Farewell Japan until next time.

 Ja mata - well then good bye.

So long Japan it has been fun visiting again. I am now on my big 24hour journy back to Melbourne. Which starts at Kanazawa and includes three trains, two plaines and my sisters car. It is going to be a long time of reading books, listening to music, playing set and maybe writing a very big blog post. 

I just had my first change over from one train to another and oh boy was it tight. There was ten minuets to get out of one station gates (where my ticket was declined! ) and onto the next platform (where I could not find the right car number!) just as I got on the train the whistle blow, the doors closed and the train was off. Wow we very close. This is the biggest Shinkansen I have been on, it is a double decker and there are three seats per side of the train not two. Yet it is still very full. Apparently today is a national holiday in Japan so that may explain some of the crowds also I hear it is the start of the summer vacation, so apparently my flight back to Australia is nearly full. 

I have yet to tell you what I did yesterday (Sunday the 14th of July) so let me do that now.

I first went to the train station to buy my train ticket to Narita airport for Monday. i then spent the rest of the day sightseeing in Kanazawa. I went to the Geashi district where there are old preserved buildings (like Kyoto you are very unlikely to see a Geashi on the street as they are usually inside practising music or dance or what have you. I then went to the castle grounds where the city has spent a fair amount of money and time reconstructing some of the walls towers and gaits. It looks fantastic. I sat around and tried to paint the castle and then had lunch. I went to the 21st century museum of art. ( the white circular building in the photos). The temporary exhibition was not very extraordinary but the permanent exhibition was much better. In the temporary exhibition there was a pice performed by a group of fine art student, they spent hours of the day dressed up as primordial bug things and moving and interacting with the environment that had made. I was very funny as they were taking it so seriously, it reminded me of something a drama teacher would make their students do. 

I wondered around the streets for awhile before heading back to the train station in search of a book shop. While we were traveling David and I would pop into book shops to try and find a manga series called Honey and Clover (David would like to read these) in Tokyo we had only found one bookshop that had it and David didn't get it at the time. Anyway I thought I wold try looking for them as well the first two bookshops didn't sell it or it was out of stock, but the last book shop had all but 4th volume. So I now have most of a manga series in my backpack to take home to Melbourne. Because David already took my hiking boots back with him last week I still have managed to travel with my backpack and a rucksack. 

When I got back to the hostel You made me some shaved ice with lemon sirup, yum! I made a crane without any help! After making dinner You and Maru got everyone together and we went out side and set off little Japanese fireworks (like big sparklers). You then drove some of us out to a public bath. This was a very well equipped public bath, it had pools of different temperatures, some were indoors and some outdoors, it also had a saner, and baths with different types of water jets. There were TVs in the sauna and one of the outdoor pools (it was humorous to see groups of Japanese women sitting watch telly in the nude while sitting in a big bath). The air conditioning unfortunately broke last night so it was a little hot, You and Maru went a got ice pillows which are big ice packets that you use as a pillow. 

I didn't do anything very exiting this morning before I got on the train. I had to go to the station and change my train to the airport because I had got the station confused and got a ticket to terminal one not two. There was no issue and it was easy to change over, but I was a little worried the night before when I found out that I had made a mistake. I am now sitting in Tokyo station waiting for my last train to take me to the airport.

 

Daijyoubu - it's ok. Seams to be You and Maru's phrase of choice. When I was worried about the train ticket that is what they would say and any time I apologised or asked for something that was their reply. 

Well im now at the airport and so can post this using the wi-fi. 

See some of you soon!

Acushla. 

Kanazawa

The two ladies that work at Pongi Guest house are so very lovely. They are warm and welcoming. 'You' and two of the other guests we sat down after dinner and played Japanese card games. I am very impressed with the hostel. I find it amazing how well 12 people can occupy such a small house (to be fair it was not full last night and there were only 8 of us - 6 guests and two employees). The spaces are well managed and everything is packed away very tightly. 

My first full day in Kanazawa (Saturday the 13th of July)

I had a big old sleep in and then leisurely made breakfast, washed and hung my cloths before I left the hostel at 11am. I met a lady that I had meet on the bus the day before I asked her how here morening was going and she had already been to a food market, the Gasha district, the gardens and it was only 11:30, she was very surprised to here that I ha d only just left my hostel. I walked along the channel towards the centre of the city and went to the old Samurai district. I then spend two and a half hours walking and sitting in the gardens. They are called $$$$ and were part of the palace gardens. They are one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan, and they really were beautiful. Each view was made to look at and care was taken to make it look beautiful. It s a very nice way to spend some time. I met an elderly Japanese couple that had traveled to Kanazawa with two of their friends to visit the gardens. The man was the tallest Japanese person I had met so far and he was very nice trying to talk English to me. 

As I was off to the Noh theatre that night I thought it would be a good idea to visit the Noh museum to learn some more about the art form. I was able to dress up in a costume and even put on a mar, I am now very impressed that the actors can move so gracefully in the cloths and with such impaired vision! 

I then hung around the 21st century museum of art, which I intend to visit tomorrow. They had some sort of fashion parried on that happened  briefly outside. They had very interesting costumes on and great big wigs on. I'll see if any of the photos come out ok and put some up on Flicker so you can see for yourself. 

I them went to the Noh theatre there is some special performances on this week that mean the it only costs ¥1,000 to go to a performance this is instead of ¥3,000 or ¥4,000 but you do have to get there an hour early to get a good seat. I had a very good seat right in front of the stage people that come in at the same time as me were reserving hole rows for their friends that then turned up over the next hour. The two plays were fun the first was not Noh theatre but something that was more funny and less formal. It was about a load that travels without a servant and so has to carry his own sward. He is not happy about this and gets a passing seaweed seller to carry his sward and the lord instructs the seaweed seller on how to act like a servant. The seaweed seller get fed up with being piked on and pulls the sward on the lord and makes him dance and pretend to sell seaweed. It was very funny even though I didn't know that they were saying, the formal movement was fantastic and I liked seeing how focused the actors were - they would shake with how hard they were holding a pose. The Noh play was about a messenger that discovers a golden tablet that has fallen from the sky he talks to an old man about it, at the end of the conversation the man reviles that he is the god that protects this land and that it is his tablet that shows that the land is protected. The music was so strange, I can't imagine how it would look as sheet music. It had three drums and one flute and the musicians also made yelps and shouts. The costumes worn by the two main actors were beautiful and the old man/god  had a costume change on stage. He went into a tiny tent and a few minuets later while other action was taking place on the stage the curtain of the tent was lifted and there was a god. It was very impressive as the costumes are so big and he managed to get changed in such a small space. 

When I got back it was time for all the guest to sit down and make origami cranes. We are asked to write a peace wish on the back and then fold the crane. At the end of the year the staff will thank the big box of cranes to the temple and burn them, sending all the prayers up the the gods. I am slowly getting better at making cranes, tonight I tried to do one without getting help but I made a bag fold and my crane would not open up properly, so I  have to go back and ask for help.  Will try again tomorrow though.

My last day of sightseeing tomorrow! Then its off to Tokyo/ the airport on Monday.

Thursday and Friday.

Thursday the 11th of july.

I got up at 6am and walked over to the morning market which is set up by the river. It was very small but I managed to buy bag of blueberries (another purple purchase!)  from a lady that was selling flowers and blueberries. By 6:30 it was already hot and I went back to the shady spot I had spent time painting at two days before. 

By 8:50 I was on the bus to Shirakawa-go a Unesco World Heritage Site, that consists of a group of traditional thatched houses called Gassho so called as their shape resembles a monks hands in prayer. I first dropped my bag off at the inn I was staying at, it is one that is a little further out then the other buildings but is lovely and quiet and has a great view of the mountain range. (I am looking at the view as I write this before dinner.) I then went for a massive wonder around the forests and the village. I took my time and went up all the little paths I could find (most of the time they didn't really go anywhere and I would have to double back but they were nice all the same). It was quite difficult to try and stay cool as there was very little shade to be found. On the way down from a viewing point I followed a small road in hope that I could find a path down to the river, my troubles payed off and I was able to get down to the river bank take my shoes off and wade into the water. I also took off my long sleeve top and dunk it into the water and put it back on all wet! It was such a nice way to cool down. I then sat on a rock in the shade while my shirt dried in the sun. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the village and just looking.  There are lots of little paths and manny many chana

S with water in them. There are little swift like birds darting through the rice fields and one or two eagles soaring overhead. The loudest sound is the crickets and if you are by a river the river. 

I went back to the house I was staying in and had dinner with the other guest and man from Milan in Italy, who is a lecturer on urban planing at an Architecture university. He is traveling through Japan in two weeks and is covering so many places in just 15 days. Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Niko, Shirakawa-go, Kanazawa, Hiroshima, Mount Fugi, plus on or two more that I have forgotten. After dinner I went out for a walk, I didn't meet anyone on the streets. The sounds coming from the houses were that of people getting ready for bead or cleaning up after dinner. I got to see my first fireflies, only two of them but that was quite exiting for me. There were lots of frogs that you could hear out in the fields. 

Friday morning had me walking around the town again while it was not too hot. At midday I went the small museum they have and sat down to watch a small movie they had made about how to build these houses. It is fascinating all the different and complex joints! No nails used how they made load paths to carry the weight of the roof to the grounding stones that they had set in the ground, truly groovy stuff. At 1:50 was on a bus to Kanazawa, that is where I am now. Sitting in the Guest house called Pongyi which is very welcoming and amazingly small, but well organised.  The building was kimono shop and has been converted, the female dorm I am staying in used to be the storage room for the Kimonos! I feel as through it will be a very pleasant late couple of days.

I am looking forward to coming back to Melbourne. I have both the melbounre International film festival and Open house Melbourne to look forward to (as well as friends and families company of cause). 

shinkansen!

I left Tokyo on Tuesday morning on a Shinkansen bound for Nagoya, I then got on a train that had extra big windows so that you could look at the scenery as you went up the into the mountains. I forgot how much fun riding the Shinkansen is it is really the best way to travel long distances so much more comfortable then a bus of aeroplane and it takes from the centre of one city to the centre of another no need to trek in from the periphery like an aeroplane (although granted no where near as fast as a aeroplane). I sat back listened to music, ate my food and watched the world wiz by the window. After a short change over in Nagoya it was off to Takayama, a slower trip but with very nice views as the train followed the river for the last half of the trip. 

I dropped my bag of at my hostel and then walked to the preserved area of the town where there are still old houses and shops. I then went and sat under a willow tree by the river, to do some painting. While I was painting I had two people come up to me to say hello. The first was a Japanese lady that had come up on a bus trip for the day to go sightseeing. Her English was not very good and my Japanese doesn't go beyond, hello, I'm from Australia, it is hot today, are you sightseeing... So  we spent quite some time smiling and nodding as we tried to make each other understood. The second person was a local man who was pushing his mountain bike home, he tolled me that as he was retired his hobby now was to go bike riding in the country side. He had very good English and even said goodbye by saying cherio! He was very lovely to talk with and I really liked getting to talk to two Japanese people it is not something that happens as much in big cites like Tokyo even Saporro it doesn't happen. 

I went to the supermarket to pick up some tofu (it was the worst I have had so far in Japan) and went back to the hostel to make miso. The other guests in the hostel were nice to talk to and the couple that own the hostel are very lovely. They have a little boy who is eighteen months old who was particularly taken with on of the guests who was from Canada. The hostel was very nice it was most things a hostel should be: lade back, clean and comfortable. 

On wednesday morning I slept in until 8am and had a slow breakfast. I then packed up my day pack and set off for a walk up to the grounds of the ruined castle and around the temple district. I had a nice walk, although it was very hot (but not too humid which was a relief) and spent time writing the blog post for Tokyo and stopped to draw a little shrine that was sitting out on a little pond. On the way back to the centre of the city I found the local library and went in a sat looking at children's books for a while. It was afternoon by this time and a set off on a little mission to find a tofu shop and a vegetable shop that had been recommended to me as apart from a italian restaurant there was no restaurants that didn't serve Hida beef. I found the tofu shop without much difficulty but the vegetable store's location eluded me. Instead I found a small supermarket and bought only vegetables that were purple ( an eggplant, red cabbage and red grape) and some noodles. It was only when I was putting them in my bag that I realised that all the fruit and veggies were all purple. I then walked along the river to another part of the town that had been preserved. There was an old building that was owned by a wealthy sake brewer and money lender that I paid to go into. The beam and column structure of the roof is just beautiful, I don't think the photos capture it well. The house was nicely designed the rooms were all pleasing and connected together in clever ways. The lady that sells the tickets had a great seance of humour and was telling me about the history of the building. After a very long and hot day I headed back to the hostel to sit on the couch and talk to the owner and her little boy. 

A little later I started to make dinner as most of the people in the hostel had gone out for dinner including the owners it was just me and the young lady that is working at the hostel for two months. I fried up the eggplant, cooked the noodles and miked it with the cabbage and served the tofu just by itself (it already had sesemee seeds in it). It was a real feast! As I was finishing dinner the owners and one of the guests who they had taken out for dinner came back and we sate around drinking sake.

 

Studio Ghibli and legoland.

On Sunday we went out the Mitaka to the Studio Ghibli museum. Although I went last time I was in Tokyo it was still fun to go again. My favourite part is where they have walls covered with water colour sketches of the different films. After spending the morning at the museum we took the Studio Ghibli 'cat bus' back to Mitaka and found some plain wooded chopstick! Something that was difficult to find as most of the big shops only sold ornate chopsticks.  We also found a jazz cafe on the second floor of a building. So we sat down to drink ice coffee eat piazza and listen to jazz recordings. We stayed there for an hour or so, it was such a nice place hang out it, and was the perfect haven form the hot weather outdoors. 

When we got back to Tokyo we took the train to the Tokyo Skytree, the large TV tower built onto of a large shopping complex. As it was close to dinner time went to the food court and ate ramen, to was ok but it had some strange gluteus porig looking substance added to it which made it think and the texture was unpleasant to eat. The que to take the lift to the viewing platform, let along the even longer que to purchase the tickets deterred us from going up to the viewing platform. Instead we walked back towards the river and sat in a bar drinking Asahi super dry. 

Monday was David's last day in Japan and he wanted to go to a big lego store, we thought the biggest one would be on Odaiba near the Legoland discovery centre. The trip out on the train over the rainbow bridge was fantastic, it almost felt like it was going to be a theme park ride. When. Got to Odaiba it looked as if the Lego store was closed for renovation so we decided to do to Lego Land instead. We were the oldest people that were not there with there children by 15 years or so. Still some of the centre was fun.  There was a ride that I thought was going to be like a haunted railway, and it was similar but you had these lego guns that you used to shoot big lego monsters that were coming to get you and you collected points (as a side note I got more points than David which i think is impressive as i don't play video games).  My favourite part was the lego models of some of the famous building in Tokyo. There was a litle model of the Nagasaki capsule tower and Yoyogi stadium. At the exit to lego land there was a lego shop although it was not very big, but was still got to look at some of the very impressive models they have, they have an architecture series where you can build Some of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings and the Star wars collection with its big star destroyers and the like are always impressive. 

After having lunch in Odaiba we were both tired and far too full. We got the train back across the bride spent some time looking for a particular graphic novel in bookshops and then gave up and went back to Asakusa. In Asakusa I found a second hand book store which we browsed around but then we raced back to the hostel as there was a big thunder storm in the way. Instead of staying at the hostel for an hour we quickly grabbed David's bags and walked quickly back to the train station. The thunder and lightning were quite spectacular and we were very fortunate that we got to the station before then rain started coming down. 

It was lucky that we got to the train station so early as we hot on the wrong train! It was going to Naita NOT Narita airport. Luckily it was in the right direction it just meant that it took us longer then expected to get to the airport and we had to change trains and wait for fifteen minutes. When we got to the airport there was a big que for the Australian flight and it took us fifty minutes to cheek in David's luggage this left us only fifteen minuets until David had to go through the security gate. We had enough time to go to the observation deck and look at the wonderful un set that you could see through the break in the clouds. It was then time to say goodbye and take a train back to Tokyo. On the train back to Tokyo a funny thing happened here is an exerp from an email that zi wrote to David about it: 

" I am sitting on the train  back to Tokyo writing about the last few days in Tokyo and I feel a funny movement on my leg, I absentmindedly brush my leg with my foot and the feeling goes away. After thinking about it I am curious as to what would make my foot itch so I look down and there is a very large green flying bug thing on my shoes! (I assume that this was the thing on my leg making it itch.) with out thinking I kicked the bug off my shoes and it started flying around the train carriage. The funny thing was watching everyone elses reactions to this big bug. Some were warding it off with books and newspapers while the bunch of school girls repelled from it and squealed. The man sitting next to the school girls piked it up in his hand and let it out at the next stop. "

This concludes the adventures in Tokyo. I will try and write about Gifu prefecture soon. Although I wont have internet tomorrow night because of the village I am staying in. 

A.B.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

After being at the Endo museum for an house we walked back to Asakusa and took two trains to get out to Sebu stadium. We had to find some seats which was hard as most of them had already been saved for others that came early or were saved as a place to keep ones bag. We found a nice standing spot and one seat so that we could take it in turns to sit down. Just before the game stated the man in the seat next to us moved his bags and allowed us to have two seats side by side. The game was very fun to watch, even though I didn't know all the rules and was a little confused by the scoring system (there we recording something that was not a home run but had something to do with the different bases players got to ).  Listening to the different chants the supporters had and watching them all do the same hand gestures at the same time was grand. The moment when the pitcher throws the ball and you are waiting to see if there is going to be a run made is an intense moment and when the ball is hit and people can run it is very exiting. The game started off quite slow with the first two or three innings with no home runs, but after the aposing team scored the first home run it became more exiting as the Sebu Lions tried to catchup. There was one innings where the Lions got three home runs, which was very exiting! At the beginning of the seventh innings all the Sebu Lions fans that had being blowing up balloons during the bottom of the sixth, let them all go at the same time, so there were balloons flying everywhere making whistling noises. We watched the seventh innings and then left to catch the train back to the Endo Museum. 

We spent another hour or so at the Endo museum and them went back to Asakusa to find dinner. We went to another little restaurant/bar and got to laugh at Japanese TV programs that were playing on a small television in the corner of the restaurant. 

A rather long post about Tokyo.

Tokyo 

David and I have spent the last three days in Tokyo it has been quite a mad time as the weather is hot and sticky Tokyo is such a big big city and there are so many possibilities of what can be done on any given day. I have enjoyed our time in Tokyo but am very much looking forward to taking a fast train out of here and getting back to smaller towns and a slower pace of living. I write most of this as I head back to Tokyo after seeing David of at Narita airport. Between the trip back to Tokyo and the long trip I have tomorrow I hope to get tell you all the things we have gotten up to in Tokyo. here is a start and if I don't finish it tonight I will add another post tomorrow. 

Friday the 5th July. 

On Friday we flew from Sapporo to Tokyo and arrived in tokyo in the afternoon. The interesting thing about the flight was that when we were checking in our luggage the lady that was serving us informed us that because of the weather in Tokyo we may be landing at in Nagoya! The flight was a little rough and we stated our descent about 40 minutes before we were meant to arrive in Narita airport. This meant that  we were not confident that we had arrived n Tokyo or not until we sore the sign on the top of the terminal building. The weather may have been quite bad as there we very few other aircraft at the airport. 

After dropping bags off out our hostel in Asakusa we went for a walk in surch of food and to have a wonder around the streets. We couldn't find many restaurants that were both open (it was 4:30 ish) and served anything that looked vegetarian, instead of a proper meal we opted for baked goods. We walked past the temple but it was so crowded that instead we tried some of the smaller streets. We walked past some tiny little restaurants that had lots of green vines that were shading them. After walking around for some time trying to find a particular restaurant that served ominomiarki, we were about to give up when we found the place. It was a nice little place were you sat around a BBQ plate that was part of the table top and you got ingredients so that you could cook your own ominomiarki. It must have looked like we wouldn't know how to cook the pancake as one of the waitresses took over the cooking of our dish. It was very nice food and I tried something called apple wine which was yummy. David was still peckish when we left the restaurant so we then went in surch of a  tempura restaurant. This one was much easier to find and the couple that owned the restaurant were very kind and allowed us to order off the lunch menu so that David could have the only vegetarian meal. They had covers of jazz albums on the wall and were playing jazz music, David commented on this and the owner tolled us that they had owned a tempura shop in New York for thirty years or so from the seventies to 2003. After our second dinner we went in surch of a Lawson's so that we could buy tickets to a Baseball match that was playing the next day. It was tricky trying to use the ticketing machines so we needed to ask for help from the store attendant but with there help we managed to purchase two tickets to the Sebu Lions Vs the Mariners at Sebu stadium. 

Saturday the 6th of July.

Saturday we did quite a bit of commuting to get to and from places. First we walked to the Endo Tokyo museum. We could only spend an hour looking around as we needed to get out to the baseball and it was about an hour and a half out of town by train. The museum was great, it shows the history of Tokyo it has both models and artefacts to present and explain the life and urban environment at different times in Endo's history.  There were lots of different models, models of houses and town streets and boats and of verying sizes from 1:1 (fullsize) to 1:10 and 1:20. The detail of these models is just fantastic, they had binoculars so that you cold have a closer look at the street skape. There were little model people doing all sorts of things including hanging up the washing and eating a slice of water mellon while leaning over the bridge. 

This is all I have time for tonight I will write more tomorrow while I am on the train to Takayama. 

With love,

Acushla.