So, after the meteorological ups and downs of Okinawa, I headed back to
Tokyo for another long weekend, though this time not alone. Sharing a room in
Akasaka with, let’s say, an acquaintance, what followed were a couple of nights
and days of drinking, eating, more drinking, football debate and more drinking.
This led to me discovering my new hero in a jazz bar in Akasaka, who
was good enough to give me a terrible free CD, as well as unearthing the
delightfully-named ‘The Aldgate’ pub
in Shibuya, allowing us to see the first of Ashley Young’s recent dives against
QPR. Sightseeing for the Nihon newbie was had, with the main spots on the
Yamanote Line ticked off.
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| Ginza |
But, time waits for no man, and I wait for the Shinkansen; to Nagoya,
to be exact: The city where Gary Linker played the best football of his career.
The first day of my stop brought with it glorious weather, which for good for
the long walk to my hotel, which looked short on paper, longer on foot. With
the sun bright, I ventured out to find a LAN cable, finding a host of
interesting structures and a Ferris Wheel attached to a shop. I also located
the excellent Banana Records, which I could have spent hours in, leading me to
take a punt on two CDs that I had never heard of, but the price was right and
they looked good to me. Plus, there was a Kentaro track on one of them.
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| Nagoya |
Rain has been a continual theme on this trip, and Nagoya has seen the
worst yet. It was raining when I woke up, but I decided to push on to Nagoya
Castle anyway, as it wasn’t too far, so shouldn’t prove too bad. But the further
I walked, the worse the rain became, and I was soon become wet through. The
Castle and the Noh Theatre done, I tried to find the Toyota Commemorative
Museum of Industry and Technology, but soon signs for it disappeared and I soon
found myself lost with the rain continuing to get harder and harder.
Eventually, I found my way back to the hotel, but I was soaked through, my bag
and its contents affected and my mp3 player now likely to cause epilepsy. The
rain continued, and so I was hotel-bound, left to do my laundry, unable to see
any more of the city.
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| Drowned out in Nagoya |
After the car crash of my second day in Nagoya, I went straight into a
car crash in Kyoto: a genuine – not metaphorical – one. Off the subway, my
route to my ryokan was blocked by crowds, as police drew chalk lines around a
front bumper, a single trainer, a hat and a bag. Didn’t look like it ended well
for some poor sod.
The crowds passed, I made my way through the sakura celebrations of Muruyama
Park, following the excellently-written instructions on their website (found here) to try and find the
Yoshimizu Inn. Feeling like I was wandering aimlessly up into the mountains, I
found a girl arranging umbrellas randomly, who seemed eager for me to walk her
way. Turns out, she works at Yoshimizu Inn and was working on her Rihanna
routine for ‘Stars in their Eyes’.
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| Yoshimizu Inn |
For the first time in my life, my room was the one on the website. I
felt like royalty. Not a fully traditional ryokan, but a nice one nonetheless,
allowing me futons to arrange on tatami mats and a Japanese bath to use at my
leisure, but only between 17:30 and 23:30. And only shower between 07:00 and
09:00 in the morning. And there’s only an hour for breakfast. Like a proper B’n’B.
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| Gion |
In the city itself, as I had spent some time here before, I had done
most of the tourist things around Gion. I, therefore, chose to explore some of
the parts I had not been to before. I started at Kinkauji, but found it a
little disappointing: not as good as all the photos you see in the books and
far too many people there to make it seem anywhere near tranquil. From there, I went to Fushimi Inari Taisha. Now
this is a place that exceeds expectation. I knew that there was an impressive
row of tori to see there, but I expected about one or two hundred metres worth.
What I found was a continuous path that led up into the mountains to the point
where you were stuck in a maze of tori with no idea as to which way the exit
was. Eventually, I found a woman working the path who pointed me in the right
direction. But the endless tori are not the most amazing thing here: it’s how
they got all those vending machines up there! I then went due north west to Arashiyama,
where I had been before, but liked so went back. Though the inevitable rain cut
that trip short.
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| Fushimi Inari Taisha |
The rain continued throughout the next day, so I changed plans, having
a museum day (except for the Manga Museum due to a cosplay event which I chose
to avoid). This meant that my plans to go to Biwako were put back a day when I
eventually went to the largest lake in Japan. In Otsu, the sakura around Mii-dera
were in full bloom and the best I have seen on the trip. From there, I took the
train north, halfway up the lake, to Kitakomatsu with promise of a beach there.
There was a beach there, about 10 metres of beach, though the water was nice
there.
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| Mii-dera |
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| Biwako |
The staff at Yoshimizu were awesome, though there seemed to be just two
young blokes and a girl working there. Discovering I knew some Japanese, they
enjoyed yacking at me every night about the films of Kurosawa and Ozu, and
bizarrely Ibiza and RyanAir. They also discussed their love of Miyajima near
Hiroshima, which luckily, I was heading to next.
Heading further west, I moved to Hiroshima, the main reason being to go
to Miyajima to see the ‘Floating Tori’. I spent much of my time in the city
going for runs in the heat along one of the many rivers there, as well as
visiting the Peace Memorial Park once again.
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| Miyajima |
The weather when I went to Miyajima was good, though unfortunately, I
got there too late for high tide, and so lost a lot of the ‘floating’ aspect of
the tori. There was, however, a noh theatre display on in Itsumushima Shrine
which I stopped and watched. Eating lunch surrounded by deer, I then got the
boat back to the mainland, the tide fully gone by that stage.
Changing trains at Kokura, I briefly went over to Kyushu, before
heading straight back to Honshu and the city of Shimonoseki. No idea why I went
here really. There is little there to speak of and no real tourist trade,
though it did break up the journey to Nagasaki and offered a potential couple
of days to rest before journeying more permanently to Kyushu.
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| Yume Tower |
The highlights of the city include the Yume Tower, which offers a
scaled-down panorama a la Hong Kong of
the natural harbour between the two islands; and the Kanmon Tunnel, which
offers pedestrians a 78metre walk under the sea to Kyushu, meaning that I had
been there for a second time in two days. The tunnel is an eerie place, unclean
and unkempt, with sounds that are less than comforting when walking below the
sea. Also, Shimonoseki is the one place so far were it hasn’t rai…Oh wait a
minute…
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| Kanmon Tunnel |
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| Kanmon Tunnel |
Shimonoseki seemed a little different from the
other places I have been to. It has less of a 24-hour feel to it, with many of
the bright lights turned off early in the night unlike in larger cities. Also,
there are a few European-style buildings dotted about the city to add to this.
If it reminded me of anywhere, it was Newcastle: the harbour and Kanmon Bridge
acting like the river and bridge bearing the name Tyne. Only difference being,
I could understand some of what people in Shimonoseki said…
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