Dispatches from the back of the sock drawer of life

Month: September 2016

Return Of The Geeks – Churches, shopping and trains

Sunday 21st

Made our way via shinkansen and local trains to Koriyama, just outside Nara. En route saw a distinctly Western looking church near the shinkansen lines.

Further along the local track from Onomichi, saw the station with the Best Name ever – Bingo-Akasaka!

Grand Sunpia Hotel

Grand Sunpia Hotel

Arrived in Koriyama, checked into a wonderful hotel which was part of a church. Specialising in traditional weddings, quelle surprise… Nice big room by Japanese standards.

In search of coffee and cake, spent the afternoon in the local Aeon shopping mall. Had great fun trying to figure out what various products were. The area is known for goldfish production, and the mall had some impressive displays referencing this. James scored some awesome Neko (cat) shorts.

On tannoy in supermarket: “Victim of Love” by Erasure, circa 1987. Downloaded their first two albums, oh my the nostalgia. Also in supermarket – 4 litre (!) bottles of what seemed to be sake for cooking with. That’s a party right there.

 

Monday 22nd

Hellooooo...

Hellooooo…

Hopped a local express service to Kyoto for the day. It’s around an hour’s journey, and it showed just how built up Japan can be. Aside from some farmland and the odd stand of bamboo, there was housing along most of the line, often right next to it. Even a cemetery halfway along.

On the train we couldn’t help feeling we were being watched…

DSC02467Started our visit by going up to the top of Kyoto Tower. Perched on top of a hotel this gave great views of the city spread out around us – with high powered binoculars on stands to zoom in on detail.
The tower even had its own shrine.

 

All aboard!

All aboard!

Next we hopped a bus over to the Kyoto Railway museum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Railway_Museum). As you can see, our helpful guard at the bus station is clearly in no mood to retire!

The exhibits here gave a great view of how Japan’s railway networks grew and evolved, from steam right up to the latest Shinkansen. They even had Shinkansen driving simulators – sadly we didn’t manage to get a go…
Lots of assistance from England in the early days (a beautifully preserved steam loco from mid 1800’s was made in Leeds), and we also supplied rails for their infrastructure up until the early 1900’s. I think I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

 

imag00397After lunch at a great ramen (noodle soup) and gyoza (dumplings) place, we headed over to visit the Ryozen Kannon, an impressive war memorial. Wandered through the streets around, some beautiful houses. We also saw a statue of a Japanese folk legend called the tanuki. As you can see from the picture, he has most impressive…er…. ‘equipment’!

“Daikaidan” or Grand Stairway

“Daikaidan” or Grand Stairway

On our way back to Koriyama, we explored the facilities above – and below- Kyoto Station. Kyoto Station is more than just a place to catch a train. A massive ultra-modern complex of glass and steel, it was designed by the award winning architect Hiroshi Hara, and houses an incredible range of shops, restaurants, and recreational facilities. We first headed up through a department store to find some great views of Kyoto. The “Daikaidan” or Grand Stairway runs from the 4th floor of the west wing of the station all the way up to the Sky Garden on the 15th floor. 

We then descended into the other shopping centre in the basement levels, and found an impressive, detailed Lego reconstruction of – Kyoto Station! Amazing reflections of sunset clouds from the façade, and a night-time view of the Kyoto tower, completed our photography for the day.

 

Return Of The Geeks – Rabbits, roads and a ryokan

Friday 19th

Future train 500

Future train 500

Early start – taxi at 4.50am to station, local train to Tokyo for shinkansen to Onomichi. The train on the opposite platform reinforced our image of just how cool Japan can be.

But this reminded me of the quote from William Gibson: “The future’s already here, it’s just unevenly distributed”. Japan is an incredible illustration of this – they have amazing trains and advanced buildings. And yet… They still think fax machines are a good way to do business.

Beer and Bunny

Beer and Bunny

Dropped most of our luggage in a station locker, then local train to Tadano-Umi where we caught a ferry to Okunoshima – ‘Rabbit Island’. A YouTube search reveals clips of people being mobbed by crowds of bunnies (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02glpjk), but as it was 35degC when we arrived, most of the locals were lounging in the shade.

Interestingly the other thing the island is known for was as a poison gas production facility during the Second World War. Hmm. Theories vary as to where the rabbits came from – some say they are the descendants of test subjects released after the facility closed down.

 

Non-linear iced coffee

Non-linear iced coffee

After exploring the island we boarded the last ferry over to Omishima Island. Checked into our traditional ryokan (Japanese Inn) and headed out for some iced coffees – great glasses!

 

Dinner was… interesting. A full traditional Japanese meal, the menu description was:
“Hors d’oeuvre, Karaage, Vinegared dish, Sashimi(sliced raw fish), Grilled fish, Boiled Fish, Nanbanzuke, Rice, Soup, Fruits

Funamori Sashimi

Funamori Sashimi

First course uses the higher grade food and sashimi will be served with “funamori” style in which sashimi is placed in miniature wooden ship.”

The cooked dishes were OK (although we both passed on the ‘turban shell’ basically a large sea snail). Sashimi of incredibly fresh red snapper proved to be not to our liking – the texture (dense yet ‘crunchy’) didn’t really hit the spot. Spectacular presentation though!

Saturday 20th

Next morning breakfast went down well – though still feels odd to be having grilled salmon, fish and miso soup first thing. The karaoke kit was most impressive.

Our intrepid explorers

Our intrepid explorers

So now to the main event of our weekend. For some unknown reason, I thought it might be a good idea to cycle 40 km along a highway called the Shimanami Kaido. It runs across multiple suspension bridges between the inland sea islands, and each bridge has a separated pedestrian and cycle way complete with sloped access roads. Then looping along island roads next to the shore in between each one.

We got started around 9am, and ended at 1pm – as we got on the ferry back to Onomichi the large thermometer was showing 37degC… Not sure how I survived it but was specatacular scenery – needless to say James was way out ahead most of the time. You will see from the video below just how nice it was to hit the downhill section after each bridge.

 

Stayed at the Green Hills Hotel in Onomichi right on the harbour. Great views over to the neighbouring islands, and the shower was much welcome after our exertions.

Tranquillo Pizza

Tranquillo Pizza

Dinner was unexpected – a Google search turned up rave reviews about a pizza place called Tranquillo. Turns out the Japanese chef spent some years training in Italy, and was turning out authentic Italian pizza using a wood fired oven. James’ opinion? “Best pizza I’ve ever had”.

Return Of The Geeks – Tokyo Redux 2016 Pt 1

Tuesday 16th-Thursday 18th

Pokemugs...

Pokemugs…

Once again on our way to Tokyo. Stopover at Schiphol Airport, spotted our first Japanese influence…

Journey as good as last year, KLM great service again. Arrived in Tokyo, checked into Shinjuku Granbell Hotel.

Much needed!

We began our trip with an afternoon nap, then pizza and beer in the hotel bar. Raining heavily in Tokyo, turns out a tropical cyclone is paying us a visit.

Just like future L.A.

Just like future L.A.

Mind you, sitting in the bar, looking out at the city, we’re in Bladerunner territory at last. Just needs hovering adverts exhorting us to emigrate to the outer colonies. Weird hotel next door “Hotel W Bagus”, very happy elephants and much neon.

Hairy one at brekkie

Hairy one at brekkie

Wednesday morning dawns bright and very sticky – we’re in about 33 degC and 80% ish humidity. Lovely.

Hit our favourite coffee shop Doutor for breakfast. Both of us now firm fans of iced coffee, best thing in this heat. We then walked down through Shinjuku, heading towards Harajuku. Spotted a bread delivery truck (the Japanese have a real love of thick, doorstep slabs of pure white bread, not much wholemeal in this country!). Then saw a coach destined for the world’s only Thomas the Tank Engine theme park – on asking James if he’d like to visit, received an answer that is not fit to be printed in such a genteel blog.

Japanese Sword Museum

Japanese Sword Museum

On the way to Shinjuku we stopped in on the Japanese Sword Museum. A small building, currently running a display of the art of the Japanese swordsmith – incredibly finely and beautifully illustrated components of swords – such as the blade guard and decorative elements of the scabbard. Sadly no photos allowed inside.

Grabbed great sushi from a local supermarket for lunch, then had a stroll through Yoyogi Park – cicadas even louder here. After looking around Harajuku, went on to Akihabara (mecca for geeks) to sign James up at a local bouldering centre, B-Pump.

On Thursday we headed to Asakusa to catch the Himiko for a run down the river – a striking vessel styled by a famous Japanese comic book (manga) artist. Opposite the ferry port was the headquarters of the Asahi brewing company. The tall golden building (Asahi Beer Tower) is designed to look like a glass of Asahi, with the white ‘head’ housing a 22nd story bar with great views. The black building next door (Asahi Beer Hall (a.k.a. Super Dry Hall, or Flamme d’Or)) is designed to look like a beer mug with the Asahi Flame on top (the flame was built using submarine construction techniques and weighs around 350 tons). Unfortunately the shape and appearance of the flame have earned it the affectionate nickname of ‘the golden poo’.

Great views, passing the Rainbow Bridge in the harbour, ending up at the Fuji TV buildings and neighbouring mall for lunch. Later in the day, James very relieved to discover his AS exams had gone well…. Late evening beers (with suspiciously familiar beer glasses!) in Shinjuku. After passing Godzilla we were approached by a lady who must have been in her 70’s asking if we’d like to come and watch some girls dance – we politely declined! Turns out we’re staying in an area called Kabukicho, known to be Tokyo’s red light district…

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén