Dispatches from the back of the sock drawer of life

Category: Japan 2015 Page 1 of 2

Posts on our trip to Japan in August 2015

Two Geeks In Japan – Hakodate

Thursday 20th – Saturday 22nd – Hakodate

Travelled up from Sendai to Hakodate on the northern island of Hokkaido by shinkansen and local express. Great suspense waiting for James’ GCSE results to come through on email – finally got them just before we arrived in Hakodate, all good.

Hakodate was the third port to be opened up to foreign trade after the self imposed isolation of Japan ended in 1854. Our hotel was a Japanese onsen (spa) resort by the sea. We were the only Westerners there… Nice Japanese style room, tatami matting floor, with staff coming in during dinner time to move the table and lay out futons and duvets. When I opened up the window to get a good view of the area, we had a visitor arrive looking for food…


Hotel restaurant simple but good, edamame and gyoza for dinner each night we were there (plus snacks from the ubiquitous 7/11).

Goryōkaku

Goryōkaku

Friday: day out in Hakodate. We visited Goryōkaku – the first European style fort in Japan – 5 pointed star shaped. Went up viewing tower for photos, then walked the fort walls. Visited the former British Consulate for afternoon tea, then took the ropeway up Mt Hakodate to wait for sunset and night views of Hakodate – spectacular.

 

View of obscured volcano

View of obscured volcano

Saturday: we took the train north to visit Onuma quasi national park. I wanted to climb Mt Komagatake (dormant volcano), sadly the weather was not good enough.

Spent a few hours walking around the islands in the lake, then pedal boating, and a swift visit to the local microbrewery (what good fortune…). Also stopped at the Friendly Bear restaurant for coffee and a selfie with 3 weird bears…

Got the tram back to the hotel and realised that the main street along by the seafront was getting very busy – lots of food stalls, trinkets, and locals arriving in traditional dress (yukata). Turns out it was the Yunakawa Onsen Hanabi – fireworks display. Great evening out, wonderful finish to our time in the north.

Two Geeks in Japan – Cat Island

Tuesday 18th-Wednesday 19th – Ishinomaki and Tashirojima

200mph on the shinkansen

200mph on the shinkansen

Shinkansen (200mph!) to Sendai City, then local train to Ishinomaki.

This city was one of the worst hit during the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011. Several tsunami, up to about 10 metres (33 ft) high traveled inland up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the coast. The tsunami destroyed around 80% of the 700 houses in the coastal port of Ayukawa, and the Kadonowaki neighborhood was largely levelled. Over 3,000 people lost their lives in the city.

The purpose of our visit was threefold: to see the Mangattan Museum, to visit Tashirojima (AKA Cat Island), and to see how the town was recovering from the disaster.

The Mangattan Museum (or Ishinomori Manga Museum) celebrates the work of manga artist and author Shotaro Ishinomori, who was born in what would become the present day Ishinomaki City. Ishinomori is viewed as one of the fathers of modern day manga and anime, and holds the Guinness world record for most prolific comic creator, 770 series publications spanning 120,000 pages! There are statues of his characters throughout the city…

Baseball practice

Baseball practice

We stayed in Hebita suburb at the Route Inn Ishinomaki – simple but good business hotel. When we failed to find dinner (or at least a menu with some English on it…) in Ishinomaki, the hotel restaurant proved to have very good Japanese food with at least a partly English menu. Interestingly after dark, a local baseball team were using the hotel car park for batting swing practice.

Wednesday morning we headed out early for the port at Ishinomaki, to catch the ferry to Tashirojima. This island has been featured in various articles, as it has more cats than people living on it. In the past the residents of the island raised silkworms for silk, and kept cats to get rid of the mice that were natural predators of the silkworms.

Open wide!

Open wide!

After the Edo period, fishing became the main occupation, and the fisherman looked upon the cats as good luck charms. When one was accidentally killed by a fall of rocks, the fisherman built the cat shrine at the high point of the island. Here’s the first feline inhabitant we encountered:

 

We spent several hours walking the road from Odawara dock down to Nitoda around the island, then on up to the cat shrine. The island is heavily wooded, and we had a continuous serenade from insects in the trees. Before we reached Nitoda we came across the island cemetery, with recent flowers and offerings – the week before was the Obon festival, where many Japanese return to their home towns and honour the spirits of their ancestors.

Manga Island

Manga Island

We then found Manga Island – a collection of cat themed houses referencing the manga works of Ishinomori and others, these can be rented to stay on the island.

 

 

When we got back to Ishinomaki, we climbed Hiyoriyama, a hill which proved to be a life saver for residents fleeing the tsunami waves. The photos show how the area below the hill used to look, and how it looks now. The cemeteries are all new, and the rest of the area is gradually being landscaped to become a park. You can see the street layout clearly, but it’s still hard to imagine the sea wiping out that many homes so quickly.

We finished our trip at the Mangattan museum. The building was damaged by the tsunami, but formed a rallying point for rebuilding – the structure was intact even though inundated by silt and mud. The discovery of an intact Kamen Rider statue in the city was held up as an emblem of hope for the locals.

Train back to Sendai and a night at the Hotel Dormy Inn Ekamae.  Found a great dinner (edamame (soy beans), gyoza (pork/cabbage dumplings), ramen (noodle soup)) in little restaurant off of shopping centre. Sendai feels like a very laid back city.

Two Geeks in Japan – Fuji and onwards

Saturday 15th – afternoon – Fuji

Speeeeed!!!

Speeeeed!!!

We took our first bullet train, or shinkansen, from Tokyo down to Fuji City in Shizuoka Prefecture. Pretty neat to see the speed on my map hit 166mph… Realised I didn’t actually know what ‘shinkansen’ translates to, so looked it up. ‘Shin’ means ‘new’, and ‘kansen’ in this context means ‘trunk line’ or ‘main line’ (though weirdly it also can mean ‘infection’ or ‘contagion’. Learning Japanese could be tricky…).

Fuji City - quiet here...

Fuji City – quiet here…

Fuji City wasn’t the most happening of places on a Saturday night (see picture). After wandering into “Café Bar Jill” (billed as a ‘British style pub’, apparently because they serve Bass),we found ourselves being stared at quizzically by a group of Japanese people – it seems we had walked into a private party.

 

Beer Jam

Beer Jam

Once we’d apologised and left, we found Beer Jam – a craft beer pub and café, much more to our liking. Their take on fish and chips was, according to James, the best he’d ever tasted. Back to our hotel – the grandly named ‘Super Hotel Tennen Onsen Fuji Honkan’ – much more what I was expecting from a Japanese hotel – very compact!

Sunday 16th – Daytrip to Shizuoka

Nihondaira ropeway

Nihondaira ropeway

Having a day to kill in Fuji City we thought an excursion elsewhere would be our best bet. Hopped the train to Shizuoka City (capital of Shizuoka Prefecture where Fuji is located) so that we could visit Nihondaira. Here we took a ropeway (cable car) across to Mount Kunō, and the original burial place of the first Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. This was the shinto shrine Kunō-zan Tōshō-gū.

Absolutely amazing shrine buildings, steep climb up to the mausoleum – and great views of the coast way below.

Monday 17th – Mount Fuji!

Bus to Fuji

Bus to Fuji

Started out for Fuji mid morning, left most of our luggage in a locker at Fuji station and headed to Fujinomiya to catch the climbers bus to Fujinomaya 5th station. This is at an altitude of 2400m (7,874ft), and marks the start point of most climbs to the summit at 3770m (12,368ft). Views from the bus not promising…

Fuji lunch

Fuji lunch

Had lunch at the 5th station, then got ready to climb. Sadly by this point conditions had been getting steadily worse. By the time we headed up the mountain we were being advised by the mountain guides that the forecast was for winds of 60km/s, and driving rain, worsening as the day went on. Climbed 100m to the 6th station and then decided to heed their advice and headed back down.

Sleepy...

Sleepy…

Witnessed a weary traveller who had just finished his descent from the mountain…

So headed back to Tokyo for the night, Tokyo Station Hotel was very nice – apart from the room service menu which was pretty awful!

 

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