Last day on the rails

This is the last day of our rail pass and the day we have to head back to Tokyo. I think we are both ready to complete this visit to Japan. This is not a sign that we have had enough - there is so much more that we could do and would want to do if we had the time - but rather that we were always aware of the limited time we had and we have used it well and completed what could reasonably be done in just over two weeks. We have explored much more of Japan than I ever achieved in my 4+ years of being here before and have used our rail pass well without the trip turning into a blur of towns and cities.

The end of the journey is quite simple, a Shinkansen back to Tokyo station where we have taken the precaution of pre-booking accommodation at a Toyoko Inn. When booking we had to, with the assistance of a very helpful receptionist, go through a number of hotels as our first choices were full. Our preference had been one in or near Ikebukero or Ueno as we wanted to shop in these more low key areas of central Tokyo but we ended up with one in Nihonbashi, part of the business district. This was fine by me as when I was Japan in the 1980s it was Nihonbashi where my language school was located and it was one of the places I wanted to visit.

Arriving at Tokyo station we found our way to an exit and grabbed a taxi to take us to the hotel. This took us through the old part of the station, similar to other grand stations in Europe, which is being restored. We arrived at the hotel and checked in, finding that our reservation had indeed been made. However, as usual, as it was not 3:00pm we could not go to our room but we could leave our luggage. This we did and then made our way back onto the JR Yamanote Line, which circles Tokyo, via a nearby subway station. Our JR Rail passes were valid until midnight and so we planned to make the most of them.

On the way to the subway we crossed a bridge as this part of Tokyo has one of the many rivers that flow through it into Tokyo Bay. There were two notable things about this river. The first is, like many others, it was somewhat obscured by the expressway that follows its course but directly above it, being built on great concrete pylons that stick out of the water. All available space is nearly always used. One step short of directly concreting over it which I had noticed had happened in other cities. The second is that, as the bridge had the cover of the expressway, it was also home to the local homeless. They are evident throughout the city camped neatly (yes, even the hobos are neat here) under expressways and flyovers. In this place a man slept on a cardboard bed and further along what must have been someones possessions were neatly tied to the bridge rail in a couple of plastic bags. It seems that here the homeless can mark their place and leave their stuff behind without fear of theft. We had not seen much evidence of poverty in Japan, and I have no idea of its extent. However given that this is such a well defined society I would imagine that if you are not a member of the mainstream then you would quite easily fall off the steep cliff of social viability and it would be very hard to climb back up again.

It was a short hop to Ueno station where we planned to shop. We were not alone. It is clear that, here, shopping is recreation and it was Saturday. The place was packed.

Ready, steady...

...shop

Like so many other things on this trip things worked out very well. We had some specific things in mind and after a little wandering we ended up in exactly the right shop with everything we needed just across the road from the station. A bit of fatigue was beginning to set in so we paused for a parfait in a department store cafe which required us spending about 20 minutes in a queue before we could get a table. However, even queuing for a place in a restaurant brought back pleasant memories for me.

Display outside parfait place.
These kinds of places have such good memories for me as I must relate them to treats when in Tokyo as a youngster. 

After Ueno it was back on the Yamanote line to Ikebukero (where we had originally hoped to stay) for a bit of a looksee. Then we decided to complete our circumnavigation* of inner Tokyo by heading to Shinagawa for dinner. There are clearly two sides to Shinagawa as when we exited the station at the nearest point there was, essentially, nothing. Not many people and nothing open. Retracing our steps and going the long way through an arcade to the other exit brought us out onto a plaza that led to small streets with hundreds of restaurants and loads of people. Saturday in Tokyo has a special feel for me - I think it is the combination of work and recreation as many (used to and probably still do) work half of Saturday and so Saturday afternoon / evening is the start of a short weekend. So, unlike the rest of the week, there is a combination of people just from work and many others out shoring up the Japanese economy by buying things (I cannot, for the life of me, figure out where they store or put these things given the size of the places they live in).

We found a little bar kind of restaurant which you enter under the noren 'curtain'and through sliding doors, getting the last two available seats which were boxes with padding on the top and hollow inside to put your bags. Ordering was aided by a couple of helpful guys at the adjoining table and consisted mainly of pointing at what they had and at other things on the menu. It worked out well and was delicious. For drinks we had 'Highballs' which were basically whiskey (I think) watered down with soda and ice. Very popular but not totally my taste.

After dinner it was our final JR ride back to Tokyo station on the Yamanote line where, going through the turn style I pocketed our JR Passes for the last time. Satisfied that we had made good use of them; sad that they were finished.

end of the line :(

We then got the subway back to near our hotel and, using my history of being a local in Nihonbashi and having taken care to note the route from hotel to subway on the way out, I managed to get us lost. Not the smartest move given that we were both knackered after what had been a huge day. However I was able to use the last few megabites of my mobile phone plan to locate us and see us back to the hotel and our room and for our last sleep (at least until next trip) in a Toyoko Inn.


* I cannot use this word without recalling that, like many others, it provoked a few discussions between Rosemary and me, this time in respect of what the land based equivalent of 'navigation' might be.

Morioka folk tales

After arriving in Morioka in the north of Japan we decided that we had done enough zooming around and so we booked a second night in the hotel, another Toyoko Inn.  These hotels are really a bit of a genius concept and they are everywhere. They are cheap and usually by the station. They have the immediate appearance of any hotel but when you look, all the extras are missing. There is no coffee shop, or restaurant, no function area or gift shop. Nothing but a reception desk and a lobby with tables and chairs. In the morning the lobby becomes the breakfast room where, from a tiny kitchen, a self service breakfast is available. Self service includes taking your tray up, stacking your dishes and even wiping down the table. The rooms are small, very small, there is still a tv, trouser press (folded away), jug for boiling water designed to double as a humidifier, fridge, desk chair and other basic amenities. They are effectively closed between 10:00am and 3:00pm, and sometimes 4:00 when the rooms are cleaned. This has not been a problem for us as we are out during the day anyway. 

So, for our day in and around Morioka we took a local train south and then east to the town of Tono which has a strong association with Japanese folk tales and the like. Then it was to the helpful information centre where we decided to take a bus out to the model olde worlde village they have there. This village had a series of L shape buildings that housed both people and livestock, particularly horses, actual,live versions of which were in evidence. The earth ovens were also actually being used and emitted that smokey, charcoally smell that is really the hallmark of any village, real or staged, that I have been too. The same smell as in the huts in the north of Thailand or the gers of Mongolia. 

We were a little underwhelmed by the whole experience, tourist attractions not really being our thing. It did, however, get me thinking of, as well as,some sense of, Japan before full urbanisation which I found interesting. 

There were also group of cute little pre-schoolers, some of whom we had seen (and high (low?) fived at the railway station when we arrived. They were having lunch on the grass (a rare treat in Japan to be actually allowed to be on the grass), and each child, or pair of children, had a little plastic mat which they sat on with their shoes neatly placed beside them on the grass. They had all brought food from home and after a short group prayer they all tucked in. As they exited, in cute handholding pairs, they also stopped for a group 'Arigatogozaimashita' bow to the village staff.

The buses were scarce and so we slowly ate lunch in the restaurant and then lingered outside for about an hour before our ride back to the station and the trip back to Morioka. That night we just wanted a quick dinner and so we went to a diner kind of set up where you choose and pay for your food through a touch screen machine which produces tickets that are exchanged for the victuals. We took our time but I noticed that the place was turning its customers over at quite a rate and that the customers themselves were a wide variety of people, old and young, women and men and, seemingly, from different walks of life. 

Then it was simply back to the hotel for an early night, ready to return to Tokyo the next day. 

Small hotel

Slow train

Big man

Zig Zag Japan

Itoigawa is right on the edge of the Sea of Japan and our hotel was some 700 metres from the sea itself. So we wandered down through the town and then found that they have done what so many seaside towns have, built a bloody great main highway that brilliantly cuts the town off from the water. To even see the water required traversing a specially built underpass and viewing platform. Rosemary elected to skip it and I trotted through the underpass and peaked over the wall to see, essentially, the Petone foreshore. Except a lot calmer, even on a calm day in Wellington. No discernible wave movement at all.

Itoigawa is what you would call a sleepy town. We saw industry in our way in, and there seems to be quite a bit of quarrying and the like, but downtown was very subdued, even in the evening. As our hotel had not included breakfast I had gone for a wander and found a supermarket where I bought some items for breakfast including the genius that is two yummy pancakes sandwiched together with margarine and maple syrup in the middle. 

I should note here that I have taken a food conscience holiday while here in Japan. Although I (intentionally) have no knowledge of farming methods here, I am confident that eating eggs, pork, chicken requires a high degree of blindness as to their origin. I'm pretty sure the chickens don't live in little individual huts with tatami mats and Ofuro baths in the evening. Given that the people here live in a semi-battery situation the animals aren't going to have a lot of comfort or space. To my shame I just do not want to contemplate the pigs as I enjoy tonkatsu too much. And as for the pancakes and the like, I am just assuming that all ingredients are sufficiently preserved, radiated and modified that they will probably still be in my gut when I come back to Japan. 

Today was to be another travel day. We had elected to head north but with a bit of a scenic detour. The first step was to take an ordinary express train, not a Shinkansen, north to Niigata. The risk here was that it would be mainly tunnels and not the sea views we hoped for. We were in luck again. The train travels right along the coast for most of the trip, sometimes right up to the edge of the water with lovely views out over the mill pond Japan Sea. There were actual beaches with actual sand and actual people fishing. They must catch something I guess but the fishing can't be that good as there was ample evidence of commercial fishing in the form of the many little fishing boat harbours along the way and, in parts, long stretches of fishing detritus such as nets, floats and ropes washed up onto the beaches. In some spots there seemed enough to equip a boat and it mirrored in part the occasional float or rope of similar form that washes up,on our beach at home. 

Going to Niigata was the zig and now the zag and another zig - a Shinkansen from Niigata down southeast to Omiya, which is not far from Tokyo, and then, changing trains, north to Morioka. 

Shinkansen travel is our least favourite. The is something disorienting about zooming along at a couple hundred kph while sitting in a steady and quiet comfortable chair. Nice enough at the time but we both feel a bit weird after the trip. It seems to effect my balance somehow. Weird. 

We had a little time in Omiya to look at the huge array of food stalls in the station which, as many are, the bottom part of a shopping complex or department store. Unlike in the smaller towns and cities where food choices have been, at times, a little lacklustre, there was so much delicious looking food on offer here. We bought a nikuman for me and an an for Rosemary (meat and bean paste steamed buns respectively) and I also bought some delicious looking thing that, even after I ate it, remained unidentified to me. It tasted good though. 

Eating is de rigeur on long train rides here. The form is you buy bento or an assortment of foods and drinks and then you start to scoff them as soon as you find your seat, sometimes even before the train moves. This is done with such enthusiasm you suspect that it is the eating rather than the trip or the destination that is the desired out come of the journey.

After eating it is then, apparently, compulsory, to engage in the next form of prescribed behaviour, sleep. Sleep is not limited to long trips. Any journey, no matter how short, is sufficient time for a kip. I have seen someone get on a subway train, sit, fall asleep (or do a very good impression of someone with their head lolling about in sleep) and then suddenly wake up and get off - at the very next stop! Presumably this sleep routine was prescribed for the entertainment of other travellers as it is fun to watch the sleepers drooping and sagging and leaning in all directions before reaching that invisible tipping point and suddenly jerking up to start again. Friends sleep,on each other and strangers somehow manage, mostly, to almost sway or lean onto their neighbour, but not quite. 

We arrived in Morioka which is blessed with two Toyoko Inns, our lodging of choice, although here they are the same price rather than stratified as in other places (socialists). Arriving at the first we were told there was no room. Requests for the receptionist to telephone the other one to see if they had room were met with blank looks and, apparent, incomprehension. Thinking, even to the edges of the box let alone outside it, was not in evidence here. Contrast this to our experience at the other Toyoko Inn, which did have room, where we not only made bookings for one night, then two, but also were assisted to trawl through hotels in Tokyo until one with a vacancy was found and we were booked into it. 

After a little hike around the town, including crossing the river and back, we settled for dinner on a little bar kind of place.  There are hundreds of these places where working people come to talk and laugh and let a little loose. And smoke, a strange phenomena for us these days. I couldn't make out the menu and so asked the waitress to choose two items which she at first found, I think, embarrassing or hysterical judging by her laughter but which she then took very seriously and we needed up with a couple of good dishes to go with out beer.

Another Express

Incarcerated carcinogenators

Compulsory kai...

... and then mandatory moe

From Mountains to the Sea

Looking at the options for what to do around and where to go from Matsumoto we settled on heading north towards the Sea of Japan. Rosemary also wanted to visit one of Matsumoto's attractions, a Timepiece Museum which fortunately turned out to be just down the road. Our hotel faces onto a plaza made of attractive stonework and is only a few blocks from both the station and this museum. Breakfast was the usual melée in the lobby and I noticed as we have travelled to more remote locations the western style breakfast options have diminished and, now, disappeared entirely. Breakfast is triangles of nigiri sushi, pickles, miso, shredded cabbage, unidentifiable stewed vegetables(?), and potato salad which seems very popular. There was also a bowl of sliced pineapple which occasioned a rare unguarded moment when the lady filling it accidentally fired a piece across the table and laughed raucously with self-amusement and was completely unapologetic as she fetched it and placed it in the bowl. Quite refreshing (no, not the pineapple, the incident). 

Again we avoided the efficient route and chose a local train that, with a stopover of just under two hours, would take us to the coast and a town called Itoigawa which is famous for, well, nothing it would seem, other than being at the end of this train line. The risk with blindly choosing a route in this part of the country is that it is possible it is just a succession of tunnels and so all you can see is the reflection of your disappointed face as you truck along under and through the scenery. (Note to Auckland: get over yourself. Tunnels much longer than an inner city rail crossing or harbour crossing are common and frequent here in country much more vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes). 

In the end, our choice turned out to be a lucky one. The two carriage train travelled right up the middle of the snow country where the Tokyoites come to ski, hike, climb and, most importantly, soak in hot pools after sumptuous meals. There are direct trains  from Shinjuku station in Tokyo to Matsumoto and our little train passed through country with spectacular alpine scenery including some very steep and high mountains still carrying remnants of snow from the winter. The snow fall is clearly heavy here as all the houses have steepish roofs with rails and ridges fitted to stop an avalanche of roof snow descending on you as you head off to the dairy to get a packet of tofu. 

There were also a couple of quite beautiful lakes with boats for hire and little chalets and the like. There were ski fields visible as great cleared paths down the mountains through the forest, with chair lifts, and snow plows in evidence at their bases (was that an Oxford comma?). As the train emptied out we moved a few times to improve out seating and also the conductor abandoned ship so it was just the driver left. He would take the fares at each stop as people got off, just like a bus driver. 

Even though we were towards the back of the carriage I could still hear the driver talking through his routine. The JR train driving system involves a series of pointing hand gestures accompanied with intoned statements which I presume are along the lines of 'doors clear, doors close, brakes off, time check correct, lights green, track clear etc etc' with each item being pointed to with a white gloved hand. 

Waiting for our next local train at Minami-Otari we took a brief walk to find nothing there but the road that follows the train line and so stopped at the only shop next to the station and purchased some food and drink which we consumed in the waiting room that was half chairs and little tables and half tatami mats which I took advantage of to have a very pleasant little sit, using the images of the Daibutsu in Nara and the Bosatsu in Kyoto with good effect. 

The waiting room at Minami-Otari 

Typical playground - a little dismal

The next train was a single carriage that took us through many tunnels as we burrowed through the mountains that come right down to the edge of the Sea of Japan in this part of the country. Arriving at Itoigawa our tourist info routine resulted in a new and pleasant hotel just across the road from the station, the Geopark Hotel. 

Snow Country for (not so) Old Men (& Women)

The Journey by express train to Matsumoto became progressively more rural and back country like. We passed forests and crossed rivers as we headed into a more central part of Japan. Arriving at Matsumoto (the home town of the Suzuki of Suzuki music method fame and also home to quite a lively European classical music scene) we followed what is now a bit of a routine by going to the tourist info desk and asking for a list of cheap business hotels. Matsumoto had a Toyoko-Inn, our second.  Other smallish cities / towns we have visited I found Matsumoto very pleasant and relaxed. The streets are not busy, everything is reasonably central and the pace overall is much more pleasant than Tokyo or Kyoto and presumably other cities such as Osaka and Kobe and the like that we have avoided. This suits the Slow Japan vibe.

I recall when I was teaching English in Tokyo in the 1980s that I would meet others who were working in small towns and cities and loving it. I just didn't get it. Why would you come to Japan and not be in Tokyo but in some provincial backwater? Now I get it. It would have been quite a different experience, and possibly much more enjoyable, to live and teach in Okayama or Kochi or Matsumoto or the like. 

Matsumoto really did have an Alpine feel with the temperature quite noticeably cooler than Kyoto. The streets here are very neat and, like so many other places, they have ornate and unique manhole covers as well as a lot of stone work for barriers and the like where other places might have metal. A much more aesthetic effect.

The town also has the obligatory castle (quite a nice one by the look of the pictures) and other sights but we were not really interested. Fortunately we both enjoy the travelling, as well as the arrival and departure and new places, as much or, probably more, than the sights that are at each destination. Just being in a different town is more interesting to me and, I think, to Rosemary, rather than ticking off the items in the guide book. Thinking about it, it seems odd that the accepted pattern is to plan future travel to a place to look at the past when you get there. Very odd. [insert advertisement for The Now Project here]. To say that, for example, I was excited to be in, and really enjoyed, Matsumoto, without any tangible or recordable reason may sound a little strange but it is true. I could say it is the journey and not the destination that counts, but then I would have to shoot myself after poking hot needles in my eyes for being so trite and I really don't want to do that. 

Shinkansen from Kyoto

Child seat in the men's loos

Morning with the Buddha of Compassion

Being in Kyoto had pretty much exhausted our original rough plan of where we would go and so it was decision time. We had originally veered towards the south coast of Japan in our thinking but now we thought we would head north and inland. We settled on the town of Matsumoto in the Japanese Alps which could be reached by a Shinkansen to Nagoya and an express train from there. 

This journey gave us time on our last morning in Kyoto to go to the temple complex of Kiyomizudera. First though, breakfast, which was gained by a brief walk and a bus trip to Kyoto station to eat at a self serve place we have come to like (good size coffees! There are French style cafes at most stations and elsewhere and while they can provide good coffee and pastries the coffee is served in dainty little cups that I tend to drain in two sips). 

The bus to Kiyomizudera dropped us at the foot of the hill it is built on. This necessitated a bit of a hike up, including many steps, which was a little unfair on our legs which were recovering from their jaunt down Hiei-Zan. At all the sights we have been to in Kyoto, and this was no exception, there have been masses of school children on school trips. We've seen them all lined up on Shinkansen platforms, or sitting on the ground in neat rows before entering the station listening patiently and quietly to their instructions and then yelling their affirmation or understanding in unison. This even applied to a small group of about eight girls in matching sports gear and bags that seemed to be a tennis team heading off for an overnight trip to play some rival school. They were unaccompanied but they still lined up in pairs and after a quick answer and response they boarded the train on command from their leader at the front. Just like New Zealand school kids. ROFL (roll on the futon laughing). 

"Smairu"

Kiyomizudera is (according to the guide book) Kyoto's most popular temple. Its central object of worship is a statue of the Bosatsu, the Japanese name for the Buddha of Compassion, a Buddha that I have a particular attraction to, and so I was very keen to be here. 

There are many aspects of Japanese Shinto and Buddhist religious practice that seem to me to be very Shamanic. On Hiei-Zan in one of the temples I was thrilled to be able to watch a priest performing a fire ceremony. He sat in the gloomy innards of the temple in front of a fire from which flames leapt into the air as he fed them with various fuels, chanting all the while. His movements and actions were familiar to me being the performance of a ritual for practical
rather than ceremonial purposes. Fire is important in that particular temple as it is where there are three Dharma lamps that have, apparently been lit continuously for hundreds of years (though, if you were a monk that accidentally snuffed one out you wouldn't tell, would you?). 

The Bosatsu here at Kiyomizudera did not disappoint. Again it was situated in the gloom of the depths of the temple. On the way in I had availed myself of the purifying water that is in a font before you get to the temple. Scooping the water out with a ladle you rinse each hand and, in some places, raise some to your mouth. Then in front of  the temples are incense pots where you place your stick of incense you have given a few coins for, make a prayer, wave the smoke around you and then place it in the pot. Shoes are removed before climbing onto the temple platform and here I knelt beside a pillar, facing the Bosatsu, and did my own little ritual of prayer and chant while others did theirs.

The temple where the Bosatsu is kept. 

We walked down from Kiyomizudera by a different route lined with shops, many of which hire out Kimono for the trip to the temple. The waters of the temple, after which I presume it is named, apparently have great powers and there are other attractions there as well. They include a walk through a dark vaginal entrance - yes, you read that right and not an autocorrect mistake and you couldn't get a lot more Shamanic than that - where you can assure future love etc.  We skipped these bits. 

At the foot of the hill we decided to go for a taxi which took us back to our Ryokan to fetch our luggage (where our effusive host was absent thus saving probably around $20 in waiting taxi costs) and then to the station to catch the Shinkansen to Nagoya and an express train toMatsumoto. Having a little time to wait, I managed to tick one more essential Japan food item  off my list, the chocolate parfait. 

No sight left unseen

I am not particularly regular with posting this blog. Time to write often doesn't coincide with WiFi and with quite long days recently there seems to have been little time for either. Slow Japan is also Slow to Blog. 

Today (whatever day this is, 22nd May?) we are continuing our sightseeing in Kyoto, but without the heroics. There is a cheap bus pass here that pays for itself if you take more than two trips. Nice and simple and we used it to get to Ryoanji which is the temple that is home most famous Zen garden of them all. The Ryoangibtemple complex is, like all others, made if easily combustible materials and it has suffered from destructive fires. Fortunately they now have that in hand.

We then joined the throng through the picturesque gardens and lake that lead up to the temple and we eventually found ourselves sitting on the edge of this beautiful tranquil walled garden, the wall, with its imperfections, as perfectly self-contained as the garden itself. Behind us were the large tatami mat rooms where the elite must have sat sipping sake and eating delicacies and, probably, plotting, scheming and worrying about their enemies rather than contemplating their existence through the medium of this garden.

   

The creator of the garden, and his or her purpose, is unknown. My theory is that a gardener was told 'Get rid of those bloody rocks and sweep up the gravel' and he came up with a cunning plan. 

Next stop was Kinkakuji, the golden pavilion. This place invoked fond memories for me as I was given a model to build of this temple when a youngster in Tokyo. I suspect I found it difficult, as I did model building in general, as I remember it well. 

Kinkakuji and the grounds surrounding it are ludicrously picturesque. Every shot is a postcard. It was a retirement villa for some rich noble. 'Yeah. Make it a couple of stories high, 2 bedrooms, ensuite and, oh yeah, cover the freaking thing in gold leaf'.

Between sights we had looked for somewhere to eat, settling on a cafe whose menu showed spaghetti for me and ice cream for Rosemary. To our slight disappointment and great amusement we were told by the nattily dressed proprietor, bow tie and braces, that it was an 'ice cream holiday'. We settled for green tea ice creams in a cone from a booth up the road instead. 

The bus back to our Ryokan took us through the main shopping district of Kyoto and we made a plan to return for dinner. So after a bit of a rest we headed out again to give the bus pass a good thrashing. This central part of Kyoto is very lively but with what seemed like an unusually large number of pet stores. We even passed a Cat Cafe where you can order a coffee and sit there stroking the many cats that were lounging around. At first I thought it was like one of those fish restaurants where you point to the fish you want to eat, but apparently not. So you see, even mad cat ladies can turn their obsession into a living in this place. 

Dinner was good (not in the cat cafe in case you were wondering) and we headed back to base with a good plan for the next day when we would be moving on.