Matsumoto - the Castle and cherry blossoms

16/4/14

We arrived at Matsumoto about 2pm. I was expecting a tiny mountain Villiage! Silly me!,it is a mountain town, at 625m, but tiny -no. We checked in to our ryokan and went straight out to the castle.

There were free English language tours! So we took that. Our guides were a married couple who were apparently language enthusiasts. He spoke at least 6 languages, with quite fluent English. I recommend this tour. 

The castle is 400 years old and was owned by a number of generations of the same family. This fact combined with the early acquisition of guns from Portugal resulted in hundreds of years of peace in the area. The results was that the castle was never used in war! In fact since it was built for protection of the ruling family in war time, it was actually never used at all.

It is built of massive timbers, has a hidden floor, and has stories of spirits. There are guns from the era on display, as well as Samuri uniforms. 

The grounds were quite beautiful with cherry blossoms in full bloom.

After the castle we walked down the street till we found a tavern. We intended to stop for a rest and a beer, but got talking to a Japanese couple of similar age to ourselves. They spoke good English and so we were able to have quite a stimulating conversation with them. The lady seemed particularly amused when we said that Abbott was "awful". Now I am not sure whether she thought I was talking about Abe -the Japanese prime minister! So I do hope I did not offend them! So Jun and (his wife -I'm sorry we couldn't remember your name) -please forgive me if I wasn't clear enough. To be clear now -I think OUR prime minister Tony Abbott (who visited Japan recently) is AWFUL! I don't know enough about your prime minister, Abe, to comment. I'll leave that to you. And good luck with growing pineapple tops! 

There has been a lot written about how different the Japanese are, but I am impressed by how much the same as us they are! There are certainly more things the same than there are different! And ALL of the people we have met have been very friendly and helpful.

In addition I have been thinking that Japan is the first country I've visited which I think may be more civilised than our own! The standard of living is higher, everyone is very well dressed. Everything is orderly, and so clean! No shoes are worn indoors, and even indoors different slippers are used for different zones, classified as to cleanliness. There is a foyer where street shoes are removed, a living zone, and a toilet zone. There is a pair of slippers in the toilet room, which is only worn in there and never in the living zone! Hands are washed with a towel before eating, in bars, in the train. People with URTIs wear masks (also worn by people with allergies to protect against pollens). Most doors open automatically reducing the opportunity for viruses to spread. I'd like to know whether the actual spread of viruses in Japan us lower due to all of these factors combined!

The toilets have to experienced to be believed. The toilet in our Ryokan today notices when you enter the room and the lid lifts automatically. The seat is warm. There are water jets aimed at different parts of the anatomy, for both genders. And then the warm air jet to dry you off. And lastly the toilet flushes automatically when you stand up. The result is that that Japanese must have the cleanest bottoms in the world, and also the cleanest hands. Public toilets on the other hand are usually squats, although on a much higher plane than in other Asian countries.

Eventually it was back to the Ryokan for an earlyish night. The shared bath was vacant when we got back so we were able to take a bath together. But the traditional grain filled pillows were like rocks! I had a headache before I even fell asleep! 

West coast Aomori to Niigata (days 6&7)

15/4/14

I have found that if I mention our vegetarian preference in the booking forms special requests section, the hosts go to quite a lot of trouble to have vege options available at breakfast. This morning we had the best breakfast yet with so many choises we couldn't try them all! NATO again, yam soup, slippery seaweed ( "slippery" seems to be a favourite texture for the Japanese, but we seem to be going off it!), roasted Barley tea, miso ( although this one had more in it than I bargained for including pippie shells....), tofu, steamed vegies, pickled vegies, roasted vegies, almond jelly, fruit and more! 

Today is mainly a train trip but we have chosen the slow trains along the west coast and mountains. Again we are hoping to find the picturesque areas of Japan to revisit in the Earthcruiser. 

This side of the north certainly does seem to have the beautiful scenery. There are more mountains, more agriculture, streams, beaches. There are far less people. 

South of Akita there was some greenery appearing, and clumps of daffodils. People are preparing beds for rice and also home vegie patches. 

Notice the haze in some of these pictures. There is smog in the air even in these country areas. It is apparently from China. I can't imagine what it is like over there!

And all the way there were mountains with snow not far away!

Even further south some of the rice paddies were flooded, and some cherry blossoms were appearing.

We met a Doctor on the train returning from a clinic in the north. He and joe had a vigorous discussion about the state of Japan's economy. He was also interested in the health care system in Australia. Apparently the elderly in Japan are being increasingly cared for in nursing home which are not well equipped to care for them. He also said that home ownership is rare in Japan. 

Eventually after a number of train changes we arrived in the mountains. At last some really pretty scenery! But the smog haze is ever present. 

And it true there is a light at the end of the tunnel! As we moved into the mountains the train went through very long tunnels.

Sendai to Sapporo, The far north (Days 4 and 5)

13/4/14

Joe suddenly had a wild idea -why don't we go all the way up to Saporro on the rail pass! The trains are so fast we can get up there in a day! That way we can have a quick look and note where to come back to, and where to leave out on the road trip! We were expecting more interesting countryside in the north of the country. 

Well the countryside was less heavily populated, with some nice mountain views.

But it was hardly remote countryside we were in. Even the farming areas had a house every 100m and small rice paddocks. There was no square mater of land that was not used, except on mountain slopes. The land is very brown still with no sign of greenery. It is still winter here with snow visible on the mountains, and further north snow still on the ground, melting, but still there. 

It was the Shinkansen again to Aomori, where we changed trains to go underground and undersea across to Hokkaido, the northern most island of main islands of Japan. The tunnel is 240m under the sea, and 54 km long.

The train to Saporro was a slow train and the last leg of the journey was quite wearying. There were good views of seaside towns, and industrial areas. There were more mountains than we had seen previously and they still had snow on them. 

We arrived in Hokkaido feeling quite weary, and tired of the bleak brown countryside. We had booked into a ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn). These are quite different from the usual hotels. We first had to walk in the early evening, with baggage, and of course we got lost. Joe went off to scout the area leaving me with the baggage. The streets feel safe here even after dark. He came back having located the ryokan, and off we went again. 

We were greeted half way there with bright "Turner -San?". It was the ryokan proprietor come to help with the luggage. Some-one Joe had asked had told him where we were! That was the beginning of a very different and interesting evening! 

We were taken to our room, asked to remove our shoes, directed to wear slippers in the hall ways, and socks in the room, shown the shared baths with signs indicating which gender was allocated which bath, introduced to the "kimono girls" who would serve us, and we went in. The room was bare except for a table and floor chairs (a cushion on the floor with a wooden back). The floor was covered with Tatami mats (woven bamboo). We had our own private bathroom, but could use the communal baths if we wanted -they are open 24/24. 

Soon a kimono girl came into the room and offered us tea, and asked if we wanted to eat. They knew were vegetarian. We ordered something simple. She came back with a feast! 

There was more there than we had ordered (and next morning I'm sure we didn't pay any extra).

We had a great time adjusting to sitting on the floor, using chop sticks for soft tofu etc. 

After dinner the kimono girl returned and made the beds. 

The futons were quite hard but not too bad. The pillows were stuffed with some grain ? Barley. They were hard! 

Then it was bath time. We wanted to try the communal baths but were a bit nervous about appearing naked in front of strangers, with the language problems etc. but were game so scrubbed ourselves off in our private bathroom (at least that could be private rather than in full view of others!) and dressed in the house robes they gave us.

We separated and went to the bathrooms - and nobody else was there! Almost a let down. But the water was HOT! 40"degrees according to the thermometer in mine. It was a nice hot soak. I lasted about 10 minutes I reckon! 

We had a good nights sleep, other then struggling a bit with the pillows. But it was interesting to try the traditional pillows. 

14/4/14

Next morning we had breakfast in the ryokan. The staff had gone to some trouble to have vegetarian food for us. It was Japanese style, with pickled vegies, some coleslaw with Japanese dressings, tofu, miso soup, fruit, and NATO! We have never had Nao before, but we sure have read about it. Google it if you haven't heard of it -look for a Utube vid and you'll see what the fuss is about! 

The NATO did not smell bad, but it sure was stringy! NATO is fermented soy beans and exclusively Japanese. It is slimy and had strings of slime hanging off it. But it wasn't as bad as the videos looked. The strings were stuck to our chins and they took some managing though. I'm sorry I didn't have the camera for that!

So our ryokan experience over we took a walk about Saporro. It looks quite bleak with leafless trees. The streets are wide and will be easy driving. There are underground car parks but no street parking. Saporro is a very modern clean city.

 It also appears that Hokkaido has a network of scenic parking spots, with views, scenic walks etc nearby. It might be possible to camp in these places. 

Today it is back on the slow train back to Aomori via the undersea tunnel. It will be a late checkin tonight and train tomorrow to Matsumoto for more cherry blossoms. 

We have travelled almost the full length of Japan! 

Sendai and cherry blossoms (day3)

12/04/14

Today is the day of the cherry blossoms. We caught the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Sendai, taking lass than 2.5 hours to reach Sendai. 

On the way we passed Fukishima township. There was no visual evidence of theower station disaster of course, but there is apparently an elevated level of radioactivity there but not dangerous in the short term. I wish I had my Geiger counter with me, but I left it in Matilda. I will have when we pass there again though.

The scenery was a little better today than yesterday with some nice mountain views. There is snow still on mountains and some ski runs are still open. It should be nice driving through this northern section of the country. 

We had another reminder of how far north we have come when we got off the train in Sendai. There was a wind tunnel effect and the wind was cold! We found our hotel easily (Richmond  -$100 for a 4 star, very nice hotel right next to the station.). 

We  dropped off our bags and immediately got the train to a park which we were told was the best place to see the cherry blossoms. (Tsutsujigaoka Park). And we were not the only ones to have that thought! There were thousands of people there! The Hanami (cherry blossom) festival was in full swing. Today is the first Saturday after the opening of the season. Every inch of ground under the trees had tarps and partying people. I think they had been there all day (we got there after lunch) and apparently drinking all day too! Some of the young people were very unsteady on their feet. There was a lot of cheering and revelry -a bit like a country music festival at home.... 

There were lots of interesting food stalls too. 

We caused quite a bit of laughing and puzzlement by wating to know what some of the more vegetable-looking foods were. Although there was a lot of seafood, tongue, eggs etc, there was also a good few unusual vegetables on offer. These were potatoes.

But the cherry blossoms were the main attraction.

However the blossoms did not appear to be fully open yet! And somehow the crowds of revellers, whislt a phenomenon of their own, did not add to the beauty of the blossoms. I think the best is yet to come. 

Fuoka to Tokyo on the Shinkansen (bullet train) Day 2

J11/4/14

Today we have activated our Japan Rail pass and we will go to Tokyo. This should take about 5 hours, for 1000 km! We are booked on first class seats so we are assured of a seat and hopefully will be comfortable. 

Our Shinkansen arrives! 

This is a "super express" train. We are using a GPS to track us so we know where we are. 

The blue line is our track. Check out the speed (km/hr) in the bottom left corner. Yes that's right -over 300 kmph! 

We passed Hiroshima, a familiar name for the wrong reasons, but saw no sign of the awful history of course. 

The Journey was through built up area with not a lot to show of Japanese countryside or vegetation. There seemed to be very flat land (the result of ancient inundation? Rather than river valleys) and small hills in between. The Japanese don't seem to like building on the hills, (unlike us) so the flat land is fully inhabited and the hills have vegetation. The vegetation was a low heath-like vegetation, reminiscent of wind swept sea-side vegetation at home. 

As we got closer to Tokyo some mountain ranges appeared, and Mt Fuji came into view through the smog. It was just visible for a few minutes before being obscured by smog and cloud.

We passed some industrial areas which make Gladstone pale into suburbia! There was pipe work spreading for kilometres. It must have been a number of different plants alongside each other. And many chimney stacks right to the horizon. I was so astounded I forgot to get a picture. My thought was it would be an Occupational Physician's heaven, but the next thought was that one would need to live there! However on reflection I realised that the fast train means you could live in a nicer area and easily commute. 

Tokyo station is superbly organised. Despite large numbers of people we were very quickly outside and looking for a hotel. Despite having a map we could not find it. We apparently walked past a number of hotels and didn't recognise them. The entrances are quite discrete and not ostentatious like Australian hotels. Eventually a very nice lady led us to it. This seems to be the Japanese way -so helpful. 

But even a 3 star hotel set us back $200+ .this is double the price in the last two hotels -close to the station, and in Tokyo.

Of we went to a nearby Vegan Restuarant, advertised as European/Japanese fusion style. It was small and rustic, and I think we got the last table. The food was more European than Japanese unfortunately.  I wanted to see those unique Japanese vegetables in use. 

We did however have a nice conversation with our neighbouring guests.

The walk back to the hotel took us through the famous Ginza St, with its neon lights. This was not quite spectacular as I expected. The lights were certainly huge but not flashing and gaudy as I had thought. Maybe I am thinking of hongKong or elsewhere in Asia. 

It was Friday night and revellers were out. Parties of young men in black expensive looking suits, with white shirts dominated. They were cheering and looked like work parties to me -bonding sessions? We noticed no drunken or aggressive behaviour. The Japanese seem very disciplined. We have not seen one bit of litter, not a cigarette butt, everything is sparkling clean despite so many people. Even the footpath seems clean. The train stations are clean, with tiled floors, marble wall tiles, stainless steel rails all gleaming. 

There are people everywhere with paper masks too. Apparently this is out of consideration for others when one has a cold, rather than to protect ones-self against catching a cold! This is a custom I would like to see take off in Australia! One effect is that you can see just how many people around you have a respiratory virus! It makes you more conscious of washing your hands, and who to keep clear of! 

Vending machines are everywhere! And they are rarely vandalised. We saw one with a broken glass. But in Australia they would all be broken I reckon. This was in a side st near the station. 

And a nice surprise as we neared our hotel... Cherry blossoms in full flower. These pictures were taken at night but I couldn't help myself! 

I wait with great anticipation for tomorrow's display in Sendai! We are off on another long fast train trip, through more mountainous country to where the blossoms are in full display, way up to the north of the country.