Ippoippo

Hell, it’s only been 4 months ago, but I thought it was time to put down my thoughts and memories of our little holiday to Japan back in April.

Back to Japan

The last time we were out in Japan was a for short visit in December 2007 to attend a wedding. This time, the plan was to spend two weeks there. The first week would be for myself and Yuko to explore around a bit by ourselves and go to places we’d never been too. The second week would be time to catch up with family and friends.

Journey to Miyajima

Having got to Japan on the Saturday, the first job was to collect our Japan Rail Passes. Normally, Japanese people wouldn’t have access to these, but because Yuko has a permanent residency visa for the UK, it means she gets classed as a ‘tourist’ when in Japan. Since we were going to be travelling a hell of a lot by train in the first week, the Japan Rail pass was going to save us a fair bit of money.

Once done, it was onto the train to Machida, and then the local stops near-by where we pretty much crashed out at Yuko’s parents place for the night (with a trip of course to our favourite old Korean Yakiniku restaurant, Ichiraku). As usual, the father in-law was keen to get drinking, so we did despite the fact that we knew we had an early start the next day.

So, early Sunday morning and it was off onto the train to head down to Yokohama and then onto Shinkansen (bullet train). The plan then was to take the Shinkansen to Himeji. Spend a late lunch there and look around the rather famous castle, then get back onto the Shinkansen onto Hiroshima, where we would then change onto the local train lines to get to a destination of Miyajima.
Except that didn’t happen… as a stop at Hamamatsu seemed to be taken some time. What we hadn’t immediately noticed until some passengers got on at that stop, was that just before our arrival there an old man had collapsed in the mens urinal toilet (between out carriage and the one in front). He was part of a group of pensioners who were on there way to Nagoya (the stop of Hamamatsu). Naturally, there was a big crowd of train staff around him, plus staff from the station as well. The chap didn’t want to get off the train and said he’d be OK until the next stop. He started to get his colour back when he was on the floor and then he was helped up to his feet. Of course, just a minute or so on his feet and he fainted again, so he and and friend were taken off the train.
All this of course meant, that for the first time, we were on a late running shinkansen!
The plan was to stop at Himeji was abandoned, and it was straight onto Hiroshima for a late lunch.
Initial thoughts of Hiroshima… hmmmm, didn’t like it. Neither did Yuko. There was a general feeling of unease felt by both of us. None of the locals said or did anything rude per say… but something felt wrong. It freaked Yuko out a bit who then started thinking the rest of the holiday would go wrong.

Luckly, that wasn’t to be be the case. We arrived at Miyajima on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, enjoying the view from the ferry from the mainland to the island we’d be staying on.

For the next two nights, we’d be staying at Ryokan Kawaguchi. The owners were very friendly and kind, and it was pretty inexpensive as well. One of the main reasons for coming down to Miyajima was to see the famous gate in the sea. We’d managed to time the trip so that we’d be there when sunset was at high tide (the tide wasn’t the highest it could be at other times of the year, but sufficiently high), and we got very lucky with the weather. PERFECT!!

The next day, the weather wasn’t so great, but the rain held off. First thing was to get have breakfast, so we treated ourselves to some BBQ’d local oyster. Also, rather naughtily, we washed it down with a glass of sake (hey, there were some other people there washing down their oyster breakfast with beer, so we thought we should follow suit ). That set us up then for a trek around the island, and up the mountain before coming back to explore the souvenir shops.
Very relaxing, but also pretty tiring on the feet.

Hiroshima

The next day, we left Miyajima in the morning and headed back into Hiroshima. Again, Yuko wasn’t liking the feeling she was getting from the locals. We headed down to the Atom Bomb dome and nearby Memorial and Museum. Yuko has been here before, as a school kid, but this was my first time. The clouds in the sky were quite broody at the time, and provided quite a backdrop to the dome when I took a picture there.

Must admit, when I was in the memorial park area, I felt quite sombre and emotional. More so than Yuko.
Once that was done, it was straight to the Ferry port to catch our boat to Shikoku.

Shikoku

After reading Hokkaido Highway Blues, I’ve always wanted to visit Shikoku. Yuko has never been on the island herself. There were pretty much two main reasons for originally visiting, the Sex Shrine in Uwajima (Taga Shrine, and attached ‘museum’ and the http://wikitravel.org/en/Dogo_Onsen“>Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama.
In the end, neither of those places turned out to be the most memorable parts of Shikoku.
Uwajima itself is a pretty normal town, with not that much to see. It’s probably worth a visit though if you hiking in the surrounding areas, and you time the visit for when the ‘Bull Sumo’ is on. That said, the small castle is pretty good and worth a 30 minute visit. And the sex shrine… overated! Some interesting exhibits in it, some very strange ones as well.

Matsuyama (where we stayed the whole time in Shikoku) is a much bigger town and not that bad. Dogo Onsen is pretty impressive from the outside, but the baths themselves are rubbish. Been in much nicer onsens and sentos elsewhere.

However, the nearby Dogo Brewery soon cheered us up. They even sell ‘Alt‘ and ‘Kölsch‘ beer… well sort of, it’s a Japanese version of it. Very nice though.

Matsuyama castle was really good too. Unlike the large one in Osaka, this is a proper wooden construction (it has been rebuilt a few times due to fire etc, but built in the ‘old ways’) and the inside has a few exhibits of old armour, swords etc etc. So far (seeing that I’ve not been to Himeji yet), this is the best Japanese castle I’ve been too.

The other fantastic, but small, place was a garden hidden away in some of the backstreets. It’s free to get into, but because it was such a beautiful and calm place we donated some money to the volunteers who maintain it.

The other thing I’ll remember about Matsuyama and Shikoku is the food, specifically the Udon noodles. They were really tasty here, and it’s something the island is meant to be famous for. Even the ones in cheap noodle bars in train stations were very tasty.

Osaka

As the first week drew to a close, it was time to head back to Tokyo. However, we stopped off at Osaka on the way back, as it allowed us to catch up with a old friend. Even Yuko’s parents took the opportunity to come down from Tokyo for a little reunion, since we all hadn’t seen Meg since our wedding at the end of 2005.
In Osaka, as always the food was cheap(er) and very tasty… though some of it was seriously unhealthy.

Back to Tokyo, and Week 2

The second week was spent pretty much with friends a family. So, there was a BBQ with nephews and nieces… visiting Yuko’s old school friends, even a visit to the cosmetics factory which was where Yuko’s first job was.
We did see some new stuff in Tokyo though. First was Rikugien Garden in the northern part of the Tokyo.

We also had some food in the restaurant which inspired the set for the scene in Kill Bill 1 (you know the one, the scene with the huge sword fight). Whilst it was quite cool to see it, the food was pretty average and service was so-so. I suspect the place as turned into a tourist trap now, living off it’s reputation rather than actual service and food levels.

Back to the UK

After the two weeks, it was back to the UK and back to work. Ahh well. What we have decided though is that we’d like to get back to Miyajima again, but this time go in the autumn when the maple trees turn red. I guess we’ll have to wait until November 2010 then.
Suppose we could try to visit Kyushu as well. The problem Yuko and I have now, is that the bits of Japan we want to visit, are starting to spread out and move away from the core areas of Tokyo and Kyoto/Osaka. Hmmm, may need a three week holiday next time.