Hiroshima - Day 2

Visited the dome. This has been on my to-do list for a while, was glad to finally get there. You can see what the building used to look like in the above photo.



Also visited Hiroshima Castle. This is a reconstruction, but the castle museum inside probably the best one I have seen so far, english text for most items, take the time to sit and listen to animated the story of the castle construction... amazingly it only took 2 years to build the castle to a habitable state.

Hiroshima - Day 1

Out to the island, another rainy day. With a tide out, we get a chance to walk out under the Torri gate.

Takayama

Shirakawa-go

Took a bus from Kanazawa to Takayama. The bus travels through the mountains and makes a brief rest stop at Shirakawa-go. Shirakawa-go's traditional grass roofed buildings are heritage listed. It was raining on this bus trip and it seemed to get heavier when we got out for this stop. Not a lot to see and do at this time of year, looks like a better winter destination, certainly not much we could do in the 15 minutes we had, so just grabbed a postcard book, looked at a few model before splashing our way back to the bus.




Bus into shirakawa-go, gifu


Key Song: Spring Rain by The Go-Betweens

Kanazawa - Day 2

Next day bright and early .... well it is Japan nothing much opens until 10. Had breakfast at one of the many eateries on ground floor of Kanazawa station. "The German Bakery", much like "Donq" and other Japanese bakeries, it is self service to browse and choose from the isles of pastries on offer, then take your tray to the counter to get order a drink and pay. Range includes chocolate croissants, fruit in pastry, hotdog roll with sauce and sausage baked into it, and various pastries that incorporate green tea or bean paste, and the surprise at this one was southern fried chicken.



First stop was the Ninja house, this is a temple with hidden floors (actually 5 floors high), doors and numerous hiding places, traps and nasty surprises for an attacker. Actually has nothing to do with Ninjas but has become known as Ninja dera. You have to ring up to book into the one of the hourly tours, this seems to limit the number of English speaking tourists who make it to this place. The tour is in Japanese, but a folder is provided with the English translations for you to follow along, well worth 800 yen admission.

On the way back we walked through the Samurai housing district which have a number of open house/gardens along the way.




Wandering back through the town we found some wonderful streets with the diverted river flowing alongside the streets, in warm weather these would make great places for outdoor dining, though it doesn't look like there is such a thing available.




Went to the markets for lunch, tasted a lot samples. When tasting a samples, you present the back of your hand (fist) , they will place the food on it and you eat it off the back of your hand, they will also pass you a cloth afterwards to wipe the back of your hand. In this manner, we tried many types of marinated squid. We choose two and had later that night with Sake.



Last stop for the day was the Modern Art Gallery, it is an odd thing with art galleries in Japan that the architecture of the building seems to be promoted & described far more than the collection it houses. This building looks great from above apparently. Bought a few gifts from the gift shop, including a couple of vases made from plastic that fold flat so you can put them away when not in use.

Kanazawa - Day 1

Took the train from Osaka to Kanazawa. Beautiful scenery along the way; mountains, lake, smallish settlement squeezed into every valley, and snow still melting on the mountainside.

Kanazawa is set up well for tourists. If you center yourself near the main rail station, (many hotels surrounding it), everything is withing easy reach. A tourist loop bus route, runs every 15 minutes and it stops near nearly all the towns main attractions. Only 500 yen for a day of unlimited use.

The first place most people go to is the gardens and castle, you can easily spend half a day just on these two locations. On the day we were there, the gardens were open for free. In general you can assume the cost of entering a garden or castle in Japan is somewhere between 300 and 600 yen, add little extra if they provide a guided tour. The Kenrokuen gardens are large strolling gardens, every turn offering a new vista. Official Site

Madeline finds a friend?

Walking across a bridge in Osaka, with the Decemberists "Apology Song" running through my head. (The song is an apology from Colin to Steven for letting his bike get stolen, check out a youtube clip of Colin performing the song).

So, looking down into the water I see this and think Madeline has found a friend?

Cherry Blossom in Osaka

A walk along the river near the Mint. Lots of Cherry Blossom in bloom, and many people out enjoying the spring weather.

Osaka Castle in Spring

Went to Osaka Castle, amazing how different it all looks in spring. Great timing to catch so many Cherry Blossoms. Caught Chuo line to Morinimya from exit (#??) simply walk up the stairs and you are at the park. Past the markets and fountains, keep going straight, along the tree lined path with the blue tarp shelters for the homeless which are set back amongst the trees. There appears to be many more homeless living here than the last time.



Osaka Castle



People having picnics on blue tarps under the cherry blossom.



Osaka Castle


Homeless "Housing"

Tennoji Gardens

Tennoji Gardens and Zoo. Take the subway to Tennoji take exit 5, head north over the bridge. Saw this park when surfing on Google Earth and decided it was worth a look.



In the picture you can see the once private gardens of the Sumitomo family, which they donated for public use. The garden is a nice strolling garden with many interesting views primarily centered around a large pond.

Seiyu & Oko-nomi-yaki

Feeling a little jet lagged. Went up the road to the local Seiyu supermarket, which is now open 24 hours, to buy the things I didn't pack (saving luggage space & weight) such as shampoo, conditioner. They have a nice collection of Pocky products, so I grabbed some "mens pocky". Pocky is a Japanese snack food, which is basically long straight pretzels covered in chocolate, they are suprisingly morish. other flavours are available such as banana flavoured "desert" pocky, the Mens pocky has dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate.




Walked around the local park, a smallish dirt area surrounding the baseball enclosure. It looks much nicer now with the cherry blossoms out.

Back to the appartment for a nap, before going out to den-den town (giant electronics shopping precinct), basically a shopping area for geeks. Lots of gadgets and hobby & model shops. Looking for Gigantor figurines for Gillian, we found a 6ft tall model of him in a shop, and took the obligatory photos. (ask permission before doing this, not all places welcome this kind of behaviour in their stores)

Found a really good boardgame shop called "Yellow Submarine" they had a good collection of Euro games (German editions) with Japanese rule translations included. Found "Modern Art" game cheap, so picked it up also convinced Bob to buy Carcassonne. Carcassonne has got a lot of play in the spare time waiting for shops to open ... in Japan most shops don't open until 10:30am, and I am still waking up at first light 6am.

Yukiko met us in town and we went to an Oko-nomi-yaki restaurant. Oko-nomi-yaki, basically "how you like it", a versitile cabbage pancake, which has as many optional inclusions as pizza. The basic is cabbage, flour, egg, water, red ginger and sliced meat (thinly sliced pork or seafood). They are very delicious, filling and (relatively) cheap, in this restaurant, the center of the table is the hotplate, and the pancake is kept warm on it while you eat it. I have been to another place where it is cooked on the hotplate at front of you. Extremely delicious.

Got back and booked accomodation for our Kanazawa and Takayama trip next week. 3500 to 5500 a night per person (no extra for single rooms vs twin share)

Last stand on Wounded Knee?

Twisted my right knee about a week before flying out, still quite sore and swollen. I requested aisle when I checked in with Singapore Airlines, luckily they were able to arrange ailse seats for both legs of my flights. This made it much easier to get up and stretch my knee when needed.

The flight was very turbulent between Brisbane & Singapore, tea splilling from cups and food trolley moving unaided. Plane was full, but got some sleep in 15-30 minute batches. Arrived at Terminal 3 instead of T2, which meant we didn't have to change terminals for the next leg. Shops were just starting to open, browsed a bit and sent a few emails, while keeping a wary eye on the 3 armed guards who kept circling us.

The Singapore to Osaka plane was pretty empty, nearly 2 spare seats for every passenger. Stretched out and slept most of the way.

Arrive in Osaka, photographed and finger printed with all the other "foreigners" entering Japan. Mostly from China, Hong Kong & Korea, Malaysia, and a fellow from Greece with whom I chatted while wating in line.

One woman caused a bit of commotion, being quite rude to the Customs clerk who indicated which counter she should go to, she just started calling him an idiot and worse. No one knew what she was on about, the guy's job was to make sure the queue kept moving. The consensus in the line was that she should be refused entry, some who had been in the same seating row as her, were joking in favour of her being shot.

Anyway, I got through custom very quickly, no extra bag check this time, so I was out the gate 20 minutes before I was due. Met up with Bob and got the same bus to Osaka as last time.

This time the bleak industrial landscape didn't take me by surprise, in fact it was rather comforting & familiar, it confirmed that my 2008 holiday in Japan had really begun.