A few random observations

I left Kyoto at around 4:30 on the Shinkansen to Tokyo.  The Nozomi covers the 290 miles in two hours and 20 minutes.  And that's not about two hours and 20 minutes - you can set your watch by it.  To paraphrase Jack Nicholson from "A Few Good Men", trains run on time (i.e., people do their jobs), or people die.  Well, not really, but you get the idea.  Even traveling that fast, I was able to think about some things that I've noticed over the past two weeks.  And catch the obligatory glimpse of Mt. Fuji as we sped by.

• At any one time, it seems as if a not insignificant percentage (maybe 5%) of the adult Japanese population are wearing surgical masks, indicating that they have colds and don't want to infect others.  I had no sense that custom is declining with younger people.
• Zoning laws do not seem to be something that are part of Japanese culture.  It is not uncommon to see a factory or warehouse alongside a rice field or vegetable field that is in turn next to some houses or apartments.  
• It seems as if electric power lines are everywhere, along the streets, through the fields, over the mountains, etc.  There are big lines (the kind that people in the US protest against having in their backyards), as well as those that run along city streets.  I don't know why they seem to stick out to me, but they do.  It may be that with rare exceptions you just don't see the kind of "leafy suburb" that would hide the power lines that you see in the US.  
• You can travel throughout Japan having forgotten your toothbrush, comb, razor and other personal items.  It seems as if every lodging establishment, from a high end hotel to a ryokan to a low end hotel supplies guests with these items as a matter of course.
• The availability of free, public toilets in Japan is nothing short of amazing.  Perhaps that is to be expected with an aging population!  But what is even more amazing is in general how clean they are.  Don't expect to find paper towels, though.
• The ubiquity of vending machines - that have both hot and cold drinks - is incredible.  You just can't believe it.  On virtually every street corner there are one or two vending machines that will have water, green tea, soft drinks, fruit drinks, sports drinks - to name a few - as well as cans of hot drinks such as tea, coffee, milk tea, cocoa, etc.  They are everywhere.  Come to think of it, maybe the ubiquity of drink machines and public toilets is related.
• In general, I thought that people in the smaller cities in Kyushu were much more gracious, outgoing and friendly than people in Kyoto.  That being said, the people in service businesses in Kyoto are more friendly and gracious on a bad day than most US service workers are on their best days.

Monocle magazine has called Japan "The World's Most Charming Nation."  I think they got it just about right.  It's a great place to travel (if you know the language - and I lucked out on that score!).

And I think that about covers it.  Back to work!

Kyoto, Sunday, April 8

Last day in Kyoto.  Only one big event we have planned - to go to a special processional ceremony at Daigoji Temple that is in the southeast part of Kyoto.  The temple was founded in the 9th century.  In the spring of 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had 700 cherry trees planted in the garden there and thereafter held an event each year to enjoy viewing the blossoms.  “Ho-Taiko Hanami Gyoretsu" (Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s cherry blossom-viewing parade) is held on the second Sunday of every April.   They hold a big procession to celebrate.


So, out we went, along with thousands of local folks, as well as the occasional Westerner who had read about it.  It was a beautiful day - not a cloud in the sky and warmer than any of our other two sightseeing days in Kyoto.  It was really crowded at Daigoji - the Japanese take their cherry blossoms very seriously.  But we got into the rhythm of the crowd and it wasn't too bad.  There is a magnificent 5 story pagoda and a beautiful Japanese garden, but the main attraction is definitely the cherry trees.  And they were almost full - in fact, they probably were full.  Finally, on my last day in the country, one of the major premises for the trip - to see the cherry blossoms - had been fulfilled.  Check it off the list.  I don't mean to be too cynical.  It really is beautiful.


But, faithful readers, I can't show you what it looked like.  Andrea has the camera and we didn't transfer Sunday's pictures to my laptop.  So this will just have to wait until Andrea posts the photos to Phanfare and I can get access to them to incorporate them into the blog.


And then it was a late lunch and off to the train station to catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo.  I got to see the outside of the ryokan where Andrea will be staying the next couple of weeks.  It is in a really pretty area of the city and she'll like the location.  


I will close out with a few random observations in my next post.

Kyoto, Saturday, April 6

It hardly seemed possible, but it was colder today than it was yesterday.  Fortunately, there wasn't any rain.   Andrea has had a cold and is definitely not feeling well.  But she has been a trouper about sightseeing and not letting the fact that she feels rotten keep her from staying active.  I'm sure she'll be glad when I am off and she can just sleep until noon and rest up.

We walked today along Tetsugaku-no-michi - Philosopher's Walk - which runs between Nanzenji Temple and Ginkakuji Temple.  The 2 km path is lined with cherry trees, most of which unfortunately have not yet opened up into bloom.  It was really cold, so we caught a bus across town to the Imperial Palace.  This weekend they opened up the palace to all visitors without fee and without reservation (both of which are typically required).  The crowds were pretty huge, but they moved fairly quickly (except, as Andrea found out, for the ladies' room).  The emperor used this palace until about the middle of the 19th century when the emperor moved to Tokyo.  The palace has the simple aesthetic that is so typical of Japanese buildings.  The main residence, for example, was only 15 rooms.  It is quite a contrast to the ornate and decorated palaces of the West.  We enjoyed going through it, but we were outside the entire time and my was it cold.

We had our lunch on the top floor of a department store in downtown Kyoto.  It is fairly common for department stores to sell food in the basement and to have restaurants on the top floors of the building.

Andrea went back to the hotel to rest and I soldiered on in my sightseeing.  Went to a museum of traditional Kyoto crafts and walked around the Heian Shrine area.  Caught a little bit of a little league game (these kids are pretty good) and watched a group getting a tennis lesson that seemed like organized chaos.  

For our last night in Kyoto, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at an upscale tempura restaurant. As I may have mentioned in the past, it seems to be the case that higher end restaurants specialize in one thing, such as sushi or tofu or tempura.  This restaurant - Yasaka Endo - located in the Gion District specializes in tempura.  We took a picture of each dish (although I missed the sashimi course of bonita and sea bream)  and I thought I'd reproduce them in full below:

Entrance to Yazaka Endo

First course - Tofu Skin

Sake pitcher with ice tube in the middle

Shrimp toast and corn tempura

Uni tempura

Shrimp head and tail tempura

mushroom stuffed with crab and sweet potato tempura

Fish tempura

Vegetable tempura

Fish tempura and vegetable

Salad

Rice with tempura topping, miso soup and the obligatory pickles

Sakura (cherry) ice cream

We finished off the evening with a stroll back through Maruyama Park to see a very old cherry tree lit up at night.

Kyoto, Friday, April 6

Well, our luck had to run out on the weather.  Friday was a cold and drizzly day in Kyoto with intermittent periods of sunshine.  We started off with a walk through Maruyama Park, a site for good cherry blossom viewing.  It was somewhat like that, although the weather has been so cold the blossoms are not yet full.  The walk there really gave us a sense (which of course Andrea has almost natively) of what old Kyoto is like.  We walked by Chion-In Temple, a large temple with beautiful grounds - and it is only one of dozens of temple of similar size and stature.  

We walked down through Gion Corner, an entertainment district (but not of the type we walked through in Fukuoka for those readers with a good memory) for traditional Japanese performances.  Our principal destination for the day was Saihoji Temple, known as the Moss Temple, in the Western part of Kyoto.  You need to arrange in advance to get in, and they have a session in which you sit on the floor of the temple and copy Japanese characters from a sutra using a brush and ink that they provide you.  All of this while some of the monks burn incense and intone some chants. Kind of a unique experience.

But first we went out to Arashiyama, a little village nestled up against the Western mountains.   It was cold and the rain had started to come down a little harder.  It made sightseeing a bit of a challenge.  We walked around a bit, but were so cold that we got back on the train and headed for Saihoji.  

I'll include some pictures here, although we took a lot of them.  Will publish them to a Phanfare site at some point after I return.  The gardens will give you a sense of why the temple got its nickname the Moss Temple.

 After leaving the temple, rather than waling back to the train, we took a city bus that was close by.  Good call on the warmth, bad call on the mode of transportation.  It took us almost an hour to get back into the main part of Kyoto, although I guess we took in some sight along the way.  We headed up to the Kiyomizu area to see a lacquer museum, which had a beautiful collection of incense holders, exquisitely crafted out of different materials.  Then we took a leisurely walk back through this very pretty area to our hotel.

Along the way we say many young people dressed in kimono (we couldn't figure out why; maybe some cherry blossom viewing event) and even saw some maiko (apprentice geisha) who were all  decked out in their costumes. 

Saw a restaurant along the way that specializes in tofu.  So we decided to make a reservation and come back later for dinner.  It was really good.  Tofu cooked in a variety of ways, with various other tastes (sesame, crab, eggplant) to add flavor to it.  Probably 7 or 8 different courses.  Definitely not something you would get back home.

Travel to Kyoto

Thursday morning was a perfectly clear and cool morning, our last in Kyushu before heading to Kyoto.  We've been terribly fortunate with the weather, and it's nice that our streak lasted as we headed by train across the mountains.  It was a gorgeous ride.   We followed along the river and the route treated us along the way to waterfalls and views of the rapids.  Also saw some hydroelectric plants and 5 wind turbines perched intrusively on top of a mountain.  I guess the NIMBY syndrome hasn't made it to Japan.


After coming across Kyushu, we ended up where we began - in Fukuoka - and took the Shinkansen up to Kyoto.

The train ride from Fukuoka to Kyoto, a distance of about 320 miles, took a little under 3 hours on the Shinkansen.  The only downside to traveling by Shinkansen is that the train moves so rapidly, and the track on which it rides is set in a raised concrete structure where there are frequent side barriers, that it is tough to sightsee along the way.  But the speed at which it gets you to your destination more than makes up for the lack of sightseeing.  As we left Kyushu and got on the island of Honshu, the weather changed and it began to rain.  By the time we arrived in Kyoto, the skies were quite overcast and it was raining intermittently.


Andrea had booked us 3 nights in the Westin Miyako, which is in the Eastern part of town near the mountains.  She had booked a Japanese style room, thinking it would be interesting to see how a higher end hotel did Japanese style rooms.  Our experience with the Westin did not start out well - at the train station there were no signs to the location of their shuttle service and we had a heck of a time locating where to go.  But the worst part was the room - it was by far the smallest (perhaps not surprising) and one of the most uncomfortable Japanese style rooms we had encountered on the trip. Andrea set to work.  After a visit by two hotel staff people and much Japanese conversation (which didn't involved any raised voices and near as I can figure didn't include any swearing), they said they would move us to a different room the following night.  Well, Andrea scored a win worthy of Roberta Francis! They moved us to a mostly Western style room (there are futon on a platform for a Japanese touch) on the top floor that is nice.  Really nice.  A TV the size of ours at home and no bathroom slippers!  And nice views from the room.  Much, much better.

Kurokawa Onsen to Yufuin Onsen

We had a 90-minute bus ride through the mountains to our next onsen at Yufuin.  As we reached the summit of the pass we were going over, a pre-recorded song began to play on the loud speaker system of the bus.  I, of course, couldn't understand the words, but Andrea tells me it is a "mountain song" about how we were going over the top of the mountain and that there was no need to be concerned because our bus driver kept us safe, yada, yada, yada.  What a hoot.

We arrived at Yufuin, which actually is a little town surrounded by mountains, the most prominent being Mt. Yufu.  We decided to stow our bags at the train station and walk around the town.  The streets are full of shop, galleries, restaurants, and places to buy souvenirs.  A little like the North Conway of Kyushu without the mountaineering stores.  But is was a gorgeous day and it was fun to walk around and take it all in.

Our ryokan is a little on the outskirts of town, with a great view of Mt. Yufu (although the mountains below do not include Mt. Yufu).  It has a couple of outdoor baths that take advantage of the views of the mountains and it was relaxing at the end of the day just to soak and soak in the lovely surroundings.

  Our server was a 22-year old young woman (Ms. Takeshita) who had grown up in Fukuoka.  A bubbly personality and cute as a button.  Andrea and I liked her a lot (although Andrea accused me of liking her just a little bit more).  The meal, served in our room, was delicious. 

The rhythm of the vacation has generally been after dinner maybe taking a bath, but otherwise reading or watching a little mostly Japanese TV (real meaningful for me) and then off to bed early.  The ryokans and towns we have been staying in are not real night life places.  Fine with me.  Very relaxing.

Kurokawa Onsen

Our stay at the Yamamizuki was really nice.  At first, we were not terribly impressed with Kurokawa Onsen.  We arrived at the bus stop and were deposited into what seemed like nowhere.  There didn't really seem to be a town anywhere.  And there sort of wasn't.  It turns out that Kurokawa Onsen is really a collection of many ryokans, all of which take advantage of the hot springs and offer peace, tranquility, etc. etc.  The area itself is pretty reminiscent of any mountain setting - you could imagine being in the mountains in North Georgia or North Carolina (with which I have some familiarity).  And spring had not yet come to the area.  The evergreens in the area were cedar trees, which obviously isn't the same as in North Carolina, and the deciduous trees had not yet begun to leaf.

The Yamamizuki was tucked away along a stream.  Although it is only 20 or so years old, it was built with timber that had been reclaimed from structures many, many years older.  It had a nice feel.  The dinner, served in our room, was one of the better ones that we've had.  A few pictures on that below:

In the morning, the sky was completely clear and the air was delicious.  I went for a walk to explore the surroundings.  Not much going on on "ryokan row,"  but it was nice to be out and see the landscape.  Here are a few pictures from my walk.  The first is of the next ryokan up the road; the second just a snapshot of the mountains off in the distance.  The last is the sign that I came up to and I believe it relates to a walking trail in the area.  Since I hadn't the foggiest idea what it said, I decided to just turn around and head back the way I came.

The other thing about the Yamamizuki was the outdoor bath.  It was amazing.  Set along the little river, right next to a waterfall, it was by far the most picturesque rotenburo (outside bath) was have yet seen on our trip.  Sitting in steaming hot water, watching the waterfall and the river run by.  It doesn't get much better.

We left the Yamamizuki to catch an 11:26 bus to Yufuin.  They took our picture as we left.

And one more thing, lest you think that Yamamizuki is not thoroughly modern, take a look at what was waiting for us in our room:

This nifty little machine ground the fresh roasted beans and made a pretty darn god cup of coffee.  A real oasis for a coffee addict in a desert of green tea drinkers.  

Ibusuki to Kurokawa

Tuesday is principally a travel day.  We awoke to a howling and thundering storm, with winds that had to be gusting upwards of 50 miles per hour.  We later learned there were typhoon advisories for Kyushu.  Great.  By the time we headed for the train station, though, it had at least stopped raining.

The first part of the trip retraced our journey back to Kumamoto - local train back to Kagoshima followed by the Shinkansen (hooray!) back to Kumamoto.  Then we caught the Trans Kyushu Railway across to Aso.  While at the station in Kumamoto we were headed for our local train platform when I decided I should use the men's room before our next leg (ok, no cracks on that from either of my sons).  Andrea had used the very fancy ladies' room on the Shinkansen just before we arrived.  She asked one of the agents whether there were bathrooms down at the local platforms.  On learning there  were not, we headed back into the main station to find one.  I went into the men's room (stay with me, I am getting to the point here) and upon coming out didn't see Andrea.  I didn't think that she went into the ladies' room (because she had just used the facility on the train) and assumed that she was worried about making the train (the timing was a bit tight) and had headed for the platform.  So I did the same.  Of course when I got there she was not to be seen and I looked on the train (fortunately there were only two cars) and no sign of her either.  I headed back to the main station and finally met up with her at the top of the escalator.  She said she had asked the attendant, who hadn't seen me.  We made a mad dash to the train and made it.  Indeed we had more time than we thought as the train left late because, they said, of high winds.  Crisis averted.

Our train took us through the mountains to the town of Aso, at the foot of Mt. Aso.  Mt. Aso is the largest active volcano in Japan, and one of the largest in the world.  It is almost 1600 meters (close to 5,000 feet).  Of course, it was so cloudy and rainy that we didn't see a thing.  Not a thing.  It reminded me of the trip I took through Austria 37 years ago when I spent successive nights in Innsbruck and Salzburg and, because it was cloudy and rainy, I didn't see a single mountain!  We had an almost two-hour wait at the station while we waited for our bus to Kurokawa.   By the time we finally arrived at our ryokan in Kurokawa, we were ready to relax.  More about the Yamamizuki in the next post.

A word on packing

A lot of thought went into packing for this trip.  We realized from our last trip that traveling light was the way to go.  Schlepping a large suitcase through a dinky train station that had no elevator or escalator was a drag.

So, we agonized over suitcases, trying to find just the right one.  I think we succeeded there.  Our bags fit our needs with not a lot of room to spare.  Andrea also tried out many, many shoulder bags to make sure that she had just the right size and fit.  And we were seemingly ok there.  She even brought an extra suitcase for purchases, having it shipped down to Kyoto when we originally arrived at Narita.

So far so good, right?  Well, we didn't account for pre-Kyoto, in-trip purchases.  Can my wife resist purchasing a beautiful piece of pottery (notwithstanding that we have so much pottery already at the hous that we need to build cabinets in an annex to house it all!).  And so she had picked up some purchases along the way, which was resulted in having to pull out the auxillary shoulder bag to leave room in her suitcase.  So, she is carrying 2 shoulder bags, a bag in which she carries her hat, and a rolling suitcase as we schlepp through the train stations.  Many of you reading this blog may be old enough to remember Jane Fonda in The Electric Horseman and the scene with her luggage.  I can't get that one out of my head.

Ibusuki

Ibusuki's claim to fame is its natural hot sands that people come to be buried in.  So, that's the draw.  The town itself is a little rundown (think Hampton Beach for those of you familiar with New Hampshire).   But there are many ryokans (of the large, modern variety) there that take advantage of the draw for the hot sands and ours - Ibusuki Hakisuikan - was one of them.

As we drove through the town I was a little apprehensive about what our ryokan might be like.  The general feel of the town, I thought, didn't bode well.  Was I pleasantly surprised.  As we drove in, a relatively new building to the left (which houses a collection of pottery and porcelain) was eye catching and set a nice tone for the approach.  Turns out this place was really nice.

Our room was on the third floor and looked out to the water, as seen in the next photo.

It is a really large facility with many modern parts, but some old parts as well.  We called it the Mohonk of Kyushu, as it has a little of that same historical feel.  Meals were served in a very pleasant dining room and we decided that we preferred eating in a dining room to being served our dinner in our room.  The in-room service is a bigger production and takes you through the meal course-by-course.  But it is almost too much of a production.

On Monday in Ibusuki we caught the bus for about a 30 minute ride down to the Flower Park Kagoshima.  The rhododendron were in bloom and we saw some early azaleas as well.  Probably the most fascinating thing about the park was the tropical garden, which had some unbelievably beautiful species, one of which neither of us had ever seen or hear of strongylodon macrobotrys.  The color, as you can see in the picture below, was incredible.  I'll put in another few other pieces of eye candy from the park.

Then back to the hotel. In the afternoon, we got our hot sand bath. You put on a yukata (cotton Japanese bathrobe) and lie down in the hot sand as the attendants rake the sand up over your entire body (other than your head). It is a weird feeling. The sand is hot - probably the temperature of a hot bath. You lie for 15 minutes or so (when the perspiration starts to bead up and it is supposed to have all sorts of therapeutic and beneficial effects. I must say it felt good, but it also felt good to get out and rinse off.

Later in the afternoon each of us got a massage. Then we had a great dinner (maybe the best we have had the entire trip) and relaxing baths in the very elaborate Genroku (which is what they called their grand bath). In the men's bath there were multiple baths of different temperatures both indoor and outdoor. The process is pretty straightforward. There are stalls with wooden stools in front of them with showers and soap, shampoo, etc. That is for washing. After washing thoroughly, and most importantly rinsing off thoroughly, you go into the bath. The bath is for soaking a relaxation. It is a big operation and the bath is one of the focal points for a ryokan. It is very relaxing.

A good way to spend a Monday.

Viewer Feedback

We take our blogging responsibilities seriously and when visitors make comments or ask questions, we like to be responsive.  Beth asked what I thought was so odd in my observation about seeing so many parents and grandparents carrying their children.  I obviously didn't make the point well enough.  These children who were being carried weren't pre-walkers or disabled.  They seemed perfectly capable of walking along on their own - it was just that they probably preferred being carried.  And some of them seemed pretty darn big to be schlepped along by a grandparent!

Kumamoto to Kagoshima

Sunday morning was beautiful.  Here was the view of the castle from our hotel window.

We were up sort of early and went out to find a Western breakfast, which we found in one of the nearby shopping arcades.  We had basically a ham and egg (which was really more like egg salad) on white toast with lettuce and tomato and a cup of coffee.  The cost was about $5.  Then we went off to see the Kumamoto Prefectural Crafts museum before heading out of town.  It was a gorgeous day.  Not a cloud in the sky and cool temperatures.  We really have lucked out on the weather.  OK, two more pictures of the cherry trees and the castle.

It was off to Kagoshima.  Rather than springing the 1,000 yen or so ($12) for a cab ride from the hotel to the train station, Andrea wanted to take the Loop Bus, which does a circle around the tourist sites and stops at the train station and only costs 130 yen a piece.  That all sounds great, except for the 35 minutes it took to go 3 km!  The benefit, though, is that we got to go through the heavily populated cherry tree areas around Kumamoto Castle and they are in full bloom.  Absolutely gorgeous and the spectacular weather was even better.

Finally we got to travel on a Shinkansen.  We have been in the country for about a week and we've been on local trains, buses and ferries, but no Shinkansen yet.  The trip from Kumamoto to Kagoshima was fast and smooth.  What a way to travel.  Another aside here is that it is fantastic traveling with the little wireless access device that Andrea has rented for the month to give us access to the Internet.  It has worked remarkably well everywhere we have been.  On the train, we were able to sit and look things up about our destination as we rapidly sped to it.

The Kagoshima main train station was very modern and bustling.  Since we had another train to take and wanted to do a little sightseeing in Kagoshima, we looked for lockers to store our suitcases.  Rows and rows of lockers and, somewhat amazingly, all of them were in use.  We got some bum directions on where to find some additional ones but, after a bit of a wild goose chase, we found a couple and were able to stow our bags.

Kagoshima is almost at the southern tip of the shorter of the two most southern peninsulas on Kyushu.  We learned that it was the first place that Christianity came to Japan (which is not surprising as it is one of the port closest to where someone would have sailed.  What dominates the landscape in Kagoshima is Mt. Sakurajima, an active volcano that is just across the harbor.  It can't be that active, though, as there are many homes and other buildings that ring the base.  Here's what it  looks like.

Pretty impressive, huh?  Well we were off to Senganen Garden.  It was a pleasant way to spend an hour, but there wasn't anything particularly captivating about this garden.  I couldn't convince Andrea to go up to the waterfall viewing site, as it was a 300m walk uphill.  So I scooted up and she wandered around down in the main part of the garden.  Here is evidence that I made it:

We then took a visit to the Kagoshima Aquarium, which on a Sunday afternoon was chock full of kids.  A lot of good tanks, with many interesting fish and other sea life.  Then back to the station and on to a local train down to our next stop - Ibusuki (pronounced "ee-boo-ski).  More on that in the next post.