Prologue

Hello! Welcome to my weblog.

In October of 2006 I traveled through Japan for a month, all the way from Sapporo in the north to Nagasaki in the south. While I was there, I decided to write a little daily report of what I had seen and done each day. The original was written in Dutch (as I'm from the Netherlands), but after I returned home, I decided to translate it to English. This is the story you see here.

But, 'naze Nihon?' as many people asked me. Why Japan? That story begins in September of 2005, when one of my articles got accepted for publication at a conference. Nothing special, were it not that the conference was held in Kashiwa (a Tokyo suburb), in March 2006. Like everyone, I too already had a mental picture of Japan. It was actually slightly critical and skeptical. All that changed during the trip in March. After the conference, I went for a week of sightseeing in Tokyo and Kyoto. One week was far too short, so I decided to come back later that year.

When to go? Spring and autumn are the best seasons to visit Japan, so around October. For how long? Why not one month? Where to go? Let's go everywhere! It sounds like a crazy idea, but crazy ideas are often most fun. So I grabbed my Lonely Planet guide book, and started planning. And the result is shown in the little map below:

Have fun reading. You can click on photos to see a larger version. Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail me, "jnunnink (at) science (dot) uva (dot) nl". I am sure there are little errors here and there, and I am always curious for your opinion.

Day 1 and 2, Amsterdam to Sapporo

On our way to Schiphol airport we got stuck in some morning rush hour traffic jams, but since we had already expected this we still arrived well in time for check-in. Schiphol is KLM’s home ground, so with only a few available desks for Lufthansa (that often offers the cheapest flight to Japan), check-in took a while. Also, they suddenly decided to put me on an earlier flight, giving me more transfer time in Frankfurt. So even though we had arrived 2 hours before the flight, I now had less than half an hour to boarding. Schiphol is a huge airport, and merely walking to your gate can easily take 20 minutes. In the end, I was allowed to cut the line at the security check, and I still made the flight to Frankfurt. There I now had 1.5 hours to transfer, though, so all the rushing in Amsterdam had been pretty pointless.

During the flight to Osaka I was sitting next to two Japanese-language students, who both went to Japan for a year. Igor from Serbia had already been in Japan before. He had gotten his degree and now went to do research. Being Serbian, he of course was a football-fan, so it was easy to find a conversation topic. He also taught me a little bit of Japanese: “Eigo ga dekimas ka?” Do you speak English? For Jana from Germany it was her first time in Japan. She had actually never traveled outside Europe and was very nervous. We tried to comfort her a bit, and on arrival, we walked her to the arrival hall where her contact was waiting, so I’m sure that everything went fine in the end. I can’t imagine what could go wrong anyway, as she already spoke the language.

I again had to transfer, this time to a domestic flight to Sapporo with ANA. I was the only foreigner on the plane, but thanks to all the English loanwords in the Japanese language, ‘juice’ is always a safe option if you want to drink something. I half slept during this flight, but still enjoyed the nice views of the Japanese west coast. On schedule, we landed in Sapporo. That is, New Chitose Airport, located about 40 km south of Sapporo. So I first had to take the train. Fortunately, from my last visit to Japan, I still knew how the ticket system worked. I can imagine it would be quite difficult to figure it all out for the first time with a totally jetlagged head.

In Sapporo, it was pleasantly sunny weather, and finding my ryokan was easy. It was quite a luxurious place (I had gotten a large discount through some travel website), with pretty rooms and a nice atmosphere. A kimonoed maid came to serve tea when I arrived, which was great because I had quite a jetlag.

As I write this (well, I wrote the English translation after I got back), I had dinner served in my room, and afterwards had my bed spread out. I also tried a bit of conversation, just for fun (really). I wanted to explain that I had been awake for about 30 hours now. It only took about 15 minutes to express this single sentence. But in the end I succeeded, and even learned a few new words, thanks to my Lonely Planet phrasebook (which, quite surprisingly, really works).

Day 3, Sapporo

For today, the planning was to do some sightseeing in Sapporo (the next two days I will venture into the wilds of Hokkaido). Even though Sapporo is one of the lesser known cities of Japan (among foreign tourists), it has more than 1.6 million inhabitants. Maybe this is because the city is only about 150 years old. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the Japanese first started ‘colonizing’ Hokkaido. To speed up this colonization, the government gave bonuses to people from the main islands that were willing to settle on the northern island. This turned out to be quite efficient, because within several years the original population of Hokkaido, the Ainu, comparable to the Indians or aboriginals, was already a minority. And, as usual in such situations, the Ainu have since been oppressed and discriminated. In recent years the situation has improved somewhat, and their history is getting more attention nowadays.

In this line, one of the sights I visited today was a small Ainu museum. Interestingly, their art forms look very different from the regular Japanese art. See for example the photo on the right of a piece of clothing made from the fibers of some plant. The museum was part of another nice sight, the Botanical Garden of the Hokkaido University. This is quite a large garden of about 13 ha (in the centre of the city!) containing an impressive amount of different trees and plants. Also, it was a nice place to quietly stroll around, away from the busy city.

Next, I visited my first shrine of this trip, the Hokkaido-jingu (see photo). It is located in a large park, Naruyama-koen, and I enjoyed walking around here (I just like parks). Two other ‘famous’ sights in Sapporo are the TV-Tower, a kind of miniature Eiffel Tower, and the Clock Tower. The latter was nothing more than a building with a clock on it. As I said above, Sapporo just does not have the lengthy history that the rest of Japan has, so I guess that one has to be happy with an old house with a clock on it, then. Sapporo is of course also famous for its beer. However, the brewery is located a bit away from the city centre, and I’ve been to enough breweries in my life, so I skipped it.

A funny detail with respect to the house and street numbering; like many Japanese cities, Sapporo’s streets follow a grid pattern (this was copied from China). Then, they took the TV-Tower as the centre point and numbered every housing block and street as the number of blocks east/west and north/south of the tower. This is very convenient, because you can immediately see where you are, without having to memorise many different street names. My ryokan was in ‘West 7 North 4’, if I recall correctly.

Day 4, Lake Toya

Hokkaido is famous for its national parks, and today I went to one of them. The centre of this park is formed by Toya-ko, or Lake Toya. It is located quite some distance from Sapporo, and takes about 2 hours by train. But in Japan these trips always seem to go faster for some reason, maybe because everything runs on time. It also required me to get up early and travel during the morning rush hour. And since my ryokan lies in an area with many government offices, that meant making my way through the waves of civil servants on their way to work. Their homogeneity was quite a funny sight, I must say.

The plan for today was to rent a bicycle and cycle around the lake (see photo). This is about 40 km, so it should be easy to do in a few hours. While cycling I could enjoy the weather, and the nice views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. The lake also has a mountain in the middle, which is not so strange, when considering that this is an active volcanic area. Along the rim of the lake there are even two active volcanoes that last erupted in 2000. Nothing came out today, though, except some very smelly smoke.

One of the two, the Usu volcano, is still quite young, by the way. In 1943, after an earthquake, suddenly a small bump had appeared in a field that had been flat. Within two years, this bump had grown into a 400 meter high volcano. Authorities tried to keep this a secret, because it could be seen as a bad omen for the war. Also, they instructed the locals to try to put out the flames because it could be used as a beacon by the enemy. In any case, be careful when buying a piece of land in Japan!

Back in Sapporo, I decided not to eat in my ryokan this time (even though it was very good quality). Ever since my last visit to Japan I had been a fan of ‘ramen’, which are noodles in a kind of soup. As the guide books will tell you, one is ‘expected’ to eat them while slurping. However, I believe one is free to eat it in whatever way you want, and slurping is just one of the options (although it makes a nice tourist story). Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to get good fresh ramen in the Netherlands. It turns out that in Sapporo they have an actual ‘ramen yokocho’, or ramen alley. It is about 1.5 meters wide and filled front to back with small ramen bars (about 20, I would estimate). You often eat ramen at a bar, while the food is prepared directly behind the bar. Of course, I had to visit this place, and to prove that I really did, I asked two Koreans to take my photo.

Day 5, Biei

Today’s destination is officially not a national park, but you could see one on a clear day. It was the town of Biei (pronounce “Bee-ay”) near the Daisetsuzan national park. Again, it took 2 hours by train to get there, but it was worth it. Biei is famous for its lovely rolling hills, nice views (on clear days, which it wasn’t, see photo) and flower industry. The flowers didn’t really impress me, but the remote countryside roads did allow for some nice quiet bicycling. That is, it was quiet when you didn’t run into the busloads of Japanese tourists. They were apparently prepared to pay money to look at a small field of flowers (and at each other, because it was very crowded). The field was so small that the average flower-farm in the Netherlands would have gone bankrupt long ago. But then again, they don’t ask an admission fee.

And to tell the truth, the fields of ‘wild’ flowers were actually prettier. Biei is also known for its famous named trees. Apparently they feature regularly in TV commercials, and that fact alone attracts many tourists. One of the trees is called the Tree of Philosophy (see photo, to the left of the flower).

Biei is such a small town that I was just as much of a sight as the flowers surrounding the town. When walking back to the train station, I heard some children say ‘haro’ ‘haro’ (this sounds as ‘hallo’). When I looked, they started waving, and when I waved back they had to laugh. This kind of thing would happen more often during this trip, but it is quite funny the first time.

While I was writing this text (well, the original Dutch version), the lady of the ryokan gave me some ‘moon cakes’ and rice crackers. This was because of the ‘furu mun shukan’, full moon custom/tradition. Indeed it was full moon around that day. For this custom they put dishes with fruit and seasonal vegetables in front of the window, and little cakes you can eat.

Tomorrow’s story will be a short one, because I will have to sit in the train for 7 hours on my way to Morioka. These 7 hours are divided over 3 different trains, each time with less than 5 minutes transfer time. Which is more than enough in Japan.

Day 6, In a train

In a Train? Yes, I literally spent the whole day inside a train. You might find it hard to believe, but something actually went wrong with the Japanese railways. As I wrote yesterday, today I had to travel for 7 hours from Sapporo to Morioka, with 3 different trains. The first leg, to Hakodate, went fine. It took about 3.5 hours by limited express and I made my transfer with about 3 minutes left. The next leg would bring me to Hachinohe. Well, I eventually did reach Hachinohe, but at 11 pm, about 7 hours too late.

It all started in Aomori. There our train waited suspiciously long. In Japan that means 1 minute too long. After waiting for about half an hour, we were told to go to the train on the other side of the platform. When I say that ‘we we’re told’, I actually mean that everyone went to the other train, and I just followed. Namely, from the moment things started going wrong, there wouldn’t be a single word of English information for the rest of the day. I speak no Japanese, and I was practically the only foreigner on the train, so this made everything a lot more difficult.

After waiting for about an hour in the next train, something was announced through the intercom. Again I didn’t understand a thing of what was said, but everyone exited the train, and so did I. On the platform people started queuing (Japanese love to queue). After a Japan Rail (JR) employee announced something through his megaphone, the queue started moving. I had managed to discern the word ‘basu’, or bus, in his speech. And indeed, at the station exit lots of busses were waiting and everyone started forming new queues at each bus. For the first time we noticed that it was raining very hard. Later I heard that there was a small typhoon raging in northern Japan, which was probably also the cause for the train problems. The rain didn’t stop some people from filming everything, though.

All this nicely illustrates two typical aspects of Japanese behavior. The first is that everyone always stays calm and polite; nobody cuts the line or starts running, which is what would happen in the Netherlands. The second is that they all naturally expect that the responsible people (Japan Rail in this case) will come up with a solution. Then it is just a matter of waiting for the solution to arrive, even if it takes a several hours. Also you don’t see people openly complaining. Maybe on the inside they are furious, or my lack of Japanese language skills hides it, but there is no swearing or such. Actually, none of the people I spoke to had ever experienced this, so maybe for them it felt more like an adventure than like an annoying delay. And after all, they are convinced that they are being cared for

Anyway, we took the bus along the coast (the waves were quick high) to Noheji. Noheji station was even more crowded than Aomori, because there were many people that were going in the other direction, and were waiting for busses to Aomori. After a while, again something got announced, and we started moving towards the trains again. By now, I had gotten used to just picking some random person (that I judged to have some English skills) and tell them ‘hachinohe’ while pointing at some bus or train. This way, I found my way to another train and the waiting continued.

I must say that you get to know quite a few new people in this way. Japanese people apparently like to small-talk, and it doesn’t really matter to them whether you speak the language or not. For example, I had a whole conversation with some elderly couple. They didn’t speak English, but with some sign language and my trusty LP phrasebook (I learned to love it today) we could sort of understand each other. From then on, this couple looked after me a bit, because they were also going to Morioka. In any case, there were people coming to me all the time, asking where I had to go and whether I understood everything. They even answered for me, when JR people asked me something. ‘hai, kare wa hachinohe e ikimas,’ yes, he has to go to Hachinohe.

Eventually we also left this train and again had to take the bus. It were those busses that brought us to Hachinohe. However, me and also many of the other travelers had planned to take the shinkansen bullet train from Hachinohe (it is the northernmost shinkansen station), and the last one had left at 9 pm. The Japanese were right, though; we were being cared for. Namely, the railway people had already thought of a solution. They allowed us to spend the night in a shinkansen train on the station of Hachinohe. Also, we were given blankets, food and water, and free tickets for the first shinkansen of the next morning. Again, I met some more new people here, such as a Russian couple, two American Asians, and Yukie from Hokkaido.

After 5 uncomfortable (see photo) hours of hardly any sleep and a short shinkansen trip, I finally arrived in Morioka very early in the morning. It is funny, but I happened to run into the friendly elderly couple later that day in Morioka, and I saw the Americans in Kakunodate. It’s a small world after all, I guess… But it was a unique adventure. If the rest of this month will be anything like today…

Day 7, Morioka and Kakunodate

As I wrote in “Day 6”, I arrived in Morioka very early. It was 8 o’ clock when I entered my next ryokan, Kumagai. It had been quite a search, because none of the maps I had (including the map in my one year old Lonely Planet guide) showed a new bridge that had recently been completed. So it was early, and I hadn’t shown up on the first day of my reservation, but none of this was a problem. The woman that runs the ryokan was quite relaxed, and thought the whole shinkansen adventure was kind of funny. The inn itself was a very atmospheric, creaky wooden building.

It happened to be a Sunday. It is funny how you can completely lose track of the weekdays when traveling. I just made my regular round: first the Tourist Information Centre, which can always be found at the station, to ask about the local sights, then to the ticket centre to get seat reservations for the trip to my next destination, and finally a bench to sit down and decide which sights to see in Morioka.

Morioka, with its 300 thousand inhabitants, is a much smaller town than Sapporo. For some reason, Japanese cities always feel much smaller than they really are. A city like Sapporo feels as large as for example Amsterdam, but is in fact twice as large. And Morioka feels like a middle-sized town in the Netherlands, but is several times larger. This feeling of size is based on the size of the station / shopping district / entertainment district / etc. Maybe it can be explained by the fact that every Japanese city has enormous suburbs. These pump up the population size, but don’t add to the image of a city.

Anyway, Morioka used to be a so-called castle town, where during the feudal shogunate era (the shogun was the most powerful warrior, who ruled Japan from Tokyo) the local ruler built his castle. Many of the castles in Japan got destroyed during the Meiji Restoration. This restoration took place at the end of the 19th century, when an alliance of southern samurai clans rebelled against the Shogun and gave power back to the emperor (who had been living in Kyoto all the time). Later in this journey I will visit some castles that have survived the restoration or have been reconstructed, but of Morioka’s castle only ruins are left. They form the heart of the central park. Because the castle used to be built on a small hill, you have quite nice views over Morioka. Besides these ruins, there is very little to see in Morioka. They do have a cherry tree that supposedly split a rock, but if a city is depending on that for its attractions… And judging by the size of the rock, the truth behind the story is questionable as well.

Because I had enough time left, I took a shinkansen to Kakunodate for some more feudal history. This too used to be a castle town, positioned to the west of Morioka. Its exact placement was strategically chosen, as it was surrounded on three sides by mountains, and by plains on the fourth side. To get to the castle from the plains, one had to go through the samurai district. In this district the warriors that served the local ruler lived. In the past it contained more than 80 houses. The nice thing about Kakunodate is that large parts of the district (the layout and about 12 houses) have survived until this day. Even 15 years ago, descendants of the original families still lived in some of the houses. Nowadays, most of the houses are open to the public, and the whole area feels as an open-air samurai museum. Despite the hordes of tourists that swamp the area, it still has a nice authentic atmosphere, and shows a little bit of ‘old Japan’. See photos. Funny was also that the artist that drew the first Japanese anatomy book (copied from a Dutch book) lived in Kakunodate. Later, he also introduced ‘akita-ranga’ (Akita-Dutch painting, using shadows and perspective) in Japan. This made him very popular among the rulers of Japan at the time.

Day 8, Hiraizumi

The main theme of my stay in northern Honshu is the feudal ‘old Japan’. Sadly, this was the only period that the region had any significant influence on Japanese history. Since then, the region went into decline, and even nowadays, among the Japanese, it has the image of the simple undeveloped rural country. It gets completely ignored by foreign tourists, which is logical because the Tokyo area and Kansai are much richer in sights. Maybe this is also the charm of the region. Nowhere in Japan did I encounter such friendly people as in northern Honshu and Hokkaido.

Typical for Tohoku (the common name for northern Honshu literally means ‘East-North’) is the history of the town of Hiraizumi. This history is roughly as follows: around the 11th and 12th century, most of Japan was ruled by the Fujiwara clan. The most powerful clan members lived in Kyoto, but in the 12th century a certain branch of the clan manages to gain control of all of Tohoku. The capital of their land is Hiraizumi. Because of the local goldmines, the branch becomes so rich and powerful that at a certain moment Hiraizumi has 100 thousands inhabitants, and can rival the splendor of Kyoto. One of their achievements was the construction of a huge Buddhist temple complex, Chuzen-ji. They meant this to be a sort of Buddhist paradise on earth, and the Kyoto clergy was not very happy with that.

So of course a reaction followed. One of the most powerful warriors of the time, Yoritomo, attacks his younger but talented brother Yoshitsune, apparently out of jealousy. Yoshitsune flees to Hiraizumi, and gets protected there. However, after the ruler of Hiraizumi dies, his son falls for the pressure and he betrays Yoshitsune. Finding himself in a hopeless situation, Yoshitsune sets his castle on fire and commits suicide with his family. The traitor also gets killed in the end, because from the start Yoritomo’s actual goal had been the destruction of the Hiraizumi branch, in order to increase his power in Kyoto.

Hiraizumi went into decline, and in the 14th century almost the whole temple complex burns down too. Only two buildings survived and those now form the heart of the Chuzen-ji complex. I visited it today (Yukie had recommended it) and luckily the weather was very nice. It was also extremely crowded as it was a national holiday today (sports day, if I understood correctly). The top photo shows a monument erected for Yoshitsune. Inside is a doll with the armor that he apparently wore. The middle photo shows one of the temple buildings of Chuzen-ji.

After visiting the temple, I took a walking trail through the hills surrounding Hiraizumi to another temple. This Motsu-ji has also been completely destroyed by fire, but you can still view the nice central lake. Apparently it is a typical Buddhist ‘pure land’ lake, containing stylised elements of nature, such as a beach, a peninsula, rocky coasts, an island, a bay, etc. The path through the hills was very quiet because most tourists (they were all Japanese) traveled in groups and took the road. I quite enjoyed the nature and nice views over the valley. And just as I was about to make a photo of that view, a snake came slithering across the path. The Steve Irwin in me woke up and I rushed towards (yes, towards) the snake. When the snake noticed that I was approaching it froze, pretending to be dead, or maybe just posing for the picture…

Tomorrow will be a quiet day, as I’m moving to Aizu-Wakamatsu, which is another famous samurai castle town.

PS: The North-Korean nuclear test totally dominates the news here.

Day 9, Aizu-Wakamatsu (prologue)

Today and tomorrow I’m spending in Aizu-Wakamatsu, a city on a plateau surrounded by the mountains of Tohoku. The trip was quite uneventful, less eventful than the previous at least. In 4.5 hours I traveled to my new ‘minshuku’ (Japanese B&B). This included 400 km in 2 hours by shinkansen.

The history of Aizu-Wakamatsu mainly involves the Aizu clan. In the 18th and 19th century they were the most powerful family in the region. As I explained in one of the previous posts, at the end of the 19th century the Meiji restoration took place where the power was taken from the Shogun and given back to the emperor, Meiji. It also involved moving the capital to Tokyo, and it was the start of the rise of imperialism in Japan.

During the restoration several civil wars took place. In one of those, the Boshin war, the Aizu clan chose the side of the Shogun, and got defeated. The family of one of the most important samurai of the Aizu, Saigo Tanomo, committed suicide, while he himself died on the battlefield. The castle got destroyed, but has been reconstructed in the 70’s.

His villa has also been reconstructed, and I visited it today (because my minshuku was located right next to it). All the photos for today’s entry are from thee villa. It nicely shows how a samurai house is divided into different sections: Firstly, a large and luxurious section to receive important guests, including the main entrance. Secondly, a section for the owner himself, the villa guard and the administrative rooms. This section had its own (much simpler) entrance. Thirdly, a section for the owner’s family, whom had to use the side entrance. And finally, a section for the servants and kitchen. Normally, nobody went outside their own section, except for the owner of course, and some of the main servants. A veranda did run around the entire building so one could go from room to room without disturbing anyone.

A funny detail was the toilet; it doesn’t have a ceiling (you are looking directly at the roof), so assassins couldn’t surprise anyone. Also, there was a pair of rails running under it, on which a little cart filled with sand could roll. That way doctors could check the samurai’s health based on their feces.

Tomorrow the rest of the story about White Tigers, smoke, sake, and Mussolini…

Day 10, Aizu-Wakamatsu

As promised, today the rest of the tale of Aizu-Wakamatsu. When the battle against the emperor’s supporters was lost, a small group of approximately 20 samurai could flee to a mountain, Iimori-yama, at the edge of the city. This group was part of the Byakkotai, or White Tigers, and existed of 16 and 17 year old teenager samurai that had sworn loyalty to the leader of the Aizu. When they stood on the mountain they saw only fire and smoke at the place where the castle should be. Convinced that everything was lost, they decided to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide, with the entire group, rather than surrender to the enemy.

In reality, only the surroundings of the castle were burning, and it would still take weeks before the Aizu had finally been defeated. However, the tale of their courage and loyalty appealed greatly to the Japanese, and therefore a monument has been built on that spot. Among other things, you can find a museum there, and the graves of the 20 samurai. Furthermore there is a funny wooden tower containing Buddha statues, in which you can walk to the top and then down again, without ever walking in the same spot twice. Next to the graves, there are also two not-so-funny monuments. Both placed there in the 30’s, one is a huge pillar donated by Mussolini, and the other is a small marble monument donated by Nazi Germany. The story of self-sacrifice by the teenagers apparently appealed to them. By the way, Japanese tourists happily have their picture taken in front of the monuments, which makes you wonder whether they have any clue to their backgrounds.

After this, I visited an official ‘place of scenic beauty’, namely a garden which was constructed in the middle ages. The story goes that a local farmer got healed of some illness after drinking the water of a natural spring. Since then, it was often the location of the official retreat of the Aizu rulers. It has a beautiful lake in the middle, with a tea house on a small island, small waterfalls, and a lot of different types of vegetation (it is also used as a herbal garden). Such public gardens can be found everywhere in Japan (often at temples), even in the smallest village, and it is a shame that we do not have that in the Netherlands (or anywhere else in the west).

Now it was time for the main sight of Aizu-Wakamatsu, the Tsuruga-jo castle. As I wrote earlier, it had been destroyed at the end of the 19th century, except for the castle walls. Approximately 40 years ago however, they decided to reconstruct it and make it into a museum. It is funny that on the inside it is simply a modern concrete building, but on the outside looks like a real castle. Because of its color, it has been nicknamed the ‘Crane Castle’. See the photograph on the right. The photograph above, by the way, is of some autumn colours near the samurai monument.

Now there’s one thing that I haven’t mentioned yet, and that is sake. Among all those temples and samurai one might almost forget that Japan is also famous for its rice wine, sake. Sake is simply the word for liquor, and its character can also be found in the name of many Chinese restaurants in the world. I had never been to a sake brewery, and there happened to be one near the castle. The complete brewing process was explained and all kinds of old tools were shown. Simply put, it works as follows: You take rice, ‘polish’ it, and then rinse it. Next you steam it, add moulds, let it mould for a while, then add water and yeast, and leave it alone for a while. Then add water, steamed rice, and molded rice several times, and press the final mass. Filter and pasteurise the liquid that comes from this, and you have sake. I have also tasted it myself; it is quite nice, and a less strong than I had expected (only 19% alcohol).

Tomorrow to Nikko! This means ‘sunshine’, so let’s hope it lives up to its name…

Day 11, to Nikko

I have now finally left the ‘deep North’ behind me, and arrived in Nikko. It is rather a culture shock for me; in 10 minutes I have seen more foreigners than in the past 10 days. The excessive staring has mostly stopped (well, became less), and the Japanese have a more reserved attitude. In the north, people were often surprised to see a foreigner make the effort to come there. Nikko is famous as a tourist spot with its proximity to Tokyo, so the whole (small) town is tuned to that.

Today I took it easy, and just strolled about a bit. My ryokan is located next to a river, and I took some photos of that river. As you can see on the photo there is also a row of small Buddhist statues lined up, all dressed with red caps.

This evening I tried a Korean restaurant, for the first time this journey. Korean food in Japan is a bit like Chinese food in the Netherlands, or Mexican food in America. It was run by an old Korean woman and had a relaxed and laid-back atmosphere. A TV was turned on all the time and most guests were just drinking a beer and eating some snacks. I met some other tourists from Switzerland and South-Africa here, so I could even speak some Dutch.

Day 12, Nikko

The advice was to start early to avoid the crowds as much as possible. They probably mean: before sunrise, because at 9:30 in the morning it was already incredibly crowded. Especially the hundreds of schoolchildren created a small chaos. Anyway, I will first tell something about the history of Nikko. The story goes that in the 8th century a priest got carried across the river on the backs of two serpents. This does not happen every day, so he started building a temple and the town around it became Nikko. The serpents’ role in the story might be doubtful, but the spot is now marked with (the reconstruction of) a sacred bridge (see photo).

For centuries nothing happened. In 1603, a warrior called Ieyasu Tokugawa took control over all of Japan, for the first time in history. He became the Shogun, and ruled from Edo (now known as Tokyo). And of all places, he chose Nikko as the location to build his ‘mausoleum’. It became a complex of incredible splendor, and to this day it is a very popular tourist attraction. His grandson Iemitsu also decided to be buried in Nikko, and he too built a beautiful (but smaller) shrine. Furthermore, Nikko has been the location of the official retreat of the Imperial family for hundreds of years. And if that isn’t enough, it also lies at the edge of the Nikko National Park, a large area with beautiful mountains, forests and lakes. Basically, this means that it is always crowded in Nikko.

All the temples and shrines are conveniently located close together against a forested hill near the centre of Nikko. I first went to the Rinno-ji temple, and afterwards to the Tochogu (where Ieyasu was buried). Then to the original shrine of Nikko, and lastly to the mausoleum of the grandson (see the second photo). It’s a shame humans only have two eyes, because everywhere you look, you can see stunningly beautiful buildings, and I have never made so many photos as today. Afterwards, to escape the crowds a bit I took a walk through the hills behind the temple complex. The funny thing is that most tourists only go to see the most beautiful (or rather: most famous) sights, so you can check out all the other sights in relative quietness.

At the end of the day, I went to see the Imperial villa. This villa, with its 106 rooms, was the official retreat of the Imperial family until the 50’s. The current Emperor also lived here, when he had to flee from Tokyo as a young Prince in 1943. The villa has been restored to its old glory, of course using the traditional materials (wood) and construction methods (such as nailless joints). The villa has been gradually expanded over the centuries, and each section corresponds to the architectural styles of the time. In 2000, reconstruction of the garden was also completed. Surprisingly, it was very quiet here, even though it is one of the finest sights in Nikko. And contrary to many other museums, everything had excellent English explanations. You were allowed to walk through almost the entire villa, and everything looked very authentic. Also here, the usual hierarchy was clear. For example, the rug in the Emperor’s room contained more than 10 different colors, while that of the Emperor’s wife only contained 4, etc. The third photo is of the villa’s exterior.

Day 13, Chusen-ji

Nikko itself lies at about 600 meter above sea level (at home, I live around -2 meters, by the way). Within the Nikko National Park lies the Chusen-ji Lake, at an altitude of roughly 1300 meter. The perimeter of the lake is 24 kilometer, and it is 170 meter at its deepest point. It is surrounded by even higher mountains that are forested, and around this time of year display beautiful autumn colors. From the lake, a stunning waterfall thunders down 50 meters. The lake itself is very clear and it is only a 45 minute bus ride from Nikko.

So that’s where I’ve been today. There was only one tiny problem: the clouds already started at 1200 meters. So with a maximum view distance of about 20 to 30 meters (depending on whether an extra thick piece of cloud drifted by), I have only heard the waterfall (but still got a photo), and I have only seen the autumn colors from the bus on the way to and from the lake. Furthermore, it was cold, humid and nasty weather. I did visit a shrine (see last photo), but the trip to the lake could be called quite a disappointment.

I have spent the rest of the day buying and writing postcards. Sending them from Japan is not very expensive, 70 Yen (about 50 eurocent) per card to anywhere in the world. For dinner, I tried out a funky home-atmosphere restaurant. It was very small, and you had to share a table with other people (three Taiwanese tourists, in my case), but the food was good. I think it was called the Hippari Dako and it was close to the Korean I had been to two days ago. When I left, I got a little gift. You get these a lot, by the way, also at some of the hotels. Of course, I also bring my own gifts, so check-out often turns into a little gift exchange.

Day 14, to Tokyo

Today I’m returning to the real city. It was a Sunday and nice weather as well, so everyone was out in the streets and the parks. Ironically, today had been a perfect day to visit lake Chusen-ji. I walked around in Ueno park (which was close to my ryokan), and Yoyogi park, which required a short trip with the Yamanote line, Tokyo’s famous circle train.

I had already been in both parks last spring, only this time they were greener. Not much else had changed. Ueno is still more the ‘family’-park with here and there a magician or some musicians, but more of the easy-jazz band type. Yoyogi park is more for the young people, which is kind of logical with its proximity to the ultra hip shopping cities Shibuya and Harajuku. In this park you can still find the cos-play kids, the rock’n’rollers, the rock bands and the skaters. As far as I could see, they were still the same people that I saw in March, and one year from now they can probably still be found there.

I don’t really have much more to write about today. Maybe funny to mention is that on my way to Ueno park, I walked through the ‘motorcycle neighbourhood’. I remember seeing it mentioned on a map once, but never thought it would be this large. In this neighbourhood, everything is about motorcycles. There are shops where they sell motors and scooters (and half of them are on display on the middle of the sidewalk), garages, shops for accessories, motor rider clubs and bars, etc. And this continues for several hundred meters. The background nicely fits to all this; a 7 lane road with elevated expressway. The kind of people that you see here are also typical motorcycle fanatics.

In that sense, stereotypes are often quite accurate in Japan. Or to put it in another way: maybe the people themselves make sure that stereotypes fit, in order to distinguish themselves from other groups. This seems (insofar a foreigner like me can see this) a general principle in Japan; the way you look determines who you are. For example, almost every job has its own uniform, which results in a useful color coding on weekdays. Actually, the only exception to this is the Sunday, which makes it a special day here.

I hadn’t made any pictures today yet, so for fun I made a few photos at night with the night-mode of my camera. They depict the expressway, as seen from a pedestrian bridge. Tomorrow I will go for some real sightseeing in Kamakura, an old capital of Japan.

Day 15, Kamakura

Many tourists (fortunately) ignore Kamakura. Even though it is only 40 minutes by train from Tokyo, most foreign tourists don’t really know if its existence. Japanese people do know it, which is logical because it is a nice little coast town with some pretty temples and shrines, and pleasant nature. During the 12th and 13th century, it was the capital of Japan. That is, the most powerful clan chose it as their base, especially because it was easily defendable. The castle has long been gone, but about 40 of the temples and shrines survived and can still be found spread around the town and surrounding hills.

The most famous sight, attracting the largest crowds, is the Daibutsu, or great Buddha statue (see photo). This one is about 20 meters high, and was apparently built after the clan leader had visited Nara, which also has such a statue. I’m going to visit the Nara one next week, and that one is even larger.

On my way to the Daibutsu I took a hiking trail through the hills. Underway I passed a funny shrine. First you have to walk through a tunnel hewn through a rock cliff, which leads to an inner area where the shrine is located. There you can buy incense and get a small basket. You are then supposed to put your money in the basket and in another cave thrown sacred spring water over it. The money will then bring good fortune and happiness. I didn’t have too much cash on me, so I just washed my credit card, which should bring a lot of happiness now.

At the end of the day, it was time for a little experiment. A week before I left for Japan, Simon told me about the couchsurfing.com website. This is one of the websites (there are other similar ones) where people offer a free sleeping place to travelers. The thought behind this is that contact between different cultures helps create a more tolerant and better world. Most members come from Europe or America, but there are also a few in Japan. Through the website you can then ask whether they have a ‘couch’ available. In this way, I am ‘surfing’ the couch of Tomoko from Kamakura tonight. It was lots of fun, and nice to try out once. Also, you get to see a different side of the country, besides the hotels and tourist spots.

The disadvantage was that the next morning I had to get up very early (Tomoko had to go to work) and take the rush hour train to Tokyo. These trains are so full that there are railway people standing on the platforms to help push people into the trains. You don’t have to bother holding on to something, and you wouldn’t be able to raise your arm anyway. On all sides there are people being pressed so hard against you, that it starts to hurt after a while, especially if the train makes a turn and everyone gets pushed to one side. Imagine that you have to do that every day…

But this actually belongs to tomorrow’s story.

Day 16, Matsumoto

After surviving the morning rush hour, I left the Big City for my next destination, Matsumoto. This required my 9th shinkansen ride, this time from Ueno to Nagano (the Olympic city). Matsumoto is located to the south-west of Nagano, near the ‘Japanese Alps’. Like Kamakura, Matsumoto is less known to foreigners than Nagano, but in fact it is a nicer city.

Matsumoto has some things that distinguish it from other cities. From the sung welcome at the train station, to the old twisting streets that are seemingly unchanged for the past hundreds of years, housing old shops that have been selling the same goods all those years. My ryokan (Nunoya) is also located in one of those streets. It is a completely wooden building, creaking like crazy, but with lots of atmosphere (and a very friendly owner).

And then there is the castle (see photos), nicknamed the ‘Crow Castle’ for its black and white colors. This is one of the only 5 castles in Japan that have survived in their original form, making it a national monument. But in fact the whole city is part of its defenses. The street plan has been designed in such a way that it is difficult to reach the castle at all. Some streets go nowhere, or slowly bend onto themselves, everything to mislead the enemy. The castle itself is entirely made of wood, and his 6 floors. That is, on the outside it seems to have only 5 floors (you can count them on the photo). This too is a trick to confuse attackers. Within the castle there is a windowless level that is half as high as normal. Very useful to surprise attackers that think they have almost reached the top. Furthermore, the stairs are located at opposite corners of a level, and they are extremely steep, making it difficult even for tourists to climb to the top. All in all it is a nicely designed fortress.

The reason that the fortress has survived the times is because it has never been attacked! It was built to protect the local Ogasawara clan in the age of clan wars. However, when the castle was finished, around 1600, the Edo era had just begun. This was a period of 250 years of domestic peace, after Ieyasu Tokugawa had conquered all of Japan (see also the Nikko story). So nobody has ever fired a shot at the castle.

In the evening I tried one of the local yakitori-ya. Restaurant types in Japan are often called after the type of food they specialise in, plus the suffix ‘ya’ (meaning ‘place’). So this restaurant mainly specialised in yakitori food. Originally, this is the name for roasted meat on skewers, but basically they roast everything. Of course they also sell local specialties, such as raw horse meat (I went for the roasted version). The place was quite relaxed, and especially funny was the ‘eigo no menyu’ (English menu), which frankly made no sense at all. At least, I don’t think that they really sell burning food, or moody pork.

Day 17, the Japanese Alps

As I mentioned yesterday, Matsumoto lies at the edge of the Japanese Alps. This seems to be a strange name for a Japanese mountain range, but it was given that name by a European that had visited (‘discovered’) the area. In the region it is also called the ‘roof of Japan’. One of the most beautiful places in the Alps, and conveniently close to Matsumoto (50 km), is Kamikochi. There are no trains going there, private cars are not allowed, and the bus is quite pricy (about 30 euros for a two-way ticket), but it is definitely worth it. Actually, the bus ride itself, along cliffs, lakes, and beautiful mountains is already worth the price.

Kamikochi is located in a valley, next to several 3000 meter high mountains, so the views are stunning. And, contrary to the day of the trip to Chusen-ji lake (see the Nikko story), the weather was fine too. Real climbers and hikers, with real gear, can go into the mountains, but for tourists like me there is a nice walking trail following the river through the valley. This time of the year, around October and the beginning of November, is really the best for visiting the area. At this altitude, trees start to change color slightly earlier than at sea level, turning the forests on the mountainsides into a pretty mix of green, yellow and red.

Clearly I wasn’t the only one that wanted to see this. When I arrived, the bus terminal of Kamikochi (the whole village only consists of a bus terminal, a hotel and a few huts), was already filled with busses. Most of the tourists were elderly people, by the way, but this was no exception. Everywhere I went to this month, I mainly saw older people. Maybe the young Japanese have too little free time, or maybe they prefer to go abroad on holidays. There is some extra risk involved with older travelers, of course. For example, last week when I was busy getting stuck in trains during a typhoon, a group of older travelers died while climbing a mountain in the Alps. They were all women, and too weak to struggle through a sudden blizzard.

While I had already met snakes earlier this trip, today I only encountered wild Macaques. In Japan (and maybe also in other countries) they are also known as snow monkeys, because they mainly live in the mountains. It was around 4 o’ clock when they suddenly appeared. At first, they were just walking among the bushes looking for food, but later they also walked on the path among the human hikers. It seemed that they were quite used to us. I even made a 3 minute movie, but I can only show photos on this website, unfortunately.

Day 18, Nagano

And now for something completely different… Today no history going back a thousand or hundreds of years. It was only 8 years ago, in 1998. The Dutch heroes were called Romme and Timmer. And the location was of course Nagano. As a real ‘Oranda-jin’ I simply had to have been there. (For all non-Dutch readers: I am of course talking about the Winter Olympics).

However, while Nagano is famous among foreigners for the Olympics, within Japan it is more famous for something else (can you see a pattern emerging?). Namely the Zenko-ji, a beautiful 8th century temple, which attracts 4 million visitors each year. Of course, Nagano is also known for its winter sport areas, a number of mountaintop shrines, its many onsen (hot mineral baths), and a park where you can see Macaques (the monkeys that I saw in the wild yesterday) in their own onsen.

When I entered the temple, I witnessed the end of some ceremony. A few monks were chanting their prayers, while another was banging two sticks together. At a certain moment some curtains or shutters at the side of the temple were opened, which let sunlight fall on a part of the altar. And finally, at the other end of the temple another monk started beating on a huge drum. I don’t know what everything meant, but it felt very spiritual.

Apparently the temple contains the first images of Buddha in Japan, imported from Korea in the 6th century. Almost nobody has ever seen them, and they are stored in a chest and wrapped on cloth. The last person to see them was a priest at the beginning of the 18th century who had gotten permission from the Shogun, after rumors that the chest was empty had gotten too loud.

After the temple, I went to see the M-Wave speed skating stadium. Inside, they have built an Olympic Memorial Museum, which has all kinds of interesting Olympic things on display. First they show you a 3d movie, however, with a lot of Japanese sports(wo)men winning medals, and some fragments of the opening ceremony. One of the fun objects on display is the voting form for deciding which city got the Winter Olympics (Salt Lake City got second place). Also they have some original medals, the torch, and the skates on which Shimizu won the 500m. I didn’t see even one other tourist, by the way.

As usual for Japanese sights, there was also a shop built half into the museum. They do this everywhere, even within the Imperial villa in Nikko, or the Chuzen-ji temple in Hiraizumi. At a certain moment you start to expect that the ‘route’ eventually ends up in a section that has price tags on the objects. Of course you can always buy food there as well. Not for eating at the spot though, because in Japan you are not supposed to eat while walking.

Finally, you could also view the inside of the stadium (see photo). It was kind of funny to see. There were a lot of people skating, by the way, probably in preparation of the first race of the season (which was last weekend in the Netherlands). I’m sure that some of the famous Japanese skaters were training here as well, but it was too hard to recognize them as they were wearing skating suits.

Day 19, to Kyoto

Today started early. I had planned to surprise my younger brother for his 23rd birthday by calling him. I had already tried to reach him yesterday evening, but then nobody answered because it was 1 pm in Europe. That’s why decided to try again at 7 am. First I had to walk through town with my sleepy head, to get to the payphone. But then, quite miraculously, everything worked fine, and I was able to congratulate him. It was just past midnight in the Netherlands, and it sounded like he had fun.

There isn’t much else to say about today, which (if you have read some of the other reports then you know this) probably means that it will be a lengthy story again. Today was the day of the return Kyoto. Like Tokyo, it felt a bit strange. About half a year ago, I had already visited all main sights in both cities, and somehow that makes it difficult to feel like a tourist. In the afternoon I did decide to visit a shrine that I hadn’t seen last time, because it located a little distance from the city centre. It is one of Kyoto’s most well known shrines (it also appears in foreign-produced movies about Japan, such as Lost in Translation, and Memoirs of a Geisha). It main feature is a path that is going through a ‘tunnel’ of hundreds of torii. A ‘torii’ consists of two poles with one or two horizontal bars on top of it, and usually marks the entrance to a shrine. Well, just check the photo. The tunnel you see goes on for several kilometers.

To fill this space I could maybe tell something about telephones in Japan. It turns out to be quite difficult to make a call to another country. With a mobile phone it would be easy. But because Japan doesn’t have a GSM network, our western phones (that use the GSM technology) don’t work. The reason for the lack of GSM is that it is an outdated technology. It is not very good for transmitting data, for example for internet-type applications. And that is what many Japanese use their ‘keitai’ for. Even though they have a laptop with internet connection, they will still check their email on their mobile phone. So this requires newer generations of networks. For example, UMTS is such a technology that is being installed in the Netherlands. Whether it will be as successful as it is in Japan is highly doubtful, because we are much more computer oriented.

You can also rent phones that work here, but they are quite pricy. In the West they are very hard to get, and in Japan you have to be able to prove nowadays that you live in Japan before you can buy one. Also, there are several different providers, that all have their own network infrastructure, and sometimes even use different network technologies. Often it seems that Japanese are playing on their keitai the entire day. Age doesn’t really seem to matter, and they all have the same type; the one that you can flip open. They have come in all colors imaginable, and there is always a cluster of small (cute) things hanging from it.

So it might seem that we, as tourists, have a hard time. However, imagine the situation from the Japanese perspective: their phones don’t work anywhere else in the world, because almost all countries use only GSM. Anyway, the only way for me to call to the Netherlands (besides stealing someone’s keitai), is to use a static payphone. But then I’d have to find one the accepted coins (those are uncommon, most use cards, which I didn’t want to buy for only one call), and that has to capability to make international calls (these are even rarer). Luckily there was one quite close to my ryokan, and the owner knew where. Even better, the Lonely Planet book contained a nice guide on the procedure to make international calls. This involves checking the provider of the payphone (NTT in my case), and then entering a list of digits depending on the provider, before entering the actual number.

0033 010 31 72 519 8216

Try guessing that… (the number is fake, by the way)

Day 20, Nara

Nara was the first real capital of Japan. In earlier times, the capital would move to a new city at the death of the Emperor. This was because of the taboos of the original Japanese religion, Shinto, regarding death. In the 7th century, however, Buddhism was introduced in Japan from China. When it became the most dominant religion, they also decided to stop moving the capital around. After trying several alternatives, they chose Nara. The city subsequently became the centre of Buddhism in Japan. It only lasted for 75 years, though. After a priest had seduced the Empress, and almost took over the throne, it was decided to move the capital a bit north, to Kyoto, away from the powerful Nara clergy. Kyoto then remained the capital until it was moved to Tokyo after the Meiji restoration at the end of the 19th century.

The influences of Buddhism and the Imperial court are still clearly visible in Nara today. Most of the later wars ignored Nara, so many shrines and temples survived. Nara contains 8 World Heritage Sites, and that ranks it at second place in Japan, after Kyoto (with 17!). Conveniently, all sights are located in Nara Park, so walking from sight to sight is quite relaxed as well. Add to that the 1200 tame deer that walk around, the little stalls that sell deer-cookies, the petrified kids feeding the deer, and the parents making holiday photos, and Nara offers a fun-filled day for the whole family.

It would be difficult to say something about every sight, but there was one that really formed the highlight of the visit. It was total coincidence, but the best things are often coincidence. Just as I entered the Kasuga Taisha shrine, a Shinto wedding (I think) was in progress. Of course it was full of traditional ceremonies and symbols. It is a small dilemma whether to make photos of it or not. In the end, I did (and the other tourists as well), because it is not something you see every day. And it was possible to get very close.

By the way, during the ceremony, other people also got blessed at the shrine. There was a group of businessmen for which a priest said some prayer, after a little ceremony took place. See photo. The leftmost priest was chanting some texts while banging two sticks together. The other priest was playing a melody on his flute, and the priestess was performing some kind of dance. This same procedure was repeated for the wedding party, but with two priestesses instead of one. I guess that was more sacred. It was probably also more expensive, or in other words, required a larger ‘donation’. The shrine is one of the nicest in Nara and a World Heritage.

A toddler in kimono also came to the shrine with her parents for a short prayer. At all shines or temples that I’ve been to, you constantly see people making a small prayer and donation. Maybe it is for an ill family member, an upcoming exam, a good business deal, or for no reason at all. Japan is a very modern country, but you can still find much spirituality in all layers of society. In the Netherlands these two things don’t go together at all. I, too, think that it is better to get a good night’s rest before an exam, than to throw a coin in a box, ring a bell and clap your hands. But maybe that is caused by the type of religion. Within Christianity, the focus is always on a list of old and outdated rules; you have to do this, you can’t do that, etc. It wants to have a huge influence on our lives, and for that reason we all turned away from it. The way Japanese experience religion is the exact opposite. They use it when they need it. If you need a little bit of extra luck or happiness, you go to a temple and afterwards the religion won’t interfere with your life anymore. And that is of course easier to accept.

There is one other sight that I would like to mention, because I promised this in an earlier story (see Kamakura). In Nara Park stands the largest wooden building in the world, with in it one of the largest bronze statues in the world. It is a Buddha statue, originally cast in the 8th century, but recast later. It is 16 meters high, contains 437 tonnes of bronze, and 130 kg of gold. And you can see a photo on the right.

Day 21, Jidai Matsuri

Matsuri is Japanese for festival. Every city in Japan has multiple festivals throughout the year. They usually originate from (very) old traditions, and often coincidence with the start of a season starts, or plant or harvest periods. Japanese people like to party, and at these festivals they are usually at their most relaxed. Kyoto has many matsuris, a few per month. Today, there were even two, namely the Karuma-hi Matsuri (fire festival), and the Jidai Matsuri. The first takes place in the evening in a small town 30 km from Kyoto, and is difficult to reach (and leave). Therefore, I only went to the Jidai Matsuri.

It is actually a very new festival. It was held for the first time at the end of the 19th century, to commemorate the fact that Kyoto had been the capital for about 1100 years, and had lost it to Tokyo. The festival consists of a 2 hour procession that goes from the Imperial Park to the Heian-jingu shrine. The procession consists of groups of people dressed in historical clothes. The first are from the end of the 19th century, and then it goes back in time until a few centuries AD. It is fun to see, and you can make some nice photos of course. Most of the famous persons from Kyoto’s history feature in the procession. That is, how their soldiers and the people from that era dressed. Anyway, just see for yourself on the photos.

The photos show (from top to bottom):
- a sacred carriage
- court ladies from the Heian era, on a moving platform
- some carriers with a chest
- an ox-driven carriage for the general
- a carriage with the mayor

Day 22, Himeji

It was time for castles again. One of the most beautiful castles of Japan, still surviving in original wooden form, is located in Himeji. This is a city west of Kobe, and about one hour from Kyoto, by shinkansen. It is a typical castle town, with mountains on three sides, and the sea on the fourth. The castle itself was built at the end of the 16th century by Toyotomi, the ruler of the Kyoto region. Later he got beaten by Ieyasu Tokugawa (see Nikko story), and the castle was given to Ikeda, one of the generals that had beaten Toyotomi. He then enlarged the castle. Later ownership was passed from clan to clan, until the Meiji restoration ended the samurai era. After the Second World War, realization grew in Japan about the historical treasures they possessed. Therefore, the entire castle was restored to its former glory, of course using original materials (wood) and methods.

Nicknamed the ‘White Egret’ because of its color, the castle has a six-storey ‘donjon’, or main tower, which is estimated to have a weight of 5 million kg. All this weight has to be carried by wood only, so designing a suitable structure is quite critical. The main tower is surrounded by smaller towers, courtyards, walls, household buildings, curved storage buildings, a place to commit ritual suicide (important), and wells that were sometimes used to dump corpses in. In the past it was surrounded by 3 separate walls and moats. The castle was located within the inner ring, the second ring enclosed also the houses of the samurai, and the outer ring included the merchant houses. Several of these moats are still visible in the city plan, and they are even sometimes used as the basis for modern buildings.

A Japanese garden is located right next to the castle. This one is quite new, constructed in 1992, but designed according to classic principles. It contains lovely lakes, trees and rock gardens, and is a good place for a quiet stroll. A teahouse also lies within its walls, and for a small fee you can get some tea and sweets. A German tourist that I met yesterday had told me that it was worth it, so I decided to try it out. On my socks I walked to a tatami room with a nice view of the garden. There I had to sit on my knees, but because this is an incredibly uncomfortable position for a tall European like me, I was allowed to sit with my legs crossed (which is also uncomfortable, but I have gotten used to it). A moment later, a servant shuffles towards me, kneels and places a dish with something sweet in front of me on the floor. After a deep bow she leaves. Later this is repeated, but then with a cup of ‘matcha’, green tea made of powder. After I had finished it, a low chair was placed for me on the veranda, so I could watch the garden without constant pain in my legs.

It was already late when I got back to Kyoto, but luckily the station building has no shortage of food. The building is a sight itself, by the way. It looks very modern, with a 12 storey high glass front, and lots of steel. There is an escalator running from the ground floor all the way to the roof of the 11th floor, and it is covered by a glass dome. Next to it are wide stairs, which are sometimes also used as stadium seats for concerts held on a 4th floor platform. A hotel is built into the east side of the building, while the west side houses a department store, Isetan. To get back to food; the 10th and 11th floor are completely filled with restaurants. My personal favorite is the 10th, because it is filled with ramen places. As you leave the elevator, there is even a plaque listing the best three dishes of each restaurant with its price. I have already tried 3 out 7, and they are very good. Filled to the last spot, there are always queues outside. Also notable is the vigor with which you are given an echoing welcome (‘irasshaitemase’) on entry.

Furthermore, the building has a 10th floor skywalk, which gives a nice view over Kyoto. Station buildings in the large cities in Japan are legendary for the number of floors, the numbers of entrances and exits (and how you never find the one you need), and how they are always coupled with shopping centers. It can feel a bit weird, though, walking around a department store with a suitcase.