covered street (Sanjo St) which runs for a kilometer and contained shops and restaurants. Although it is pedestrian only, you are allowed to ride push bikes so we ventured down to explore. We came across a vendor selling traditional Japanese crepes using sesame seeds, honey and some unrecognisable ingredients and not having any lunch we stopped to give them a try. They were delicious.

Crepes For Afternoon Tea in Sanjo Arcade – Kyoto

Liz Cycling — Cycling Kyoto – Liz in Sanjo Arcade

So our first full day in Kyoto turned out to be a great day especially since we were able to enter the Imperial Palace.

Venturing Further Afield ….. Day 2 and we decided to go to Nara, a 45 minute train journey from Kyoto. Our morning in Nara was spent visiting the Kofukuji Temple, going to the Government Offices which has a viewing deck on the top floor of the building for a 360 degree view over Nara, then on to the Yoshiki-en Traditional Japanese Gardens. From the gardens we walked to the Todaiji Temple which is the world’s largest wooden structure and built by the Emperor Shomu in the 8th century. This is an amazing building and contains a giant Budda (15 meters high) and two very impressive guardian deities.

Todaiji Temple – Nara (The Largest Wooden Structure In The World)

Many of the main attractions in Nara are situated in or around a 660 hectares Nara Park which contains an abundance of wild deer. It is a novelty when you see your first couple of deer as they are very tame and come up to you for food. It was a novelty to see school children lined up with a deer in the middle of them for a photo shoot. The deer are so tame they just stand there and take it all in.

From the Temple we walked through the park back to town and by this time it was 3:00 PM so we searched out a restaurant serving traditional Japanese cuisine and had a delicious 4 course lunch for the two of us for just Yen 1600 (about $20.00). What we have noticed in Japan is that if you go to restaurants used by the locals, the prices are very reasonable and excellent quality. If you go to the restaurants targeted at tourists you pay very high prices. The same the world over.

Restaurant Nara — Ichizoku Restaurant Where We Had Lunch – Nara

By the time we finished lunch it was time to head back to Kyoto and our cosy apartment.

A Day In The Metropolis ….. We had not explored the downtown area so on our third day, Saturday, we spent the day wandering the main shopping area of Kyoto. For a city of only 1. 5 million population this downtown area is amazing. The variety and quality of the shops, department stores and restaurants is just amazing. To put it in perspective the shopping district of Kyoto would be larger and have a much wider range of stores than Melbourne CBD. The Teramachi Shopping Arcade, pictured below, is one of a few arcades in the CBD and is about a kilometer long.

Another arcade, Nishiki Food Market, is not quite as long but contains only food stores of every possible variety. Nearly all the stores have tastings of their product and is is a real experience to walk along tasting the wide variety of foods on offer, and not knowing what you are sampling.

Market Stalls in Nishiki Food Market – Kyoto

Dinner In Gion ….. Saturday evening we walked back to the Gion area for dinner and went to a restaurant called Issen Yoshoku which is famous in Kyoto. We walked in and were promptly seated and given a rather large red menu with Japanese writing on the front. To our surprise when we opened it there was only one item on the menu. Yes one item. It consisted of a pancake style base made of tempura batter on which was piled spring onion, egg, dried shrimp, grilled fish paste, dried bonito (fish), ginger, Konjak jelly (plant) and flour. When cooked on a hot plate it is folded in half like a calzone pizza and served with a sweet soy sauce. It turned out to be delicious and we understood why there were queues outside the waiting for takeaway and the restaurant was full of customers.

Having no desert on the menu we then found a bar on the 5th floor of a building that specialised in only crepes and drinks and had the most delicious crepes you could imagine whilst sitting next to two elderly geishas and being entertained by a very competent barman.

Our Final Day In Kyoto ….. Sunday was our final day in this beautiful city and we decided to see a couple of tourist sites on the outskirts of Kyoto. The first, a short train ride away was the Fushimi-inari taisha Shrine. This Shrine was in immaculate condition and very impressive. Obviously Sunday is an important ceremonial day in Japan because there were many Japanese children dressed in Kimonos and boys in traditional dress. The Shrine is famous for its thousand torii gates which straddle a network of trails behind the main building. The trail leads into the forest of Mount Inari and runs for 4 km to the top of the mountain.

Our train took us back to Kyoto Station in order to catch a bus to our next destination, the Kinkakuji Temple. Kyoto Station is an architectural masterpiece and I have never seen a train station so imposing. There are escalators that run up 10 floors in a row to the top of the building where you can see down into the main station ground floor. There are three departments stores in the station and the total floor area of shops is probably double the size of Chadstone Shopping Center.

Not Just Another Temple ….. This time we left the comfort of the trains for the Kyoto bus system to venture north to the Kinkakuji Temple or as it is more commonly known, The Golden Pavilion. Well we certainly left the best till last. This temple is covered in gold leaf and as we arrived mid afternoon it glistened in the setting sun. This is just a magnificent building set on the edge of a lake and surrounded by beautiful Japanese gardens.

And so our 5 days in Kyoto comes to an end. An amazing contrast to Tokyo. You see Kyoto as old Japan and Tokyo as new Japan.