Sleepless Travels Reloaded » Japan 日本

04:// Himeji

evane — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:15:15 +0000

We spent a day at Himeji. We thought we’d take it easy and just see the castle and its attached garden.

Himeji-jo is reputed to be the prettiest castle in Japan. Having seen the castles at Hiroshima, Nagoya, Okazaki, Kanazawa and Osaka, I think that’s probably right. It sits on a hill and is built on the slope, which is why, at some angles, the castle looks like it’s leaning. That’s why some of my photos don’t look straight >_>

There was this cool wall leading up to the main donjon. It had little rectangular and triangular holes in it which I surmise was for not only decorative but defensive purposes (to shoot arrows through?).

Find out more about Himeji-jo on the wiki here.

Because it was a Sunday, there were tons of tourists around.

You could take photos with some actors dressed up in feudal-era clothes. There’s a bunch of cafes and restaurants at the front of the castle grounds and there was a pretty good jazz band playing there that day. Oh yeah and there was a wedding in the vicinity too. The weather was great that day - not too hot and not too cold. It was bright and sunny. A lovely autumn day.

Seems like at every castle the local chrysanthenum club has a chrysanthenum display. They were HUGE! So many varieties and colours and sizes…Some were used in bonsai displays, and some were used to form sculptures.

We went to lunch after that. Went down one of the shopping arcades and got some department store bento. Originally we wanted to eat them at Koko-en but we weren’t allowed to ;_;

Koko-en was constructed on the former site of the Nishi Oyashiki (Lord’s Western Residence) and other samurai residences. It is made up of 9 separate gardens, each with a different theme. These include a tea ceremony garden, a garden imitating the countryside, a garden of bamboo and a garden of summer trees.

Even though it was autumn and the gardens looked a bit dead it was still very pretty. It’s too bad we weren’t there in spring though. There were tons of sakura trees everywhere.

Himeji-jo as viewed from the front of JR Himeji station

Himeji is on the main Sanyo shinkansen line. A main road leads from the front of JR Himeji station straight to the castle and is probably about a 20 minute walk. Don’t forget to drop by at the tourist office that will be on your right if you’re walking from the station to the castle. They offer *free* bike rental for the whole day. How trustworthy is that?!

Full-size photos, some with extra descriptions, are available in my “Japan 2007″ flickr set here.
See the rest of my Japan blog entries here.

Hiroshima - the wide island.

evane — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:25:12 +0000

Hiroshima is a nice, compact city. It’s pretty easy to cycle all around, with the exception of the main shopping area around Hachobori and Hon-dori (because there are too many pedestrians).

We spent two nights in Hiroshima. Tourists normally make daytrips to Hiroshima but I think the 2 days spent there were worth it. It was much more relaxing that way.

In the morning we went to the Peace Memorial Park. Loads of tourists and school excursions there.

Left: *evil aura* villain’s castle. Right: Hero’s castle. Cue birdsong.

Then we cycled to Hiroshima Castle (admission fees: 360 yen). It was pretty overcast in the morning but cleared when we got out.

Only the main donjon stands. It was a bit of a novelty walking around a museum with open windows! The cool breeze helped to ventilate the castle, and was very welcome. Wonder what it would be like in the heights of summer though, doesn’t look like there is air-conditioning there.

The exhibits at the castle museum were historical and concentrated particularly on Hiroshima’s founding in 1589 and its feudal past.

We went to the huge department store in front of Hiroshima Castle. It could have been Sogo. We went to a Western-style cafe where Ray had omu rice with demiglace sauce (his favourite) and I had mentaiko pasta (my favourite). It was pretty fancy by Australian standards and the service as usual was very attentive. And even though we were on the restaurant floor of a posh department store, our meals were under 1000 yen each! I love the restaurant-gai (restaurant floor) >_<. I love how easy it is to get good cheap food in Japan. Imagine a restaurant floor in a place like David Jones...You would NEVER get a satisfying meal for under $10.

Shukkeien is the garden to go to in Hiroshima (admission fees: 250 yen). It’s next to their Art museum and you can get a discount if you go to both. It was quite pretty if not as obsessively-manicured as some other famous Japanese gardens are wont to do (like the Tokugawa-en). In layout it actually reminds me of the Sydney Chinese Garden. And no wonder, because both gardens have been modelled on Hangzhou’s West Lake.

After that we rode over to Hibiya Park on the east side of town. There’s a Manga library there. We actually got lost trying to find the stupid place XD. It didn’t matter too much though, we had a lovely ride. We actually ended up skirting the whole perimeter of the park trying to find and entrance *into* the place. Even though it was so close to the main business and commercial area, the residential area was so peaceful and quiet! It was like stepping into a different world, or like in one of those Japanese slice of life movies. We finally found the route up to the library but, as the park is basically on a hill, the incline was so steep we had to pretty much push the bikes up all the way D:

The library was fairly large and quite crowded. All in Japanese of course so we walked round and left in about 2 minutes. Was it worth it spending 2 hours trying to find the place? >_> Well the journey is just as important as the destination right? Plus riding down that hill was very fun! We spent what felt like an hour pushing the bikes up but we got down that hill in about 2 minutes. I thought I was going to stack it a couple of times, but on the bright side I’d finally use the travel insurance I bought. I suppose the bad news is that I *would* have to use the travel insurance.

Hiroshima is famous for its oysters and okonomiyaki. Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is very different from the Osaka style. The chef pours a thin batter on the hot teppan (hot plate, lit. iron board) which makes a thin pancake/crepe. Egg wheat noodles, cabbage and bacon are stacked on top. The tricky bit is when the whole not-exactly-cohesive lot is flipped. After that the brown okonomiyaki sauce is liberally brushed on and a huge handful of spring onions pressed on top. More brown sauce and sesame seeds can then be added acording to preference. That’s the basic method but other things like kimchi, mochi, cheese and as in the above photo - oysters - can be added at various stages of the cooking process. Ray prefers the Hiroshima style because it’s not as doughy as Osaka style. I think I still prefer Osaka style because I find noodles + any other starchy product weird.

Oyster okonomiyaki, teppanyaki gyu-tan (ox tongue), teppanyaki assorted mushrooms in butter sauce, teppanyaki oysters with butter.

We pretty much ate with our right hands on our chopsticks and left hands holding bottles of sauce. We must have finished off half a bottle of QP mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce each!

Oh and the weird thing is we always tried to get the more “deluxe” okonomiyakis but they seemed to always mishear us and gave us the basic ones with no special fillings >_>

There are two okonomiyaki places to go to in Hiroshima and we went to both. There is okonomiyaki-mura near PARCO, and Okonomi Monogatari Ekimae-Hiroba which is in front of the JR Hiroshima station. They are whole floors of just okonomiyaki stalls so there’s heaps of variety. The stressful thing is that everyone calls out to you to come in and you feel embarrassed having to pick one over the other and then you see the sad faces from the other stalls >_<

I had to choose the place to eat both times because Ray didn't want to feel guilty over choosing one over others <_<

Oh and one thing I noticed about Japan? So many tiny vehicles!! Compare the humans standing next to the trucks for reference. If I ever lived in Japan I’d buy one of those little pickup trucks. So cute~~.

The owner of the Boston Bakery saw us taking photos of his truck and asked us why were doing that. I told (in terrible Japanese, but he somehow seemed to understand, miracle!) him because it was so small and cute. He thought it was funny and said he’d take a photo of both of us with the truck XD. Pretty friendly guy!

We stayed at J-Hoppers. When we went it was 3000 yen per person per night. They offer whole day bike hire for a very reasonable price. Getting around the city by bike is very highly recommended.

Full-size photos, some with extra descriptions, are available in my “Japan 2007″ flickr set here.
See the rest of my Japan blog entries here.

Second stop: Miyajima

evane — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:50:17 +0000

Momijidani park, Miyajima

A homecoming after a lengthy time away is always made sweeter by the feeling that one now has an unlimited supply of underwear.

So after 2 nights in Osaka we tramped down to Miyajima via Hiroshima. Often referred to as “Miyajima Island”, it’s actually like saying “Miya island island” because the ‘jima’ bit means island :@

It is, of course, the island famous for the floating torii and temple. However throughout the whole time we were there the tide remained disappointingly low so it really didn’t look as pretty. Also that bright red colour looks so tacky D:

The island has numerous shrines and temples all over it, but eh. You can read more about the island on the wiki travel entry. We didn’t even go into the famous Itsukushima Shrine because we didn’t want to pay

This is what I call my “potato” pose, and a contemplatious deer.

There are lots of free-roaming deer around the island. The reality is not as cute as the idea though, as they are scabby and smelly. Many deer have their antlers sawn off.

Senbei, anago chikuwa, momiji manju, giant rice spatula.

You’re basically forced to walk through this shopping street to get to Itsukushima Shrine. Full of souvenir shops and restaurants selling the local specialties (basically momiji manju, eel and oysters), it’s actually not as tacky as it sounds, and reasonably enjoyable. The momiji manju (lit. momiji = red maple leaves, manju = cake) are sponge cakes with a filling inside, commonly red bean paste, cooked betwen hot plates in the shape of red maple leaves. You can see them being made in many stores and the whole process is quite mesmerizing. We got one hot off the press. And then another, and another. Delish.

I don’t quite get the obsession with senbei and other rice products like mochi (>_<). They look good and smell good but dangnabbit they are still tasteless rice thingies! I kept getting suckered into buying food based on their smell and appearance (cooking stuff right in front of the customer's eyes is such good publicity). I had a shichimi senbei. Shichimi is one of my favourite flavourings (more on that in another post) and is as tasty as you can get but the senbei was still basically FLAVOURLESS.

Miyajima is also famous for its rice spatulas - some monk invented it as a better way to serve rice without destroying the flavour/mashing rice grains to a pulp - and besides the numerous rice spatulas available for purchase, there is a giant 5 metre long one on the main shopping street.

The region is famous for its anago, or saltwater eels. Prepared differently from perhaps the more well-known unagi, or freshwater eel, it is commonly simmered instead of barbequeued and is said to have a milder and less oily taste.

We actually bought the anago sushi above from Shin-Osaka Station and originally wanted to eat it on the shinkansen but didn’t get to. Faced with the prospect of lugging it around the whole island with us, we instead frantically shovelled it in during the 10 minute ferry ride to Miyajima.

The packaging was pretty cool. The outer brown layer and the strings are from dried bamboo leaves! Wonder how they get it speckled like that. Actually it makes me think the leaf was diseased >_>.

After that we saw other similar food packaging but most were made out of printed cardboard.

It was very tasty and yum though a bit on the sweet side.

There were scores of stores selling barbequeued oysters and related dishes. It was a bit expensive for our budget (2 oysters for 400 yen) however we finally broke down and bought some from this shop off the main street.

They were big and juicy but not as tasty and creamy as I would have liked. Perhaps a bit of soy sauce to bring out the flavour more? My oyster experience was spoiled by having too much sand and grit stuck around the oyster

Overall, they were good but not *that* good. Australian oysters, if eaten in season when they are succulent and fat, would probably taste better. However the average quality oyster here would definitely beat the average quality Aussie oyster.

I had oyster udon for lunch. There were like 8 huge oysters in my bowl o_o. Not bad for 800 yen…

From the wiki:

Miyajima’s maple trees are renowned throughout Japan, and blanket the island in crimson in the autumn. Momiji manju, pastries filled with azuki jam or custard, are popular souvenirs, and carry maple-leaf emblems. Many other varieties such as chocolate and cheese are also available. Because the island is sacred, trees may not be cut for lumber. Deer and monkeys roam freely. Deer are considered sacred in the native Shinto religion because they are considered messengers of the gods.

Unfortunately due to the unseasonably hot weather, the forests and parks around the island were a vibrant hue of GREEN.

The tree with the orange flower buds above is an osmanthus. I’ve already had it in food but I encountered live, fresh blooms for the first time in Japan. The smell is completely intoxicating, I love it. I need an osmanthus tree!

We walked a bit around Momijidani Park. It’s actually very pretty there. Too bad we had to rush to get to an event (organised by the Miyajima tourist association, it included a tea ceremony, sweets, an a tour. Free for foreigners! And we FORGOT where it was meant to start!! -cries-).

And more of the streetscape around the island. The photo in the middle on the second row is a police station (according to the little wooden sign in kanji that is not in the photo). Wonder if it is still used as such o.O. It makes me think of Shinsengumi and Edo-period police or something XD

The island retains much of a small-town feel. Despite the tourist hordes on the main street, there is an overall feeling of peace. If you’re on the main street and want to escape, just walk down a sidestreet and the noise instantly drops away to an indistinct muffle. Just randomly, did you know there are no traffic lights on the island?

The island has made it to my list of “best places to retire in”.

Full-size photos, some with extra descriptions, are available in my “Japan 2007″ flickr set here.
As usual, I apologise for the bad photo quality.

First stop: Osaka!

evane — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 17:36:56 +0000

Namba Station

Warning: photo-heavy post.
We spent the first 2 nights in Osaka for logistical reasons.

It was pretty fun if a bit rushed. On the first day we got lost around Umeda/Osaka station trying to find Yodobashi Camera, where Ray decided to buy the Sony H3 DSC. But we decided to head on down to Nipponbashi to check out prices there…then Bic Camera at Namba…and finally back to Yodobashi (we got lost again). Its a wonder how I was ever able to get any shopping done that day…

Despite all that, I really love Yodobashi Camera. Everything under one roof! I bought toys (check out the rows of gashapon machines!), a psp umd case, headphones and 2 headphone cases there. Spent quite a while browsing the cameras and lenses and trying to get them to sell me a wide angle lens for the Sony V3 but unfortunately it wasn’t being sold anymore. D:

We had lunch at a ramen place on the restaurant floor. I had something which turned out to be spicy hokkaido style ramen with bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots must be canned or something. It wasn’t properly prepared so it turned out smelling like urine D: But anyway the funny thing is that the spoon for the chilli had a picture of a koala on it! Kind of ironic.

For dinner we had okonomiyaki at Dotonbori Goku Raku Shoutengai, which is a building full of shops and restaurants set in an nostalgic Meiji-period sort of atmosphere. Pretty cool, just unfortunate that it was completely empty!

The okonomiyaki was okay but the drinks were sooo diluted.

The Minami (Dotonbori, Shinsaibashi, Namba etc) area is really where it’s at for Osaka. Namba, along with Osaka/Umeda, is one of the biggest stations in Osaka. Dotonbori is the eating area and Shinsaibashi-suji is for shopping.

The Glico Man and giant crab are some of Dotonbori’s famous landmarks. The giant crab is next to Shinsaibashi bridge and appears to be a popular meeting spot. Actually I’ve set up 2 meetings in front of the giant crab when I was there - see how useful it is!

It was so fun watching all the dressed-up Japanese. From OLs to garus and Johnny’s hairstyle boys, it provided endless entertainment. No doubt I was taking mental style notes too!

This little guy has probably become one of my favourite “only in Japan” characters >_<

We stumbled upon a street of love hotels around Namba area. It’s not seedy at all though, looked very decent and respectable.
Eriko and Tomomi say that they are really good value for money when it comes to acomodation >_>
If you check in at 10pm and leave at 10am it comes to about 3000 yen each, with really nice room, jacuzzi, karaoke in the rooms and breakfast in the morning.

Also found a supermarket near our hotel. As usual all the vegetables were shrinkwrapped in plastic and PERFECT. No wonder fresh veg are relatively expensive in Japan. I guess the imperfect vegetables all get made into pickles or something. It was also cool how they had electronic price tags. Gotta love their perfectly marbled beef too.

View full-size photos (not just the terrible collages, but the actual photos) in my Flickr Japan 2007 set here.

Kampai!

evane — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:09:40 +0000

Well well well.
Been a month away and only just got back the day before.
Seems like this should give me enough content for the next year (especially since I’m no where close to finishing China…I think I should just give up).

It’s kind of nice being back home and not having to worry about lugging around a heavy bag all day. However I’m missing the super cheap and yummy food as well as the combinis in Japan >_<.

Also wish I had time to do a bit more shopping...

If I didn't have to contend with the JR pass expiring I'd have left Tokyo and Osaka as the last cities to visit so I don't have to worry so much about lugging my purchases around the country.

Anyway, on to the photos!!

After around day 3 I got too lazy to pull out the camera though. And when I did I would generally do a few half-arsed shots. Mostly it was because it was too mafan to pull out the camera from my makeshift camera bag (I did eventually find a camera case I was happy with - on the second last day I was in Japan!!). It's amazing how many of my photos are grainy, blurry or are out of focus.

So I apologise in advance for my terrible photos.

Here are the places we've visited...in rough chronological order:

Osaka- Miyajima - Hiroshima

Himeji - Kyoto - Kurama

Hakone - Tokyo - Nagoya

Takayama - Shirokawa-go - Oku Hida Onsen Villages

Kanazawa - Nara