Day 14: The long day home

We were packed and primed last night, clothes all laid out for the 5:30am alarm. As we had a large and steep hill to climb with a fair few steps, I left plenty of time for me to carry both bags to the station. So much time, in fact, that we caught the train before the one we were aiming for. This set us in good stead and we caught earlier connections all the way into Tokyo.

Here, however, we realised we were on a reserved carriage of a train and went out on to the platform to try to find a non-reserve one. At this point we found that the airport express was all reserved seats, and although they were mostly empty, Emily didn't want to risk getting caught on the train. We watched it pull out of the station to find the following train of the same type was over a half hour later.

I therefore got on the next train going in the right direction and we sat on two commuter trains for almost two hours before arriving at the station. It didn't overly matter in the end as we were in plenty of time for our flight.

I have photos today of Rolf at the departure gate and watching a film on the in flight entertainment system.

I would have enjoyed the flight more if the short lady in the seat in front of me hadn't reclined her chair fully. This meant that in order to see the seat back TV screen I had to slump way down in my seat and stick both legs out into the isle to avoid colour distortion on the LCD. In the process I nearly tripped up several cabin crew, a number to adults passing and the group of young children who were running up and down the isles, over and over again. The latter I might not have minded so much as they were getting a little annoying after the 5th or 6th time past.

On landing we made our way out to passport control and I queued up in the e-passport gate, only to find that the technology was so bad that the normal queue had completely emptied by the time I got a few paces forward, therefore I went to give my passport to a person. So much for automated facial recognition technology...

That, my friends, is where I'll leave you for now. Hopefully you'll be able to join Rolf's global adventures at some point in the not to distant future!

Until then, goodbye.


:)

Day 13: Hakone

Breakfast today was a bit of an adventure by itself. We trundled upstairs in our slippers (which really don't stay on going up stairs whilst wearing socks!) to find a place set with smoked fish (butterflied and whole), various tofu things, fermented beansprouts, miso soup, a vegetable soup thing and rice. Needless to say, Emily ate mostly rice with a bit of vegetable for breakfast.

We were banking on the weather clearing a little, as the reports suggested it might, for today's outing, sadly that didn't really happen. We saw bits of blue sky briefly in passing but it was mostly overcast. That spoilt the chances of us getting the classic view from Hakone, out over mount Fuji. The cloud wasn't much higher than the peaks of the local mountains (1400m ish) and the combination of switchback railway, fernicular railway and cable car took us up high enough to realise this.

The first peak is an geothermally active site too, there are "famous eggs" that come from here, having been cooked in the hot spring water high on the mountain top. These are then sent down to the road via a little cable car big enough for a box full of cooked eggs. At the top here I also tried a wasabi flavoured ice cream. One of the more odd culinary experiences of the trip...

It was in the cable car here that we found giant apples and Rolf is pictured next to them. They are almost bigger than he is!

Further down in the cable car and we reached Lake Ashi. From here were got on one of the warship themed sight seeing boats to the other end of the lake. We stopped for lunch, me eating a japanese deef fried beef burger type thing (it looked like a fish cake from the model outside, once I saw the english description I decided to have it anyway) and Emily once again ate katsu curry.

From here is was a short walk to a reconstructed outpost, as was on the same spot during the Edo period. After visiting this and a small museum, we walked through a cedar tree lined path to the other ferry port at this end of the lake for the journey back to our hotel.

On the way back we tried to visit the Hakone Open Air Museum but we were a few minutes too late to get the last entry time. We had a look in the shop, bought a few bits and bobs and returned to the train station to get the next train down the hill.

We've an early start in the morning but will post the final entry on return to the UK.

Home tomorrow!

Day 12: Trains, trains and er.. trains.

Most of today was spent sat on train between Hiroshima and Hakone nation park, where you find us now. I'm afraid there is nothing much else to report. We arrived at the Ryokan we are staying about 3:30pm, having left the hotel in Hiroshima 6 hours earlier.

Rolf is pictured next to one of the Shinkansen (bullet) trains we caught today from Osaka in this direction.

(Photo to follow, no internet connection in the room)

Dinner this evening was a set menu from the residence. The starters including octupus tenticles and a small fish were left to one side. Whereas they were referred to on the menu as an appetizer, they were quite the opposite in my book. At least, unlike the Koreans, the Japanese like their seafood dead! The deep fried conga eel tasted quite like haddock from a chippy, which pleased me a little, seeing as they are the ugliest things I think I've seen in an aquarium.

Luckily there was enough other foods so that Emily could eat a full meal too.

Tomorrow will be a fuller day of doing things. I'm not sure you really want to hear about the book I'm reading or the Professor Layton game I finished while travelling.

Enough for now.

Day 11: Miyajima

We woke today to the soft sound of passing trains from our 10th floor room overlooking the station. After breakfast we set out towards Mijajimaguchi on the train, from where we would catch a ferry over to the island.

Once ashore we walked out of the terminal face to face with my mortal enemy, the Japanese deer. I went to say hello, but it grabbed a corner of the map I was holding and started chewing on it. Looking less than impressed I backed away slowly, lest it have more of my map of the island. The photo below wasn't taken of my map, but another group of tourists who had suffered the same fate.

At this point it started raining. Slightly unfortunately for us, I'd not looked at the local forecast for over 24 hours and was going on the last look, suggesting sunshine all day. Sadly for me, my personal raincloud was hovering. It had clearly seen me pack suncream this morning in my day bag.

We proceed to walk around the 5 story pagoda and then the water temple, even though we were still an hour or so from high tide. As we are on neaps at the moment, the tide may not have flooded the temple area even if we had waited for it. The temple stands behind the most famous sight of the island, the floating gate. It is here that Rolf is pictured today.

We then made our way through the rain to the Aquarium. Here we saw lots of fish (can you tell I'm tired and want to stop writing yet?), I patted a penguin and we both took lots of photos of very cute short clawed otters. On exiting this was walked back through the rain and located the 'Hall of Treasures'. 30 seconds later we'd seen aforementioned treasures and were back heading for the ferry home. This took us through the tat bizarre streets, each shop was selling exactly the same as the one next door, for the same price. It was rather odd, they had the same stock, just laid out in a different way.

In the middle of this was a big spoon.

From there we were back to the ferry and train to the hotel. We ate out in the station tonight, having "the famous Japanese pancake". So famous in fact, that neither Emily or I had heard of it.

Now we sit drinking beer in the hotel room looking at the lights shining in the windows.

Tomorrow will mostly be spent sat on a train.

I'm not sure I'll have internet connectivity until I get home. IF not, I'll post everything on arrival home on Monday. For now, tata.

Day 10: Hiroshima

Emily suggested I call today's post "A day of contrasts", but I felt I'd leave it as it is.

We were woken early by the trampling and clattering of a large number of people sliding wooden doors as they got up. There was a Buddhist prayer session at 6:30am that we were invited to attend and were both awake long before this due to the aforementioned noise. We chose to use the time to try to grab a little more sleep before our 7:30am breakfast time. Sadly after 15 minutes we were woken by a monk trying to bring us breakfast early. Thankfully he was a little apologetic and came back for the 7:30 time we'd said the night before. By this point we were up and dressed in the gowns provided, with our bedding folded to one side.

Breakfast consisted of an array of bean curd related things, pickles and rice. Rather nice, with less uncertainty as to the origin of the foods on offer as there was for dinner last night.

Once finished we packed and left for the bus stop, or at least we tried to but Emily made a detour via the ladies, causing us to miss the bus we needed to get to the intended train. Slightly concerned that this might put out all of our connections we waited for the next bus to take us to the top of the funicular railway down the mountain. Thankfully the next train down the hill managed to get us to the same connecting train at the bottom as we were originally meant to catch, panic averted.

After several changes we eventually arrived in Hiroshima and checked into the hotel. It was from here that I made the slightly frustrated post on Facebook regarding the quite frankly ridiculous charge to use the internet in the hotel. How it can possibly justify this as an extra on top of what we must be paying (for what is a rather nice room all things said).

We then left the hotel and headed for the Shukkeien Park. These formal gardens have a surround a small lake and through the entrance we were greeted by a lovely colourful set of trees in full bloom. We walked around the lake and passed at least three pairs of newly weds having their photos taken at various points and in and around the cherry blossom.

From here we made our way to the castle. It is similar in construction to those we had seen previously from the outside, steep angular walls surrounded by a moat. Inside it has a wooden castle, similar to that in Matsumoto. This, however, is a replica of the one that stood there prior to 1945.

It was a short walk from the castle to the A-Bomb dome, a gutted but preserved building on one edge of the Aioi bridge, the target site for the dropped bomb. It survived destruction due to it's position very close to the site of the aerial detonation of the weapon. The force from the explosion was downwards and the concrete clad iron structure withheld this blast, where most wooden buildings were crushed and burnt. I have to say, I found this building far more eerie than the kilometres of cemetery we walked through only last night.

We then walked over Aioi bridge and took the photo of Rolf looking back here.

This is the northern entrance to the Peace Park which leads down to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. In here a number of exhibits walk you through the events leading up to the fateful moment (8:15am August 6th 1945) in which 70,000 people were killed instantly, and would lead to the deaths of a further similar amount over the following months and years. The museum is moving and contains very graphic examples of the random destruction of this kind of warfare.

As the sun set, we walked back towards the hotel, once against passing the dome, this time taking photos of it silhouetted against the colours in the sky. A brief stop for food later and we hopped on a tram back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we head to Miyajima.

Day 8: Koyasan

After much packing the night before, we started today early but ready to go. After a fight through the breakfast buffet queues we were checking out and sending our luggage on to Hiroshima ahead of our over night stop in Mount Koya. The luggage service is about as much as a couple of train station lockers and given that we had 10 trains to catch between Kyoto and Hiroshima, via Koyasan we thought it best.

Koyasan is the spiritual home of the Shingon school of Buddhism in Japan. Founded in the 8th century AD, it is home to a large number of monastries and temples, many of which have opened their doors to visitors and provide a simple room and food.

Wrapped up against the cooler air and gentle rain, we set off out to explore the sights of the area and wondered into Goran, the most prominant temple complex and site of the original monastry. After a short while a ceremony started involving a large number of colourfully dressed monks and an elderly monk brought in on a sedan chair. There were also what appeared to be a large number of trainee monks outside too.

Following the elderly noks arrival a cup of green tea wasvery ceremoniously made on the steps of the temple opposite, witnessed by around a hundred onlookers. This tea was then taken into the depths of the other temple, presumably for the venerated old man deep within.

All of this seemed quite exciting but we have no idea who the man was, or what was going on. It seemed to mean something to everyone else. We toured the headquarters of the school after lunch. Rolf is pictured in the rock gardens of these buildings.

On leaving here we checked into our residence. The room is quite simple at first sight, but was much larger than I was expecting. This was based on the similar experiance I had in Korea, where the room was just large enough for my bag and a single matress on the floor.

After this we made our way to the cemetory at the other end of town. This is where the founder of the school is said to be in eternal meditation. The desire to be buried near him is so strong that the cemetory extends almost 2km in one direction, and 1.3km in another back towards town from his mausoleum. We passed several areas set aside for the fallen in wars (on both sides) including the invasion of Korea in the mid fifteen hundreds. On the way out we passed several plots owned by large companies (Nissan for example) who allow their employees ashes to be interned there.

This evening we returned to our residence just in time to be served our meal. I was expecting something very simple, having been told it would be a vegetarian meal, but was surprised at the variety and volume of food.

Next up, Hiroshima.

Until then, goodnight.

Day 7: Oh Deer!

Well... I'm going to say this first. Today, I was bitten on the bum by a deer. There we go. Now I can start from the beginning.

We started the day a little later than was planned but we knew that the trains to Uji and Nara were local and frequent anyway. When I said villages yesterday... I meant more small industrial towns really, Kyoto has a kinda of urban sprawl which seems to extend most of the way south to these places. Nara was, at one point, the capital of the country for a short number of years, and has always been closely linked to the Kyoto seat of power.

The main attractions in the town are the pagodas and the temple, reportedly the largest wooden structure on the planet, holding a giant brass Buddha. These are a reasonable walk from the train station and as you reach the larger of the two pagodas (5 stories rather than 3) you first meet the wild deer that roam the parks around this end of town. When I say wild... they are very used to humans as they live in a tourist attraction, but there are signs up saying to be careful as they do bite, kick, charge and butt.

On the way through an area of park we passed a man selling "deer cookies". These appear to be disc shaped rice cakes, or something similar. Unbeknownst to me, the deer in the area know very well what it means when someone new approaches this stand, and as I turned round, 4 had appeared right in front of me expectantly. I had to first get the paper wrapping from the discs of food and to stop being barged by the hungry deer, I decided to start walking away from them. It was at this point I felt a sharp nip on my behind. It seems as if one of the deer took umbridge to the length of time I was taking to open the food parcel and decided to hurry me along!

After handing out the discs and beating a hasty retreat the bite / slobber mark on my posterior was photographed for... posterity.

Rolf is pictured today near to the feeding spot, with a deer who considered that Rolf might be food himself not long after I took the photo.

After this we went onwards to the temple. Mostly with Emily crying with laughter at my misfortune. The building is huge and incredibly impressive. Inside is a large bronze Buddha flanked by two large golden Buddhavistas. In the rear right of the building, there is a narrow channel carved into the base of one of the supporting pillars. It is said that passing through this will reserve a place in heaven for you. Obviously I saw the small hole and thought "I can fit through that". Apparently I can, just, maybe not gracefully and certainly not under my own steam in a reasonable amount of time... With my feet dangling out of one end, my arms pointed straight out of the other and my ribcage squashed on all side by a large pillar, I wasn't moving very fast and it took a man whose wife was next in the queue to pull me through! It seems that I am officially the largest person able to reserve their place in heaven by this manner.

From there we went back to the train station and headed for Uji. This is home to a temple featured on the 10 Yen coin. The temple was very impressive but I feel that I was flagging somewhat and also suffering from temple fatigue. Having seen many over the past few days, they are mostly rolling into one in my memory.

This evening we ate a rather nice meal at the French restaurant here in the hotel. We were looking for something simple, but it turns out that the hotel doesn't do room service.

I'm up in the mountains tomorrow so might not post until the day after.

Tata for now :)