Snow fun

X'mas @ Tabitabi

And it snowed.....


We had a lovely Christmas dinner at Lodge Tabi tabi complete with a snowball fight after...

...and a really cold group photo session...

Merry Christmas!!

RandA Japan: Phase 2

We're now in Hakuba, Nagano. The snow is aplenty. Today is just absolutely beautiful; blue skies and lots of heavenly white snow.

We arrived on a wet rainy day with not much snow at all (it took us about 10 hours, with 7 train transfers, a great karaoke session in Yasu, Shiga and no sleep).
















But that all changed on Christmas Day when it started to snow heavily. Skiing is just sublime and sweet. The powder is awesome to ski on, albeit a little difficult for me! I'm so used to skiing in icy Australian conditions. At least it doesn't hurt when you take a tumble!

We had a Japanese-style Christmas dinner at the lodge. The lodge staff made 'nabe' which is a hotpot of delicious vegetables, mushrooms, oysters and chicken for 30 people. Beautiful, simple, slow food. Still miss Dad's christmas cake and pudding though...any left Dad?

It was sad to leave Osaka...I received so many lovely cards and gifts from students, teachers and staff members. I didn't really have time to get too sad in the last week as there was so much to organise. I did have a few cries on the train home a couple of nights. But the next stage of my journey is going to be so exciting - travelling around South East Asia for almost 3 months.

Now it's just chilling out in the snow for another week and a half.

'Twas November in Japan....

...and autumn was in full swing.



We ventured to the Iwatayama monkey park in Arashiyama, Kyoto. The monkeys were out and about, doing their thing...

Consensus is out - we are lazy... and cold

The weather has now turned and is reminding us of the cold that greeted us when we first arrived. Its amazing its already been 9 months into this journey of sorts, and we feel that the next 3 months will be gone before we have time to catch our breath.

We have been up to much since our last post, and we hopefully be up to much more in the next few months. We have planned a skiing trip with several work friends to Hakuba in Nagano, Pat and Di are in town at the moment, and the day they leave, Jo will arrive. Following on the heels of her departure will be Rob, followed by Andrew (possibly). Then we head to Nagano for skiing, then Tokyo, then the rest - we will see.

That seems to be what we will be doing, but we have done much since September. From what I can remember, we have had an impromptu visit from Aimee and Dirk, managed to catch Radiohead in concert, saw an awsome fireworks display, finished up with our Japanese lessons, Halloweened it up in Osaka and possibly more things that i cannot remember.

R

Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri - another festival of dragging things

The Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri is hailed as one of the most exciting festivals you could ever go to. Was it ever! Who would've thought dragging around massive danjiris (intricately carved wooden floats) really fast around a city's streets (which were at times very narrow!!) could be as adrenaline-pumping, heart-racing and testosterone-charged?
You feel the quick beats of the taiko drum and the addictive energy surge as a danjiri races past you, with a thunderous roar of people cheering as they pull and run with the float. You could feel the pride of centuries of tradition fire up each time a danjiri approached. The urgency of the crowd controllers as they warn of the approaching danjiri and its neighbourhood clan was palpable. No one else ruled the day but the people and their danjiris.


In the above photo, a part of the awning of this building has been damaged, hence the red tag on it. The danjiris have left their mark around the city's buildings over the years. There is even danjiri insurance available! This year no death has been reported, but apparently at least one person dies each year the festival is held.

You can see more exciting pics here and here.

Challenge: Mt Fuji

Task: Survive!

It was a challenge not to be taken lightly. We were faced with a mountain 3776m high and we didn't know what to expect.
From Tokyo, we caught a couple of trains to Kawaguchiko, an area at the base of Fuji-san. Then we unloaded our luggage at the hostel we booked for the night after the climb, and got ready the necessities, trying to pack as light as possible hoping that it wouldn't be too cold at the summit.

At 6.30pm a bus took us to the 5th station of Mt Fuji which is about 2400m high. It was already raining and looked like it was going to rain all night. So equipped with new raincoats and walking sticks (a must for the hike; these can be stamped at every station at about 200-300yen each), we began our overnight trek.

The climb up was made more difficult in the dark, (plus I didn't have a torch, so had to rely on others' light) and at times we had to clamber up rocky steep inclines on both hands. Some of us had difficulty adapting to the thinning air as we ascended. And you couldn't climb for too long as you just got tired really easily and needed plenty of breaks. Every step felt like a 100 steps.

There are 10 stations on Mt Fuji that you could stop at to get a hot cup of coffee (even beer) and something to eat, at phenomenal mountain prices! A cup noodle cost 500yen and choc bar around 400yen a piece. And you also pay 100yen to use the toilets.
The 7th and 8th stations had several "half" and "quarter" stations along the way, which made it quite confusing to know exactly where one was.

It got really jam-packed with people between the 9th and 10th stations as the path became quite narrow. At times I was dozing off while standing up waiting in line! I did give myself quite a fright a couple of times when I awoke to find myself teetering on the edge of the mountain.

The conditions were really cooling down even more and we didn't have enough warm clothes to put on. At around 4am we stopped. We were still about an hour away from the last station. But we wanted to make sure we could watch the sunrise instead of waiting in a queue of some sort. So in freezing and windy conditions we awaited the sunrise.
It was a beauty. As if there was a choir from the heavens accompanying its debut of the day, it opened up its arms of warmth and comfort upon our tired and aching bodies.

We trudged upwards again after mustering some super-human strength we didn't really have. Victory came slowly....more lines, more patience, more strength....we saw the torii gates of the last station but it just took forever to get there.

And then we did. At around 6:40am after 9 hours of climbing, Rich and I walked through the gate holding hands up in the air and let out a weak "woohoo". We suddenly found some energy to pose for photos, eat a bowl of ramen and take in the view. And then crashed on a bench for half an hour.

We spent about an hour at the summit, exploring the crater a little. Mt Fuji isn't beautiful; it's really just a rocky reddish-brown dormant volcano. But the views you get from the top is just breath-taking.

I still can't believe I've climbed Mt Fuji....and I'm not even going to spoil it by mentioning the way down. That was a downer.

See photos here and here.

Tokyo - the modern city

It's the summer holidays! Time to explore a little more of Japan....so we went to Tokyo for 5 days.

What can I say about it? It's modern and cleaner than its sister, Osaka. Its just bigger and better. More international too, with many tourists and expats living there. Some of us felt we didn't get stared at as much.

We stayed at a really dodgy hostel called Kowloon House. Maybe it was trying to live up to its namesake as I felt like we were in some homeless district and not in Tokyo. The dorm-style room (yep, one BIG open plan room) has 2 sets of 8 beds made of steel scaffolding. Quite uncomfortable even with a futon on the wooden 'bunk'. It had all but one toilet and shower to share amongst 14 other guests. No privacy unless you were like the "obasan" (old aunty) that has been living there for around 5 or 6 months and had made a curtain barrier around her bunk with all her clothes. She's Japanese and was quite strange, probably not much older than us. She would turn off the lights and mute the TV volume right in front of you while you were watching it! Not the most sociable personality.

This isn't the cleanest place I've ever been to...but you do get what you pay for, at 1500yen a night. That's really cheap considering Japan's reputation for expensive accommodation. So it just gave us an excuse to try to stay out as much as we could.

We visited (not in order cos my poor brain can't remember):
Shinjuku - just another shopping district. Our trip began here at Shinjuku station after almost 9 hours on a bus.

Shibuya - with its massive pedestrian crossing and neon lights. It's also home to the famous Hachiko statue (a statue of a dog), and nearby was an air-conditioned tram car where people could just sit and escape from the sweltering heat. And there was also the expensive and trendy Omotesando Hills, the "Champs Elysees" of Tokyo (where you watch the rich empty their bulging wallets). We also had fun at an izakaya with all-you-can-drink. Mind you, they were very stingy on the alcohol!

Asakusa - an overly touristy temple area with many souvenir shops and apparently a red-light district we walked pass! Last time Rich and I was here, the souvenir strip leading up to the temple was open-air, but it had been converted to an undercover shopping arcade this time. Such a pity, as it blocked the view of the temple from the entrance. All for the sake of tourism.... Another highlight was taking the water bus down the Sumida River towards central Tokyo.

Roppongi Hills- with its cool cafe/restaurant/shopping area, and a movie theatre where we saw Batman: The Dark Knight.

Tsukiji Fish market - for an early morning fishy tour (we got there around 7am) and then a scrumptious sushi breakfast after. Still can taste the melt-in-the-mouth sashimi!

Central Tokyo -
*Marunouchi - walking around the Imperial Palace gardens and trying to get into the palace only to find out it was closed...again! Rich and I don't have much luck with this place - we were faced with the same situation last time. We also headed to the Tokyo International Forum. This amazing piece of architecture looked like a massive glass ship. There was a kids convention being held there...looked like fun. Rich was quite taken with it.

*Ginza - Tokyo Tower has great views of Tokyo and yummy curry restaurant that looked like a science lab.

*Harajuku - with its massive park filled with lots of music, interesting groups (including several 50s rockabillies and one group practising bagpipes!) and great shopping for the girls! Not as many Japanese dressed in cos-play as we'd thought. It was just relaxing being surrounded by so much green.

Aoyama - we visited the Meiji Shrine and watched a traditional wedding procession. Beautiful bride in a white wedding kimono, with a rather darkly clad entourage of guests in her tow. We also bumped into another ECC teacher in the middle of the park.

Akihabara - where the boys went to a maid cafe (the waitresses were dressed in maid outfits and can feed you if you wanted like Tommy Lee Jones in a "Boss" coffee ad!) and checked out the electronics city.
Check out more photos here and here.

And of course, Rich and I went to the New York Grill & Bar in the luxurious Park Hyatt in Shinjuku, and chilled out with several cocktails, feeling lost in translation...

Before we landed ourselves with the mega task of climbing Mt Fuji...

Tenjin Matsuri - a festival of watching boats go by

Another hot day and another festival to go to. This time it felt much bigger with more people dressed up in yukatas, the summer kimono. It was a day filled with getting absolutely sweaty and hot. No amount of alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages could really quench our thirst.
It was a day that began with a well-thought out plan, or so we thought. Get there early, about 4pm and scout out for a brilliant spot to view the fireworks later that night.
Well, when we got to there it was already packed. Thousands of people were milling about in the Tenjinbashi-suji (the nearby shopping arcade). We stumbled into a temple off the arcade, and fell upon the opening ceremony of the festival. Men in costumes were shouting and drums were beating. We took photos of other people taking photos. Interesting and frustrating!
Then after meeting up with another friend we made our way to the river, following the men and drums for a little.
Both sides of the river were lined with stalls selling food, drinks and had various shooting/lucky-dip games. Many people had brought chairs and were getting comfy in their spots, ready for the light show later that night.
We decided to place ourselves on the bridge, hoping to stay put there. No luck! Before long, we were told to get off as the bridge was to be closed to pedestrians before the procession began.
Where we ended up gave us a great view of the boats as they floated by. A big fire was lit directly in front of us on one of the barges.




The fireworks started about 8pm, later than scheduled. Surprise, surprise...that the spot we had chosen gave us a terrible view of the fireworks! It was further down the river around a bend, so trees and buildings blocked our view. A hasty decision was made to move, along with thousands of other contenders in search for a better view. I've never been in such close contact with so many sticky bodies in my life! We were literally 'carried' by the crowd and had to fight to break free.




We ended up in some side street where we found people sitting on the bitumen in fairly neat rows. So Japanese! And that's really how we ended the night. But not before I had the immense urge to relieve myself in a toilet miles away. One thing about massive Japanese festivals is the lack of amenities. No extra portables were organized. So maybe a handful of restrooms to cater for 100s of thousands of visitors.
Check out here for more photos.

Gion Matsuri - The festival of dragging things.

Its summer now, and there is a festival of some sort every 5 minutes or so. We decided to head over to Kyoto for one of the biggest parade type festivals in Japan - the Gion Matsuri. Although quite interesting, it was busy, hot and humid, and after standing around for 4 hours watching as each one passed, everything looked kinda the same. I did have some excitement when I managed to wrangle my way into a hotel overlooking the parade. Actually, there was no wrangling, the hotel staff were too happy to have some unknown person wander around the floors of their hotel.

Check out the album for some photos.

Looks like there is a festival on in Osaka today and tomorrow night... the Tanjin Matsuri. More of the same I suspect, but there are fireworks! There is also another festival where they have similar wooden floats dragged really quickly around the streets. This one sounds more exciting.

Rich

House parties are possible in small spaces

Parties are funny in Japan. Set a time for, say 7pm, and all the Japanese guests arrive on the dot, and leave just before the last train at 12am. All the non-Japanese guests stroll in late, and leave whenever. It's funny, looking back at the photos we took from Steve's Birthday/Alex's housewarming, there is not a single Japanese guest in sight. By the time we were ready to take stupid photos, they had disappeared.

There is no point to this story. Just photos.

More on flickr

Rich.

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Now playing: Captain Black - Sister

Flickr photo account

Need to see everything we are up to? Now you can. See all the photos that didn't make the cut to appear on our blog.

Koyasan

Here's a quick, long overdue entry for our trip to Koya-san. In a nutshell, this place is ace. A two hour train ride south of Osaka takes you into one of the most sacred places in Japan. Nestled in the Kii Mountain range, this town is one of three sites included in the World Heritage listing.

Its a fantastic place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. We had arranged overnight accommodation with one of the 60 (i think) temple lodgings (Shukubo). The stay included authentic vegetarian cooking (Shojin-ryori) and a 6am prayer session.

Its great to come here to see temples and shrines intertwined with the natural beauty of Japan. A fantastic contrast to the bleakness of the city, and without the hordes of tourists in Kyoto. We want to come back here to attempt more hiking. We did try some on this trip, but failed in a way we are not proud of!

Upon deciding that we should attempt some hiking in the afternoon of the second day, we conveniently forget our maps and proper attire before we leave our lodging. We then purchase fragile paper products to take with us on our hike through the forest. The afternoon arrives, and we decide to start our hike at a halfway point, going in the opposite direction suggested on the maps. We take an hour to find the "entrance" to the hike, conveniently placed behind a two storey carpark next to a toilet block. Yay! We start our fantastic hike. Ange is already tired and is showing signs of annoyance, which I should have taken as a sign and abandoned the whole thing. We walk for 40 minutes and come to a fork in the road. Using our newly acquired maps in Japanese, we try to decipher the signpost. To cut an already long story short, we end up taking a wrong turn, which lead us to a road off the map, in the middle of nowhere. After a lot of swearing and cursing, we find it takes us back to the place where we started our hike. Great times.

We find later that the main tourist office has hiking maps in English, and they also advise people how to navigate "tricky" parts of the walk! However, we are still determined to take this pilgrimage track, this time going the way suggested.

In all, it was an ace adventure. We know what we want to do next time!

Rich







Unesco link

Bike ride around Osaka

Ange and I had a little 30km bike ride today. Although it doesn't sound like much, keep in mind we were on our one speed granny bikes (complete with baskets). Fortunately for us, 99.8% of the city is flat as a tack. We now have arses of steel.

Highlights of todays tour of this city include:

• Our first adventure further than 5km from our place on our bikes
• Riding like madmen/women
• Having lunch with friends at a cosy Malaysian restaurant in Umeda
• Avoiding stepping foot in Yodobashi Camera store
• Taking an impromptu trip through the longest undercover shopping strip in Japan, comprising of 2.6km of shopping heaven hell.
• Taking another impromptu trip along the banks of Okawa River, and actually seeing more green than grey in Osaka
• Enjoying the wide footpaths of the business district
• Worried that we would be arrested for riding like monkeys as we rode through 30-40 uniformed police (it looked like a head of state visit)
• Having weird sweets on the steps of the deserted National Museum of Art
• Riding through Utsubo park while roses were in full bloom
• Actually getting home in one piece

Here's a map of our travels today. I'll post some reference pictures on the map soon

Cheers.

R

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"What else has been happening in randa world?"

Let's see...

1. Went to the sumo tournament.
2. We went to a house/apartment party.
3. We moved upstairs to our new abode
4. Took Steve's new bbq out for a spin
5. Went to Kobe, ran into some crazy guy in the middle of the mountain, had yummy gyoza in Chinatown and had Campari and soda in a really cool European cafe (Alliance Graphique).
5. Now on holiday - Golden week - and drinking loads of Campari and soda and soaking up the lovely warm spring days....

Osaka Castle

What's that I hear?

The sound of music?

Yes!!

We now have a digital piano and also a second-hand digital drumkit. Rich had been eyeing the drumkit for a couple of weeks now, so he as quite excited when I suggested I'd get it for him. It's so much fun.

The piano is quite good and although it doesn't compare to my baby grand (being looked after by the Thia's - thanks! I hope you're enjoying playing on it, Elaine.), it definitely does bring home how much I miss playing. Aah...music is here at last!

Kobe Trip #1

We arrived at 12.30pm in Sannomiya, Kobe. It looked like we had picked another gorgeous day for a day trip.
We went to the Shin-kobe ropeway (cablecar) up to Nunobiki Park. (440yen each, one-way) Beautiful views of the port area and city. Clear blue skies.


Then walked around the large park and then started our descent down the mountain through the Herb Park - admission at 200yen each. We tried to get out of paying as we'd thought there was no one at the booth, but the attendant magically appeared to take our monies! A well-maintained garden, neatly grouped in categories from cooking herbs to medicinal herbs. The herb 'garden' was really just a small paved area arranged in a grid, amidst a larger park.














As it was closing time, we walked out of the park and then began our journey downwards on a hiking trail. On the way, we passed a really nice waterfall and sat there for a bit while we munched on some snacks. It was quite peaceful, just hearing the sound of gushing water and birds chirping. We also stopped at a reservoir; it holds Kobe's supply of water. Very clean and refreshing!
Part of the way was a little tedious to do in our non-hiking boots. This is quite a popular route for keen hikers all geared up. We even saw a team of young base ballers training. They would run up the steep and narrow track and run just as fast down!
We also ran into a crazy man in the middle of the mountain. We had turned up a narrow path and had thought this would lead to another waterfall. Then we started hearing strange noises and saw this skinny guy with a hat up ahead. He was kind of groaning and grunting to himself. I think he saw us and then started pointing his water bottle at us. I got a little worried as the path was really narrow and we couldn't avoid him even if we wanted to. Suddenly the groaning stopped, and he was nowhere to be seen. So, relieved, we continued up this path.
All of a sudden, Crazy Man jumped out of the bushes to our left! I nearly screamed in fright. Bloody hell! We'd thought he'd gone away! He didn't do anything more other than continue his grunting to himself as we hurried past him.
Unfortunately, the path looked like it would lead back up the mountain, so we had to reluctantly turn back and head down towards Crazy Man again. We kept our eyes down as we walked past him, still grunting and all. Strange! We could still hear the grunting as we walked away from him.
The sun had already set by the time we reached the city centre. I had heard of Kobe's chinatown and wanted to sample its food. It was situated nearer the port area, so was quite a walk to find it. And you wouldn't guess who we saw again. Yup, Crazy Man! I swear he was stalking us. Luckily, we were walking behind him at this pedestrian crossing.
We literally fell upon Nankin Machi (Kobe's answer to Chinatown) and it was surprisingly quiet. It was distinctly 'chinese' with heaps of red pillars and Chinese lanterns adorning restaurants. There were Chinese waitresses calling out to potential patrons, beckoning them to try their fare. Chinese food is a little more expensive in Japan.








Except for this little gyoza eatery we found. This dodgy place had pretty decent gyozas (fried dumplings, 6 for 380yen) and udon with meat sauce (600yen). We even had seconds of the gyozas.


Quite happily full after, we headed towards the port area to walk off our gyozas. It was quite a pleasant stroll, through an area which was reminiscent of Melbourne's Docklands, though not as many restaurants.
We discovered a European style cafe (in the middle of nowhere) on the way to the port, and returned here for a drink. It really reminded us of the cafes we'd been to in Europe, with its decor and lights. We had to order a very distinctly European drink of Campari and soda. Yum! Mental note to return here in the near future.