Holiday in Japan - Kyoto

We spent three days in Kyoto, a beautiful city that has an enormous amount of culture and history. In fact the city has a law that requires buildings to be painted in theme with the rest of the city - earthy and pale colours. Even Macdonalds in Kyoto uses a dark red instead of the usual garish colours. We caught the shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto, which travels at around 250km/h! Unfortunately we were in the smoking section of the train, though it was a new experience for me because smoking is banned on all trains in Queensland. During a 5 minute stop at Nagoya, Chihiro went to get some drinks from the station shop with our vouchers. I realised she'd left her phone and purse on the train with me, and started to get worried when the train was about to leave. I couldn't see her anywhere on the platform or back at our seats, so when the doors started closing I tried to block them. A conductor immediately came over and started talking to me in Japanese, obviously telling me to let the doors shut. I tried to explain in Japanese to the conductor that my friend was still on the platform, but my vocabulary was extremely limited. I went back to my seat imagining Chihiro having to beg for money to make a phone call, but luckily she had managed to get back on the train several carriages further up!

On the first day in Kyoto we visited Nijo castle, a massive area with huge walls, double moats, gardens, and many buildings, including the imperial palace. The craftsmanship and effort it would have taken to build was very impressive. After that, we went to a small craft shop nearby where we did yuzen dying, which is a type of screen printing. Even though we had to select pre-made patterns, we could be a bit creative with the colours and shadow tones. We stayed at a hostel called K's House, which was very nice - new and clean, with full kitchen, living, and outdoor areas, and less than AU$40 a night. The beer vending machine next to the free coffee and tea came in handy too!

The next day was Sunday, and Chihiro had heard of some markets at Toji ("East Temple") which was within walking distance, so we headed off there through the busy Kyoto streets. We became slightly lost, but as we got closer we could see the five-layed tower that it's famous for. It also had some highly manicured gardens and a large Buddhist temple, all surrounded by a sea of market stalls. We spent a few hours wandering around looking at lots of nice things and still only managed to see about half of the market. I got some presents for family and friends in Australia, and also found a really nice Yukatta (men's summer kimono) that wasn't too expensive.

Next we took a bus to kiyomizu temple, which is famous for it's platform construction on the side of a steep hill, and for the holy water that comes out of a spring there. We walked up the hill along a back-path that went past a huge graveyard made of many different levels. From a distance it looked like a miniature city full of skyscrapers. There was another temple nearby that was for good luck in love, which we also visited (not that I need it, hehe). On the way down the hill we went through long twisting streets full of tourist and craft shops. Many of them had free samples of the sweets and food they were selling so we tried a lot of them as we wandered around. I think my trip to Kyoto involved the most shopping I've ever done in my life. The final stop of the day was Sanju-San Gendo, an extremely long temple housing 1001 statues of bhudda, with a huge one in the middle. Like most temples we couldn't take photographs inside, but it had an interesting museum section. It was also the place where the samurai Musashi Miyamoto had many duels.

On our last day we used an all-day bus pass to see several famous temples, the first being Ginkakuju (silver temple). It was quite small, and aspired to the minimal aestheticism of Zen. It was set in beautiful and tranquil gardens with little waterfalls, ponds, and streams. The floor of the garden was carpeted in many different types of moss, some of which are highly prized while others are regarded as weeds!

Kinkakuju (gold temple) on the other hand was incredibly ostentatious, being covered in gold foil. It was nice, but very crowded, and it was difficult sometimes to take a good photo because of the busloads of tourists being herded along the pathway. For lunch, we visited a stylish tofu café which where we tried tofu prepared in 10 different ways (all of them delicious) and some refreshing yuzu juice.

Holiday in Japan - Mount Fuji and Izu

Chihro's family took us on a day trip up and around Fuji-san, which was totally breathtaking. It was really lucky weather because Fuji is often covered in clouds, but there were only a few, and it was really sunny. It was in early autumn, so of course Fuji-san was looking a bit bald... For lunch we went to a traditonal sobaya restraunt in the forest. It was quite popular so we had to wait a little while for some spare tables, and the little foyer was filled with everyone's shoes! The restaurant was built in the traditional style out of wood, and decorated with historical things. I really enjoyed sitting on the tatami mats in the traditional setting while eating a delicious meal of duck with soba noodles.

We drove through the mountains and stopped by a lake at Hakone, a resort town that used to be a Tokkaido sekishyo (checkpoint along the old highway) during the Tokugawa era. We visited an interesting museum, which included a re-creation of part of the checkpoint. It was amazing how brutal the Tokugawa samurai were to anyone who disobeyed them. To top the day off, Chihiro's aunt and uncle treated us to dinner at Sawayaka, a kind of gourmet hamburger restaunt, where we all had Australian beef burgers!

Chihiro and I also did a lot of traveling by ourselves. I'm so lucky she was there to read signs and translate, otherwise I'm sure I would have gotten very lost! One of the nicest places we went to was a little coastal town called Toi, on the Izu peninsular. We caught a ferry there from Shimizu, and enjoyed great weather - not too much wind or sun. It was just after the summer holiday season, so the town was nice and quiet. The main attraction in the area is koibito misaki (lover's point) which is a very popular place for couples to visit. Several tour-busses full of them came and went while we were there! The coastline was spectacularly beautiful though, and we had fun ringing the lover's bell!

Back in Toi we checked into a traditional onsen (hotel with hot-spring baths), which was an amazing experience in itself! We were escorted to a waiting room where we were given hot hand-towels and served ocha with gold flakes. After a few formalities, we were taken to our room which was quite large had several other adjoining rooms and its own private garden! That evening we spent some time in the private onsen we'd reserved, which was extremely luxurious! Afterwards we heard some instruments playing neaby, so we went to investigate and found some children playing different drums and flutes at a community centre for a festival. For dinner we went to a tiny restaurant (only 2 tables!) run by an old couple who lived out the back. After dinner we went for a walk down by the seaside and were treated to some fireworks that a local family was setting off.

Unfortunately we could only stay one night at the onsen, but the next day we caught another ferry to Numazu. It travelled along the coastline, and when we got there it was lunchtime, so we decided to eat at Uogashi, a famous seafood restaurant. We ordered sashimi and for AU$10 we could try 8 different types of seafood with seaweed soup and sushi rice. To work off our full bellies I though it would be a good idea to walk the 2.3 kms from there to Goyotei, the 150 year old summer palace of the emperor. Unfortunately I'm not a very good navigator without a map, and we took a few wrong turns making us walk about 4 kms! The palace itself was a very large and beautiful wooden building just dripping with Feng Shui. We spent a while resting on the grass by the sea until after it closed, and we were chased off the grounds by a curator.

Holiday in Japan - Shizuoka

Back in September I went on holiday in Japan. I was only there for 16 days, but I saw and did so much that it felt like longer. Chihiro met me at Narita airport, and it was wonderful to see her again. We caught the shinkansen (bullet-train) straight to her hometown of Shizuoka, and were picked up at the station by her parents (Toshiro and Michiyo). I had been a bit apprehensive about what it would be like to meet them, but it turned out they were very friendly and welcoming.

There was a bit of a language barrier because I'd only been studying Japanese for a few months, and Chihiro's family doesn't know a lot of English. Chihiro had to translate quite a bit, and did a great job. She could definitely make a career out of it! It was a lot of fun trying out my Japanese though, and I think they appreciated my effort, even though I know I mispronounced a few words and used a few quaint phrases. Saying things like "It's nice electricity isn't it?" instead of "Nice weather eh?" certainly produced a few laughs.

This is part of the amazing welcome dinner Michiyo prepared. The mains were roll-your-own sushi, with heaps of different ingredients to choose from. It was a lot of fun trying out all the different food, especially natto (fermented soybeans). It's very healthy, and while it doesn't taste too bad, the pungent smell is a bit off-putting at first.

I spent about half my holidays staying with Chihiro's family in Shizuoka City, which is quite a nice city. It's a bit smaller than Brisbane, but it's also more densely populated. There are some interesting areas to visit in the city, like the central park, Sunpu castle, Sengen shrine, the universities, and all sorts of great restaurants and shops. I also think it has quite bit of greenery for a Japanese city. Bicycles were everywhere. Train stations and shopping centres had hundreds and hundreds of them parked outside, and all roads have bike paths along the side. Chihiro and I used bicycles a lot to get into the city. Nobody seemed to wear helmets (unlike in Australia where it's the law), but the roads and careful drivers made it feel a lot safer.

The food in Japan is just awesome! Seafood is extremely common and much cheaper than in Australia, and there's so many different things to try. My favourite was fried sakura ebi (cherry blossom shrimp). They are very small red shrimp that are one of the main produce of Shizuoka, and when fried they become a taste sensation that starts out crisp, and then melts in your mouth! Some of the other foods I found interesting were wasabi-flavoured ice-cream, nikuman (steamed bun with meat), onigiri (rice ball), omanjyuu (steamed bean cream cake), takoyaki(octopus ball), and curry-filled doughnuts. You can also get almost anything in green tea flavour, including sweets, ice-cream, biscuits and chocolate. Chilled green tea was also available everywhere from vending machines. Beer could also be found in vending machines and 24 hour convenience stores. Now that's civilised! Kirin Ichiban was my favourite brew.

Hello World

Two months ago I went to Japan for a short holiday to visit my girlfriend Chihiro, and go sightseeing. I had such a great time that I decided I should go back and spend a bit longer there (actually a fair bit longer). As well as being able to see Chihiro more often (obviously!), I'd have the time to really explore the country, and experience the culture. It's not an opportunity that people get very often in their lives, so I decided to go for it. This site is basically to keep friends and family back home in Australia up to date with my experiences while living in Japan. I'll be moving there on the 28th of December, and staying for just over a year. At the moment I'm just finishing up my job, organising a visa and flights, and trying to figure out what I should take and what I should do with everything I'm not taking. (I wish books weren't so heavy!)