Japan: Day 9
This morning was a normal early wake up, but after the late finish, but time was of the essence this morning. I had my shower and went straight down to breakfast, where today’s weirdness was Takoyaki, or some people know them as octopus balls. No, not that, where is your mind? They’re balls a little bigger than a ping pong ball, which are a kind of dough, or thick batter around a small piece of octopus. They’re tasty, but they aren’t really breakfast food, more Japanese Royal Easter Show food!
After finishing the rest of my daily preparations, I walked to the station and met mum and dad, right where and when we’d agreed, and then caught the local train to Miyajimaguchi, a half hour ride where only mum could get a seat. From there we walked down to the JR ferry terminal, and used our JR Rail pass for free passage on the ferry to Miyajima.
On its way in, the ferry swung past the Torii gates, which is what they call those big traditional gate structures they have outside temples in Japan. Miyajima’s Torii is famous because it is a ”floating” Torii. Well, it doesn’t really float; it’s built on the tidal flat, but most of it pokes out of the water in all but proper low tide, so at high tide it looks like it’s floating. Anyway, we motored past that so everyone could take their prime tourist photos (myself included) then we docked. There was something going on on the island, we never found out what, but just near the ferry terminal there was a big stage, and many stalls selling food and sake.
Having had our fill of milling crowds quite quickly, we walked past and then onto the 5-level pagoda, and huge old wooden temple. It was the beginning of the climbing I was to subject my parents to today, but I planned to keep the pace slow, and stop as often as necessary, so they could get a good tour of the island without the need for any Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. Dad was impressed with the structure of the large wooden temple, but not enough to take his shoes off, so we headed back down the hill to the floating temple of Itsukushima Shrine.
Once again, when I say floating temple, I don’t mean floating as such, and because it was slow tide it was just a temple on short stilts on a tidal flat. The Torii was still (just) in the water though. So I walked through with a new vantage point and found that this temple doesn’t look nearly as stunning when the water’s not all around underneath it. It was my parents’ first walk through, though, so there was plenty in it for them.
The temple was playing host to a wedding while we were wandering through, so we got to see the wedding ceremony in progress. That was a neat bit of culture. Mothers cry at weddings in Japan, too, by the way.
After that, walked along the shore on the opposite side, and then up another set of stairs to the smaller 2-level pagoda. Not nearly as many tourists get up there, and even fewer follow the path along to Daishoin temple.
This temple has thousands of little statues of all types. They’re everywhere. It also had prayer wheels, and noise-making things, and even pipes out taiko drumming periodically to enhance the mood. If you’ve grown weary of the same old stuff at other temple’s in Japan, and really, I don’t know anyone on an extended trip who hasn’t burnt out on temples, this is the place to come. The statues range from the typical to the rarer, but funny-looking protectors, and then move right through to the silly, with little fat, bald monks going about their business, or posing in an od manner. Then they move into the absurd, with even statues of puppy dogs!
You climb so slowly, paying attention to the temple and its stuff, you barely notice how much you rise up the hill. When you get to the top end of the temple, the views are beautiful back down to the water, covering the temple grounds. But then you have to walk back down, and join the main tourist trail up to the ropeway. Many take the free bus, but because we were already “out of town”, we walked the couple of kilometres to the bottom ropeway station.
It’s a steep climb up the mountain and from one side of the gondola (riding backwards) you get a great view back down to the water, and Honshu across the way. The more we rose, the more there was snow on the ground, and also, some started to fall, with little flakes creeping into the gondola through the vents. The parents are from Darwin, mind you, so they felt very cold.
At the end of the steep ascent, you get out of one ropeway cable car, climb a couple of storeys of stairs, and get into another, but this on holds 30 people and runs on a timetable, as opposed to the 6-person ones that run constantly for the long leg. This second one is to ferry you from one peak to the next, the highest on the island, apparently, at over 500 metres, that’s not bad for such a small island of about 30 square kilometres.
Last time I was up there, there were monkeys. They have free lockers to protect your stuff, which we then utilised, and again this time. Then we went out of the ropeway terminal building and there was lots of snow on the ground. Of course I climbed straight to the highest lookout point and looked at the islands to the east (including part of Shikoku, Japan’s fourth largest island). Up at that point there was lots of soft, fresh snow, and remarkably few people.
So, of course, I made a snowman, and tried to take his photo, but he was quite washed out. White on white makes for poor contrast, so I made sure his head was securely fastened (he stood about 60cm tall, I guess), picked him up whole, tucked him under my arm, and called out to my parents that I was ready to go. Everyone (including the half dozen Japanese up there at the time) had a good laugh, and as I brought him out of the snow and to the cleared path, a little girl was having trouble making her own snowman. I tried to offer her mine, but she was scared of the giant rotund gaijin man, so I put him in a large rock next to the path, took what I hope was a better photo of him, and went to join my parents.
As the family with the little girl left, they bid a jovial farewell to my snowman, and then the girl trusted him enough to go have her photo taken with him, it was very cute. The parents thanked me on their way back down the hill, and it was all very sweet.
We went back down the hill, and got to the start of the walking trail that leads firstly up to an out-of-the-way, very holy temple, and thereafter to a lookout which gives great 360 degree views around Miyajima. About 100 metres in, mum asked a Japanese girl, in English, if she’d seen any monkeys. The girl looked very confused, so mum asked in a louder voice. Then she just said “monkeys”, and somehow the girl twigged, and said no. But we started the walk anyway.
I say started, because there wasn’t very much walking we got done. At the first mild downhill stretch, I tried to pass on my snow walking skills that I’ve picked up over the past couple of months, and only some of it was listened to. Then when a little while later it got steeper and slipperier, mum gave in, and it took us 10 minutes to cover about 30 metres.
No amount of teaching was going to be listened to, and I could see (luckily) the final lookout way off on a peak across the valley, giving an easy out for everyone, because even I wouldn’t have tried to climb up to there in that snow, let alone the novices from Darwin I had with me. I have to say, though, I recognised a lot of the instincts which don’t work when attacking icy surfaces in mum as she tried to struggle with it.
So we walked back up to the top ropeway station, caught the two ropeways down, and then the free bus back into town. It was after 2 in the afternoon, and we decided to do the fun-fair style of eating for lunch. Walking past the stalls, both permanent and temporary, we ended up getting steamed buns (mine with eel, parents with beef), and then some yakitori sticks. Only none of us actually had the tori bit (chicken), mum had a frankfurt, dad had a very large pork one, and I had a small pork and a small beef one. They were very, very tasty, so we decided to go before we stuffed ourselves full of them. Then we walked to the ferry terminal, to be just in time for a ferry, which we caught back to Honshu, and walked to the train station only to be just in time for a train back to Hiroshima.
Back in Hiroshima, after the time in the snow, we stopped off for a hot cocoa and a scone. Sadly, by this stage we’d warmed up so much that it was just heavy and stuffy, and not nearly as enjoyable as my previous experiences back up north. This was the first time I’d tried to introduce the parents to the transformation that hot chocolate milk makes when the temperatures get low enough and while mum really enjoyed hers, dad was nonplussed.
We were planning on finishing out our afternoon at the Shukkeien garden (name), which is just a few blocks in size, but packs in a beautiful little pond setup, along with a myriad of bridges, and is very attractive. We had 40 minutes til it closed for the evening, and we used every one of them just drinking in the calm beauty. I am drawn to water when it comes to photography, if it’s not playing with the movement of water, it’s the way light plays with it, particularly a good reflection, and I used a good chunk of that 40 minutes doing just that.
After that we were deciding what to do next, and while the parents wanted to go back to their hotel and drop stuff off before looking at dinner, I used my local knowledge to point out that that was the opposite direction to the best place to find stuff, so instead we walked down to the entertainment district of Hiroshima. It’s quite large, covering perhaps 15 (small, Japan-sized) blocks by 5 blocks, and incorporates shopping, department stores and restaurants, along with hostess bars and pachinko parlours and all sorts of other things. We picked a street and walked the length of the district, then turned around and walked back another, and by this stage I was starting to notice that I had been on my feet for pretty much 10 of the last 10.5 hours, and I just need to sit down. So we found a place for coffee and sat and rested for a good half an hour.
By then everyone’s tiredness was showing though, so we decided dinner was best consumed at the very first place we came across, which turned out to be a family restaurant, where we ate, and drank, and paid, and then walked down to a point where we could go our separate ways, they to the tram stop where they could get back to the station, and I walking back to my hotel.
Even at night here, my stuff for the day wasn’t over, it was my best last chance to do laundry, which I then did. This hotel has a daft setup where the laundry isn’t on the front desk/dining room/et cetera floor, but has a small laundry room on the same floor as some rooms, so I can’t sit by the laundry and computer away in the dining room with tables and vending machines around me, but rather have to keep using the lift to go between floors to check on the progress of the laundry.
After the short night’s sleep, and long day on my feet, I was antsy for the laundry to finish, because I wanted to get in a bath, and give my legs and feet a soak. Having a little more to do today, and the need to be social for meals meant some of my normal laid back nerdy pursuits will continue to have to take a back seat for a while.
After finishing the rest of my daily preparations, I walked to the station and met mum and dad, right where and when we’d agreed, and then caught the local train to Miyajimaguchi, a half hour ride where only mum could get a seat. From there we walked down to the JR ferry terminal, and used our JR Rail pass for free passage on the ferry to Miyajima.
On its way in, the ferry swung past the Torii gates, which is what they call those big traditional gate structures they have outside temples in Japan. Miyajima’s Torii is famous because it is a ”floating” Torii. Well, it doesn’t really float; it’s built on the tidal flat, but most of it pokes out of the water in all but proper low tide, so at high tide it looks like it’s floating. Anyway, we motored past that so everyone could take their prime tourist photos (myself included) then we docked. There was something going on on the island, we never found out what, but just near the ferry terminal there was a big stage, and many stalls selling food and sake.
Having had our fill of milling crowds quite quickly, we walked past and then onto the 5-level pagoda, and huge old wooden temple. It was the beginning of the climbing I was to subject my parents to today, but I planned to keep the pace slow, and stop as often as necessary, so they could get a good tour of the island without the need for any Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. Dad was impressed with the structure of the large wooden temple, but not enough to take his shoes off, so we headed back down the hill to the floating temple of Itsukushima Shrine.
Once again, when I say floating temple, I don’t mean floating as such, and because it was slow tide it was just a temple on short stilts on a tidal flat. The Torii was still (just) in the water though. So I walked through with a new vantage point and found that this temple doesn’t look nearly as stunning when the water’s not all around underneath it. It was my parents’ first walk through, though, so there was plenty in it for them.
The temple was playing host to a wedding while we were wandering through, so we got to see the wedding ceremony in progress. That was a neat bit of culture. Mothers cry at weddings in Japan, too, by the way.
After that, walked along the shore on the opposite side, and then up another set of stairs to the smaller 2-level pagoda. Not nearly as many tourists get up there, and even fewer follow the path along to Daishoin temple.
This temple has thousands of little statues of all types. They’re everywhere. It also had prayer wheels, and noise-making things, and even pipes out taiko drumming periodically to enhance the mood. If you’ve grown weary of the same old stuff at other temple’s in Japan, and really, I don’t know anyone on an extended trip who hasn’t burnt out on temples, this is the place to come. The statues range from the typical to the rarer, but funny-looking protectors, and then move right through to the silly, with little fat, bald monks going about their business, or posing in an od manner. Then they move into the absurd, with even statues of puppy dogs!
You climb so slowly, paying attention to the temple and its stuff, you barely notice how much you rise up the hill. When you get to the top end of the temple, the views are beautiful back down to the water, covering the temple grounds. But then you have to walk back down, and join the main tourist trail up to the ropeway. Many take the free bus, but because we were already “out of town”, we walked the couple of kilometres to the bottom ropeway station.
It’s a steep climb up the mountain and from one side of the gondola (riding backwards) you get a great view back down to the water, and Honshu across the way. The more we rose, the more there was snow on the ground, and also, some started to fall, with little flakes creeping into the gondola through the vents. The parents are from Darwin, mind you, so they felt very cold.
At the end of the steep ascent, you get out of one ropeway cable car, climb a couple of storeys of stairs, and get into another, but this on holds 30 people and runs on a timetable, as opposed to the 6-person ones that run constantly for the long leg. This second one is to ferry you from one peak to the next, the highest on the island, apparently, at over 500 metres, that’s not bad for such a small island of about 30 square kilometres.
Last time I was up there, there were monkeys. They have free lockers to protect your stuff, which we then utilised, and again this time. Then we went out of the ropeway terminal building and there was lots of snow on the ground. Of course I climbed straight to the highest lookout point and looked at the islands to the east (including part of Shikoku, Japan’s fourth largest island). Up at that point there was lots of soft, fresh snow, and remarkably few people.
So, of course, I made a snowman, and tried to take his photo, but he was quite washed out. White on white makes for poor contrast, so I made sure his head was securely fastened (he stood about 60cm tall, I guess), picked him up whole, tucked him under my arm, and called out to my parents that I was ready to go. Everyone (including the half dozen Japanese up there at the time) had a good laugh, and as I brought him out of the snow and to the cleared path, a little girl was having trouble making her own snowman. I tried to offer her mine, but she was scared of the giant rotund gaijin man, so I put him in a large rock next to the path, took what I hope was a better photo of him, and went to join my parents.
As the family with the little girl left, they bid a jovial farewell to my snowman, and then the girl trusted him enough to go have her photo taken with him, it was very cute. The parents thanked me on their way back down the hill, and it was all very sweet.
We went back down the hill, and got to the start of the walking trail that leads firstly up to an out-of-the-way, very holy temple, and thereafter to a lookout which gives great 360 degree views around Miyajima. About 100 metres in, mum asked a Japanese girl, in English, if she’d seen any monkeys. The girl looked very confused, so mum asked in a louder voice. Then she just said “monkeys”, and somehow the girl twigged, and said no. But we started the walk anyway.
I say started, because there wasn’t very much walking we got done. At the first mild downhill stretch, I tried to pass on my snow walking skills that I’ve picked up over the past couple of months, and only some of it was listened to. Then when a little while later it got steeper and slipperier, mum gave in, and it took us 10 minutes to cover about 30 metres.
No amount of teaching was going to be listened to, and I could see (luckily) the final lookout way off on a peak across the valley, giving an easy out for everyone, because even I wouldn’t have tried to climb up to there in that snow, let alone the novices from Darwin I had with me. I have to say, though, I recognised a lot of the instincts which don’t work when attacking icy surfaces in mum as she tried to struggle with it.
So we walked back up to the top ropeway station, caught the two ropeways down, and then the free bus back into town. It was after 2 in the afternoon, and we decided to do the fun-fair style of eating for lunch. Walking past the stalls, both permanent and temporary, we ended up getting steamed buns (mine with eel, parents with beef), and then some yakitori sticks. Only none of us actually had the tori bit (chicken), mum had a frankfurt, dad had a very large pork one, and I had a small pork and a small beef one. They were very, very tasty, so we decided to go before we stuffed ourselves full of them. Then we walked to the ferry terminal, to be just in time for a ferry, which we caught back to Honshu, and walked to the train station only to be just in time for a train back to Hiroshima.
Back in Hiroshima, after the time in the snow, we stopped off for a hot cocoa and a scone. Sadly, by this stage we’d warmed up so much that it was just heavy and stuffy, and not nearly as enjoyable as my previous experiences back up north. This was the first time I’d tried to introduce the parents to the transformation that hot chocolate milk makes when the temperatures get low enough and while mum really enjoyed hers, dad was nonplussed.
We were planning on finishing out our afternoon at the Shukkeien garden (name), which is just a few blocks in size, but packs in a beautiful little pond setup, along with a myriad of bridges, and is very attractive. We had 40 minutes til it closed for the evening, and we used every one of them just drinking in the calm beauty. I am drawn to water when it comes to photography, if it’s not playing with the movement of water, it’s the way light plays with it, particularly a good reflection, and I used a good chunk of that 40 minutes doing just that.
After that we were deciding what to do next, and while the parents wanted to go back to their hotel and drop stuff off before looking at dinner, I used my local knowledge to point out that that was the opposite direction to the best place to find stuff, so instead we walked down to the entertainment district of Hiroshima. It’s quite large, covering perhaps 15 (small, Japan-sized) blocks by 5 blocks, and incorporates shopping, department stores and restaurants, along with hostess bars and pachinko parlours and all sorts of other things. We picked a street and walked the length of the district, then turned around and walked back another, and by this stage I was starting to notice that I had been on my feet for pretty much 10 of the last 10.5 hours, and I just need to sit down. So we found a place for coffee and sat and rested for a good half an hour.
By then everyone’s tiredness was showing though, so we decided dinner was best consumed at the very first place we came across, which turned out to be a family restaurant, where we ate, and drank, and paid, and then walked down to a point where we could go our separate ways, they to the tram stop where they could get back to the station, and I walking back to my hotel.
Even at night here, my stuff for the day wasn’t over, it was my best last chance to do laundry, which I then did. This hotel has a daft setup where the laundry isn’t on the front desk/dining room/et cetera floor, but has a small laundry room on the same floor as some rooms, so I can’t sit by the laundry and computer away in the dining room with tables and vending machines around me, but rather have to keep using the lift to go between floors to check on the progress of the laundry.
After the short night’s sleep, and long day on my feet, I was antsy for the laundry to finish, because I wanted to get in a bath, and give my legs and feet a soak. Having a little more to do today, and the need to be social for meals meant some of my normal laid back nerdy pursuits will continue to have to take a back seat for a while.